SpN fic : Tail Gunner 4/5
5/31/07 02:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roxyTitle: Tail Gunner
Fandom: SpN
Pairing:Sam/Dean, eventually
Rating:PG-13 for this section
Word count: 2249
Summary: the monster in the closet might be closer than you think....
A year since they'd left the cabin, left their life out there…a year since Sammy'd gone on a hunt with them…a good six months since he'd been on one. Dad was calmer, looked less like he was looking at them from the other side of hell. He didn’t know if it was life in the village or…other things, but mostly their life was kind of normal.
He didn't much like school, the kids were annoying, they were dumb and the teachers were fucking boring.
For Sammy, it was different—Sammy opened up, like a flower blooming. He loved school, he made friends—he was doing everything Dean had never had a chance to do, living an almost normal life. And that made him happy, that Sammy was happy, and it broke his heart, that Sam didn't need him like he used to. This was new, this sharing him thing. It was…hard. Real hard.
They had a house in this little village. It was...nice. It was okay. It reminded him of the yellow house they'd lived in, when Sam was a toddler. The galley kitchen had a big window over the sink, looking out to a tiny back yard stuffed with lilac bushes that no one gave a damn about and a tiny strip of neglected garden. Light poured in through two floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room, so bright on sunny days it even lit the short windowless hallway connecting the three tiny bedrooms. That was new, too...they had the luxury of their own bedrooms. Their own bedrooms, Dean thought, for the first time ever. Again…that was harder on him than it should be.
He was standing outside Sam's room, looking into the open doorway. His bedroom was just like Dean's. Single bed, hospital corners. One window, with a white roller blind, kept pulled down. One dresser, one lamp, a few books stacked in the corner. No pictures on the wall, no extra pillows on the bed, nothing in the closet that couldn't be packed in a single pilot bag, or tossed in a garbage bag…and under the bed, in a locked box, the things that made them not so average—not normal at all. Sam's room was as clean and spotless and featureless as Dean's.
As Dad's.
Sammy. Sam, who was out visiting friends, and Dad let him go and Dean just didn't get it…he'd argued and argued with Dad in the beginning, when they'd first landed in the village. He'd tried to point out how this life was fucking Sam up, making him...soft. Making them all soft. Dad seemed to listen but he never agreed. He’d just look at Sam with this…expression, and Dean had to remind himself not to speak but then something would happen, like Sam joining the Drama Club at school, or hanging out with strangers or dating…and he’d beg Dad again to leave, take them away....
But that was then—it was different now. Sam was living the life of a normal boy and what kind of dick would he be to ruin it for him?
Dean sat in the living room staring out of the tall windows, not really seeing anything. Maybe it was him. Maybe he was the one with the problem. Maybe, life was finally becoming what it should be and Dad and Sam were happy and he was crazy. Because he *hated* this life.
He felt alone, tossed aside--that long ago kiss was forgotten, meaningless—to Sam. He felt like he had nothing. He was miserable and useless and so fucking empty, and desperate for something to fill him up, so desperate that after a while, he stopped waiting for Dad to come and wake him up—there where nights when the need to be touched, to feel like he was wanted, valued, over-rode everything else. He'd break himself more, tried not to hate himself more.
******
"Hey, Dean, some friends and I are going to church—I'd really like it if you came with."
"Oh, yeah? Um, I don’t know, Sam—I don’t know any of your friends…"
"That's one of the reasons I want you to come--to get to know them. They're good people. The kind of people that we—y'know. Protect."
"Yeah. Well, I don’t know…" Church. Dean felt like screaming, but he just smiled. "Church, hunh? I guess…"
Sam frowned. Dean knew the fact that he wouldn’t join Sam in his nightly prayer, the fact that he sometimes laughed, or got angry when Sam tried to talk to him about God and their place in His plan upset him. "Dean. I’m serious, come with me. It’s a beautiful church, and they say the mass in Latin. Come with, I promise you’ll like it."
Dean frowned himself. "How many times have you gone?" This concept of Sam having a whole separate life from his was difficult. Sam went to church, he had friends Dean didn't know, did things he had no idea about…"Did you ask Dad?"
Sam threw him a puzzled look. "For what? To go to *church*?"
"Unh, yeah well, you know what he says about monsters hiding behind ordinary faces…and…and stuff." He huffed. He sounded lame to himself. "All right. Shit. But if I don’t like it I'm leaving and I'm not kneeling. Or singing. And I sure as hell am not shaking some stranger's hand."
Sam looked puzzled. "What…oh. Dork."
Dean growled, "Bitch."
Sam laughed, tossed "eat me over" his shoulder before slamming out of the front door.
Dean watched him run down the sidewalk, and sighed. "Fuck me. I'm an asshole."
******
Sunday afternoon found him in the only clean button down he possessed, a short sleeved white shirt, and half-way decent, pressed jeans. Sam wore nearly the same outfit, they grinned when they saw each other. Both of them wore the shoes they wore when they were on the move, non-descript but clean white sneakers—it was the best they had.
They walked into town together, shoulder to shoulder, their moves a perfect mirror of each other and neither one of them was aware of it—it was just the way they were. Sam talked about everything and nothing, and Dean grunted, nodded and generally swept the roadside in front and behind them with his eyes, noting every movement, every bend of grass or sigh on the wind.
Sam met his friends, and Dean memorized each of their faces without thinking about it. He watched Sam interact with other kids his age…average kids. He laughed and smiled, his eyes sparkled. Dean was stunned. He didn't know Sammy could do that. He wondered if he could teach him to.
Sam and his friends walked into the church and Dean dropped into position behind him—hesitated in the doorway. It felt like…a memory revisited. He was reminded, somewhat eerily, of the cabin they’d lived in their last year in Oregon—pine board walls, the high plaster and timber ceilings. The stained glass in the windows cast red shadows on the bleached pine floors and that sent a shiver up his spine, it recalled the night Sam got inducted into the Family Business. He glanced over at Sam—how was it *he* didn’t see these things? Because Sam wasn’t crazy and he was? But then again, Sam believed in Dad--maybe he was kind of crazy too—or saw things Dean didn’t. He sighed and took a deep breath, stepped inside.
The church smelled of history, smelled of incense, Christmas season after season of myrrh, frankincense—of plaster and old wood. And people. A lot of people in one place.
He hurried to catch up with Sam and his friends, figured he'd maybe sit behind him, so that Sam could be comfortable with his friends but Sam waved to his friends and sat with him. Dean tried not to smile—a hot wave of pleasure shot through him, he scooted over to make room on the bench and when Sam sat so close their legs touched, he grinned wide. Sam elbowed him and rolled his eyes. Yeah. Girly.
The slight backward tilt of the pew made the wooden seat kind of comfortable, and Dean tried to follow Sammy's lead as he fumbled through the unfamiliar ritual. The only thing he understood was the Latin. When the congregation sang, he could hear Sam—piercing, clear, and sweet as an angel. He closed his eyes and listened…smiled when he heard the faint scratchiness in his voice, the little cracking only he could hear because only he was that in tune with him…he frowned a little. Yeah. Used to be only him.
He looked down into the fenced-in altar area thing--god spot--whatever—
The priest was reading aloud, his black hair veiling his face as he bent forward, and Dean heard a little sharp intake of breath. He looked at Sam, and Sam looked—alive. Enchanted, enthralled—glowing. His cheeks were pink, his mouth was open just a little and right there in church, Dean wanted to lean over and pull that lower lip into his mouth, suck on it...he remembered how it had rolled slightly, the way it gave under, against, the pressure of his teeth, his tongue, how smooth the flesh, how wet it got…
He glanced at the altar, the priest's hands were up and he held a little white circle in his fingers, a trick of the light made it seem almost luminescent. The priest looked upward and Dean's breath caught in his throat. He looked like Sam--not like him, not in terms of face or body—it was his expression, they had the same look—true believer, transfigured, transfixed with joy--he believed every word he spoke, his green eyes burned with it, and it was beautiful.
Tears filled Dean's eyes, and he blinked hard to clear them. Dean glanced at Sam and winced, stabbed by guilt. Sam glanced back, and for the first time in a long time, Dean saw nothing but himself in Sam's eyes, a better him reflected there. He saw what had been taken, from Sammy and maybe from him too.
He shifted along the pew, a little farther away from Sam. Dean felt a twitch deep in his gut, the guilt grew. He felt like shit, but he’d been a little hard from the moment he'd seen Sam's parted lips, his shining eyes, the passion he obviously felt. He dropped his eyes and stared at his hands folded over each other on his lap. He felt guilt, and anger for the part of him that wanted to see Sammy look at him like that. It sucked so bad—here he was, so close to the one thing, the only thing in the whole fucking world, that really mattered to him, and all he could think of was how wrong it was, how guilty it made him feel that it mattered the way it did.
He might not be able to stop feeling the way he felt, but he could keep from acting on it, and not because it was a sin—that was bullshit. Stuff Sammy believed in. Dean only knew what made him feel like shit and he wasn't about to do that to Sam. He loved him too much to force anything on him. Dean swallowed against the suddenly sour taste in his mouth. No one knew better than he did how awful it could be…
After the service, Sam told Dean he was going for coffee with his friends and asked if he'd like to come along, but he said no—he doubted he could stand to sit with Sam—this Sam who had his arm around the shoulders of a little blonde girl he looked at with smiles and sparkling eyes and a lot of happiness. "Go, have a good time. Enjoy."
"I'll be back before dark, okay?"
"Whatever, dude." Dean grinned and waved him off and walked back home alone.
******
Dad was packing to leave when he got there. He stood motionless in the kitchen, arms hanging at his sides, and watched him. He felt completely empty, blank, where usually he'd always felt relief and…hope.
Dad left money on the table—"That should be enough for the month—the rent's been taken care of. Pay the bills when they come in and you guys should be all right."
Dean nodded. He had a job in the automotive department of a local super-store. It paid enough for parts for the Impala he'd bought—the car he and Dad worked on come the weekends, when they pretended to be a normal family. What ever extras they needed, whatever Sam needed, would come out of his check.
"Well," his dad said, and they stood silently for a moment. Dad reached out one arm to—hug him, or pat him, he wasn't sure—Dean jerked to one side, away from him.
Dad's eyes flared with the look he usually directed at whatever 'monster' needed to be destroyed…
"Dad…" Dean took a step back.
"I'll be home again, in a bit." He stared at him a little longer before shouldering his bag. "Tell your brother I'll see him when I get back."
Dean watched him toss his bag in the truck, watched it screech out of the drive and down the road. Dean shivered. Shit. That was a mistake, blowing Dad off like that…damn it. He didn’t need to be psychic to know that was gonna come back to bite him in the ass.
part 5a and b
Fandom: SpN
Pairing:Sam/Dean, eventually
Rating:PG-13 for this section
Word count: 2249
Summary: the monster in the closet might be closer than you think....
A year since they'd left the cabin, left their life out there…a year since Sammy'd gone on a hunt with them…a good six months since he'd been on one. Dad was calmer, looked less like he was looking at them from the other side of hell. He didn’t know if it was life in the village or…other things, but mostly their life was kind of normal.
He didn't much like school, the kids were annoying, they were dumb and the teachers were fucking boring.
For Sammy, it was different—Sammy opened up, like a flower blooming. He loved school, he made friends—he was doing everything Dean had never had a chance to do, living an almost normal life. And that made him happy, that Sammy was happy, and it broke his heart, that Sam didn't need him like he used to. This was new, this sharing him thing. It was…hard. Real hard.
They had a house in this little village. It was...nice. It was okay. It reminded him of the yellow house they'd lived in, when Sam was a toddler. The galley kitchen had a big window over the sink, looking out to a tiny back yard stuffed with lilac bushes that no one gave a damn about and a tiny strip of neglected garden. Light poured in through two floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room, so bright on sunny days it even lit the short windowless hallway connecting the three tiny bedrooms. That was new, too...they had the luxury of their own bedrooms. Their own bedrooms, Dean thought, for the first time ever. Again…that was harder on him than it should be.
He was standing outside Sam's room, looking into the open doorway. His bedroom was just like Dean's. Single bed, hospital corners. One window, with a white roller blind, kept pulled down. One dresser, one lamp, a few books stacked in the corner. No pictures on the wall, no extra pillows on the bed, nothing in the closet that couldn't be packed in a single pilot bag, or tossed in a garbage bag…and under the bed, in a locked box, the things that made them not so average—not normal at all. Sam's room was as clean and spotless and featureless as Dean's.
As Dad's.
Sammy. Sam, who was out visiting friends, and Dad let him go and Dean just didn't get it…he'd argued and argued with Dad in the beginning, when they'd first landed in the village. He'd tried to point out how this life was fucking Sam up, making him...soft. Making them all soft. Dad seemed to listen but he never agreed. He’d just look at Sam with this…expression, and Dean had to remind himself not to speak but then something would happen, like Sam joining the Drama Club at school, or hanging out with strangers or dating…and he’d beg Dad again to leave, take them away....
But that was then—it was different now. Sam was living the life of a normal boy and what kind of dick would he be to ruin it for him?
Dean sat in the living room staring out of the tall windows, not really seeing anything. Maybe it was him. Maybe he was the one with the problem. Maybe, life was finally becoming what it should be and Dad and Sam were happy and he was crazy. Because he *hated* this life.
He felt alone, tossed aside--that long ago kiss was forgotten, meaningless—to Sam. He felt like he had nothing. He was miserable and useless and so fucking empty, and desperate for something to fill him up, so desperate that after a while, he stopped waiting for Dad to come and wake him up—there where nights when the need to be touched, to feel like he was wanted, valued, over-rode everything else. He'd break himself more, tried not to hate himself more.
"Hey, Dean, some friends and I are going to church—I'd really like it if you came with."
"Oh, yeah? Um, I don’t know, Sam—I don’t know any of your friends…"
"That's one of the reasons I want you to come--to get to know them. They're good people. The kind of people that we—y'know. Protect."
"Yeah. Well, I don’t know…" Church. Dean felt like screaming, but he just smiled. "Church, hunh? I guess…"
Sam frowned. Dean knew the fact that he wouldn’t join Sam in his nightly prayer, the fact that he sometimes laughed, or got angry when Sam tried to talk to him about God and their place in His plan upset him. "Dean. I’m serious, come with me. It’s a beautiful church, and they say the mass in Latin. Come with, I promise you’ll like it."
Dean frowned himself. "How many times have you gone?" This concept of Sam having a whole separate life from his was difficult. Sam went to church, he had friends Dean didn't know, did things he had no idea about…"Did you ask Dad?"
Sam threw him a puzzled look. "For what? To go to *church*?"
"Unh, yeah well, you know what he says about monsters hiding behind ordinary faces…and…and stuff." He huffed. He sounded lame to himself. "All right. Shit. But if I don’t like it I'm leaving and I'm not kneeling. Or singing. And I sure as hell am not shaking some stranger's hand."
Sam looked puzzled. "What…oh. Dork."
Dean growled, "Bitch."
Sam laughed, tossed "eat me over" his shoulder before slamming out of the front door.
Dean watched him run down the sidewalk, and sighed. "Fuck me. I'm an asshole."
Sunday afternoon found him in the only clean button down he possessed, a short sleeved white shirt, and half-way decent, pressed jeans. Sam wore nearly the same outfit, they grinned when they saw each other. Both of them wore the shoes they wore when they were on the move, non-descript but clean white sneakers—it was the best they had.
They walked into town together, shoulder to shoulder, their moves a perfect mirror of each other and neither one of them was aware of it—it was just the way they were. Sam talked about everything and nothing, and Dean grunted, nodded and generally swept the roadside in front and behind them with his eyes, noting every movement, every bend of grass or sigh on the wind.
Sam met his friends, and Dean memorized each of their faces without thinking about it. He watched Sam interact with other kids his age…average kids. He laughed and smiled, his eyes sparkled. Dean was stunned. He didn't know Sammy could do that. He wondered if he could teach him to.
Sam and his friends walked into the church and Dean dropped into position behind him—hesitated in the doorway. It felt like…a memory revisited. He was reminded, somewhat eerily, of the cabin they’d lived in their last year in Oregon—pine board walls, the high plaster and timber ceilings. The stained glass in the windows cast red shadows on the bleached pine floors and that sent a shiver up his spine, it recalled the night Sam got inducted into the Family Business. He glanced over at Sam—how was it *he* didn’t see these things? Because Sam wasn’t crazy and he was? But then again, Sam believed in Dad--maybe he was kind of crazy too—or saw things Dean didn’t. He sighed and took a deep breath, stepped inside.
The church smelled of history, smelled of incense, Christmas season after season of myrrh, frankincense—of plaster and old wood. And people. A lot of people in one place.
He hurried to catch up with Sam and his friends, figured he'd maybe sit behind him, so that Sam could be comfortable with his friends but Sam waved to his friends and sat with him. Dean tried not to smile—a hot wave of pleasure shot through him, he scooted over to make room on the bench and when Sam sat so close their legs touched, he grinned wide. Sam elbowed him and rolled his eyes. Yeah. Girly.
The slight backward tilt of the pew made the wooden seat kind of comfortable, and Dean tried to follow Sammy's lead as he fumbled through the unfamiliar ritual. The only thing he understood was the Latin. When the congregation sang, he could hear Sam—piercing, clear, and sweet as an angel. He closed his eyes and listened…smiled when he heard the faint scratchiness in his voice, the little cracking only he could hear because only he was that in tune with him…he frowned a little. Yeah. Used to be only him.
He looked down into the fenced-in altar area thing--god spot--whatever—
The priest was reading aloud, his black hair veiling his face as he bent forward, and Dean heard a little sharp intake of breath. He looked at Sam, and Sam looked—alive. Enchanted, enthralled—glowing. His cheeks were pink, his mouth was open just a little and right there in church, Dean wanted to lean over and pull that lower lip into his mouth, suck on it...he remembered how it had rolled slightly, the way it gave under, against, the pressure of his teeth, his tongue, how smooth the flesh, how wet it got…
He glanced at the altar, the priest's hands were up and he held a little white circle in his fingers, a trick of the light made it seem almost luminescent. The priest looked upward and Dean's breath caught in his throat. He looked like Sam--not like him, not in terms of face or body—it was his expression, they had the same look—true believer, transfigured, transfixed with joy--he believed every word he spoke, his green eyes burned with it, and it was beautiful.
Tears filled Dean's eyes, and he blinked hard to clear them. Dean glanced at Sam and winced, stabbed by guilt. Sam glanced back, and for the first time in a long time, Dean saw nothing but himself in Sam's eyes, a better him reflected there. He saw what had been taken, from Sammy and maybe from him too.
He shifted along the pew, a little farther away from Sam. Dean felt a twitch deep in his gut, the guilt grew. He felt like shit, but he’d been a little hard from the moment he'd seen Sam's parted lips, his shining eyes, the passion he obviously felt. He dropped his eyes and stared at his hands folded over each other on his lap. He felt guilt, and anger for the part of him that wanted to see Sammy look at him like that. It sucked so bad—here he was, so close to the one thing, the only thing in the whole fucking world, that really mattered to him, and all he could think of was how wrong it was, how guilty it made him feel that it mattered the way it did.
He might not be able to stop feeling the way he felt, but he could keep from acting on it, and not because it was a sin—that was bullshit. Stuff Sammy believed in. Dean only knew what made him feel like shit and he wasn't about to do that to Sam. He loved him too much to force anything on him. Dean swallowed against the suddenly sour taste in his mouth. No one knew better than he did how awful it could be…
After the service, Sam told Dean he was going for coffee with his friends and asked if he'd like to come along, but he said no—he doubted he could stand to sit with Sam—this Sam who had his arm around the shoulders of a little blonde girl he looked at with smiles and sparkling eyes and a lot of happiness. "Go, have a good time. Enjoy."
"I'll be back before dark, okay?"
"Whatever, dude." Dean grinned and waved him off and walked back home alone.
Dad was packing to leave when he got there. He stood motionless in the kitchen, arms hanging at his sides, and watched him. He felt completely empty, blank, where usually he'd always felt relief and…hope.
Dad left money on the table—"That should be enough for the month—the rent's been taken care of. Pay the bills when they come in and you guys should be all right."
Dean nodded. He had a job in the automotive department of a local super-store. It paid enough for parts for the Impala he'd bought—the car he and Dad worked on come the weekends, when they pretended to be a normal family. What ever extras they needed, whatever Sam needed, would come out of his check.
"Well," his dad said, and they stood silently for a moment. Dad reached out one arm to—hug him, or pat him, he wasn't sure—Dean jerked to one side, away from him.
Dad's eyes flared with the look he usually directed at whatever 'monster' needed to be destroyed…
"Dad…" Dean took a step back.
"I'll be home again, in a bit." He stared at him a little longer before shouldering his bag. "Tell your brother I'll see him when I get back."
Dean watched him toss his bag in the truck, watched it screech out of the drive and down the road. Dean shivered. Shit. That was a mistake, blowing Dad off like that…damn it. He didn’t need to be psychic to know that was gonna come back to bite him in the ass.
part 5a and b
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