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Entry tags:
Unbroken Chain, SPN, gen, PG
Title: Unbroken Chain
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: gen
Rating: PG
Warnings: Vague Season 4 spoilers, more in mood and tone than anything specific. Speculation past 4x14; no spoilers please.
Word count: ~3200
Summary: When it was all done...
A/N: I don't even know, y'all. A while ago, there was a challenge on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
spnflashfic for international stuff, and I thought about this story, but I couldn't finish it for that, and I couldn't finish it when there was amnesty, but it wouldn't get out of my head. Thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
withdiamonds for getting it, and to without_me for not only getting it, but fixing my grammar and making sure I wasn't flailing around, sliding between tenses with every sentence.
When it was all done--after Dean had turned his back on the angels and stood by Sam, smiling once when Sam spat in Lucifer’s face like no one but Dean had believed he would; after Castiel appeared to join them, like no one but Dean had believed he would, turning the tide enough that their back-to-back stance became something more than a kamikaze last stand--Sam came terrifyingly close to losing Dean again. Half-blinded by the blood in his eyes, dazed by the thunderclap of energy that had screamed out of him, Sam lost track of Dean; just turned around and couldn't find him anywhere. He tore through the rubble of what had once been a small whitewashed clapboard church standing on the edge of a saltwater marsh, oyster shells still crunching under his boots. There were others there with him, Sam knew it, but he didn't stop to see them, as though his brain couldn't let him waver from what he needed to do. They helped him, though, and when they turned over what was left of the back wall and found Dean curled under it, for long seconds Sam couldn't see the slow, shallow in-and-out of breath that was so faint it barely touched the mirror Bobby held in shaking hands.
Sam didn’t let go after that, not when the other hunters came and moved them out of the blasted wasteland, not when the doctor-cum-field-medic cleaned them up with alcohol and holy water, and especially not when he looked up to find Castiel sitting with them a week later, the sun slanting low through the windows of Bobby's front parlor.
"You can’t have him." After everything, Sam thought he'd made that clear, but he’d stopped trying to understand how angels reasoned.
"It is not yet his time," Castiel agreed. He touched Dean once, lightly, nothing more than a brush of his fingertips across Dean's forehead, not even enough to wake him from one of his naps.
Sam relaxed a little then, but he still held on. He told them all to go, to leave, that the Winchester brothers were done. Bobby didn't argue, but he did offer that Dean would probably have his own opinion. Sam knew that, too, but it didn't change what he was doing, or even slow down the crazy plan that was bubbling in his brain. He wasn't sleeping, not for more than a few minutes at a shot; he had lots of time to think about what came next. Dean was awake for longer and longer periods during the day, and his eyes were alert and tracking, even if he still wasn't speaking. He was calm--almost placid--but Sam made himself not worry. He told Dean to take all the time he needed, said it every morning and every night, even though some days it felt like nothing more than talking to hear himself talk.
Sam thought it would take him a while to get the money together--they were going to need cash--but not more than six weeks after he and Dean and Castiel had looked at Hell and kept on going, Bobby slapped an accordion file on the kitchen table between them, staring at Sam until he untied the strings holding it closed and dug in. It proved to be full of statements from the First National Bank of Bismarck.
"Passbook savings?" Sam asked, with a little touch of Dean's smirk in his voice. "And here I had you pegged for the coffee-cans-under-the-bed kind of guy."
"You watch your mouth, boy. You're not so old I can't wash it out with soap," Bobby warned. Sam deliberately didn't think why hearing those words from Bobby, now, meant something so different from the times he'd heard them growing up. He just nodded and murmured what would pass for an apology. Bobby grunted what passed for an acceptance, adding, "Figured you might could be putting that to good use."
"Bobby, man, I can't take--"
"Don't be giving me none of that bullcrap," Bobby interrupted. "All that's yours, you and Dean. It's nothing more than what I got, selling that damn truck your daddy had, less what it took for Dean to get the car put back together." He turned and stomped out of the kitchen, muttering. Sam caught something about stiff-neck, goddamn Winchester pride. If anyone would know, it'd be Bobby, Sam thought, and went to see how Dean was going to react if he suggested leaving.
*
Dean didn't care, it turned out. He fiddled with the car a little--changed the oil, checked the transmission fluid--and raised an eyebrow when he wandered back into the house and saw Sam online, cross-referencing days and plans with what even Sam recognized as a focus that was maybe a little too intense. Even with Bobby's money, they didn't have all that much; he told himself it was better to make sure he wasn't missing a deal. The night before they left, Dean watched carefully, but didn't do much more than shrug when Sam crammed clothes for the both of them into a single duffel, one of the big ones Dad had always used, one that Sam wasn't sure hadn't come from his time in the Marines. It felt right to be using it for some reason, and Sam wasn't thinking about it any deeper than that.
Bobby woke up with them the next morning, even though it was still dark when the alarm went off, and had coffee and eggs and bacon waiting when Sam finished checking that everything was ready and headed toward the door.
"What is this?" Dean said, close behind him, and Sam nearly dropped the mug of scalding hot coffee Bobby had just handed him. Dean smirked at him. "I mean, should I be worried or something? Final meal?"
Dean's voice was hoarse, more soft than Sam remembered it ever being, but he stood there like it hadn't been nine weeks and three days since he'd last said anything, and Sam didn't even think before he put the mug down and smacked the back of Dean's head.
"The mummy speaks," Sam said, in as nasty a tone as he could find--which wasn't much at all, and whatever tiny effect he'd managed was ruined by the giant grin he could feel on his face. Since Dean's smirk softened to something that was almost a smile, though, he was counting them even in the sap department. "Nice of you to join us."
Dean shrugged and stole Sam's coffee. Bobby shook his head and kept flipping eggs out of the frying pan, three for each of them, sunny-side up and drowned in Tabasco. The sun was just starting to lighten the horizon when they pushed back from the table and stood around staring at each other.
"Time's wastin', boys," Bobby said, clearing his throat like there was something stuck in it, not like he had a lump the size of the Impala blocking it, like Sam did. "Standin' here mooning at me isn't getting you on your way."
Dean nodded once, all business. He shook Bobby's hand, saying more without a single word than all the speeches Sam had in his head. He slanted a look at Sam on his way out of the kitchen, but apparently was back to no words. Sam turned to Bobby, and found himself as silent as Dean.
"Bobby..." Sam spread his arms, helplessly.
"Go on, now." Bobby waved him off. "Nobody but you boys coulda pulled that off; reckon you deserve to go do whatever you damn well want to for a while."
Sam let himself be steered out of the kitchen and over to the Impala. Dean eyed him steadily but gave up the keys without much fuss other than the implied threat to Sam's well-being should he so much as scratch the paint. Sam had lived with that all his life, though, so that was understood. Dean balled up an extra hoodie to use as a pillow. He was asleep on it before Sam even got them back on the main road, an easy sleep, not just passing out from exhaustion like before, and he stayed that way right up until Sam was trying to navigate the off-ramps on I-94 using nothing but the less-than-helpful signs to MSP International.
Sam waited for Dean to say something about how they were nearing an airport and Sam was hunting for long-term parking, but aside from a single curious glance, Dean didn't even react.
"I thought about finding a ship, but it was... complicated." Sam kept his attention on pulling the car into an open space. He'd come prepared, had everything from a hip flask of Jack to a stash of Xanax and Ativan, whatever it would take to get Dean on a plane. Dean watched as Sam fumbled open the glove compartment and tumbled it all out onto the seat between them. He had that not-quite smile on his face, the one Sam couldn't ever remember seeing before Dean had woken up at Bobby's. His eyes flickered across the neat zip-loc bags of pills and then back up to Sam. They were thoughtful, considering.
"'M okay, Sammy." Dean sounded almost as surprised as Sam felt, but he opened the door with no hesitation, looking back at Sam with a familiar impatience. Sam rolled his eyes and stuffed everything back away, throwing the duffel at Dean, since he was so okay, and threading his way through the cars and into the terminal.
Dean arched an eyebrow when Sam got them to the gate and he saw the destination, but he never hesitated, and it suddenly hit Sam, just how much he hadn’t thought this was going to happen, how much he’d thought Dean was going to look at him and pull the plug, Thanks, Sammy, but no thanks.
Amsterdam wasn’t much, not in the overall scheme of things, and not on their severely underfunded travel budget, but, as sad as it was, there were only a couple things Sam could ever remember Dean actually admitting that he wanted. The Canyon was on Sam’s list, too, but there was a chance they could manage to get there without serious planning, so he'd gone with the harder one first. Knowing that Dean was okay with the whole plan was the best news Sam had had in a long time, but it killed the adrenaline rush he'd been running on. He crashed hard, to the point that he basically didn’t even care what they did when they got there, enough that he just handed over the guidebook he’d stuffed under their clothes and passed out as soon as they were in the air.
*
Amsterdam was fucking freezing, and Dean got them good and lost looking for the Red Light District right from the airport. By the time they’d sorted out where they were and where they needed to be, any awkwardness Sam had harbored secret fears about maybe springing up between them was gone. It worked out so well, Sam suspected Dean had gotten them lost on purpose, especially since Dean had been able to navigate without maps for as long as Sam could remember. Dean snorted and rolled his eyes when Sam mentioned it, but that didn’t change Sam’s mind at all.
In a continuing reversal of life as it had been, Sam was finally sleeping, and catching up on every last second he'd missed before. Dean was always awake before him and almost always had the day planned before Sam even managed to brush his teeth. He'd ditched the guidebook after the first day, but never seemed to be at a loss for things to do. Sam added things here and there, and occasionally just wanted to sit around and people-watch, and Dean was always fine with that, but there was always a plan to start from. It was good, and it would have been great, except Dean still did everything almost silently. He saved his few words for the start of the day--quiet, mundane comments about nothing in particular that Sam kept close to him through the day and into the night.
After a couple of weeks, Dean looked at Sam over lunch--somehow Sam wasn't exactly surprised that Dean had taken to mayo on his fries like the proverbial duck to water--and said, "What next?" When Sam shrugged and said they could always crash with Bobby until they worked things out, Dean shook his head. "Dude. This is it? You go all goodbye-cruel-world and you're ready to quit in less than a month?" Sam tried hard, but couldn't help his jaw dropping. Dean smirked, still not quite a smile, but almost. "Yeah, so where next?"
Sam flipped Dean off, even though he was pretty sure Dean could see how happy Sam was to see the familiar damn expression. "Maybe someplace warmer?" Sam said, thinking of the gray, cold mornings they'd been living through.
"Well, get on it, college boy," Dean said, and it was so close to how Dean had always been with him, Sam didn't even mind being ordered around. Just this once.
*
They drifted south, a few days in Brussels and Bruges, and stuck hard in Paris, a couple of weeks with the Louvre and the light show every night at the Eiffel Tower and mornings spent nursing low-grade hangovers with coffee and croissants. Dean never said anything about going home, and it was still too damn cold, so Sam dropped a chunk of the money they had left on TGV tickets and got them down into Provence, as close to the Mediterranean as he could. He was thinking Marseilles, but they ended up in Aix. It wasn't particularly cheap, but if they stuck to finding rooms around the student sections, it wasn't too bad. And it was warm, finally.
Sam thought about Cezanne, vague memories from art history class whispering in his mind, and managed to find his studio, but more often than not, afternoons found them roaming the narrow streets of the old town or just sitting at a cafe, doing nothing. He kept expecting Dean to jump up and tell him how boring everything was, but this new Dean only sat back and watched the people go by. Sam didn't honestly expect Dean to be all that excited about fountains and gardens, but a classic Alfa gunning through the twisting streets should have rated something more than a raised, appreciative eyebrow. For all the childhood times that Sam could remember wishing Dean would just shut up already, for all the times since they'd found Dean that he'd reminded himself to be grateful for having Dean with him at all, it still wasn't right. He got these occasional flashes of Dean, and he should be working on making them be enough, but they only made him miss Dean more. Sam told himself to grow up, stop being the little brother, start living up to all the shit he'd thrown in Dean's face over the years, but he still fell asleep every night wishing things were different.
At least he was sleeping like a normal person now. Dean, too. It wasn't much progress, but it was something.
"I was thinking about Barcelona, maybe," Sam said. The afternoon sun was warm enough that it'd been weeks since they sat inside while they ate. "Or Italy." He wasn't really expecting much of an answer, his mind already sorting through where the closest Internet cafe was, trying to decide whether he cared enough to go find one right then or wait until morning.
"Or home," Dean said, and Sam slewed around hard to stare at him. "I mean, you wanna be somewhere, let's do it, but I'm not hearing a whole lot of get-up-and-go here." Sam knew he looked like an idiot, gaping at Dean, but there wasn't the slightest hint of triumph on Dean's face, no smirk at catching Sam out, just the steady calm from a hundred different memories, until Sam got himself under control and looked away.
"I meant it." Sam kept his eyes on the busy street in front of them, on the students weaving in and out, calling greetings to friends. "What I said after everything. We're done."
"Doesn't mean we have to run away from home." Dean was watching him, Sam could tell even without looking away from the street. "Doesn't mean we have to leave here, either. Your call, Sam."
"Why?" Sam asked, finally turning back toward Dean. "Why do I get to pick?"
"'Cause you've done this whole thing telling yourself you were doing it for me, and, dude, yeah, it's not... I mean, I appreciate it and all, but... " Dean leaned back in the tiny chair, stretching his legs out and tilting his head back to watch Sam through narrowed eyes, like he was expecting Sam to be laughing at him. "I could stay, or I could go back. So. Your call."
"It wasn't just for you." Sam ran the tip of his index finger around the rim of his coffee cup. He shook his head at Dean's eyeroll. "It was... I didn't have to think. I... it was something I could do. Something I could make happen." Sam shrugged. "But you... c'mon. This is more than you've said for the last six months combined."
"You haven't been talking much either," Dean said, easily.
"Yeah," Sam sighed. A group of girls claimed one of the tables nearby, pushing their hair back off their faces with their sunglasses, quick kisses on each cheek. "Not much to say, I guess."
"You good?"
"I'm here." Sam didn't mean for it to come out quite as clipped as it did. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I mean, I don't know that I expected that. To have let go of... everything, all at once and still be here."
"Hell of a light show." Dean hadn't ever mentioned the last days, but then, it was the first time Sam had said anything either. "So. Barcelona?"
"Or Italy. Florence? Rome?"
"Which one's got fewer museums?"
"Rome's got catacombs, but I dunno, Dean... I know the Louvre was a little much but you seemed to like the stuff at the Rodin, even if you were blushing."
"Like you weren't." Dean's eyes were open, clear and unshadowed like Sam only vaguely remembered them being when he was a kid. "Coulda used that one statue when I was giving you the low-down on the birds and the bees."
"It was, uh..." Sam could feel the slow blush in his face again.
"Yeah, it was." Dean knocked his foot against Sam's and settled back a little more comfortably in his chair.
Sam felt his mouth tug up into a smile, at nothing, at everything. A vintage Marque pulled up and one of the girls broke away from the table to climb on the back of it, managing it with grace despite heels and as short of a skirt as Sam had ever seen.
"Awww, hell, yeah, Sammy. Legs-for-fucking-ever," Dean murmured, as she wrapped her arms around the guy driving it and they roared off. Dean slanted a look in Sam's direction. "Wherever, man." He still wasn't quite smiling but it was really fucking close. Sam got up to go get more coffee and decided they could maybe flip a coin.
***
***
uh, I blame this one on winter.
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: gen
Rating: PG
Warnings: Vague Season 4 spoilers, more in mood and tone than anything specific. Speculation past 4x14; no spoilers please.
Word count: ~3200
Summary: When it was all done...
A/N: I don't even know, y'all. A while ago, there was a challenge on
spnflashfic for international stuff, and I thought about this story, but I couldn't finish it for that, and I couldn't finish it when there was amnesty, but it wouldn't get out of my head. Thanks to withdiamonds for getting it, and to without_me for not only getting it, but fixing my grammar and making sure I wasn't flailing around, sliding between tenses with every sentence.When it was all done--after Dean had turned his back on the angels and stood by Sam, smiling once when Sam spat in Lucifer’s face like no one but Dean had believed he would; after Castiel appeared to join them, like no one but Dean had believed he would, turning the tide enough that their back-to-back stance became something more than a kamikaze last stand--Sam came terrifyingly close to losing Dean again. Half-blinded by the blood in his eyes, dazed by the thunderclap of energy that had screamed out of him, Sam lost track of Dean; just turned around and couldn't find him anywhere. He tore through the rubble of what had once been a small whitewashed clapboard church standing on the edge of a saltwater marsh, oyster shells still crunching under his boots. There were others there with him, Sam knew it, but he didn't stop to see them, as though his brain couldn't let him waver from what he needed to do. They helped him, though, and when they turned over what was left of the back wall and found Dean curled under it, for long seconds Sam couldn't see the slow, shallow in-and-out of breath that was so faint it barely touched the mirror Bobby held in shaking hands.
Sam didn’t let go after that, not when the other hunters came and moved them out of the blasted wasteland, not when the doctor-cum-field-medic cleaned them up with alcohol and holy water, and especially not when he looked up to find Castiel sitting with them a week later, the sun slanting low through the windows of Bobby's front parlor.
"You can’t have him." After everything, Sam thought he'd made that clear, but he’d stopped trying to understand how angels reasoned.
"It is not yet his time," Castiel agreed. He touched Dean once, lightly, nothing more than a brush of his fingertips across Dean's forehead, not even enough to wake him from one of his naps.
Sam relaxed a little then, but he still held on. He told them all to go, to leave, that the Winchester brothers were done. Bobby didn't argue, but he did offer that Dean would probably have his own opinion. Sam knew that, too, but it didn't change what he was doing, or even slow down the crazy plan that was bubbling in his brain. He wasn't sleeping, not for more than a few minutes at a shot; he had lots of time to think about what came next. Dean was awake for longer and longer periods during the day, and his eyes were alert and tracking, even if he still wasn't speaking. He was calm--almost placid--but Sam made himself not worry. He told Dean to take all the time he needed, said it every morning and every night, even though some days it felt like nothing more than talking to hear himself talk.
Sam thought it would take him a while to get the money together--they were going to need cash--but not more than six weeks after he and Dean and Castiel had looked at Hell and kept on going, Bobby slapped an accordion file on the kitchen table between them, staring at Sam until he untied the strings holding it closed and dug in. It proved to be full of statements from the First National Bank of Bismarck.
"Passbook savings?" Sam asked, with a little touch of Dean's smirk in his voice. "And here I had you pegged for the coffee-cans-under-the-bed kind of guy."
"You watch your mouth, boy. You're not so old I can't wash it out with soap," Bobby warned. Sam deliberately didn't think why hearing those words from Bobby, now, meant something so different from the times he'd heard them growing up. He just nodded and murmured what would pass for an apology. Bobby grunted what passed for an acceptance, adding, "Figured you might could be putting that to good use."
"Bobby, man, I can't take--"
"Don't be giving me none of that bullcrap," Bobby interrupted. "All that's yours, you and Dean. It's nothing more than what I got, selling that damn truck your daddy had, less what it took for Dean to get the car put back together." He turned and stomped out of the kitchen, muttering. Sam caught something about stiff-neck, goddamn Winchester pride. If anyone would know, it'd be Bobby, Sam thought, and went to see how Dean was going to react if he suggested leaving.
*
Dean didn't care, it turned out. He fiddled with the car a little--changed the oil, checked the transmission fluid--and raised an eyebrow when he wandered back into the house and saw Sam online, cross-referencing days and plans with what even Sam recognized as a focus that was maybe a little too intense. Even with Bobby's money, they didn't have all that much; he told himself it was better to make sure he wasn't missing a deal. The night before they left, Dean watched carefully, but didn't do much more than shrug when Sam crammed clothes for the both of them into a single duffel, one of the big ones Dad had always used, one that Sam wasn't sure hadn't come from his time in the Marines. It felt right to be using it for some reason, and Sam wasn't thinking about it any deeper than that.
Bobby woke up with them the next morning, even though it was still dark when the alarm went off, and had coffee and eggs and bacon waiting when Sam finished checking that everything was ready and headed toward the door.
"What is this?" Dean said, close behind him, and Sam nearly dropped the mug of scalding hot coffee Bobby had just handed him. Dean smirked at him. "I mean, should I be worried or something? Final meal?"
Dean's voice was hoarse, more soft than Sam remembered it ever being, but he stood there like it hadn't been nine weeks and three days since he'd last said anything, and Sam didn't even think before he put the mug down and smacked the back of Dean's head.
"The mummy speaks," Sam said, in as nasty a tone as he could find--which wasn't much at all, and whatever tiny effect he'd managed was ruined by the giant grin he could feel on his face. Since Dean's smirk softened to something that was almost a smile, though, he was counting them even in the sap department. "Nice of you to join us."
Dean shrugged and stole Sam's coffee. Bobby shook his head and kept flipping eggs out of the frying pan, three for each of them, sunny-side up and drowned in Tabasco. The sun was just starting to lighten the horizon when they pushed back from the table and stood around staring at each other.
"Time's wastin', boys," Bobby said, clearing his throat like there was something stuck in it, not like he had a lump the size of the Impala blocking it, like Sam did. "Standin' here mooning at me isn't getting you on your way."
Dean nodded once, all business. He shook Bobby's hand, saying more without a single word than all the speeches Sam had in his head. He slanted a look at Sam on his way out of the kitchen, but apparently was back to no words. Sam turned to Bobby, and found himself as silent as Dean.
"Bobby..." Sam spread his arms, helplessly.
"Go on, now." Bobby waved him off. "Nobody but you boys coulda pulled that off; reckon you deserve to go do whatever you damn well want to for a while."
Sam let himself be steered out of the kitchen and over to the Impala. Dean eyed him steadily but gave up the keys without much fuss other than the implied threat to Sam's well-being should he so much as scratch the paint. Sam had lived with that all his life, though, so that was understood. Dean balled up an extra hoodie to use as a pillow. He was asleep on it before Sam even got them back on the main road, an easy sleep, not just passing out from exhaustion like before, and he stayed that way right up until Sam was trying to navigate the off-ramps on I-94 using nothing but the less-than-helpful signs to MSP International.
Sam waited for Dean to say something about how they were nearing an airport and Sam was hunting for long-term parking, but aside from a single curious glance, Dean didn't even react.
"I thought about finding a ship, but it was... complicated." Sam kept his attention on pulling the car into an open space. He'd come prepared, had everything from a hip flask of Jack to a stash of Xanax and Ativan, whatever it would take to get Dean on a plane. Dean watched as Sam fumbled open the glove compartment and tumbled it all out onto the seat between them. He had that not-quite smile on his face, the one Sam couldn't ever remember seeing before Dean had woken up at Bobby's. His eyes flickered across the neat zip-loc bags of pills and then back up to Sam. They were thoughtful, considering.
"'M okay, Sammy." Dean sounded almost as surprised as Sam felt, but he opened the door with no hesitation, looking back at Sam with a familiar impatience. Sam rolled his eyes and stuffed everything back away, throwing the duffel at Dean, since he was so okay, and threading his way through the cars and into the terminal.
Dean arched an eyebrow when Sam got them to the gate and he saw the destination, but he never hesitated, and it suddenly hit Sam, just how much he hadn’t thought this was going to happen, how much he’d thought Dean was going to look at him and pull the plug, Thanks, Sammy, but no thanks.
Amsterdam wasn’t much, not in the overall scheme of things, and not on their severely underfunded travel budget, but, as sad as it was, there were only a couple things Sam could ever remember Dean actually admitting that he wanted. The Canyon was on Sam’s list, too, but there was a chance they could manage to get there without serious planning, so he'd gone with the harder one first. Knowing that Dean was okay with the whole plan was the best news Sam had had in a long time, but it killed the adrenaline rush he'd been running on. He crashed hard, to the point that he basically didn’t even care what they did when they got there, enough that he just handed over the guidebook he’d stuffed under their clothes and passed out as soon as they were in the air.
*
Amsterdam was fucking freezing, and Dean got them good and lost looking for the Red Light District right from the airport. By the time they’d sorted out where they were and where they needed to be, any awkwardness Sam had harbored secret fears about maybe springing up between them was gone. It worked out so well, Sam suspected Dean had gotten them lost on purpose, especially since Dean had been able to navigate without maps for as long as Sam could remember. Dean snorted and rolled his eyes when Sam mentioned it, but that didn’t change Sam’s mind at all.
In a continuing reversal of life as it had been, Sam was finally sleeping, and catching up on every last second he'd missed before. Dean was always awake before him and almost always had the day planned before Sam even managed to brush his teeth. He'd ditched the guidebook after the first day, but never seemed to be at a loss for things to do. Sam added things here and there, and occasionally just wanted to sit around and people-watch, and Dean was always fine with that, but there was always a plan to start from. It was good, and it would have been great, except Dean still did everything almost silently. He saved his few words for the start of the day--quiet, mundane comments about nothing in particular that Sam kept close to him through the day and into the night.
After a couple of weeks, Dean looked at Sam over lunch--somehow Sam wasn't exactly surprised that Dean had taken to mayo on his fries like the proverbial duck to water--and said, "What next?" When Sam shrugged and said they could always crash with Bobby until they worked things out, Dean shook his head. "Dude. This is it? You go all goodbye-cruel-world and you're ready to quit in less than a month?" Sam tried hard, but couldn't help his jaw dropping. Dean smirked, still not quite a smile, but almost. "Yeah, so where next?"
Sam flipped Dean off, even though he was pretty sure Dean could see how happy Sam was to see the familiar damn expression. "Maybe someplace warmer?" Sam said, thinking of the gray, cold mornings they'd been living through.
"Well, get on it, college boy," Dean said, and it was so close to how Dean had always been with him, Sam didn't even mind being ordered around. Just this once.
*
They drifted south, a few days in Brussels and Bruges, and stuck hard in Paris, a couple of weeks with the Louvre and the light show every night at the Eiffel Tower and mornings spent nursing low-grade hangovers with coffee and croissants. Dean never said anything about going home, and it was still too damn cold, so Sam dropped a chunk of the money they had left on TGV tickets and got them down into Provence, as close to the Mediterranean as he could. He was thinking Marseilles, but they ended up in Aix. It wasn't particularly cheap, but if they stuck to finding rooms around the student sections, it wasn't too bad. And it was warm, finally.
Sam thought about Cezanne, vague memories from art history class whispering in his mind, and managed to find his studio, but more often than not, afternoons found them roaming the narrow streets of the old town or just sitting at a cafe, doing nothing. He kept expecting Dean to jump up and tell him how boring everything was, but this new Dean only sat back and watched the people go by. Sam didn't honestly expect Dean to be all that excited about fountains and gardens, but a classic Alfa gunning through the twisting streets should have rated something more than a raised, appreciative eyebrow. For all the childhood times that Sam could remember wishing Dean would just shut up already, for all the times since they'd found Dean that he'd reminded himself to be grateful for having Dean with him at all, it still wasn't right. He got these occasional flashes of Dean, and he should be working on making them be enough, but they only made him miss Dean more. Sam told himself to grow up, stop being the little brother, start living up to all the shit he'd thrown in Dean's face over the years, but he still fell asleep every night wishing things were different.
At least he was sleeping like a normal person now. Dean, too. It wasn't much progress, but it was something.
"I was thinking about Barcelona, maybe," Sam said. The afternoon sun was warm enough that it'd been weeks since they sat inside while they ate. "Or Italy." He wasn't really expecting much of an answer, his mind already sorting through where the closest Internet cafe was, trying to decide whether he cared enough to go find one right then or wait until morning.
"Or home," Dean said, and Sam slewed around hard to stare at him. "I mean, you wanna be somewhere, let's do it, but I'm not hearing a whole lot of get-up-and-go here." Sam knew he looked like an idiot, gaping at Dean, but there wasn't the slightest hint of triumph on Dean's face, no smirk at catching Sam out, just the steady calm from a hundred different memories, until Sam got himself under control and looked away.
"I meant it." Sam kept his eyes on the busy street in front of them, on the students weaving in and out, calling greetings to friends. "What I said after everything. We're done."
"Doesn't mean we have to run away from home." Dean was watching him, Sam could tell even without looking away from the street. "Doesn't mean we have to leave here, either. Your call, Sam."
"Why?" Sam asked, finally turning back toward Dean. "Why do I get to pick?"
"'Cause you've done this whole thing telling yourself you were doing it for me, and, dude, yeah, it's not... I mean, I appreciate it and all, but... " Dean leaned back in the tiny chair, stretching his legs out and tilting his head back to watch Sam through narrowed eyes, like he was expecting Sam to be laughing at him. "I could stay, or I could go back. So. Your call."
"It wasn't just for you." Sam ran the tip of his index finger around the rim of his coffee cup. He shook his head at Dean's eyeroll. "It was... I didn't have to think. I... it was something I could do. Something I could make happen." Sam shrugged. "But you... c'mon. This is more than you've said for the last six months combined."
"You haven't been talking much either," Dean said, easily.
"Yeah," Sam sighed. A group of girls claimed one of the tables nearby, pushing their hair back off their faces with their sunglasses, quick kisses on each cheek. "Not much to say, I guess."
"You good?"
"I'm here." Sam didn't mean for it to come out quite as clipped as it did. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I mean, I don't know that I expected that. To have let go of... everything, all at once and still be here."
"Hell of a light show." Dean hadn't ever mentioned the last days, but then, it was the first time Sam had said anything either. "So. Barcelona?"
"Or Italy. Florence? Rome?"
"Which one's got fewer museums?"
"Rome's got catacombs, but I dunno, Dean... I know the Louvre was a little much but you seemed to like the stuff at the Rodin, even if you were blushing."
"Like you weren't." Dean's eyes were open, clear and unshadowed like Sam only vaguely remembered them being when he was a kid. "Coulda used that one statue when I was giving you the low-down on the birds and the bees."
"It was, uh..." Sam could feel the slow blush in his face again.
"Yeah, it was." Dean knocked his foot against Sam's and settled back a little more comfortably in his chair.
Sam felt his mouth tug up into a smile, at nothing, at everything. A vintage Marque pulled up and one of the girls broke away from the table to climb on the back of it, managing it with grace despite heels and as short of a skirt as Sam had ever seen.
"Awww, hell, yeah, Sammy. Legs-for-fucking-ever," Dean murmured, as she wrapped her arms around the guy driving it and they roared off. Dean slanted a look in Sam's direction. "Wherever, man." He still wasn't quite smiling but it was really fucking close. Sam got up to go get more coffee and decided they could maybe flip a coin.
***
***
uh, I blame this one on winter.
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Also? Your Bobby voice is spot on. I mean, your Sam and Dean voices are equally fabulous, but I just wasn't expecting a Bobby who leaped right out of the series.
Loved it.
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Fantastis post-Show fic, with great atmosphere and interaction between the boys, sigh. So good!
thanks
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And thank you--I'm really so glad it worked for you!
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but there wasn't the slightest hint of triumph on Dean's face, no smirk at catching Sam out, just the steady calm from a hundred different memories
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I would love for the show to end this way. Thank you! I love all the bits of flavor you add about what it would be like to be in all the various cities.
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