Living Out Loud, PG-13, Dean, Sam, 5/5

[ht_murray]

A/N: For this part, there are two points of view, which is nothing new, but in one section I separate the shifts with ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump. In those sections every time you see that segue, it shifts to the other point of view.






---


"You know, that's a pot smoking song," Sam said as he sat on the edge of the massive leather sectional sofa in the Rind living room, trying to look comfortable even though Dean could see that he was ready to spring forward at the slightest inclination that he needed help.

Dean was thankful that Sam was so attentive and never made him ask for help. It certainly was easier, especially now that he chose not to speak. Everything was just getting so damned hard, and nothing added to the frustration of having to ask his baby brother for help like trying to ask for help only to have the words completely fail.

Dean looked at Sam questioningly and saw that Sam's eyes were fixated on his brother's fingers where they strummed softly on the guitar strings as Dean slouched back at the far end of the sofa. Sam must have been referring to whatever song it was that was being played, but Dean looked at his own fingers blankly, because the truth was, he didn't know what he was playing, or that it was or was not a 'pot smoking song'.

He didn't answer, because he knew Sam would.

"Puff the Magic Dragon," Sam clarified. "It's a hippie pot-smoking song," Sam chuckled softly, no real amusement sparking behind his eyes.

Dean nodded, the motion causing the room to spin slightly.

It had been two weeks since Sam had checked him out of the hospital and taken him back to the Rind ranch. Thirteen days had passed since Dean had remembered the conversation he and his brother had been having before he collapsed in car shop. Twelve days had gone since he gave up trying to tell Sam what he knew about the dragons and the thunderbirds, because every time he'd tried, he'd made it through about half a sentence before the words had suddenly been lost. No amount of blinking, rubbing his hand across his forehead, swallowing reflexively, or opening and closing his mouth in desperation had been able to retrieve them. Eleven days had passed since Dean had stopped talking altogether.

Ten days had passed since the brothers had been invited to stay in the main house with the Rinds. Before then, Sam had driven the Impala back and forth the forty yards or so between the house and the apartment that he and Dean shared behind the shop so that both brothers could join the family for meals. Ten days ago, Dean had collapsed in the five yards between the open door of he Impala and the open door of the house, and Beth had had enough of watching him struggle.

Eight days ago, Sam had apparently grown weary of trying to coax words from Dean and had taken to asking and answering his own questions, carrying on both sides of the conversation like he was reading all the actors' lines from a script, only changing inflection to demarcate his own thoughts from what he believed to be Dean's.

Seven days ago, Dean had become a little frightened at how accurate Sam's portrayal of his own inner voice had become. He hoped to hell that Sam's shining didn't involve reading his mind, because there were some things he wanted to keep for himself. Like the fact that he wouldn't have anything to keep for himself in a few more days. Like the fact that he measured time in seconds now, because that made the days he had left seem longer.

No, Sam didn't need to know that.

Six days ago Dean had been sitting in this very spot when he'd noticed the massive pink rock that was on display over the hearth of the fireplace. Beth had noticed him studying it at the time, since Sam had been busy hurrying through his morning shower and had asked her to sit with Dean.

"It's rose quartz," she'd said, running her fingers reverently over it, her eyes going slightly shut as though she were listening to some distant music as she did so. "There are veins of it all through this land, but as far as I know, this is the single largest piece," she'd continued, gazing at the rock in wonder. "It's been in my family for generations. My grandfather called it Dragon's Heart."

Dean remembered thinking that was important, but only for a second, because he didn't think clearly for much more than a second here and there these days.

Five days ago, Dean had been unable to stand on his own any longer, and he'd been moved out here to the living room which was central to everyplace else in the house. Since then, he'd spent more than a rational amount of time gazing at the pink rock.

Four days ago, he'd heard the music that he knew Beth had been hearing when she'd touched it, and he'd stopped being afraid to die.

Three days ago, he'd stopped wondering if his lack of fear was due to the fact that he'd accepted his fate or if it was an indication that his fate had changed. He didn't suppose mortal men were supposed to be privy to the workings of fate, so he didn't think about anything more than how freakishly accurate Sam's one-man conversations were becoming and the way the music seemed to be growing louder.

Two days ago he'd dreamt of the dragon again. More memories. Memories of walking away from this place years ago, dismissing any possibility he'd entertained of making a life for himself to be with his father and to save the world. Memories of Layla and how he'd tried and failed to give himself up for her, declaring to all who would listen that he felt himself to be less worthy than she.

When the dragon had left him in his dream that time, Dean had been pretty sure it was pissed off. He'd considered flipping it the bird, but that would have been too exhausting, and somehow he didn't think the thing would get sentiment. Besides, it was kind of ironic to even consider flipping the bird at a dragon when the dragon was really a bird itself.

Yesterday, Sam had called that hospice place and asked them to send a nurse over to look at Dean. She had, and then she'd talked with Sam in the alcove behind the fireplace, but the damned rock on the hearth seemed to amplify every sound around him these days, and Dean had heard every word. Of course, she hadn't said anything that he hadn’t already known.

Today, the thunder was rolling in out of the hills, and every second that Dean counted between the flashes of the lightning and the clap of thunder behind it was one second out of the 86,400 in his last day that he didn't have anymore.

So, he stopped counting and started waiting, waiting for that bitch Fate to decide exactly what she had in mind this half of the remaining Winchesters. And Sam waited with him, never straying more than a few feet out of an arm's length away. Sam's eyes were dark and sad, haunted in a way Dean only vaguely remembered from the days following his heart attack and the weeks following their father's funeral.

There was no question in Dean's mind exactly what it was that Sam was waiting for.

Dean was waiting to prove him wrong, and he had less than 50,000 seconds left in which to do it.




--


"You're not my Dad," he said accusingly.

His eyes barely lifted from the screen of the laptop where they'd been covertly fixed since Dean had fallen into a restless sleep some thirty minutes prior. He'd promised Dean that he'd stop beating himself up searching for a way to fix this, but he hadn't given it up altogether, just postponed it for those moments when Dean was asleep. Those were becoming more generous in their frequency and length.

It was only mid-afternoon, but the storm rolling in out of the hills had blocked out any daylight, leaving Sam's face bathed eerily in the glow of the monitor, which seemed, no matter how hard he stared, to never tell him what he needed to know. Between the ghastly pallor cast upon him by the artificial light and the tired, worried lines and hollows in his young features, he looked more like a ghost than the one that stood before him.

"Of course, I am, Sammy," the apparition countered.

A flash of lightning, so close the air virtually sizzled, exaggerated the shadows in the room and nearly obscured the semi-transparent form of his dead father. The thunder that followed rumbled so low and deep that Sam felt as if an invisible fist were reaching into his chest, trying to work out the knot of fear and anxiety that had been tightening there for months. Failing the untying, the whole knot just pulsated at the frequency of the roiling storm and made him wonder how it was he managed still to breathe.

"You and I never really got along," the thing that looked like John said softly. "If I were not your father, would I have chosen to come to you in this form? You never listened to anything that came from this mouth, Sammy," he chuckled softly. "Hell if I could choose the best way to appear to you, son, I'd digitize and upload myself onto that damned computer."

Sam smiled weakly and ran his big hands over his face as if he could wipe away the apparition before him. "At least then I could turn your ass off."

John didn't reply, just stood there, looking exactly the way Sam remembered him, as if seeing was believing, as if belief was enough.

"You're not supposed to be here. . .salted and burned."

"I found a loophole."

"You would," Sam smirked tiredly.

"You boys will always keep me connected to this world, Sam."

"Oh."

There was a faint tingling in his fingertips that he supposed should be pulsing through his entire body. He knew somehow that he should be springing to action, seizing the moment to ply his father with every question that he'd cataloged under the heading of, 'things I wish Dad were here to tell me.' Instead, now that John was there, either as a figment of his exhausted, desperate mind, or as an actual spirit, Sam was numb.

The whole atmosphere of the room had taken on a surreal stillness in which the air seemed so heavy that movement or sound was barely possible. It was a feeling Sam vaguely remembered as the warm heaviness that he'd felt as a child curled up in Dean's lap while his brother read a bedtime story. He was too tired to question the fairy tale logic and too enthralled to dismiss it.

"How's Mom?" Sam hadn't made small talk in so long that he couldn't really understand why he slipped into it so easily now. Then again, Dad had always made him feel small.

"She's not here."

Sam's stomach twisted. It was the most response his body had allowed since he'd ducked into the alcove behind the fireplace and listened in disbelief as the hospice nurse said, "Any time, now."

Sam had known about Mary, just hadn't wanted to believe, to accept that she'd burned for him, not once but twice, and that the second time had been a sacrifice of not only this life but whatever came after as well.

"I was afraid of that," Sam said. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," John dismissed. "I'm working on a loophole there, too."

"You're just not happy without something to hunt, are you?"

"Hunter in life, hunter in death. We really do create our own reality." The thunder boomed, a reminder that something was brewing in the present that took precedence over the past.

John looked down and away from Sam, letting his eyes fall on his eldest, who was sleeping silently, nestled amongst the pillows and blankets Sam had piled around him on the sofa. "I never got used to him being so quiet."

"He doesn't talk anymore."

"That's not new. He hasn't really said anything for years."

"Huh," Sam exhaled roughly, too worried to laugh, too weak to cry.

"I remember. . ." John's eyes lit up like he had discovered oil. "When he was little, the whole house was filled with Dean. You always knew where he was, because whatever he did, he did it out loud. Talked out loud. Laughed out loud. Sang out loud. And dreamed. . ."

Daddy, I'm gonna be a race car driver.

Daddy, I'm gonna be a rock star.

Daddy, I'm gonna be a fireman.

Daddy,. . .I'm gonna be the bestest big brother ever.

John's memories were so loud, so vivid, that Sam could hear them. He was staring at a dead man. Memories didn't seem so much more elusive than death to his mind's eye. He smiled, never too tired to smile for Dean.

John's eyes got sadder, darker, and Sam thought he heard a catch in the man's throat when he began again. "Your mother always said that Dean was gifted. And I always laughed, because we were his parents. Weren't we biased? But now I know she was right. Everything around Dean turned to laughter. . . at least until she died. . ."

Sam nodded sadly, "I know. He told me he didn't talk much for a long time after that."

"It's more than that, Sam," John explained, reaching toward Dean's face as though he could actually touch it without passing through unnoticed. "He got past the silence, eventually. Loud music, bad jokes, sarcasm, all of it just noise to cover the silence, to put us at ease, but it was never Dean. Not the Dean I knew. Never has been since. All of that's just what he gives away. He gives it away and slams the door shut behind it, so that none of it can come back."

"Are you sure you're my Dad?" Sam asked skeptically. "Because you sure don't sound like him."

"I'm dead, Sammy. . ."

"Sam."

"Sam. . . Death has a way of changing a man's perspectives." He motioned again to brush the side of Dean's face before remembering, with a look of strangled denial, that he could look but not touch. "Reminds us what's important."

"Is Dean important enough for you to fix him? Fix this?"

"I can't fix this, Sam. Neither can you. Unless you feed the fire, it burns out. And Dean refuses to be fed." He said it with understanding and finality, the same way he had told Dean that they didn't need Sam if Sam thought he didn't need them. John had always had a way of saying things in a way that made them sound true.

Sam barely caught the computer as it slid from his lap due to the involuntary tremor that went through him. He understood now, too, and he wasn't ready to accept it.

"I won't let you take him," he said, his voice cracking beneath deep, watery eyes.

"It's all right, Sam," John consoled. "I've taken enough from Dean. We all have. But if he gives anymore, there will be nothing left. I'm just here to make sure, whichever way this ends, he won't be alone."

As his throat constricted, squeezing blood and emotion into his head until tears seemed inevitable, Sam realized suddenly why the small talk had been so easy to fall into. There had been only one thing he wanted to hear from John, and skirting the issue had postponed this suffocating disappointment for as long as possible. Denial was the only hope Sam had left besides John, and John had let him down too many times.

"So that's it, then?" Sam choked. "There's nothing that can be done? What about the last time? You fixed it then! Why can't you fix it now?"

He tried to be accusing, demanding, forceful, anything that would make his father the hero Dean had always credited him with being. Sam would do anything, take back every spiteful, disobedient word he'd ever said to John, if it would somehow give the man whatever superpowers he needed to make this all okay again. But all he was behind those melting eyes was lost, broken, and defeated. And soon, he'd be alone.

"No, Sammy, I never fixed this, not then, and I can't fix it now."

"What DID you do, then? He got better. You must have done something."

"I left."

Sam shook his head, the tears breaking loose as his eyes squinted in vehement disbelief. "No! That doesn't make sense. You were looking for something. You wouldn’t have brought him here for no reason. You were looking for a dragon. You must have found it. That's the only thing that makes sense."

"No. I never found it, Sam. Dragons are like reapers. They only appear to the ones they've come for."

"So, Dean found the dragon?"

"Or it found him. Here. When I finally gave up and came back. . ." John blinked back his own ghostly tears, his face beaming, "Dean was better. More than better." He looked down at his dying son once more, an awed reverence sparking behind his eyes.

"He was Dean. Not my good little soldier, not the bestest big brother ever, just Dean. When I walked in, afraid that I was already too late, he was there laughing, talking, out loud. Talking about designing cars and going on the road, being part of a team, and he was so happy. No one knew or would say how he'd made the turnaround, and I was just so glad to have him back. . ."

"So, that was it, then? Dean was better, or at least he looked it, and you just took him away, dragged him back to the life that you wanted for him, the life you chose for him."

John's head dropped. "I did. I didn't know then that it was this life that was killing him. I bought all that crap about genes, and mutations, and environmental hazards. I didn't want to believe that we were killing Dean, and that he was letting us."

"What are you saying?" Sam asked incredulously. "That this is psychosomatic or something? That Dean isn't really sick? He just thinks he is?"

"That's not what I 'm saying at all," John corrected. "I'm saying he is sick, but not in a way that medicine could fix, even if he weren't allergic to all those treatments." He took a heaving breath, gathering his thoughts. "Dean has always been a giver, Sam. He's always given whatever it was we needed with no regard for what he wanted, what he needed. But there are some things that aren't ours to give away."

"Your mother was right when she said that Dean was gifted. He has so much potential. He could do or be anything. And gifts are bestowed by powers you and I have never even begun to understand. When they are thrown away, given recklessly, those powers are angered. They have ways of imposing their wrath, Sam, and ways of setting things straight."

"How?" Sam stared his father down, his entire person taut with anticipation and need to know.

Lightning flashed, rapidly three bolts in a row, so close Sam's hair stood up, and the clap of thunder that followed made him start despite himself. The heavens split open, and water washed over the house in torrents, drowning out any possible answer John could give.

Almost invisible as the room was once again illuminated by the raging storm, John turned and pointed toward the hearth of the massive stone fireplace. As the room fell into darkness between lightning bolts, the great stones seemed to vibrate, and their cold exterior made the room feel more like a lair than a house. Only the Rind family photograph, painted in earth tones and umbers, suggested humans had any place in that realm.

Sam tried to yell above the downpour that he didn’t understand what it was his father was trying to tell him, but as he followed John's point to the painting, another succession of lightning bolts split the darkness.

Sam fell backward in disbelief as the lightning stretched the shadow of the hearthstones across the photo and pierced the massive piece of rose quartz displayed on the mantle in front of it. The painting changed under the shifting shadow and light. Where once was only an innocent portrait of Dru and Beth Rind, flanked by each of their sons, Altair and Chayton, was a massive reptilian creature with outspread wings.

There be dragons.

The thunder crashed behind the lightning, and the painting shifted back to its normal form. Only the quartz remained changed, glowing from somewhere deep inside of it.

Each time the lightning flashed, the same illusory effect took shape across the canvas, and the rock grew steadily brighter. After a few more flashes, the crystal not only glowed but pulsed rhythmically with a low, deep vibration that hummed through Sam's chest.

Ba-bump, Ba-bump, Ba-bump

Behind them, masked by the pouring rain and the thrumming of the atmosphere around them, Dean's breathing came in great heaving sighs that seemed to gulp into his chest and then leak out slowly over an eternity of empty seconds.

One or two agonal breaths were all that remained of Dean's life by the time Sam turned and realized he was in trouble.

"Dean!" Sam cried. He dropped to his knees and fisted his fingers in his brothers shirt, but the dragon had already come for him.




XXX


Ba-bump, Ba-bump, Ba-bump

Dean had heard the myth that the moment of death provides a reflection of the life that preceded it. He could say with reasonable certainty, however, that it was just that, a myth.

His chest convulsed outward as a great whooping breath dragged into his lungs, as though his mind had forgotten, but his body remembered. For a second more, he was alive.

"Dean take your brother and run as fast as you can. Don’t look back."

I'm gonna be the bestest big brother ever.

Slowly, slowly the breath leaked back out, his body having found that it had no affinity for it anymore. With it dragged the dying sparks of Dean.

Ba-bump, Ba-bump, Ba-bump

"Don't you do this, big brother. We've been through too much for you to just lie here and die, dammit!"

Ba-bump, Ba-bump, Ba-bump

Dean felt himself being shaken, great, warm hands gripping at what must be his shoulders, though his body seemed to have lost the ability to identify its own parts. Everything was just so heavy, and muddy, and tired.

The vibrations echoed through Dean's chest, resonating within what had somehow become a great, cavernous expanse of nothing, and shaking loose every concept, notion, and ideal he had of who he was and what he stood for. Those broken bits were pushed up high into his throat like just so much phlegm.

His life was choking him to death.

Ba-bump, Ba-bump, Ba-bump

"Dean. . ." And it was barely audible through the strangle of emotion that choked it back. A plea. A command. A thought. A breath. A hope.

Not goodbye.

Behind him, the quartz was thrumming and humming. The vibrations settled into his molars and bit into his skull like a bite into aluminum foil.

"Why the hell is it making that noise!"

Ba-bump, Ba-bump, Ba-bump

Another breath forced its way down Dean's windpipe, stretching him like a balloon as Sam lifted his head between gentle hands.

It's all right, Sammy.

Nothing bad is gonna happen to you.

Please don't cry, Sammy.

Ba-bump, Ba-bump, Ba-bump

"Dean, man, wake up. Please don't do this."

Ba-bump, Ba-bump, Ba-bump

Again with the shaking; shaking and wind blowing; wind blowing, and damn, again with the flying. Why wouldn't the crazy-assed dragon just leave him the hell alone?

You're not gonna let me die in peace, are you?

It didn't matter to whom the question was asked, because there was no breath to voice it, no voice to articulate it, no answer.

Another thing he hated about the friggin' dragon. . .its smug muteness. If it was trying to tell him something, why didn't it just do it already? He was trying to watch his life flash before his eyes, here.

Ba-bump, Ba-bump, Ba-bump

Sam ducked his head as a gale force wind whipped up behind him. What had started as only a vibration and a pulsing light within the quartz rock had taken on an intensity that could only be spiritual in origin. The wind seemed to ebb and flow, like waves in an ocean of sky, and there was a heat burning across his shoulders and back.

He didn't dare look, though. Didn't dare meet whatever it was that had come to take his brother from him. All he could see, all he wanted to see was Dean, and he wouldn't look away. Not until the end.

His heart pounded in counterpoint with the pulsing wind as his mind raced through every page of medical research and mythology he'd pored over in the preceding months. He reached into his subconscious for anything he might have missed, anything that could help that he'd passed over in search of a cure. He'd take anything at this point.

But there was nothing.

And Dean wasn't breathing.

Ba-bump, Ba-bump, Ba-bump

"Don't look back."

"Dean, when all this is over, you've gotta let me go my own way. I'm not gonna live this life forever."

Why not? I am.

Funny, forever was a lot shorter than he'd imagined it would be.

"Dean isn't there anything you want for yourself?"

Sure. . .I wanna be a good brother, a good son. To not be alone.

"Son, I'm glad you're better and that you like it here. The Rinds are good people. But I need you with me. Saving people, hunting things; it's what we do. . .at least until we get the thing that took your mother away. Please, son."

And how could he say no? He was a good son.

Anything you want for yourself?

For you not to leave. . .

You want for yourself?

For normal to be better, to be safer. . .

Want for yourself?

For children not to have to fear the dark.

For yourself?

"Take the SAT's, Dean. Keep your options open."

"Dean, I was so scared. I looked for you, but I couldn't find you anywhere."

"Don't worry, Sammy. I'm right here. . ." That's why I'm the bestest big brother ever.

Yourself?

And it was then that Dean realized it was not his life flashing before his eyes. It was his death. Everything he'd done, everything he'd chosen, had led him here.

If he'd chosen differently. . .

Options. . .he yelled finally. I want options, all right? Is that what you want to hear?

"DONE!"

Ba-bump, Ba-bump, Ba-bump

"Please, Dean. . ." Sam breathed it like a prayer, close enough to Dean, now, to tousle his sandy hair with the barely whispered words.

When there was no response, Sam lifted his brother against his chest, buried his head in the crook of his still-warm neck, and just held on, as though he could will the soul to stay after the body released it. It had worked before. Until now, Dean had always come back.

John had let Sam down. Hope had abandoned him. Denial had refused to stay. Dean he still believed in with all his heart.

"Dean. . ."

Ba-bump, Ba-bump, Ba-bump

It was funny. For all the times Dean had faced the dragon, he could remember only being lifted, being carried, flying weightlessly in the vacuum, the void that was Dean. He couldn't remember ever falling. Until now.

The great talons released their grip on his shoulders, and he tumbled to earth. Hard. He landed, of all places, in a parking lot, cheap blacktop and sticky tar, cold, cold, and alone. For a second, he panicked. Did he really deserve this? Was this his reward? Was this a hero's destination?

Then the lights above the lot flickered, a shadow moved on the edge of the pavement, and he recognized the parking lot in Nebraska. So, it wasn't a destination at all, just a forgotten leg of the journey to now. Only the dragon hadn't forgotten. And Dean knew why.

The Reaper approached, time-worn and haggard, a wisp of darker in an already dark world, and the lights flickered again.

"CHOOSE!"

Dean shrugged in exasperation. "Sure, now you speak, you scaly bastard!"

But like his father had said, the remark was just noise to cover the silence. Because the silence spoke to him, made him believe, made him want, made him hope for something more. And a hero didn't want more than right. Dean didn't want more than right.

But he could choose more. He could.

The Reaper stalked closer, and Dean knew exactly what it wanted. He knew the agony that it held between its hands, and he knew the blissful darkness that would follow. He knew that Layla would live if he let the darkness take him.

He could choose Layla.

Somewhere out of sight, Dean knew that Sam was working feverishly to release the Reaper. He knew that Sam wasn't doing it to save the world, to take out the Reaper, to end the farce that was Reverend LeGrange and his faith healing religion. Sam was doing it to save Dean.

He could choose Sam.

Somewhere else out of sight was the unknown, all the things Dean had never allowed himself to think about. Somewhere in the unknown, he was race car driver, a fireman, a rock star, and so, so much more. A teacher, a poet, a lover, a friend.

He could choose Dean.

So which was the right one? The Reaper was almost to him now, and his feet remained planted. He'd chosen Layla before. He'd chosen Sam before. Hell, he'd chosen everyone before, everyone that wasn't Dean, and now he was watching his death flash before his eyes. His choices, his death.

He could choose life.

"Bite me!" Dean shouted.

And he ran. He hightailed it away from the Reaper and the choices he'd made the last time they'd met. His arms pistoned, and his legs stretched out to their fullest.

Now that his body had somewhere to go, there was only one thing left to do. Only one more option. . .

Ba-bump, Ba-bump, Ba-bump

"Breathe! Damn you!" Sam shouted, beyond desperation.

And Dean did. His chest opened, filled, and held on, taking every molecule of oxygen from the air and using it to spark a new fire within him.

His eyes popped open, and he was vaguely aware of his brother's warm breath and wet tears in his neck, only vaguely, though, because his senses were overwhelmed by the dragon gazing down at him. He could swear the thing was smiling at him. And it looked oddly familiar, almost human.

But he didn't think on it for more than a second, before the dragon melted away. The crystal on the hearth ceased its pulsing and fell dark as the sun pierced the clouds, breaking the storm as suddenly as it had broken upon them.

"It's all right, Sammy," he said. "I'm here. I'm okay." And damn if that didn't mean he was so in for a chick flick moment. But there were exceptions to every rule, even the 'no chick flick moments rule.'

Now was an exception.


Three weeks later. . .


Sam tossed one of their many duffel bags into the trunk of the Impala, an easiness about him, his too-tall grace found once more with the tension of worry and denial melted away.

"You sure you don't wanna go with them?" He asked. "They just left yesterday. We could still catch up."

The Rinds had taken their stock cars on the road the day before, leaving Dean and Sam to go without the added burden of goodbye. There had been a certain knowing glint in their eyes as they'd driven off down the long dirt drive, and Sam thought it had something to do with Dean's miraculous recovery. Of course, he couldn’t say for sure, because neither he nor Dean seemed to remember anything about the day Dean woke up from his stupor of sickness.

"No," Dean said. "I can always stay in touch. . ."

Sam leaned back against the car, his arms crossed in front of him, and his feet kicked out to brace his tall frame as he watched Dean run up an down the porch steps, retrieving the bags they'd somehow managed to accumulate in their stay at the ranch. He could watch Dean skip around like that forever. Dean alive was the best Dean, at least in Sam's humble opinion.

"Don’t think so hard. Nothing good has ever come from torturing your brain," Dean said, barely winded as he made his umpteenth trip up the steps. He hadn't just survived his bout with cancer and death. He'd bounced back from it as though it had never happened. Except for the fact that they were somewhere called Ladon, South Dakota, both boys might be inclined to pretend it never had.

"I just still don’t really understand what happened," Sam admitted, shaking his head. Admitting he didn't get something was hard for him to do. "I mean, I pretty much get that it had something to do with that rose quartz. New agers believe rose quartz can heal a person from within by inspiring love of self."

"Oh God," Dean sighed with a roll of his eyes. "Please tell me you're not gonna start doing your Whitney Houston impersonation. Not that you aren't starting to look a little like her," he said, appraising his brother thoughtfully. "Dude, when was the last time you ate?"

Sam laughed. It was so Dean to almost die and then worry about why Sam had lost so much weight. "Still, what's the connection to dragons? Thunderbirds?"

"You said it yourself," Dean explained, stuffing a few more satchels into the trunk before slamming it shut and opening the rear doors to throw more into the backseat, "thunderbirds are the New World equivalent of dragons. And dragons have been known to have healing powers. . .or at least believed to."

"But we never actually found any dragon, no thunderbird either, for that matter. Just that rock that happened to be called Dragon's Heart."

"We don't know we haven't met any thunderbirds, Sam. In all that reading you did over the past months, you didn't happen to catch the part about thunderbirds being able to take human form and walk among us?"

Sam looked at him indifferently. "Yeah, I read that, but how would we know? I don't think there's an acid test for thunderbirds."

Dean looked at him from under furrowed brows, "You really didn't catch it?"

"Catch what?"

"And you were supposed to be the brainiac in the family," Dean snickered, slamming the rear door behind the last of their belongings.

"What?" Sam asked exasperatedly.

"Dru, and Beth Rind, Sammy. . ." When he still was met with just a blank stare, Dean continued. "I thought you geek types latched onto anagrams like HTML code. Dru and Beth Rind. Just rearrange the letters, geek boy."

Sam's brow furrowed as he thought for another moment. Then realization dawned on him, and his face contorted into silly embarrassment. "THUNDERBIRD! God, I don’t know how I missed that."

"Thunderbirds are like dragons, Sam, and dragons are like reapers. They only appear to the ones who need them."

"So you knew. That day in the shop when you tried to tell me something. . ."

Dean just shrugged and walked over to the driver's side door, gesturing for Sam to get in.

"So, where to?" Sam asked, folding into the passenger seat.

"Oh, I don't know," Dean said, a sparkle to his eyes that Sam hadn't seen in. . .well, that Sam had never seen as far as he could remember. "Thinking I'm gonna explore my options."

"Options?" Sam asked. "Like what? School? Music? Cars?"

"Hmmm, maybe, maybe, and maybe," Dean answered. "Or. . . we could do something else entirely."

"Like what?"

"Well, people might be interested in what we do, and we probably have a lot of stuff we could teach 'em. I was thinking we could write maybe write down our little escapades. Like our memoirs or something. Get 'em published. . ."

"Yeah, only you have to be dead or famous for anyone to care about reading your memoirs, Dean."

"So, we write them as fiction and just change the relevant names."

Sam smirked at his brother, unable to tell if he was actually serious. "'Kay, but I get to be Joe, and you get to be Frank. Oh, and we'll end every chapter with a cliffhanger to keep people reading."

"Oh, HELL no!" Dean snapped. "The minute my life turns into a formula Hardy Boys story, I want you to just shoot me, okay. And use the good bullets, the hollow points. Make sure I'm good and dead! We are soooo much more interesting and complicated than those wannabe sleuths."

"Yeah, but think about it. Two brothers, an absentee father, mysterious goings on, a dead girlfriend, no mother in the picture; it's the story of our lives. Just change all the Frank and Joes to Dean and Sams. . ."

"Hmmph. Wouldn’t surprise me if someone hasn't done that already. We gotta be more original than that."

"We could do Melrose Winchesters," Sam said laughingly. "Nothing but soap opera emo and chick flick moments."

Dean's eyes lit up, and again, Sam wasn't sure if he was being serious, because this new light in Dean's eyes was something he wasn't quite used to interpreting just yet. "Ohhhhh, yeah that's perfect. And like, one story will be you nearly dying, and the next will be me, cuz you know these people actually keep scorecards when they read this stuff. And we won't even actually need to have a plot or anything. Nothing but chick flick moments all the time." He turned to look out the windshield as he started the engine. "And! Hey! We could like write us a couple of chicks to ride in the backseat and keep us company on those dark, lonely nights," he said, raising his eyebrows suggestively as he bit on his lower lip.

"Yeah, well then we'd have to write in separate motel rooms and explain how we can afford THAT!"

"What we couldn't have sex with another couple in the room?" Dean teased.

Sam feigned disgust. "Oh, and next you'll be slashing us."

"Slashing? As in gay porn with plot?" Dean's face was laughing out loud even as he fought to feign sincerity. "Dude, that would be funny as hell!"

"No, Dude," Sam corrected, face contorted with repulsion, "that would be incest!"

Dean pumped his eyebrows up and down a couple of times, looking at Sam through the corner of his lids. "Not incest. . . Wincest!" He said triumphantly.

"Whatever, dude," Sam chuckled. "I ain't writing it."

"Who said you'd be writing it, anyway?" Dean asked.

"Well, it would only seem right. After all, you may have scored higher on the math SAT's than I did, but I still kicked your ass on the verbal."

"Which means what, exactly, that you can string together enough arbitrary syllables to confuse, obfuscate, and inveigle a military think tank?" Dean snarked. "Honestly, dude, what's the point of being able to use words no one else understands, anyway?"

Sam opened his mouth to reply jokingly, but he caught a glimpse in the rearview mirror that caused his jaw to snap shut. "Dean," he said, pointing into the mirror as they paused at the end of the drive to check for traffic.

"What?"

Dean looked into the mirror, blinked a few times, and looked back at the road ahead of them. "Only see 'em if you need 'em, Sam," he reminded nonchalantly.

And neither commented on the fact that the Rind ranch had disappeared from the horizon, leaving only a flat, dusty landscape behind as well as ahead of them. It didn't matter what was behind them.

Life was ahead. And that was the right choice.

THE END


A/N: So there it is. I think I finished this in September of 2006, which makes it almost three years old. I know I started it in April, so it’s an oldie but a goodie, I think. I’m well aware there are things in this story that have since cropped up in other stories. Guitar!Dean, Dean who got accepted to college and never told anyone, blah, blah, blah (in fact, I’ve seen one or two stories I would consider to be blatant rip-offs, but we’ll just call it imitation as a form of flattery and leave it at that, a’ight?) Anyway, now you all have a working link for the story, and for those of you who’ve never read it before, I hope you’re not too disappointed.


For those of you who missed it, the Rind family names were all the names of powerful mythical birds or dragons, and the names Dru, Beth, Rind was an anagram for Thunderbird.

This is a nice ending isn'it? I think that's the reason I don't write much canon-based SPN fic anymore. In my head the story is over, and I don't like to go back and mess with their happy ending. *wistful sigh*

Comments

[angels3.livejournal.com]

This was such an awesome story. I remember reading it the first time and bawling my way through half of it.

Loved it then and still do.

[tru-faith-lost.livejournal.com]

LOL, I haven't even finished posting it, dork! I'm glad you like it though. I have reservations about reposting it, but, as I was going to say in the Author Notes at the beginning, I feel even weirder about everyone sending me their email addresses so they can get a copy. I figured it would just be easier on everyone if they had a working copy online.

You're awesome. *glomp*

[angels3.livejournal.com]

Well you're the one that started posting backwards so who are you calling a dork, dork!!!!!!

Duhhh that goes without saying. Should I mention there are others you should be reposting as well, or should I duck the frying pan you just threw at my head. :) *giggles and runs*

[tru-faith-lost.livejournal.com]

Haha, well, I discovered if I post it in reverse, I have the chapter link for the next chapter already and don't have to go back and edit it in. Makes life much easier. Plus, if people click on the tag for the story, the first chapter will be at the top instead of the last one. I'm all about simplicity, because I'm lazy.

Um, there might be one or two of my old stories posted in here under the clutter, but I don't honestly know if I could be coerced into posting them. They might be better off as original fiction or just forgotten. :P

[angels3.livejournal.com]

Makes sense and I'm like you the easier it makes my life the better.

I think you're way to hard on youself and your stories. People love them for a reason, don't let self doubt keep you and others from enjoying them.

[paleogymnast.livejournal.com]

I am so glad you reposted this, 'cause this is definitely one of my all-time favorite fics. Your writing is great in this because it is so vivid and moving. You suck the reader into the story so thorgoughly it is hard to find anything to technically critique because once you're sucked in you just can't pull yourself back out. This story grabs you and runs with you.

The heartbreak of Dean's recollection of winning the award and then piece by peice giving up his hopes of a future until there was none left except for his family, but nothing for himself... reading it makes me ache inside. You've just captured the desperation and walking tragedy and potential and goodness and purity that is Dean so perfectly.

So, thank you so very much for posting this again!! I am really glad I took the time to reread it!! *sniff* Makes me cry every time!! :D

[deanbean08.livejournal.com]

Great story :D
I am so glad you reposted it :)

[justannanow.livejournal.com]

How the hell did I miss this the first time out? This was so so good! You even got my crying here. This one is so going onto my hard drive just in case you decide to get rid of it again.

[jellicle.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna re-read Living Out Loud! I love this fic so much! Hugs!

[ala-tariel.livejournal.com]

Oh my! You are H.T. Marie! YAY! You are one of my favorite authors and I know you from FF Net. And I read this story the first time there. Strangely though, I can't find the story there now.

Anyway, my sis told me about you -- your LJ username -- and she said that you are actually H.T. Marie. Really? Because, your fics in LJ somewhat very different from FF Net. Hope you are not angry with me because of this.

And then, my sis told me further that she friended you and you friended her back. And furthermore, she said that you made a comment for one of her stories. You know she was like walking in the moon that time. :D

And now, you posted this story. I haven't saved it yet. But I will and I will re-read the story.

Oh BTW, perhaps you know my sis, she's known as i_o_r_h_a_e_l. :D

Thank you for writing such beautiful stories. ♥

[tru-faith-lost.livejournal.com]

Aww, you're so sweet. Yes, I am H.T. Marie, and this story isn't on ff.net anymore, because when I set my mind to moving to LJ, I pulled everything I had over there. It was a hard decision, but I don't regret. Like you said, my stories here are a lot different. I like to think they're better than what I had up over there, but that's my opinion. LOL.

Now, I do have some stories up, because they're not the kind of thing I usually write anymore or because they're for people who mostly read over there. I hate to admit that I really don't check over there very often and usually don't even get around to replying to comments and such. But people keep asking me about this story, so I put it back up, here, where I can just hide it by setting to private if I don't want it to be seen rather than deleting it along with all the comments and then having to repost. I don't plan to do that, but it is way more convenient here.

I'm glad you like this story, and I love your sister. She's a doll, too. I wish I had time to comment on all of her stories, but I really don't read very much. I know that makes me a bad friend. :(

You're welcome, and thank you. *squish*

[ala-tariel.livejournal.com]

From what I heard, you are not a bad friend at all. I don't read all her stories either. :D

And I understand perfectly for you moving your stories from FF. I guess I can thank God because I already saved most of your older stories. Phewwww....

[i-o-r-h-a-e-l.livejournal.com]

Right! I think I knew this story. :) I'm glad you re-posted it. I will put it in my cell and read it veeery slowly. :D

[tcs1121.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad I got to read this. This was an amazing piece of writing. It broke me in so many ways. Really, really well done. Thank you so much for sharing this with the SPN Community.