when you are done

[ultraviolet9a]

>> when you are done

 

TITLE: when you are done

AUTHOR: ultraviolet9a
SPOILER: 3.10. (Guess fic takes place after 3.10 but before 3.11. In that time-span.)

GENRE: gen

CHARACTERS: Dean thing. With Sam.

SUMMARY: First time it happens, he’s driving.

RATING: PG-13. I like cussing.
FEEDBACK: Dude…duh. 
DISCLAIMER: Don’t own. Bloody hell.

NOTE: for iamstealthyone’s birthday. Request was Dean. h/c. Banter. Dean in a towel. Either of those, so I thought, what the hell. Let’s do them all.

NOTE2: beta by very lovely erinrua

 

 

 

First time it happens, he’s driving. It’s a casual day with a nice, cool breeze through the window, and they’re heading to Miami cuz Bobby said that’s where he had a lead on the Colt (and the goddamned bitch). When he looks in the rear view mirror he doesn’t catch the endless road reversed. Or not just. The other Dean’s sitting in the back seat, black eyes and a dimple and a flick of his fingers, just like in his dream. The Dean in the driver’s seat swerves and would have hit a tree if Sam hadn’t gripped the steering wheel.

 

He pulls over and gets out, ignoring Sam’s hands white against the panel, ignoring Sam slamming the door, more worried than pissed.

 

“Dean, what just happened?” Sam asks. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost!”

 

“Dude, if it was a ghost I’d have rocksalted its ass”, Dean says. “I’m fine. Must be something I ate.”

 

Sam scoffs and starts with Dean and talk and what the hell and I’m in this, too and if you’re tired let me drive.

 

“I’m okay, Sam.”

 

Dean gets back in the driver’s seat, moves the mirror to him. It’s just him. Same old Dean, and yeah, he’d love that; getting old and all that shit. Getting the chance to get old, really. He’ll take anything.

 

They drive on. He avoids the rear view mirror, but whenever he does glimpse it, there’s no black-eyed Dean there.

 

He dreams of it that night, when Sam takes over the driving. And the next. They have to turn around and start heading for New York (“She’s one tricky bitch,” Bobby says) and they are nowhere near Bela, and Dean can handle it. He can, because what’s the worst that can happen really? Him going to Hell? Check. Demons unleashed? Check. Sam… Sam hurt? Won’t happen.

 

When he calls Bobby, he very casually asks if that damned dream root has any other side effects.

 

“Like what?” Bobby asks, and the suspicion is there in his voice and Dean says the first thing that can deflect it.

 

“I keep on having wet dreams, Bobby,” he says.

 

“That’s not new, son. You were a horn-dog since you got out of your diapers, I swear,” Bobby scoffs and Dean has to grin. Then Bobby says that nope, New York wouldn’t do either. She’s misleading his leads and Dean knows that Bobby is pissed and will nail her eventually, but “for now”, Bobby says, “just stay put and rest.”

 

The motel room comes with the added bonus of a ghost that leaves them with some bruises before they send it off to wherever it is ghosts go when they… go and it feels good. Feels like old times, something familiar, family business Dean can do by heart. It’s soothing.

 

The next time it happens, he’s in the shower. When he steps out, towel around his hips, feeling of clean and calm, the mirror is fogged up. He wipes it with his hand and then moves this way and that, watching the bruise on his jaw. He can’t believe he’d actually miss ghosts. His skin feels soft and warm (but in a totally manly way) and he wants to shave; as he dips the razor under the running water he looks in the mirror and his reflection is smiling. Dean isn’t.

 

He feels all saliva drain from his mouth. And then that other Dean moves the razor across his throat and the blood gushes. He lets out a yell he doesn’t have time to muffle and grasps at his own throat, but there is no blood there, no pain, nothing. When Sam storms into the bathroom, Dean’s crouching on the floor, back against the tiles, towel damp and cold and stark white around his hips, but not as white as his face must be.

 

Sam doesn’t ask what’s wrong and Dean’s grateful for his brother’s big brain, is grateful for him sitting beside him, not asking any whys when Dean frantically asks if there’s something wrong with his neck.

 

Sam’s fingers gently touch around it, feeling, soothing.

 

“No, Dean,” he says in that careful gentle (as gentle as his fingers) tone that acts as a muffler to fear. “Not even a nick. What happened?”

 

Dean’s looking at the razor that fell to the tiles across from him with a metallic cold sound and doesn’t know how to explain. He’s fucked. He’s so fucked. In his mind he watches himself with a gashed throat, red blood streaming, black eyes laughing.

 

He can feel his pulse racing and he can’t believe… he can’t believe it’d be so screwed, he’s tougher than that, he’s the one that’s always in control when he needs to, and anything he’s ever done, even whatever Dad asked, he chose to do, too. Most of the times. And he doesn’t regret it, so if he doesn’t, that makes everything his choice, right? His choice. Himself in control, over his own sanity.

 

But, he thinks, maybe that dream root pulled a plug somewhere inside of him, opened a door to a place he never trod before, and now he’s all Luke Skywalker on his worst fears.

 

“Dean,” Sam begs. “Talk to me. We can’t afford your silence.”

 

“What silence, Sam?”

 

“The one where you keep it all inside or shrug it off with a wisecrack,” Sam says. “Talk to me, man. Please. What happened in the car? What happened now?”

 

But Dean is too shaken up, so shaken up he doesn’t realize he’s crying, not until the teardrops fall on his chest. For a moment he’s about to lose it again, thinks it’s blood down his throat, but Sam hooks an arm around him and pulls him to his chest, and Dean… Dean feels safe and warm and very embarrassed and so damned grateful, and after a while his shoulders ease and his mind eases and his soul eases.

 

“Talk to me,” Sam says, as Dean untangles himself and gets back to reality.

 

So Dean does.

 

“It’s alright,” Sam says when he’s through.

 

“It is?”

 

“Yeah. After Jess died, I kept dreaming about her.”

 

“It’s not the same, Sam. I’m seeing it awake. I’m seeing that… thing from my worst nightmare awake.”

 

“I saw her awake, too,” Sam says. “Remember after we killed Bloody Mary? We were driving away and there she was in the corner, looking at me.”

 

“Was she mad? Like Bobby’s wife?”

 

“No. She was just… radiant. And beautiful. And sad.”

 

“Like mom in Kansas?”

 

“Yeah. Kind of. Dean… our life is not exactly sunshine and roses. And sometimes what we can’t keep under a lid, when it’s too much it’s just… our guilt and fears come out, Dean. We’re dreaming with eyes wide open.”

 

“Jess was your guilt,” Dean says. “Cuz you didn’t tell her about your vision.”

 

“Yeah,” Sam says. “But the Demon is dead now and I haven’t dreamt about her in a long, long while. Dean? Back then? Why did your eyes bleed?”

 

Dean shrugs.

 

“Doesn’t matter.”

 

He’s thinking that this mirror somehow is worse than Bloody Mary, because she was the Ghost of Things Past and this… this is the Ghost of his own Future. The thing he will become and there is no God to help him out of this one.

 

“Everything matters, Dean,” Sam says and hits him on the back of the head.

 

“OUCH. Dude.”

 

“Snap out of it,” Sam says. “I’ve tried everything, Dean. I’ve tried being angry and being supportive and being everything, and now I’m going to go all Dean on you.”

 

“Handsome and charming? Can’t pull it off.”

 

“I mean it, Dean. Snap out of it. Get over it. I won’t let that happen. Remember when you said you’d keep me safe?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I believed you. And you did. Well, now it’s my turn. I won’t let that happen to you. Do you believe me?”

 

A small eternity seems to pass.

 

“I’m scared,” Dean whispers. It physically hurts him to say it, but the relief coming is unexpected.

 

“That’s not what I asked.”

 

“God help me, Sam, I’m fucking terrified, but if I had to do it all over again, I’d change nothing.”

 

“Dean…”

 

“Except your haircut. And your taste in clothes. And music. Or lack thereof.”

 

Sam laughs a tired laugh full of love.

 

“Jerk,” he says. “Just answer my goddamn question.”

 

“Bitch,” Dean replies.

 

He’s shivering on the tiles. He’s grateful when Sam hugs him again and he doesn’t dare to say chickflick. He only whispers very quietly (or maybe he thinks it very loudly) “Yeah, I believe you,” but he’s sure Sam hears it either way, because he feels his brother’s lips on the top of his head.

 

They don’t move for a long time.

 

 

-The End.

 

 

 

 

16 Feb 2008

 

SIDENOTE: I was tempted to turn it in to a total angst thing or, you know, even more gory-detailed oriented, but I… can’t. I need the shiny because I don’t have enough shiny in me to counterbalance anything angsty I might write/read. And I like the shiny, thankyouverymuch. It’s great for my complexion. So I kept the tone lighter (in the fic, not the complexion). Heh.