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ht_murrayTitle: Sons of Eden
Authors: tru_faith_lost and 3rd_leg aka H.T. Marie and Tracer2032
Characters/Pairings:Dean, Sam, Bobby, CRD, no pairings
Rating:PG-13 for language
Warnings: Language, spoilers for all of season 2 if you haven’t seen it. ~5500Summary: Dean Winchester usually oscillates between “thrown up against a wall,” and “traumatic electrocution,” but he’s been stuck somewhere around “kidnapped and tortured by inbred hillbillies.” Post AHBL2.
Disclaimer: They own us, not the other way around, so we’re doomed to be poor forever. And the entire first paragraph is one long run-on sentence through no fault of any grammar teacher either of us has ever had. This story is the first in what we hope to make a series about all the things they do for the first time in the next year. It’s a series of oneshots, which means each part is complete, so it’s not a WIP in for those who have a phobia of such. It’s set in Season 3 of Supernatural, though it’s not our intent to speculate on the mytharc of the show, just to write a bunch of those scenes that you watch over and over again on your VCR.It’s entirely subtext and subplot.That’s not to say we won’t be inspired to speculate once the season is underway.
A/N2:We tend to use songs in our fics. This one contains Dirty Little Secret by Sarah McLachlan, The Line, by Sarah McLachlan, and Wanted Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi.
Verse: Last First Times(I)
Sons of Eden
May 12, 2007
If I had the chance, I would not hesitate, to tell you all the things I never said before, don’t tell me it’s too late.-Dirty Little Secret, Sarah McLachlan
The Dean Winchester Dial-o-Doom, which Sam reads betweens the lines at the corners of his brother’s eyes, usually oscillates between "thrown up against a wall," and "traumatic electrocution," but it’s been stuck somewhere around "kidnapped and tortured by inbred hillbillies" since Sam opened his eyes, gasping for breath on a bare mattress in Cold Oak, South Dakota.
Dean’s been sleeping, or passed out, comatose, unconscious, for almost thirty-six hours, doing just enough sleep walking, sleep talking, and sleep eating to maintain a heartbeat, and Sam’s starting to wonder if it’s more than just exhaustion.
He’s got nothing concrete to go by, what with the whole being dead and all, but best he can figure by the date on his watch, it’s been one week since they pulled into the all night diner and Sam went in with a mental Post-it note to get extra onions and pie. He‘s really only sure of two things at this point: he woke up in Cold Oak for the second time three days ago, and Dean looks like shit. Doing the math, he figures Dean didn’t sleep a wink the entire four days in between, and no, floating in a drunken haze does not count.
So, the Demon’s finally dead, and instead of partying and getting on with their lives, Dean sleeps, and Sam waits.
Useless demonic texts sprawl across the table in Bobby’s kitchen as Sam’s long legs twist uncomfortably around the ancient oak pedestal. He runs a hand over his face and through his hair, clenching and unclenching like he’s squeezing his last ounce of concentration out the roots.
There’s only so much waiting he can stand.
He’s trying. He is. He’s trying not to be angry, trying not to be desperate, trying not to be Freaked. The fuck. Out.
He slams the last volume shut and pushes his chair out from the table, windmilling his jacket up off the back as he stands and heads for the door. The old Sam might have had time to wade through volumes of obsolete scribbling. That Sam spent a little too much time dead, he thinks. This one feels the need for a more hands-on approach.
Luke Skywalker had to chop off his own head before he got it. Sam had to get stabbed in the back, but he gets it now. He does.
Next time he won’t leave the knife.
Cause I’ve relied on my illusions, to keep me warm at night.
It’s barely morning, still dark and hazy, a little chilly, but Sam doesn’t notice the chill. He’s been colder.
He grimaces and drops the half-smoked cigarette to the ground, snuffs it under his boot heel. He doesn’t really know what made him light it in the first place. Just a nagging wonder that plays backup to the zing of impatience in his veins.
Jake’s blood splattered across his cheeks hadn’t felt any different than Wandell’s on his hands. He wonders what else Meg taught his body that it might have just remembered.
He’s a little glad the cigarette tastes like shit and grins sardonically as it dies out.
Waiting still makes him want to throttle something, though. Luckily, he doesn’t have to wait long.
I’ve denied in my capacity to love.
She slinks up to him, a brief flash of red in the irises of her eyes before they settle into their human shade. She makes it all the way to the edge of the circle and stops, hand on hip, and examines the expensive manicure her host probably paid a pretty penny for.
"I wondered when I’d be hearing from you," she sighs bemusedly. She kicks dirt over the salt. "You don’t really think this will hold me?"
"Not really my intent," Sam says, leaning back to admire his handiwork.
She follows his eyes and shakes her head, blows a strand of hair away from her freshly applied lipstick with a huff. "Truth spell. Nifty trick, kid."
"Well, I did learn from the best."
"Ah, yes, Dean," she grins with sentimental twinkle in her eyes. "Some kisser that boy. Best I’ve had in a good thousand years."
Sam clears his throat and looks away, because he knows she can’t lie from where she’s standing, and really, that last bit was maybe more than he wanted to know.
"So whattaya want to know, Sammy? Wanna make a deal?"
"No." He doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t say "Hell, no," or list the reasons why that would just be screwed. Doesn’t say he knows she’d give him less time than Dean and take more than a little pleasure in volleying the two back and forth if it came down to it so they’re both dead tomorrow morning them instead of one of them next year. Sam’s not going to play that game.
"I want to know the terms of the deal you made with my brother."
A dry laugh, and she saunters around her perimeter, long legs stretching, painted pink by the rising sun. "Don’t trust him to give you the 411 himself, eh?"
"Not the point. Just doing a little fact checking."
"Fine," she quirks, "I have nothing to hide. I gave him one year in exchange for bringing you back. In one year his soul is mine, and don’t think I’ll forget. I never do."
Sam leans back against the hood of the car, arms crossed, and pretends to be profoundly interested in the toe of his boot, but he’s too slow to hide the twitch of his eye and the too-bright gleam behind his lashes.
"He asked for more, if that makes you feel any better," she offers.
It does.
"It’s a whole year, though. Right? He gets the year, and then you come for him.
There’s not some hidden clause that says he spends the next twelve months comatose, or…" he shakes his head and shrugs, hands deep in the pockets of his jeans, "I dunno, suffering somehow? Insane?"
She raises her eyebrows and pouts with a half-hearted stomp of her foot. "Ooh," she says. "Now, why didn’t I think of that?" She cocks her head sympathetically, the way a bird sympathizes with the worm as it struggles out if its hole just before he eats it. "Whatsa matter, little brother? Feeling a little protective of your big bro? Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it? No worries, though. I’m sure Dean will be back to his old sexass self just as soon as he’s done sleeping off the last couple decades."
Sam knows she can’t lie, but that doesn’t mean she’ll tell the whole truth without being asked. "So, what’s the catch?"
"What makes you think there’s a…"
"Just answer the question."
"Mmm, I like a man who takes charge." She pauses on the edge of the circle, mouth slightly open, and Sam can see her tongue writhing behind the flush of her lips like she expects him to lean in and kiss her. When he doesn’t, she shrugs, and leans back. "No catch really. Just your standard, iron-clad, no escape, no surrender, straight-up trade. His soul for your life." She half-turns distractedly, then snaps back. "Oh, and of course there’s the part where, if he even tries to get out of paying, the deal is off."
Sam drops his head, jaw working open in a crooked sneersnarlchuckle that twists his raised eyebrows into a comical/hysterical expression while he rubs the back of his neck. The flush of his cheeks could be as much flirtation as rage, and he hates that she gets this much of a rise out of him.
"What if he doesn’t break it? What if I do?"
"Awww. You college boys are Just. So. Cuuute," she coos. She looks like she wants to push on his nose. "Semantics. You think you’ve got such a command of the language, trade analogies and puns like STDs. So clever. But my kind’s been twisting words for millennia. It’s what we do. So lemme give it to you straight, amateur."
All trace of humor vanishes from her features, and her cheeks slacken abruptly as the fake smile she’s been sporting vanishes like a shadow under a door.
"The deal is all or nothing. No loopholes, no get out of Hell free cards. One year, and then it’s ‘go to Hell, go directly to Hell, do no to pass go…’"
"Do not collect two hundred dollars," Sam finishes. He falls silent, the weight of the truth heavier than he’s prepared to carry.
She sighs. "Don’t look so glum, kid. ‘Lot can happen in a year. You could both get hit by a truck… Oh wait, that’s sooo last year. Lemme cheer you up. Ask me something else. Must be some little selfish part of you that wants to know what’s in store for you."
And ain’t that the sixty-four thousand dollar question?
"Did I come back wrong?" It’s almost a whisper, a cough of emotion he tries to make small when it’s looming on an overhead projector screen in his mind.
She studies him quietly, her face impossible to read. "Honestly?"
He nods.
"The truth is, you don’t want to know."
"Doesn’t mean I don’t need to."
She sighs and goes back to studying her nails. "Wrong is such a loose term, dontcha think?" She raises her shoulders and splays her hands out to the sides. "It’s really all just relative."
"Stop waffling," he growls, stepping closer to the perimeter. The candles are starting to flicker as the last sacred wax wicks away and burns like the first day of the life that just ended. Once they go out, the spell will be broken, and he still has answers to get.
"Seriously, Sam, it’s all a matter of perspective. Let’s take you and me, for instance," she explains. "You think we demons are evil SOBs, about as wrong as anything can be. From where we stand, we’re the ones who’ve been wronged. We walked the earth for eons before your kind. We were first. Then along came Man, and you were all just so cute and cuddly in your pathetic mortality that you became the favorites. From our perspective, it’s wrong on so many levels that Man gets domain over the earth while we are forced to steal, kill, and destroy just to get a piece of what should have been our birthright. It’s wrong that we have to defile ourselves before the puling runts of the litter."
"Stop proselytizing and answer my question. Did I come back wrong?"
"Oh, Sammy, I just did. But then, you’ve never been a very good listener." She reaches over the salt, apparently oblivious to the burn and grasps him by the jaw, drags him inside with her, and gazes down her nose into his eyes. "Perspective, Sam. You didn’t come back wrong. You’ve just got a different perspective. A whole new set of eyes. You should count your blessings." She releases his jaw, glances at the track through the salt that his foot made, but doesn’t try to escape. "Right, wrong, up, down-it’s all semantics. You question yourself, and should. It’s in your nature. After all, You’re. Only. Human."
Only human. She says it like it’s the answer to every riddle he’s ever asked.
"Am I going to turn evil?"
She rolls her eyes. "How should I know? I was born a demon. You’re a Son of Adam...or, in your case, Son of Eve. You’ve tasted the fruit. I haven’t." She shakes her head and saunters to the far edge of the circle. "I’ve played nice, here, Sam. Answered all your little questions. Now, here’s a word of advice, because I gotta admire your ballsiness. Stop looking for someone to tell you the truth. You’ve got good instincts. That’s what you all die for, and none of you appreciate it. Pathetic, really. No wonder we demons have no respect forMan."
He nods, too aware of the hot swirls of smoke streaming up from the extinguished candle wicks. "Why only a year?" He asks, almost an afterthought. "You offered him ten the last time. What’s changed since then?"
She squares her shoulders and cocks a hip provocatively. "Picked the wrong body, I guess. PMS is a bitch."
He chuckles dryly. "Guess that means the spell’s worn off. You can go," he dismisses and goes back to leaning against the car.
She saunters up to him slowly and rubs her hands over the plane of his chest, fisting in his jacket as she draws him close. He doesn’t even take his hands from his pockets, just meets her gaze without so much as a blink.
"How do you know I won’t just kill you?" She asks.
"You won’t. No fun in it for you since I have nothing left to lose."
"If you believe that, then you haven’t heard a word I just said."
He almost kisses her, just for the hell of it, but she’s gone before he gets the chance.
But I am willing to give up this fight.
"Find what you were looking for?"
Sam can tell Bobby’s pissed by the way the skillet crashes atop the burner.
"How’d you know?"
Bobby cracks a dozen eggs before he answers, not bothering to fish out the bits of shell that fall into the pan when he gets a little overzealous in his egg-bashing. Sam remembers that it hadn’t really been Bobby’s shotgun that had run Dad off the property all those years ago.
"What? You were gonna tell me you just ran out to the stop ‘n rob for some sulfur flavored cigarettes at the ass crack of dawn? Give an old man a little credit, boy."
Sam doesn’t know whether to laugh or sigh, and he’s not really in the mood to explain himself, not when there’s so little about him he feels capable of explaining anymore. "Could you keep it down? I mean, Dean’s…"
"In the shower, and he’s gonna be down for breakfast in another twenty minutes, so spill it and then change out of those stinking clothes."
Sam chuckles a little to himself, relieved that Dean’s up, but mostly amused at the realization that his ability to converse with demons most likely came from dealing with blunt characters like Bobby. Grumpy old men give demons a bad name.
Sam shrugs, purses his lips, and drags a chair out from under the table, falling into it with his legs sprawled obscenely. "I found a lot, but not really what I was looking for."
"You didn’t…?"
"Make a deal?" Sam drums his fingers on the seat of the chair between his open thighs and chews at the corner of his lip. His eyes squint thoughtfully as he shakes his head. "No. Just did a little research."
The skillet scrapes across the burner grate as Bobby pretends to focus on the scrambling of the eggs, but Sam sees his eyes dart hopefully in his direction. "And what did you find? Any loopholes we can wriggle through?"
"No."
"I was afraid of that." Bobby turns down the fire and stirs the eggs one more time before setting the spatula aside and turning to Sam. "So, I suppose now would be a bad time to mention that my phone’s ringing off the hook. I know you boys got a lot to deal with, but all hell’s breaking loose out there, and I could use a few experts in the field. There aren’t as many of us fighting the good fight these days. Besides, who knows? Might find something out there to help figure this bitch out."
"Yeah. At this point, I think anything’s better than sitting on our thumbs. I just don’t really know what Dean wants. He says he wants to get back in this thing, but that’s necessity more than anything. He’d never say if there was something he wanted to do, you know, just for himself. And I don’t know how to ask without sounding like I’m asking him to find a lawyer and draw up a will. I’m not ready to give up on this thing, but I don’t want to make the same mistakes Dad did. Go off all hell-bent driven and miss the opportunity to give something back once in awhile before there’s just not enough left to give."
"Well, you’ve always been a great speaker, Sam, never much of a listener."
Sam opens his mouth to argue, eyebrows quirked, but all that comes out is, "Christo." And of course Bobby doesn’t flinch, because the demon was telling the truth, and so is he. How can Sam argue that? Instead, he slumps back in his chair and goes back to chewing on his lip.
Something itches on the horizon of his farscape memory, like a ripple of sunlight on the surface of the water. Lake water. He sits up straight. "Hey, Bobby?"
"Yeah?"
"You said the phone’s ringing off the hook? So, there’s demonic activity going on all over the place, then, right?"
Bobby nods, running his hand over his beard and clearing his throat in contemplation. "Pretty much. And, of course, they’re all top priority, so you pretty much got your pick at this point."
Sam grins slowly, an urgency working its way up his spine and through to his fingertips. He’s already clawing at the buttons of his shirt, eager to change out of his clothes and be back before Dean comes down for breakfast.
"You got anything in Arizona?"
And he’s already kicked off his shoes before Bobby can answer.
May 22, 2007
If it takes my whole life, I won’t break, I won’t bend, and it will all be worth it, worth it in the end.-The Line, Sarah McLachlan
They’re somewhere in Colorado. Estes Park is the last thing of mention in the rearview mirror, when Sam’s plan goes from black and white to Technicolor with a choke and a splutter.
"Dean!" Sam’s off his stool, on his feet, and at his brother’s side in a flash. He’s already kicking himself for being such an ass as Dean wheezes and gasps, shoulders hunched over the counter top and a half-empty bowl of Froot Loops.
Sam doesn’t know how it got to this point. One second they were sitting at the counter of Elmo’s Backwoods Grease Trap, Dean bitching because Elmo was late, and all they could get was cold cereal (not even Lucky Charms) and toast instead of their usual sausage and eggs. The next, Dean was suffocating, sucking for oxygen like a mastodon in the tar pits.
Kids, Sam decides, are really little demons in disguise. The one who’s done this to his brother looks like an innocent little girl, all pigtails and pink bows, far too cheery for that hour of the morning-an Acheri, without a doubt.
"Dean? Just relax and breathe," Sam says, glaring at the child in question as he reaches around his brother’s back, grasps his chin in his hand, and grimaces at the stringers of white mucous that coat his fingers. He wipes his hand on his jeans and resolves to just thumping Dean’s back between the ridges of his shoulder blades.
"Don’t look at her like that," the girl’s mother pipes in. "She only asked if you were Bigfoot. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard that before. Look at you. It was an obvious question for a kid to ask. You’re the one that said your feet were proportionate to the rest of your body," she accuses with a scowl, finger waggling in his face. "Not her fault your friend’s got a dirty mind." She covers the child’s ears before adding, "Perverts."
And so much for Sam’s way with words. Apparently, he gets demonspeak way better than kidspeak, and all his suave charm goes right out the window in the face of true innocence. He flushes bright red as he pats Dean on the back. He’s embarrassed to admit he only now gets the joke. Maybe the kid’s mother is more a pervert than he, but that’s not really the issue.
The point is, one second Dean was eating his Fruit Loops and bitching, and the next there was milk coming out of his nose. Out. Of. His. Nose. And it’s so friggin’ wrong, Sam can’t even begin to put it into perspective, new or old.
He’s not a moron. People gush milk out their noses all the time in America. It’s just, well, for such a thing to occur, both milk and laughter need to be present in fairly large portions. Honestly, Sam can’t remember milk ever gushing in his presence. The only context he knows for milk is a dribble in the bottom of a sour-smelling carton that’s three days past the expiration date because they’ve been trying to make it last. No, milk and laughter is not a familiar pairing in Winchesterdom.
Now that he thinks about it, laughter and Dean is even more uncommon an occurrence. One for the books, he thinks.
Dean’s the one with the smart mouth, the odd, snarky puns and jibes laden with sexual innuendo. He’s the one who inspires laughter, not the one who chokes on it. Which is why, when Sam should be leaning back and enjoying the sight of his big brother blowing snot all over the countertop, maybe snapping a few pics on his camera phone, he’s freaking out, and smacking Dean frantically on the back (like that ever works.)
The worst part is, when Dean finally breathes again, or at least wheezes in enough air to actually vibrate his vocal chords, he doesn’t thank Sam for being concerned. Instead, Dean shrugs his jacket on straight, leans down eyeball-to-eyeball with the meddlesome kid, and winks, body still convulsing with barely contained coughs. With a slightly slimy grin, he says, "Why d’ya think he always wears those baggy jeans?"
Sam almost misses that one, too, but when the mother huffs in mock horror and slides off her stool to stomp out, the back of her skirt is snagged in her pantyhose, and she’s not wearing any underwear. He’s glad he’s not eating, or he’d have milk coming out of his nose, too.
As he wipes laugh-tears from his eyes and shoves Dean half off his stool for A) freaking him out, and B) making lewd comments about him to small children, he realizes…normal people laugh hard enough to shoot milk out their noses. They’re the same Sam and Dean that walked into the diner twenty minutes ago, only now they’re normal, too, and he can’t quite figure how that happened, because normal is supposed to be hard for them. Right now, he’s not even trying, and that makes no sense.
He hasn’t been on the lookout for normal in quite a while now, but it’s snuck up on him somehow. Right here and now, there’s nothing wrong with Sam and nothing wrong with Dean, no destiny and no debt. It’s the first time Sam’s felt right since Cold Oak, hell, since Lawrence, Kansas, 1983.
He hopes it’s not the last.
May 28, 2007
I can only tell you what I know, that I need you in my life...
A couple weeks, two ghosts, a black dog, and a cattle mutilation that turns out to be coyotes later, they’re still not quite to Arizona. Sam’s Colorado epiphany has already twisted into a hazy kaleidoscope of colorful thoughts and good intentions that don’t really gel with right here and right the fuck now. He finds it hard to concentrate on warm, fuzzy feelings of brotherly love and companionship while burning down an endless highway with the same guitar riffs twanging against that invisible sounding board creasing the stretch of forehead between his eyes.
For some reason, "Wanted Dead or Alive," by Bon Jovi has been playing back-to-back for the last fifty miles. Sam knows it’s the only song on the tape. He figures it’s Dean’s new fuck the world anthem, replacing AC/DC’s Highway to Hell which lost its appeal after they’d actually seen Hell. Sam wouldn’t be surprised if that tape isn’t lying on the side of the road somewhere with its little ribbon guts blowing in the breeze.
Sam’s had as much of the repetition as he can take when he reaches for the knob to turn the damned thing off, but when his hand actually tightens around it, he realizes the next part of the song is his favorite part and lets it play a little longer. He’s listened to half the next verse, really listened to it for the first time in the last twenty miles, when he realizes he loves this fucking song.
He sees Dean eyeing him, just waiting for Sam to switch the tape deck off so he can come back with his patented, "shotgun shuts his cakehole," remark. Sam almost turns it off, just on the principle of the thing, but instead he wonders, "whose principle is that?" Finally, he turns the volume all the way up, takes a deep breath, and sings, "I’m a cowboy..."
That principle, he figures, is one of those things that should probably stay dead.
Dean looks at him for a minute and opens his mouth for what Sam is sure will be a diagnostic "Christo," but then he smiles, honest-to-God grins from ear-to-ear, tosses his head back and yells, "Wanted, dead or alive."
They finish the song together, head banging, and stroking the dashboard every time they sing, "steel horse I ride." Dean takes the higher echo parts while Sam belts out the chorus. It’s not exactly the Nelson twins, but they do a passable job, and they both flip off the state trooper that’s parked behind a Grand Canyon National Park billboard when they fly by at what they know is way over the speed limit.
The moment lasts longer than it should, what with half of Hell walking earth, Dean’s hourglass dribbling sand, and the FBI still breathing down their necks. They make a valiant effort to stretch it out, though, grinning and laughing through the brief pause as the tape reverses, but when they both stumble on the line that says, "I’d drive all night just to get back home," they know it’s a lost cause.
Still, Sam doesn’t miss that flicker in the back of his mind that’s been searching for dry kindling sinceColorado. It’s the first time Sam’s done something he knows he should hate and ended up feeling more normal than he ever had denying it. Ava was right. It’s amazing the switches that start flipping in your head once you give yourself up to what you are.
He’s only human, after all.
May 29, 2007
… and when the stars have all gone out, you’ll still be burning so bright.
Things are different between them when they finally reach their destination. Sam’s driving for one, figures he’s driven a good quarter of the distance they’ve traveled since leaving Bobby’s, and that’s way more than average. He’s not complaining, though, more than happy to let Dean sleep, his head lolling against the passenger side window.
Besides, that makes it easier to surprise him.
Sam thinks his plan is ruined when the park ranger stops them and manages to get a few raps of his flashlight against the window glass before Sam can get it rolled down. He can’t help but wonder if there are FBI wanted posters with their pictures on them tacked onto cork board somewhere inside the ranger station as the ranger reaches inside his vest before leaning closer.
Sam shifts nervously, and says, "No disrespect, uh, Sir, but the sun’s about to come up, and well, my brother’s…sick," he lies. "He said he wanted to see this, and I’m trying to surprise him. Can’t we just go by?"
He never finds out why they got stopped in the first place. The ranger takes one look at Dean, snoring softly with little stringers of drool dripping onto his leather jacket, and Sam, wracked with nervous energy, and waves them through.
Sam has half a mind to pat himself on the back, Luke Skywalker, eat your heart out, but it’s only half a lie, really, and that’s got Sam sweating over the truth moreso than the lack thereof. Lying is normal for them, but necessary. Truth is not as welcome as he’d once thought it would be.
Cast me gently, into morning, for the night has been unkind.
Dean’s still asleep when Sam drives up as close to the rim as the cordons will allow and gets out. He’s a little afraid that the lack of vibration will wake Dean, so he leaves the engine idling and climbs up onto the hood to wait for the sun. He reaches inside his jacket, and his ears imagine the crinkle of cellophane, his fingers the crush of a pack of cigarettes beneath them, but it’s the leather-bound journal he bought in South Dakota that he takes out.
He smoothes his hand over the folding skin, already aging despite the care he takes when opening and turning the pages. Dean doesn’t know it exists, and Sam only knows it was an impulse and couldn’t not buy it. And now, the impulse is writing---he has to write, who else would know these last first times brothers shared? Sam wonders if he could ever forget them.
May 28, 2007
The first time Dean sees the Grand Canyon isn’t going to be the last thing he ever does. There’s time for a whole lot more firsts in the next year, and none of them are going to be lasts, not if I have anything to say about it.
Take me to a place so holy, that I can wash this from my mind.
Between balancing the penlight in his teeth, the rumble of the engine beneath him, and the scratch of his pen across the paper, Sam almost misses the sun peeking over the edge of the canyon. The creaking of the passenger door draws him out of his introspection with a start, and he half-winces, expecting a sharp cuff to the back of his head when Dean realizes what he’s done.
Instead, Dean leans back inside the car, all the way across the seat, and turns off the key so they are enveloped in what would be silence if there wasn’t such an echo. When he slides back out and shuts his door, the creak and slam bounce across the gorge a few hundred times, bisecting the peaking rays of sunlight before fading into oblivion. So, when Dean clears his throat and swallows whatever has risen inside him, it’s almost lost to the heartbeat echo, but Sam always hears Dean, now. He knows how to listen.
Sam can’t help but grin when Dean leans on the roof of the Impala and looks into the sun, can’t miss the gleam in his eyes the first time his brother sees the Grand Canyon after criss-crossing the country for most of his life. He almost falls for the illusion that he’s watching the whole scene from behind the lens of a camera as light rings form behind Dean’s head and radiate out. He doesn’t stop grinning, though, when he realizes it’s tears and not glass that distort the image. He also doesn’t wipe the tears away.
There’s a beat or two before the shocks groan and the car dips to the right. Dean’s jeans are probably dirty enough by now that they couldn’t scratch the paint if he was wearing steel wool underwear. Sam’s pretty sure Dean’s not thinking about the paint anyway.
They watch the sun come up over the Grand Canyon, just the toes of Dean’s boots visible in the corner of Sam’s vision. Perspectives shift but don’t change altogether, and there’s some comfort in that. Been a long time since they’ve really been comforted by anything but the death sigh of whatever evil they can find to send back to hell.
"So, I really died on you." It’s not a question.
"Yeah." It’s not an answer.
"That sucks." An apology.
"Yeah." Absolution.
But Sam’s not ready to be absolved, anymore than he’s ready give thanks. He wants to be sorry a little longer. After all, he left the knife. And that’s alright, because somehow the pink and orange of sunrise changes vengeance into a labor of love and makes it okay to be driven, because Sam’s driving, not some destiny he didn’t choose.
Around them, half a dozen other cars are parked along the rim, their occupants as still and tired-looking as the brothers, and there’s nothing about any of this that feels wrong. They’ve had to battle their way through hell and death to get here, paid way too much to get a glimpse of normal.
Tomorrow they’ll be the brothers Winchester, kickass demon hunters roaring into the next battle on their steel horse. Today they’re just Sam and Dean, a couple guys on the lip of the Grand Canyon with a dozen regular Joes doing what Americans do on a road trip.
Today they’re normal for the first time together. Every first time is the last first time, but Sam means it when he says it won’t be the last time. Not if he has anything to say about it. And he does. He has lots to say about it. After all, he is human, so he holds all the cards.
And he’s not afraid to play the game anymore.
The memory, of choosing not to fight.-The Line, Sarah McLachlan
The End
A/N: So there you have it. This story is complete, but subsequent installments in this universe will be posted as chapters, so you can put this on alert if you want more.
Feedback inspires us, especially if you leave prompts in the comment box. If you have anything you’d like to see the boys do for the first time, feel free to request it. We already have several planned. I’m still cursing Kripke and Co. for writing the lawnmower scene, though, cuz that’s so something I wish I’d have thought of.
Authors: tru_faith_lost and 3rd_leg aka H.T. Marie and Tracer2032
Characters/Pairings:Dean, Sam, Bobby, CRD, no pairings
Rating:PG-13 for language
Warnings: Language, spoilers for all of season 2 if you haven’t seen it. ~5500Summary: Dean Winchester usually oscillates between “thrown up against a wall,” and “traumatic electrocution,” but he’s been stuck somewhere around “kidnapped and tortured by inbred hillbillies.” Post AHBL2.
Disclaimer: They own us, not the other way around, so we’re doomed to be poor forever. And the entire first paragraph is one long run-on sentence through no fault of any grammar teacher either of us has ever had. This story is the first in what we hope to make a series about all the things they do for the first time in the next year. It’s a series of oneshots, which means each part is complete, so it’s not a WIP in for those who have a phobia of such. It’s set in Season 3 of Supernatural, though it’s not our intent to speculate on the mytharc of the show, just to write a bunch of those scenes that you watch over and over again on your VCR.It’s entirely subtext and subplot.That’s not to say we won’t be inspired to speculate once the season is underway.
A/N2:We tend to use songs in our fics. This one contains Dirty Little Secret by Sarah McLachlan, The Line, by Sarah McLachlan, and Wanted Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi.
Verse: Last First Times(I)
Sons of Eden
May 12, 2007
If I had the chance, I would not hesitate, to tell you all the things I never said before, don’t tell me it’s too late.-Dirty Little Secret, Sarah McLachlan
The Dean Winchester Dial-o-Doom, which Sam reads betweens the lines at the corners of his brother’s eyes, usually oscillates between "thrown up against a wall," and "traumatic electrocution," but it’s been stuck somewhere around "kidnapped and tortured by inbred hillbillies" since Sam opened his eyes, gasping for breath on a bare mattress in Cold Oak, South Dakota.
Dean’s been sleeping, or passed out, comatose, unconscious, for almost thirty-six hours, doing just enough sleep walking, sleep talking, and sleep eating to maintain a heartbeat, and Sam’s starting to wonder if it’s more than just exhaustion.
He’s got nothing concrete to go by, what with the whole being dead and all, but best he can figure by the date on his watch, it’s been one week since they pulled into the all night diner and Sam went in with a mental Post-it note to get extra onions and pie. He‘s really only sure of two things at this point: he woke up in Cold Oak for the second time three days ago, and Dean looks like shit. Doing the math, he figures Dean didn’t sleep a wink the entire four days in between, and no, floating in a drunken haze does not count.
So, the Demon’s finally dead, and instead of partying and getting on with their lives, Dean sleeps, and Sam waits.
Useless demonic texts sprawl across the table in Bobby’s kitchen as Sam’s long legs twist uncomfortably around the ancient oak pedestal. He runs a hand over his face and through his hair, clenching and unclenching like he’s squeezing his last ounce of concentration out the roots.
There’s only so much waiting he can stand.
He’s trying. He is. He’s trying not to be angry, trying not to be desperate, trying not to be Freaked. The fuck. Out.
He slams the last volume shut and pushes his chair out from the table, windmilling his jacket up off the back as he stands and heads for the door. The old Sam might have had time to wade through volumes of obsolete scribbling. That Sam spent a little too much time dead, he thinks. This one feels the need for a more hands-on approach.
Luke Skywalker had to chop off his own head before he got it. Sam had to get stabbed in the back, but he gets it now. He does.
Next time he won’t leave the knife.
Cause I’ve relied on my illusions, to keep me warm at night.
It’s barely morning, still dark and hazy, a little chilly, but Sam doesn’t notice the chill. He’s been colder.
He grimaces and drops the half-smoked cigarette to the ground, snuffs it under his boot heel. He doesn’t really know what made him light it in the first place. Just a nagging wonder that plays backup to the zing of impatience in his veins.
Jake’s blood splattered across his cheeks hadn’t felt any different than Wandell’s on his hands. He wonders what else Meg taught his body that it might have just remembered.
He’s a little glad the cigarette tastes like shit and grins sardonically as it dies out.
Waiting still makes him want to throttle something, though. Luckily, he doesn’t have to wait long.
I’ve denied in my capacity to love.
She slinks up to him, a brief flash of red in the irises of her eyes before they settle into their human shade. She makes it all the way to the edge of the circle and stops, hand on hip, and examines the expensive manicure her host probably paid a pretty penny for.
"I wondered when I’d be hearing from you," she sighs bemusedly. She kicks dirt over the salt. "You don’t really think this will hold me?"
"Not really my intent," Sam says, leaning back to admire his handiwork.
She follows his eyes and shakes her head, blows a strand of hair away from her freshly applied lipstick with a huff. "Truth spell. Nifty trick, kid."
"Well, I did learn from the best."
"Ah, yes, Dean," she grins with sentimental twinkle in her eyes. "Some kisser that boy. Best I’ve had in a good thousand years."
Sam clears his throat and looks away, because he knows she can’t lie from where she’s standing, and really, that last bit was maybe more than he wanted to know.
"So whattaya want to know, Sammy? Wanna make a deal?"
"No." He doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t say "Hell, no," or list the reasons why that would just be screwed. Doesn’t say he knows she’d give him less time than Dean and take more than a little pleasure in volleying the two back and forth if it came down to it so they’re both dead tomorrow morning them instead of one of them next year. Sam’s not going to play that game.
"I want to know the terms of the deal you made with my brother."
A dry laugh, and she saunters around her perimeter, long legs stretching, painted pink by the rising sun. "Don’t trust him to give you the 411 himself, eh?"
"Not the point. Just doing a little fact checking."
"Fine," she quirks, "I have nothing to hide. I gave him one year in exchange for bringing you back. In one year his soul is mine, and don’t think I’ll forget. I never do."
Sam leans back against the hood of the car, arms crossed, and pretends to be profoundly interested in the toe of his boot, but he’s too slow to hide the twitch of his eye and the too-bright gleam behind his lashes.
"He asked for more, if that makes you feel any better," she offers.
It does.
"It’s a whole year, though. Right? He gets the year, and then you come for him.
There’s not some hidden clause that says he spends the next twelve months comatose, or…" he shakes his head and shrugs, hands deep in the pockets of his jeans, "I dunno, suffering somehow? Insane?"
She raises her eyebrows and pouts with a half-hearted stomp of her foot. "Ooh," she says. "Now, why didn’t I think of that?" She cocks her head sympathetically, the way a bird sympathizes with the worm as it struggles out if its hole just before he eats it. "Whatsa matter, little brother? Feeling a little protective of your big bro? Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it? No worries, though. I’m sure Dean will be back to his old sexass self just as soon as he’s done sleeping off the last couple decades."
Sam knows she can’t lie, but that doesn’t mean she’ll tell the whole truth without being asked. "So, what’s the catch?"
"What makes you think there’s a…"
"Just answer the question."
"Mmm, I like a man who takes charge." She pauses on the edge of the circle, mouth slightly open, and Sam can see her tongue writhing behind the flush of her lips like she expects him to lean in and kiss her. When he doesn’t, she shrugs, and leans back. "No catch really. Just your standard, iron-clad, no escape, no surrender, straight-up trade. His soul for your life." She half-turns distractedly, then snaps back. "Oh, and of course there’s the part where, if he even tries to get out of paying, the deal is off."
Sam drops his head, jaw working open in a crooked sneersnarlchuckle that twists his raised eyebrows into a comical/hysterical expression while he rubs the back of his neck. The flush of his cheeks could be as much flirtation as rage, and he hates that she gets this much of a rise out of him.
"What if he doesn’t break it? What if I do?"
"Awww. You college boys are Just. So. Cuuute," she coos. She looks like she wants to push on his nose. "Semantics. You think you’ve got such a command of the language, trade analogies and puns like STDs. So clever. But my kind’s been twisting words for millennia. It’s what we do. So lemme give it to you straight, amateur."
All trace of humor vanishes from her features, and her cheeks slacken abruptly as the fake smile she’s been sporting vanishes like a shadow under a door.
"The deal is all or nothing. No loopholes, no get out of Hell free cards. One year, and then it’s ‘go to Hell, go directly to Hell, do no to pass go…’"
"Do not collect two hundred dollars," Sam finishes. He falls silent, the weight of the truth heavier than he’s prepared to carry.
She sighs. "Don’t look so glum, kid. ‘Lot can happen in a year. You could both get hit by a truck… Oh wait, that’s sooo last year. Lemme cheer you up. Ask me something else. Must be some little selfish part of you that wants to know what’s in store for you."
And ain’t that the sixty-four thousand dollar question?
"Did I come back wrong?" It’s almost a whisper, a cough of emotion he tries to make small when it’s looming on an overhead projector screen in his mind.
She studies him quietly, her face impossible to read. "Honestly?"
He nods.
"The truth is, you don’t want to know."
"Doesn’t mean I don’t need to."
She sighs and goes back to studying her nails. "Wrong is such a loose term, dontcha think?" She raises her shoulders and splays her hands out to the sides. "It’s really all just relative."
"Stop waffling," he growls, stepping closer to the perimeter. The candles are starting to flicker as the last sacred wax wicks away and burns like the first day of the life that just ended. Once they go out, the spell will be broken, and he still has answers to get.
"Seriously, Sam, it’s all a matter of perspective. Let’s take you and me, for instance," she explains. "You think we demons are evil SOBs, about as wrong as anything can be. From where we stand, we’re the ones who’ve been wronged. We walked the earth for eons before your kind. We were first. Then along came Man, and you were all just so cute and cuddly in your pathetic mortality that you became the favorites. From our perspective, it’s wrong on so many levels that Man gets domain over the earth while we are forced to steal, kill, and destroy just to get a piece of what should have been our birthright. It’s wrong that we have to defile ourselves before the puling runts of the litter."
"Stop proselytizing and answer my question. Did I come back wrong?"
"Oh, Sammy, I just did. But then, you’ve never been a very good listener." She reaches over the salt, apparently oblivious to the burn and grasps him by the jaw, drags him inside with her, and gazes down her nose into his eyes. "Perspective, Sam. You didn’t come back wrong. You’ve just got a different perspective. A whole new set of eyes. You should count your blessings." She releases his jaw, glances at the track through the salt that his foot made, but doesn’t try to escape. "Right, wrong, up, down-it’s all semantics. You question yourself, and should. It’s in your nature. After all, You’re. Only. Human."
Only human. She says it like it’s the answer to every riddle he’s ever asked.
"Am I going to turn evil?"
She rolls her eyes. "How should I know? I was born a demon. You’re a Son of Adam...or, in your case, Son of Eve. You’ve tasted the fruit. I haven’t." She shakes her head and saunters to the far edge of the circle. "I’ve played nice, here, Sam. Answered all your little questions. Now, here’s a word of advice, because I gotta admire your ballsiness. Stop looking for someone to tell you the truth. You’ve got good instincts. That’s what you all die for, and none of you appreciate it. Pathetic, really. No wonder we demons have no respect forMan."
He nods, too aware of the hot swirls of smoke streaming up from the extinguished candle wicks. "Why only a year?" He asks, almost an afterthought. "You offered him ten the last time. What’s changed since then?"
She squares her shoulders and cocks a hip provocatively. "Picked the wrong body, I guess. PMS is a bitch."
He chuckles dryly. "Guess that means the spell’s worn off. You can go," he dismisses and goes back to leaning against the car.
She saunters up to him slowly and rubs her hands over the plane of his chest, fisting in his jacket as she draws him close. He doesn’t even take his hands from his pockets, just meets her gaze without so much as a blink.
"How do you know I won’t just kill you?" She asks.
"You won’t. No fun in it for you since I have nothing left to lose."
"If you believe that, then you haven’t heard a word I just said."
He almost kisses her, just for the hell of it, but she’s gone before he gets the chance.
But I am willing to give up this fight.
"Find what you were looking for?"
Sam can tell Bobby’s pissed by the way the skillet crashes atop the burner.
"How’d you know?"
Bobby cracks a dozen eggs before he answers, not bothering to fish out the bits of shell that fall into the pan when he gets a little overzealous in his egg-bashing. Sam remembers that it hadn’t really been Bobby’s shotgun that had run Dad off the property all those years ago.
"What? You were gonna tell me you just ran out to the stop ‘n rob for some sulfur flavored cigarettes at the ass crack of dawn? Give an old man a little credit, boy."
Sam doesn’t know whether to laugh or sigh, and he’s not really in the mood to explain himself, not when there’s so little about him he feels capable of explaining anymore. "Could you keep it down? I mean, Dean’s…"
"In the shower, and he’s gonna be down for breakfast in another twenty minutes, so spill it and then change out of those stinking clothes."
Sam chuckles a little to himself, relieved that Dean’s up, but mostly amused at the realization that his ability to converse with demons most likely came from dealing with blunt characters like Bobby. Grumpy old men give demons a bad name.
Sam shrugs, purses his lips, and drags a chair out from under the table, falling into it with his legs sprawled obscenely. "I found a lot, but not really what I was looking for."
"You didn’t…?"
"Make a deal?" Sam drums his fingers on the seat of the chair between his open thighs and chews at the corner of his lip. His eyes squint thoughtfully as he shakes his head. "No. Just did a little research."
The skillet scrapes across the burner grate as Bobby pretends to focus on the scrambling of the eggs, but Sam sees his eyes dart hopefully in his direction. "And what did you find? Any loopholes we can wriggle through?"
"No."
"I was afraid of that." Bobby turns down the fire and stirs the eggs one more time before setting the spatula aside and turning to Sam. "So, I suppose now would be a bad time to mention that my phone’s ringing off the hook. I know you boys got a lot to deal with, but all hell’s breaking loose out there, and I could use a few experts in the field. There aren’t as many of us fighting the good fight these days. Besides, who knows? Might find something out there to help figure this bitch out."
"Yeah. At this point, I think anything’s better than sitting on our thumbs. I just don’t really know what Dean wants. He says he wants to get back in this thing, but that’s necessity more than anything. He’d never say if there was something he wanted to do, you know, just for himself. And I don’t know how to ask without sounding like I’m asking him to find a lawyer and draw up a will. I’m not ready to give up on this thing, but I don’t want to make the same mistakes Dad did. Go off all hell-bent driven and miss the opportunity to give something back once in awhile before there’s just not enough left to give."
"Well, you’ve always been a great speaker, Sam, never much of a listener."
Sam opens his mouth to argue, eyebrows quirked, but all that comes out is, "Christo." And of course Bobby doesn’t flinch, because the demon was telling the truth, and so is he. How can Sam argue that? Instead, he slumps back in his chair and goes back to chewing on his lip.
Something itches on the horizon of his farscape memory, like a ripple of sunlight on the surface of the water. Lake water. He sits up straight. "Hey, Bobby?"
"Yeah?"
"You said the phone’s ringing off the hook? So, there’s demonic activity going on all over the place, then, right?"
Bobby nods, running his hand over his beard and clearing his throat in contemplation. "Pretty much. And, of course, they’re all top priority, so you pretty much got your pick at this point."
Sam grins slowly, an urgency working its way up his spine and through to his fingertips. He’s already clawing at the buttons of his shirt, eager to change out of his clothes and be back before Dean comes down for breakfast.
"You got anything in Arizona?"
And he’s already kicked off his shoes before Bobby can answer.
May 22, 2007
If it takes my whole life, I won’t break, I won’t bend, and it will all be worth it, worth it in the end.-The Line, Sarah McLachlan
They’re somewhere in Colorado. Estes Park is the last thing of mention in the rearview mirror, when Sam’s plan goes from black and white to Technicolor with a choke and a splutter.
"Dean!" Sam’s off his stool, on his feet, and at his brother’s side in a flash. He’s already kicking himself for being such an ass as Dean wheezes and gasps, shoulders hunched over the counter top and a half-empty bowl of Froot Loops.
Sam doesn’t know how it got to this point. One second they were sitting at the counter of Elmo’s Backwoods Grease Trap, Dean bitching because Elmo was late, and all they could get was cold cereal (not even Lucky Charms) and toast instead of their usual sausage and eggs. The next, Dean was suffocating, sucking for oxygen like a mastodon in the tar pits.
Kids, Sam decides, are really little demons in disguise. The one who’s done this to his brother looks like an innocent little girl, all pigtails and pink bows, far too cheery for that hour of the morning-an Acheri, without a doubt.
"Dean? Just relax and breathe," Sam says, glaring at the child in question as he reaches around his brother’s back, grasps his chin in his hand, and grimaces at the stringers of white mucous that coat his fingers. He wipes his hand on his jeans and resolves to just thumping Dean’s back between the ridges of his shoulder blades.
"Don’t look at her like that," the girl’s mother pipes in. "She only asked if you were Bigfoot. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard that before. Look at you. It was an obvious question for a kid to ask. You’re the one that said your feet were proportionate to the rest of your body," she accuses with a scowl, finger waggling in his face. "Not her fault your friend’s got a dirty mind." She covers the child’s ears before adding, "Perverts."
And so much for Sam’s way with words. Apparently, he gets demonspeak way better than kidspeak, and all his suave charm goes right out the window in the face of true innocence. He flushes bright red as he pats Dean on the back. He’s embarrassed to admit he only now gets the joke. Maybe the kid’s mother is more a pervert than he, but that’s not really the issue.
The point is, one second Dean was eating his Fruit Loops and bitching, and the next there was milk coming out of his nose. Out. Of. His. Nose. And it’s so friggin’ wrong, Sam can’t even begin to put it into perspective, new or old.
He’s not a moron. People gush milk out their noses all the time in America. It’s just, well, for such a thing to occur, both milk and laughter need to be present in fairly large portions. Honestly, Sam can’t remember milk ever gushing in his presence. The only context he knows for milk is a dribble in the bottom of a sour-smelling carton that’s three days past the expiration date because they’ve been trying to make it last. No, milk and laughter is not a familiar pairing in Winchesterdom.
Now that he thinks about it, laughter and Dean is even more uncommon an occurrence. One for the books, he thinks.
Dean’s the one with the smart mouth, the odd, snarky puns and jibes laden with sexual innuendo. He’s the one who inspires laughter, not the one who chokes on it. Which is why, when Sam should be leaning back and enjoying the sight of his big brother blowing snot all over the countertop, maybe snapping a few pics on his camera phone, he’s freaking out, and smacking Dean frantically on the back (like that ever works.)
The worst part is, when Dean finally breathes again, or at least wheezes in enough air to actually vibrate his vocal chords, he doesn’t thank Sam for being concerned. Instead, Dean shrugs his jacket on straight, leans down eyeball-to-eyeball with the meddlesome kid, and winks, body still convulsing with barely contained coughs. With a slightly slimy grin, he says, "Why d’ya think he always wears those baggy jeans?"
Sam almost misses that one, too, but when the mother huffs in mock horror and slides off her stool to stomp out, the back of her skirt is snagged in her pantyhose, and she’s not wearing any underwear. He’s glad he’s not eating, or he’d have milk coming out of his nose, too.
As he wipes laugh-tears from his eyes and shoves Dean half off his stool for A) freaking him out, and B) making lewd comments about him to small children, he realizes…normal people laugh hard enough to shoot milk out their noses. They’re the same Sam and Dean that walked into the diner twenty minutes ago, only now they’re normal, too, and he can’t quite figure how that happened, because normal is supposed to be hard for them. Right now, he’s not even trying, and that makes no sense.
He hasn’t been on the lookout for normal in quite a while now, but it’s snuck up on him somehow. Right here and now, there’s nothing wrong with Sam and nothing wrong with Dean, no destiny and no debt. It’s the first time Sam’s felt right since Cold Oak, hell, since Lawrence, Kansas, 1983.
He hopes it’s not the last.
May 28, 2007
I can only tell you what I know, that I need you in my life...
A couple weeks, two ghosts, a black dog, and a cattle mutilation that turns out to be coyotes later, they’re still not quite to Arizona. Sam’s Colorado epiphany has already twisted into a hazy kaleidoscope of colorful thoughts and good intentions that don’t really gel with right here and right the fuck now. He finds it hard to concentrate on warm, fuzzy feelings of brotherly love and companionship while burning down an endless highway with the same guitar riffs twanging against that invisible sounding board creasing the stretch of forehead between his eyes.
For some reason, "Wanted Dead or Alive," by Bon Jovi has been playing back-to-back for the last fifty miles. Sam knows it’s the only song on the tape. He figures it’s Dean’s new fuck the world anthem, replacing AC/DC’s Highway to Hell which lost its appeal after they’d actually seen Hell. Sam wouldn’t be surprised if that tape isn’t lying on the side of the road somewhere with its little ribbon guts blowing in the breeze.
Sam’s had as much of the repetition as he can take when he reaches for the knob to turn the damned thing off, but when his hand actually tightens around it, he realizes the next part of the song is his favorite part and lets it play a little longer. He’s listened to half the next verse, really listened to it for the first time in the last twenty miles, when he realizes he loves this fucking song.
He sees Dean eyeing him, just waiting for Sam to switch the tape deck off so he can come back with his patented, "shotgun shuts his cakehole," remark. Sam almost turns it off, just on the principle of the thing, but instead he wonders, "whose principle is that?" Finally, he turns the volume all the way up, takes a deep breath, and sings, "I’m a cowboy..."
That principle, he figures, is one of those things that should probably stay dead.
Dean looks at him for a minute and opens his mouth for what Sam is sure will be a diagnostic "Christo," but then he smiles, honest-to-God grins from ear-to-ear, tosses his head back and yells, "Wanted, dead or alive."
They finish the song together, head banging, and stroking the dashboard every time they sing, "steel horse I ride." Dean takes the higher echo parts while Sam belts out the chorus. It’s not exactly the Nelson twins, but they do a passable job, and they both flip off the state trooper that’s parked behind a Grand Canyon National Park billboard when they fly by at what they know is way over the speed limit.
The moment lasts longer than it should, what with half of Hell walking earth, Dean’s hourglass dribbling sand, and the FBI still breathing down their necks. They make a valiant effort to stretch it out, though, grinning and laughing through the brief pause as the tape reverses, but when they both stumble on the line that says, "I’d drive all night just to get back home," they know it’s a lost cause.
Still, Sam doesn’t miss that flicker in the back of his mind that’s been searching for dry kindling sinceColorado. It’s the first time Sam’s done something he knows he should hate and ended up feeling more normal than he ever had denying it. Ava was right. It’s amazing the switches that start flipping in your head once you give yourself up to what you are.
He’s only human, after all.
May 29, 2007
… and when the stars have all gone out, you’ll still be burning so bright.
Things are different between them when they finally reach their destination. Sam’s driving for one, figures he’s driven a good quarter of the distance they’ve traveled since leaving Bobby’s, and that’s way more than average. He’s not complaining, though, more than happy to let Dean sleep, his head lolling against the passenger side window.
Besides, that makes it easier to surprise him.
Sam thinks his plan is ruined when the park ranger stops them and manages to get a few raps of his flashlight against the window glass before Sam can get it rolled down. He can’t help but wonder if there are FBI wanted posters with their pictures on them tacked onto cork board somewhere inside the ranger station as the ranger reaches inside his vest before leaning closer.
Sam shifts nervously, and says, "No disrespect, uh, Sir, but the sun’s about to come up, and well, my brother’s…sick," he lies. "He said he wanted to see this, and I’m trying to surprise him. Can’t we just go by?"
He never finds out why they got stopped in the first place. The ranger takes one look at Dean, snoring softly with little stringers of drool dripping onto his leather jacket, and Sam, wracked with nervous energy, and waves them through.
Sam has half a mind to pat himself on the back, Luke Skywalker, eat your heart out, but it’s only half a lie, really, and that’s got Sam sweating over the truth moreso than the lack thereof. Lying is normal for them, but necessary. Truth is not as welcome as he’d once thought it would be.
Cast me gently, into morning, for the night has been unkind.
Dean’s still asleep when Sam drives up as close to the rim as the cordons will allow and gets out. He’s a little afraid that the lack of vibration will wake Dean, so he leaves the engine idling and climbs up onto the hood to wait for the sun. He reaches inside his jacket, and his ears imagine the crinkle of cellophane, his fingers the crush of a pack of cigarettes beneath them, but it’s the leather-bound journal he bought in South Dakota that he takes out.
He smoothes his hand over the folding skin, already aging despite the care he takes when opening and turning the pages. Dean doesn’t know it exists, and Sam only knows it was an impulse and couldn’t not buy it. And now, the impulse is writing---he has to write, who else would know these last first times brothers shared? Sam wonders if he could ever forget them.
May 28, 2007
The first time Dean sees the Grand Canyon isn’t going to be the last thing he ever does. There’s time for a whole lot more firsts in the next year, and none of them are going to be lasts, not if I have anything to say about it.
Take me to a place so holy, that I can wash this from my mind.
Between balancing the penlight in his teeth, the rumble of the engine beneath him, and the scratch of his pen across the paper, Sam almost misses the sun peeking over the edge of the canyon. The creaking of the passenger door draws him out of his introspection with a start, and he half-winces, expecting a sharp cuff to the back of his head when Dean realizes what he’s done.
Instead, Dean leans back inside the car, all the way across the seat, and turns off the key so they are enveloped in what would be silence if there wasn’t such an echo. When he slides back out and shuts his door, the creak and slam bounce across the gorge a few hundred times, bisecting the peaking rays of sunlight before fading into oblivion. So, when Dean clears his throat and swallows whatever has risen inside him, it’s almost lost to the heartbeat echo, but Sam always hears Dean, now. He knows how to listen.
Sam can’t help but grin when Dean leans on the roof of the Impala and looks into the sun, can’t miss the gleam in his eyes the first time his brother sees the Grand Canyon after criss-crossing the country for most of his life. He almost falls for the illusion that he’s watching the whole scene from behind the lens of a camera as light rings form behind Dean’s head and radiate out. He doesn’t stop grinning, though, when he realizes it’s tears and not glass that distort the image. He also doesn’t wipe the tears away.
There’s a beat or two before the shocks groan and the car dips to the right. Dean’s jeans are probably dirty enough by now that they couldn’t scratch the paint if he was wearing steel wool underwear. Sam’s pretty sure Dean’s not thinking about the paint anyway.
They watch the sun come up over the Grand Canyon, just the toes of Dean’s boots visible in the corner of Sam’s vision. Perspectives shift but don’t change altogether, and there’s some comfort in that. Been a long time since they’ve really been comforted by anything but the death sigh of whatever evil they can find to send back to hell.
"So, I really died on you." It’s not a question.
"Yeah." It’s not an answer.
"That sucks." An apology.
"Yeah." Absolution.
But Sam’s not ready to be absolved, anymore than he’s ready give thanks. He wants to be sorry a little longer. After all, he left the knife. And that’s alright, because somehow the pink and orange of sunrise changes vengeance into a labor of love and makes it okay to be driven, because Sam’s driving, not some destiny he didn’t choose.
Around them, half a dozen other cars are parked along the rim, their occupants as still and tired-looking as the brothers, and there’s nothing about any of this that feels wrong. They’ve had to battle their way through hell and death to get here, paid way too much to get a glimpse of normal.
Tomorrow they’ll be the brothers Winchester, kickass demon hunters roaring into the next battle on their steel horse. Today they’re just Sam and Dean, a couple guys on the lip of the Grand Canyon with a dozen regular Joes doing what Americans do on a road trip.
Today they’re normal for the first time together. Every first time is the last first time, but Sam means it when he says it won’t be the last time. Not if he has anything to say about it. And he does. He has lots to say about it. After all, he is human, so he holds all the cards.
And he’s not afraid to play the game anymore.
The memory, of choosing not to fight.-The Line, Sarah McLachlan
The End
A/N: So there you have it. This story is complete, but subsequent installments in this universe will be posted as chapters, so you can put this on alert if you want more.
Feedback inspires us, especially if you leave prompts in the comment box. If you have anything you’d like to see the boys do for the first time, feel free to request it. We already have several planned. I’m still cursing Kripke and Co. for writing the lawnmower scene, though, cuz that’s so something I wish I’d have thought of.
