lovesrain44

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

Fairy Lights - Part Three (3 of 3)

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 08:22 pm

“Yes, ma’am,” they said at the same time. And climbed back aboard the pontoon.

The rest of the float down the river was almost the same as the first part had been, except for the fact that the sun was now almost overhead, there was almost no shade except for the times when Kelly steered the pontoon right into the walls of the canyon. Which loomed up hard and red and made Dean’s mouth turn dry. He’d had enough, he really had. The canyon was redder than it had been that morning, the sky was bluer than it should be, and the heat was sucking every last bit of energy he had out of him.

Someone handed him a soda. It was Sam.

“Orange, Sam?” he asked.

“Drink it. Coke’s all gone.”

Someone else handed them a wet towel, and it was the nicest thing that anyone had ever done for him. He swiped his neck with it, his arms, his face, and then handed it back.

“Can you do that again for my brother?” he asked.

The man nodded, and then handed the towel to his kid, who delighted in scaring the grownups by leaning out way to far so he could soak the towel again. There was no danger, the pontoon was moving almost as slow as the river, so even if he fell overboard, it would be nothing to stop and pick him up. Still, the kid seemed to be enjoying his role as wetter of the towel and saving all these dumb grownups from overheating.

Dean watched while Sam ran the wet towel over his skin, and it seemed that neither of them would ever be able to cool down again. Being soaked to the skin helped only for as long as it took the dry, desert air to wick any moisture from their bodies. Which was, say, about five minutes.

Dean was never so glad to see Cozy’s bus at the docks ahead of them.

The pontoon settled against the docks, and Kelly helped them all out of her boat, thanking each and every one of them personally. Dean could see some people slipping her tip money, and he suddenly felt like a stranger in a strange land.

“Sam?” he asked, nudging his brother.

“Got it,” said Sam, peeling a fiver out of his pocket and slipping it into Kelly’s hand after he shook it. “From me and my brother,” he said.

Dean shook her hand too, nodding, trying to look as if the last six hours of his life had been a blissful experience.

“You’re more than welcome,” Kelly said. “Always a pleasure to introduce people to the wonders of the canyon.” It might have been by rote that she said this, but, by golly, she really did sound as if she meant it.

As did Cozy, who welcomed them aboard an over-cooled bus with a rowdy howdy and a hard smile on her face. As if she knew she scared Dean Winchester with her driving and was looking forward to about three solid hours of torturing him.

“Just watch the movie,” said Sam as they settled in and Cozy turned on a movie about the mules of the Grand Canyon narrated by Wilfred Brimley for them to watch while she drove. “Just watch it and doze off, like you were in a motel.”

Dean did this as he did his best to ignore Cozy’s driving. She really did catch every bump on the road, making the bus sway as she passed other drivers that were too slow, and driving so fast, it was making his head swim.

“Relax, dude,” said Sam. “Sleep or something.”

Sam was tired too, Dean could tell. All that sun. He nodded once or twice, let his brain become stoned on Wilfred Brimley’s voice, and sunk back into the cushions. Only to wake up, his head on Sam’s shoulder, as his brother nudged him awake. The sun slanted hard through the trees and across the parking lot.

“Safe and sound,” said Sam, almost whispering. They weren’t off the bus yet. Cozy might hear them and take it in her blackbelt-of-a-busdriver brain and just keep on going. With them aboard.

They slipped down the stairs and past the crowd of happy customers who were tipping and friendly and exchanging all kinds of personal information.

“No more busses, Sam, promise me that.”

“Oh, Christ, you know it,” said Sam, leading the way into the lobby. “She took those corners so fast, I thought I was going to lose my stomach.”

Dean smiled, following Sam up the single flight of stairs. Even if it wasn’t true, it was nice of Sam to say it like he meant it.

The hotel room was cool and dark as they entered it, almost too still after all the movement of the day. Rather like they’d been driving for hours, only they had not gone anywhere. Just circled up to the Glen Canyon dam and back again, in the stifling heat with only sunburns to show for it. Little sunburns, thanks to the kindness of strangers. Well tired, Dean looked at the bed and flexed his shoulders. He imagined that they would get a meal at the little diner that shared a wall with the hotel, and after that, they would catch some TV until their eyes closed of their own accord, and the morning would greet them with plans for the road and the hunting of a chubacapra somewhere down south. That felt right, anyway, felt solid and doable, and everything else could just go to hell.

“Something to eat?” he asked, turning to Sam, who was turning on the bathroom light.

“Yeah,” said Sam. “Those sandwiches are only a memory now.”

They washed up, and changed clothes, and Dean had never been so grateful for hot water and soap. Or a t-shirt not stiff with sweat and sand. Or socks that weren’t damp. Sam looked grateful too as they made their way to the diner, got seated, and ordered their food. Chili size for him, extra onions, and a Ruben for Sam. Fries and soda all around. Dean chomped his way through the sandwich, sighing every other bite, thinking of the hot sun and the canyon wall slicing through the sky. The water, now that he was off it, looked like cool glass in his mind, perfectly still, reflecting only the sky, while the river willows bobbed over dark places where the water ran deep beneath the stone.

“Good trip,” he said, around a swallow of coke.

“Yeah,” said Sam, his voice somewhat flat.

Dean paused, putting the coke down and letting his gaze flick upwards. Sam’s face had that look that it had when he was working on a still-forming thought in his head. Or knowing Sam, a series of thoughts, some of which he would share and others he would not. Dean had long ago learned not to ask for the things Sam would prefer never see the light of day or his brother’s scrutiny, but it had never stopped him from wondering about them.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” said Sam, his mouth working over the words. “It wasn’t—”

He stopped and Dean’s brain wanted to fill in the blanks. It wasn’t supposed to go like that. Or, it wasn’t my plan that you should have a meltdown in the middle of nowhere. Or, it wasn’t fun for you and that’s my fault.

“It wasn’t supposed to be a disaster,” said Sam. Finally. His shoulders almost shrugged as he got this out.

“Wasn’t a disaster, Sam,” said Dean. But the expression on Sam’s face, mulish at best told him that yes it was, and Dean was just wrong if he thought otherwise.

“It wasn’t,” said Dean, placing his sandwich back on his plate for emphasis. “Yeah, it was a little hot and Cozy was the yellow eyed demon incarnate, but I had a good time. Did you have a good time?” He arched his brows at his brother and made Sam look at him. “Did you?”

“I did, but Dean—”

“But what? We had a good time. We did.”

“But the heat, the fact that it was so old, that it was too old, that it was—”

“Yeah, well,” said Dean. He took a bite of his sandwich, too big a bite, so his mouth would be full of food as he talked and piss Sam off and distract him from his worry. “The whole place took millions of years to carve itself out of the earth, and anyone comin’ in here and thinkin’ otherwise is a damn fool.”

Obligingly, Sam grimaced at his bad table manners, and looked away, almost pouting. Almost. The curve of his mouth was still a little too grim for a mere fit of pique over how Dean chewed with his mouth full and talked at the same time, for God’s sakes.

“I saw the Grand Canyon, Sam,” said Dean, trying to swallow, and choking a bit. He took a large swig of coke and swallowed most of his mouthful unchewed. But better some indigestion later than one more second of Sam berating himself for not pulling off the perfect day. “I saw the freaking Grand Fucking Canyon. Something I’ve always wanted to see. Want me to get all pansy-assed and girly on you in gratitude to tell you how much that means to me? Well here you go.”

Sam was looking at him now, eyes very wide, his mouth hanging open just a little bit as if he was about to experience something amazing.

“I stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon and looked at something so awesome, that it was a freaking miracle to ever see it at all. Hell, I went inside of it. Swam in the river and cooled off. With you. With my brother Sam. And if I die tomorrow, hell, if I died right now—”

He was about to continue but his throat closed up and his eyes got hot, and God damn it, his hands started to shake. He put his hands against his thighs and watched Sam watching him. Watched Sam grow very still. Listening still.

“If I died right now, right fucking now, or a thousand years from now, you listenin’ to me Sammy?”

Sam nodded.

“When I die,” said Dean, wanting to clarify, “this will be the day I think about.”

Then he looked away. At the swinging door that led to the kitchen, at the three waitresses grouped around the coffee pot like it was an alter, gabbing away, at the long runner of carpet that was flecked with red speckles cause some dumbass designer thought it would look good like that. And listened to Sam swallow. Clear his throat and swallow again.

“Well,” said Sam, voice thick like his throat had closed up as hard as Dean’s. “Nobody’s dying. Not on my watch.”

That was another joke. An old, old joke, something they’d gotten from some movie, where sacrifice and subversion had moved hand in hand.

“Yeah,” Dean made himself say. “Not on mine either.” Then he made himself reach for his coke and took a long, hard suck on the straw, wanting to ease the fist in his throat. Wanting to give Sam time to do the same.

“Well, then,” said Sam, now, surprising Dean into looking up. Sam’s eyes were glassy, like he was holding something back. Alas, the moment that he, Dean, was trying so very hard to move past, was now being extended by Sam. “We need something else, then.”

“What?” asked Dean. He didn’t mean, what do we need. He meant, what are you talking about, why do we need anything?.

“It needs something else, some ceremony, something to mark the day.”

“Aw, man, dude. Can’t we just go back to the room, watch some TV, and then fall asleep?”

“No.” Sam’s mouth got firm. “Can you just go with me here? We need this.” He looked at Dean, his hair falling into his eyes, chin jutting out as if he didn’t really want to say what he was about to say. “We need to mark a way that let’s us both know that we deserve to be alive. That while we are here at the cost of—” Then he stopped, and pressed his hands against his eyes, leaning his elbows on the table. His voice came out muffled. “Can we just go and do this thing, please?”

Dean nodded though he knew Sam couldn’t see him. He waved the waitress over without a word, and handed her the credit card before he’d even looked at the bill. She could have charged him for market price lobster and it wouldn’t have mattered.

“We’re outta here,” he said, signing the slip. Standing. Knocking on the table for Sam to uncover his eyes and get up. Sam followed him back to the room, without a sound.

“You okay?” Dean asked, unlocking the door.

“Yes,” said Sam, sounding like he was. “Where are the keys to the car?"

Before Dean could tell him they were on the nightstand, Sam grabbed them up. “I’m driving,” he said. “C’mon.”

Madness had many forms, but Dean figured that Sam wasn’t drunk or stoned, so they were both pretty safe. Plus, he wasn’t Cozy, and the Impala wasn’t a bus. If Sam wanted to drive around on dark roads with the desert air whispering through open windows, Dean was inclined to let him. And his baby loved nighttime drives to nowhere. Loved them.

They walked down to the lobby and out to the parking lot, getting into the Impala without a word. Dean rolled his window down while Sam, with much care, given his passenger, gunned the engine to life. He seemed to check his bearings, adjusted the side and rearview mirrors, and then, by the glow of the dashboard, guided the Impala onto the main road. Only to pull into the liquor store across the street.

He parked the car and turned off the engine.

“Stay here,” he said.

So Dean did, hoping that Sam remembered that Dean did not like lite beer. He did not want to dwell on what Sam had revealed about the mysterious workings of his brain. That guilt that he, Dean, felt because Dad had traded his life for his son’s, could now be added to by the guilt that Sam felt because Dean had traded his life for his brother’s. He’d not thought that Sam would feel that way, not at all. Bothered, yes, and okay, guilty, because Sam was like that. But worked up to the point of breaking down in a restaurant? Something had fisted around his heart at that moment, and was even now tightening.

But Sam was coming back, brown bag in hand that did not look like a six-pack of any kind. It looked more like a wine bottle.

“What lame ass thing did you just buy?” he demanded as Sam got into the driver’s seat. Sam handed everything to him and as he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road, Dean opened the bag and looked inside. One wine bottle and a corkscrew.

“Hell,” Dean said, “we coulda just broken this thing open on some stones. Fuckin’ corkscrews always cost more than the wine.”

“Not wine,” said Sam, driving them back towards the gates to the park.

“Wine bottle,” said Dean. “Wine bottle, corkscrew, wine. What else could it be.”

“Mead,” said Sam. “Honey mead.”

“Honey what?” asked Dean.

“Mead, darling,” said Sam, and though it was dark, he could see Sam arching his brows, trying to look like he was simpering. And succeeding.

“What is mead, oh my brother?” asked Dean, laughing as he pulled the bottle out.

“Fermented honey,” said Sam. “Greeks and Romans used to drink it.”

“Lame,” said Dean. Looking at the bottle in the mostly dark of the passenger side wasn’t telling him anything, so he put the bottle back in the bag. “This stuff couldn’t get a bee drunk.”

“It will kick your ass,” said Sam, “so watch out.”

“Ass kicking honey,” said Dean. “Now I’ve seen everything.”

“Wait’ll you taste it,” said Sam. He was slowing now, just as they reached the gates, and pulling off to the left, onto a narrow dirt road that wound its way beyond the bobbing headlights and into the trees.

“Where are we going? Not into the park.” For some reason, that was where he thought they were headed.

“No open alcohol allowed inside the park.”

“Oh.” This made sense, but didn’t tell him much more. “This ceremony. Does it involve wearing sheets and olive wreathes?”

“No,” said Sam. He drove slowly over the bumps and rocks, and it occurred to Dean that the road wasn’t meant for public travel. Not given that every other road in the park was as well groomed as if it had its very own butler to look after it. “No new clothes required. Just. Something.”

“Something you shared with Jess?” asked Dean before he could stop himself.

There was a slow pause as Sam pulled up under the trees and parked the car. He shut off the lights and then the engine, and in the silence that grew as the engine cooled, Dean could hear Sam nod.

“Yeah.” His voice was soft around the memory. “She showed me the honey mead. We drank it when we wanted to mark the occasion.”

Dean allowed this answer to shut him the hell up.

“She was a sucker for beautiful sunsets,” said Sam. “And over the ocean, well, during the fall, when the storms came, we drank mead a lot.” Behind the words was a sense of something golden, the memory of Jessica’s hair maybe, or the push of her lips as she swallowed the mead and looked into the sky and smiled because it was beautiful.

Dean let the silence fall a moment more, and then said, “Alright. Let’s drink some mead.”

He got out of the car, and shut the door almost gently, not wanting it to be too loud and attract anyone. Sam did the same and began to walk down the dirt road, reaching out, at one point, to take the bag from Dean. With no flashlight between them, Dean was surprised that he was almost able to see after a minute or two, and then realized that there was a half moon peeking over the trees and about a zillion stars coming straight down at them.

“Christ,” said Dean. “Almost like daylight out here.”

“Yeah,” said Sam.

They walked in silence, in the dark, the slow, warm wind carrying the scent of pine and dust, the heat of the day sinking away to be replaced by a coolness that felt good against his skin. The sounds coming from the darkness between the trees was almost mild, as if in a forest so well-tended, so approved of by Disney himself, there were no lions, or tigers, or bears. Well, probably not. Dean did remember a placard talking about elk wandering around, so maybe there were wolves or something who hunted the elk. He wanted to ask, but didn’t. For just one freaking night they weren’t going to worry about chasing anything or anything chasing them. One freaking night.

Then, as the road began to rise, Sam cut off through the trees, towards what looked like white lumps that turned out to be rocks. As if part of the Grand Canyon stone had decided to push itself to the surface right here for no reason. The stones were big enough to lie on, and this Sam did, right then and there. Stretching out for all the world looking like he could sleep there. That Dean could not exactly see all of Sam’s features did not matter. He knew that sigh, knew how the air felt around those shoulders as they relaxed. He heard the clunk as Sam set the wine bottle down beside him on the rock.

“Here we are,” said Sam.

“How did you find this place?” asked Dean, lowering himself to the stone and stretching out too. The stone was flat and warm under his back, and the air above him was as soft as sugar.

“Didn’t,” said Sam. “Saw the road on the map, thought it might be like this.”

Trust Sam. Making something out of nothing, which sometimes turned out good, sometimes bad. This time it was good.

They lay there for a while, letting the brightness grow out of the dark, settled their hands behind their heads, resettled their backs against the stone. Watched the stars glow and flicker, listened to the wind slough between the pines. Dean felt his eyes closing and thought if this was Sam’s ceremony, it was just fine. They’d drink the mead, look at the stars, drink more mead, and then go home. Sleep. Eat. Drive. Hunt. All would be well.

“We gonna drink?” asked Dean, when the thought of the mead began to pull at him harder than not saying anything did.

“Yep,” said Sam, sitting up. Dean heard him rustling with the bag and turned his head to watch, not really surprised by how well he could see. Night vision was something he used all the time, and angel vision too, looking just past Sam into the darkness to allow him to see his brother’s face more clearly. “Sit up, Dean, and we’ll drink.”

Sam opened the mead and made Dean take the first taste. Dean sat up, and crossed his legs, reaching for the mead. He took a swallow, and as the sweetness turned into fire, he nodded and handed the bottle back.

“I see many drunk bees in my future,” he said.

“Thought you’d like it,” said Sam, smiling around the opening as he put the bottle against his lips to drink, smiling as he swallowed. It made Dean want to smile back. So he did. In the dark. When Sam wasn’t looking.

They traded the bottle back and forth, till it was half gone and the half moon looked like a slice of white cake in the sky. Shiny and glowy as if it too had had its share of mead and then some.

“Oh, moon,” said Sam, half laughing to himself. He pushed his hair from his eyes.

“What?” asked Dean, wanting to be in on the joke.

“Some poem,” said Sam, shaking his head. “I can’t remember the rest of it. It’s like a drunk’s sonnet to the moon. Drunks say it. Have been for years. It’s an old poem now, so all you have to do is say, “Oh, moon,” like that, and all the drunks around you will know what you are talking about.”

Sam sounded half drunk himself, so Dean simply took the bottle and held it up to the sky as if to make a grand toast, and said, “Oh, moon,” in the same tones as Sam and then took another swig.

“Christ, Dean,” said Sam, and not like it was a good thing, or a bad thing, but there was definitely an edge to Sam’s voice, and Dean could tell he was just about close to waterworks time. Old waterworks Sammy. Yeah.

“Is it ceremony time, yet?” he asked, to stave this off. If Sammy started in, he was liable to join, at this point, and bawling his eyes out in a pine-scented, Disneyfied forest was not the way he wanted to be remembered.

“Just about,” said Sam. “We need to get a little more drunker than this.”

“Drunker?” asked Dean. Drunk as he was, that was not good English.

“More drunk,” Sam amended. “Much more drunk.”

The mead was sending them well on their way, if the numbness of Dean’s teeth was anything to go by. His fingers were tingling too, and the coolness of the night air was easily warmed away by the blood pumping beneath the surface of his skin. He was warm inside and out, and moving towards bonelessness like he was floating in water. Like he was floating on the water, on a blue pontoon, across glassy-still water, with a fine, golden sun arcing overhead in a blue sky, just the color of his mother’s eyes.

Something warm slid down his cheek and he scrubbed it away with the heel of his thumb.

“You okay, there?” asked Sam.

“Give me the bottle,” said Dean, taking it from his brother and holding it against his thigh. Then he lifted the bottle and said, looking up at the bright, almost silvery half-circle now well above the trees, “Oh, moon.” But his voice came out furry and soft like he’d just swallowed a dandelion blossom or something. “Oh, moon,” he said again, and took a huge swallow of mead, wanting to drown it out, the ugly gurgle coming up from him as he thought about how hell could so easily drown out something so delicate and bright as the moon now spinning double in his eyes. Or this hand that held a bottle and now handed it back to his brother. Or how over the roar of the hell’s fire, he would never, ever be able to hear Sam say anything at all, let alone some dumb toast thought up by a bunch of drunks.

Sam took a swallow, and then handed it back to Dean.

“No, you finish,” said Dean.

“One more swallow,” said Sam. “One more for you, one more for me, an’ then we’ll be drunk enough.”

“Who’s gonna drive?” asked Dean.

“I will,” said Sam. “I’ll drive and you can walk ahead to make sure I won’t hit anything.”

Dean nodded, and then did as he was told. By the weight of the bottle, the heft of liquid as it sloshed around, he figured they had drunk all but a third of the mead. If one bottle did this, he could imagine what two would do and resolved not to forget this particular fine, panty loosening beverage the next time he encountered a young miss more resolved to keep her panties on than not.

“To the moon,” he said, and tipped the bottle to his lips and pulled back as much mead as he could in one mouthful. It was a big mouthful, hot and sweet at the same time, soft and round inside his mouth, and yet sharp as it slid down his throat. Two huge gulps it took, and he had to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand as he drooled some of it away.

“Here ya go,” he said, the bottle clunking on the rocks as Sam grabbed for it and missed. “Drunk my share, an’ the rest is yours.”

He listened while Sam swallowed, his eyes open wide as the moon danced and bobbed and weaved over the tops of the trees and the stars seemed to sprinkle bits of themselves down along the branches. Starry, starry night it was, everything glittering and somehow bright in the dark, the stone sand white beneath them, the dark of the forest looking, really, like strips of velvet and silk. And beside him Sam, hair falling in his eyes, the mouth a little slack, the bottle tipped back, glass glittering, the label soft, the hand wrapped around it unfocused. Then Sam put the bottle down, a clicking sound on the stone, seemed to sweep his hand around for the corkscrew, which Dean sensed he put in his pocket.

“Moon,” said Sam and it seemed for a second that that’s all that Sam could manage to say, that that was the ceremony, and now that it was done, they could go home.

But no. Sam cleared his throat.

“Can say it now,” he said. Beginning. “We both owe our lives to someone else’s sacrifice.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. Sam was coming out of the starting gate awfully fast, and sounding like he knew exactly where he was going.

“Did you rig this, Sam? Get me so drunk so you could say this?”

“Yes,” said Sam, “so shut up, Dean. So shut up, sit there, be drunk, and listen for five damn minutes.”

Something in his chest blazed at this, at being so easy to move into position, but he hadn’t counted on the wine. A six-pack, sure, he could handle that. But mead? He’d been out of his depth from the first sip. He could barely feel his fingers, his lips were numb, and Sam had the keys. He was trapped.

“Dad for you, you for me, and hell, if we had a little brother, I’d do the same for him.” There was a pause. “Would do the same for you if it came to it.”

Sam paused, as if waiting for Dean’s protestations that he shouldn’t even fucking consider it, but Dean felt some hardness slip out of his bones, and he lay back against the stone, almost blinded by the moon.

“You said it time and again, Dean. You railed against being saved by the faith healer, once you knew the cost, and you’ve railed against Dad going down into hell, because you somehow think you’re not worth saving. You talk about yourself as if you were some kind of monster, who deserves to be taken down by an angry mob carrying pitchforks, and certainly not someone who deserves to be walking around living and breathing.”

Dean put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. He told himself that now that Sam’s mouth was well and truly going, he could let the yadda, yadda, yadda swirl about him untended to, just like with the park ranger. But part of his brain, the part that loved Sam more than sense, kept him attentive to every word, which he felt soaking into his brain like Sam was pouring water all over his head.

“But as you may not know,” continued Sam, “since I’m in the same position, I have, unbeknownst to anyone around me, which is total bullshit, have railed against you going to hell for my benefit. I know have the unwanted privilege of knowing exactly how you feel. And it’s no fun to be this fucking pissed off at someone for loving you that much.”

There was a choking sound in Sam’s voice, and Dean wanted to sit up, but found he couldn’t. The mead was going to wear off at some point and he would be able to do it then, but for now all he could manage was Sam’s name. “Sam,” he said.

“I am now in the totally unfun position of feeling like the monster who doesn’t deserve to be walking around living and breathing.”

Now Sam sounded like he wanted nothing more than to put his head in his hands and bawl like he was a seven-year old kid.

“SamSamSam,” Dean found himself saying. Wanting to sit up, but his arms had gone completely numb. “Sammy.”

“So now,” said Sam, clearing his throat, “now that I have seen this thing from both sides, I have decided that you are wrong. Wrong, wrong wrong.”

“’ong?” asked Dean. How Sam’s mind was managing to work when Dean’s mouth barely could was beyond him.

“You are wrong in thinking that you don’t deserve to be walking around living and breathing. You love me enough to do this stupid dumbass thing for me, so in your eyes, I must be worthy of living and breathing. And if I am, then you are. So you can just stop the fucking self-pity bullshit that you don’t deserve to live and help me fucking make sure that you make it past a year.”

“’zat it?” asked Dean.

“No,” said Sam, almost screaming through his teeth. Teeth that sounded like they’d gotten very, very numb. “You gotta hear me on this. Let me know that you hear me, that you know you’re not a monster. That you deserve to live, to freaking get drunk with the bees for every single freakin’ sunset, an’ that you’ll remember today for a long, long time.”

Sam lay back as he said this, his head hitting hardness with a clonk, which he no doubt did not feel, but would in the morning, and as his hands flopped out beside him, Dean heard him sigh. “Fairy lights, Dean. I need to see ‘em.”

“Fairy lights?” asked Dean. “Too pink and my ‘ittle pony for me, Sam.” He was struggling to move his hands from behind his head, and as the back of his hand began to sting, he thought they might be coming back to life.

“Not all my little ponies are pink,” said Sam, and as Dean pushed himself up on one elbow, he could see that Sam’s eyes were closed and that he was frowning. “I had one that was a zebra.”

“’ebra?”

“Yes, a zebra. I called him Zug-Zug.”

Where this was coming from, Dean had no idea, and no memory of a black and white striped my little pony named Zug-Zug.

“Lost it when we left Milwaukee, that one time. I was seven, I think.”

Milwaukee had smelled like beer, as he recalled, and if Sam had been seven, he’d been eleven, maybe going on twelve, and maybe going through an ignore-little-brother-like-he’s-invisible phase. Black-haired Sammy in the back seat of the Impala, kicking his feet and singsonging constantly. Probably to Zug-Zug, now dearly departed, and, no doubt, sadly missed. For years.

“Sorry about Zug-Zug,” he said, now upright, needing both of his hands and the bulk of his shoulders to hold him steady. His hands were tingling.

“’sokay,” said Sam, now almost smiling. “Damn things a collector’s item now.”

“Huh,” said Dean as his body teetered like it wanted to fall back down. He didn’t let it.

“Dean lights, then,” said Sam, like a final tally had been reached. “Need to see ‘em, no matter what they’re called.”

Dean sat forward and crossed his legs, or tried to. It came out rather like one leg bent sideways and the other leg stretched out as if it had lost all connection with its brain. But he could lean forward now and take his weight off of his hands, and if he tumbled, it would be more into his own lap rather than his head against stone. His undrunk brain, the part that Sam had been pouring water over, was clear about the memory of their conversation about the semi truck in front of them on the road over Wolf Creek Pass. That the tap tap tap of break lights was, to Sam, something more than just a thank you for sharing the road. It was, as he recalled, a metaphor for the goodness hiding inside something ugly. Something monstrous, but still capable of something sweet. That much he was clear on, that Sam wanted Dean to prove he knew he wasn’t a monster. How Sam expected him to prove it was another matter.

With his hands in his lap, still numb but tingling, he let his head sink forward. Watched as his own shadow moved across his chest, and thought about the moon cutting through the sky and all the drunks who had ever saluted it. About Sam and his monster trucks. About mirror-still water that slid beneath his hands as he reached out to touch it. About not-nearly-cool enough shady glades, and a brother pressing close, their foreheads touching till sweat slicked between them. The promise of rescue, not lightly made, of a home, not just beyond the horizon, where they would never reach it, but between them. Always between them, and if they were together, always enough. More than enough.

Hell would be taking more than his soul when it took it. It would be taking Sam’s. He had not thought of that.

He felt bruised as his body came to life, as if rolling around on the rocks were more than it wanted to put up with and was letting him know. His teeth were still numb, but his lips and his cheek were furious and letting him know it, just as his hands were. Zinging with it, wanting more mead to be numbed with, and he really didn’t want to tell his body that there was no more mead to be had. That Sam had drunk it all.

He was all out.

“This is all I got,” he said to Sam, whose face was still, dark hair spilling across the stone, eyes closed. Still. Dean leaned over and placed his hands on either side of Sam’s head. Like he was going to do a push up, only he hadn’t started yet. Dean pushed down instead, kissing his brother with lips that wanted to know what the hell just as they tingled and zinged and felt every brush, every feathery curve of Sam’s mouth. Then he pulled back, did the push up and opened his eyes.

“That’s all I had,” he said, still feeling the brush of Sam’s mouth. “It’s the only part of that can feel anything at the moment.”

He felt Sam sigh, a whole body sigh, and then, instead of pushing him away and saying, dude, gross, Sam reached up and wrapped his arms around Dean and pulled him down. Down against a long body, shielding him from the stone beneath with ribs and arms and shoulders and feet and everything that Sam was. Dean could almost hear the metaphor forming in his own brain, shocking him almost as much as Sam’s arms, holding him close. Sam’s face against his, somehow hot against the cool of his dark hair, and shaking. Sam was shaking, like he was crying or trying not to, and Dean tried to reach up his hands to push back, to try and push himself up so he could make sure which it was and then, take care of it, but his hands were now not working.

Sam should not be on the verge like this, they were both too drunk, too drunk too soon, and still so raw from the fury of hell opening up, and demons getting their jollies off tossing them against headstones, and of hearts still too broken to be setting themselves loose like this. On mead, for Christ’s sake.

“Sammy,” he managed. “Sam.”

“I’m not going to lose you,” said Sam right in his ear, his chest heaving up with a snap. He sounded like he was talking through gritted teeth. “Not now. Not ever. Not. Going. To.”

Dean managed to ease his head so it was resting in the curve of Sam’s shoulder, settling in the curve of Sam’s arms. He imagined that his weight would soon become quite heavy as parts of Sam woke up from the mead, but for the moment, he stayed where he was. Reached up a loose hand to pet Sam’s jaw, he felt the tenseness there. And found that his brother wasn’t crying, more, he was furious. And determined. Dean did not envy the demon who would finally come to take him away, not when they would have Sam to contend with.

But he could hear and feel Sam’s heartbeat all around, and for now, for now, he was content with this. Even through Sam’s rage, the heartbeat was steady and strong, the skin on his neck warm against Dean’s forehead.

“Dean’s lights, man. You’ve seen ‘em.” He tapped Sam’s face very, very softly. “An’ ya can’t tell anyone, ever. Cause I’ll deny it, an’ who they gonna believe, you or me?”

“Me,” said Sam, with no pride in his voice. “They always believe me over you.”

“True,” said Dean, smiling as he tipped his head down. “But you still can’t tell, ‘kay? It would make me look, uh, soft.”

“’kay,” said Sam, tightening his arms around Dean. Within half an hour, they might be sober enough to drive, as the power of mead certainly seemed to fade as fast as it had grown. They were still drunk, sloppy drunk, in each other’s arms in Walt’s forest, and he’d just kissed his brother. On the mouth, for Pete's sake. The same brother who was now, somewhat softly, kissing the top of his head, and sighing.

He had lights somewhere inside of him, and he deserved to live. At least Sam thought so, and if Sam thought it, it must be so, even if he still mourned a toy he had when he was seven, even if he could recite poetry like a girl, and thought that Jell-O cheesecake out of a box was actually good. Sam wanted him around forever, and Dean, who could never, he knew, deny Sam the slightest thing, would do his best to see that Sam got what he wanted. But only if it didn’t put Sam at risk in the bargain. If only, if only.

His feet were starting to feel cold, and the soreness from walking across one stone too many were making themselves know.

“Hey, Sammy,” he said, shifting his weight so it moved off of Sam and onto what was now incredibly chilly stone. “Time to go.”

Sam grunted, the way he did when Dean would wake him up too soon.

“Time,” he said again. “Think bed. Think sheets. Think flat and soft.”

“’kay,” said Sam again, moving beneath Dean like a mountain coming to life. His brother seemed even taller all stretched out like this, and as Dean sat up, and looked down, he thought it again. Taller all stretched out.

Dean made himself get up and then reached down his hand to help his brother. Who took it, and leaned into the pull and got upright, somehow, and then handed the keys to Dean. The dark was cold around them.

“I’ll walk,” Sam said. “In front of the headlights.”

“What?”

“At least until we get out of the woods. No streetlights. I’d hate to have the Impala run into a tree.”

“Huh,” said Dean. This made sense. He grabbed the now wrinkled bag with the empty bottle inside of it, and grabbed Sam by the arm and strode towards the dirt road where the car waited for them.

How they made it back to the motel, he couldn’t rightly tell, only that he had one single clear memory of Sam in the woods, the shine of the headlights cutting his long shape into darkness, streaking shadows that inked out behind him as he walked. Guiding them all through the trees. The Impala made it in one piece, they managed to stumble up the stairs without breaking anything, or waking anyone up, and as the cool air of the room hit Dean’s skin, he managed to groan and shuck off his shoes all in the same moment.

“Bed,” he said, forgetting about teeth brushing or face washing or checking the window or the door. Determined to remember this looseness, to be used for loosening panties only, and not on the road like this, when he was supposed to be sharp. On the job. Taking care of things. Taking care of Sam.

“Bed,” said Sam, stripping off his clothes with jerky movements that decided Dean, who went over to the AC and moved the dials till he thought the air coming out wasn’t quite so cool.

Then he slipped into the bed nearest him, completely forgetting whether it was the bed he’d selected or not, and felt Sam’s weight falling in beside him. Sam turned towards him, limp, like he was asleep already, falling against him, boneless. Warm. Dean let him, let the long arm flop over him, and settled, back against the mattress, head in the pillow. Let the weight and the warmth and the heavy breathing of a drunk Sam lull him.

In the morning, there would be hell to pay, with heads feeling like smashed melons and bodies aching with whatever as yet unknown bruises they’d incurred in the dark. On the stone. In the forest. Drinking bee mead and singing to the moon. But for now he felt loved and quiet and still. Floating on glassy-smooth water, with sweet, warm air draping over his skin, and the butterscotch-golden sun moving through the blue. A good trip. A good day. Sam’s mouth, and the sweetness of the mead. Sam’s breath now, streaming across his cheek. A shape in the darkness that was never going to let him roam far, but rather, would keep him close and safe. Under watchful eyes, green flecked with gold, like the sun reflecting off bits of mica at the edges of a cool, slow-moving river. A river, he realized, with the only part of his brain that was still awake, that he never wanted to leave.

Oh, moon. Oh Sam.

The End

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Tags:

Navigation

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags