Story notes: This is an AU. Gen, no rating. Feedback of all types - positive and negative - is much appreciated.
Spoilers: 1x12 ("Faith") – in fact, the story will not make sense to anyone who hasn't seen this episode.
Betaed by
Solo, Jo Lasalle, Katja, Gwendolen, Without_me, Auntpurl, and Chaneen.
Again, thank you very much! You all helped me enormously.
Last Truce
Dean never stops whining about his stupid car.
"That car was a classic," he whines. "I loved that car. Seriously, man,
you shouldn't have done that."
Sam
ignores him. They have a new car now, bought cheap off a grateful
client. Sam always drives, and they usually drive at night.
Dean thinks this is stupid, on both counts. "Did anything Dad taught
you stick in your brain, college boy?"
Driver makes the rules.
When
Sam reminds his brother of this, Dean harrumphs and looks out the side
window in a classic sulk, too-long eyelashes and obstinate set of the
jaw making him look weirdly young. But soon his shoulders relax and his
posture eases, and he leans back into the seat and looks over at Sam
thoughtfully, and Sam knows he's been forgiven. In another couple of
minutes Dean will come out with something entirely unrelated and
probably concerned with the bloodthirsty creature they're heading
towards.
It's easy to be forgiven by Dean. It's always been
easy, and that, at least, hasn't changed. Even the big things… Give him
some time to cool down and Dean will relent, and not even make you pay
for it, or not more than you can afford.
Sam's different. Sam can't let go – he never could. Maybe it's because
he's selfish.
He must be, because he'd do it all again without the slightest
hesitation.
They
find a motel just before dawn. Dean looks worn-out and pale in the dim
pre-morning light, and Sam reaches out without thinking. But Dean gives
him a smile, and his shoulder is reassuringly solid beneath Sam's hand.
"So, you think it's a ghoul?" Sam asks once he's settled
into bed. When Dean doesn't answer, Sam turns over and goes to sleep.
There'll be time enough to talk this over when they hit the road
tonight.
He wakes with a start, Dean's silver knife in hand.
Dean snorts and jostles the bed again; he's wearing the same things he
always does, hair brushed and gelled in the usual stylish spiky way.
Dean's always been vain.
"Dude," Dean says before Sam can
do anything but swing his feet over the edge of the bed. "You shouldn't
have done that to my car."
"Yeah, I should have," he says, and Dean stares at him accusingly and
sulks for a while.
+++
It
turns out the thing that's been snacking on people isn't a ghoul, after
all. It's not a zombie, either, or a vampire, or anything that Sam
knows; it's more like a cross between the two, from what they gather
from Dad's journal. Because yes, of course there's an entry on whatever
it is, even if neither Sam nor Dean can pronounce its name. Sam is
pretty sure it's misspelled in some way. Wiederschmätzer? Seriously.
They dub it Jaws instead.
Dean
waits outside the cemetery gates. Sam goes in to burn the shroud. The
earth is undisturbed by the dead thing's rising, but even so the grave
is impossible to miss; Jaws has a habit of chewing on things, and no
table manners to speak of. It's at home when Sam breaks open the
coffin, and for a couple of minutes it looks like an easy kill, but
Sam's hand is slippery with sweat and dirt and the various stinking
fluids leaking from Jaws' rotting body, and he slips. His cross
clatters to the ground, Jaws makes a break for it, and Sam tumbles into
the open grave and the utterly disgusting coffin.
By the time he's clawed out of the mess of decaying flesh and tangled,
chewed-up shroud, Jaws is almost on top of Dean.
It
has more teeth than anything that used to be human has a right to. Sam
gets a good look as it opens up to bite Dean's head off.
Things
get a bit confused, but Sam remembers his own voice screaming, and Dean
standing unnaturally still with a weird look on his face, and too many
sharp teeth and a flash of really bright light and the sound of a
Wiederschmätzer shrieking.
Dean is still standing in the
same spot, his face in shadow, when Sam barrels through the cemetery
gates. He's looking down at the unmoving heap that used to be a walking
corpse, and Sam hesitates for a moment, but he's scared and shaking and
even if it's stupid and he knows it he reaches out anyway to assure
himself that nothing happened to Dean.
Nothing did happen
to Dean, of course, and Sam knew that already, but even so Dean allows
him to draw a filthy hand along his neck. The skin is smooth and cool
to the touch.
"Man," Dean says a moment later. "Did you see that? Was that cool or
what?"
The
edge to Sam's laugh sounds slightly hysterical in his own ears, but it
really was cool, so he just agrees and doesn't ask any questions.
+++
"Sam," Dean says, and he doesn't even have to finish the sentence.
Sam sighs. "You're never going to let it go, are you?"
It's
a stupid thing to say – he's pretty sure Dean can't let it go, couldn't
even if he wanted to. There are rules to this kind of thing, and
they've never spoken about it, but given everything, Sam can take a
pretty good guess at some of them.
He glances over at Dean, and sure enough, Dean is giving him a look
that makes him flush with embarrassment.
After
a moment, Dean relents unexpectedly, looking away to watch the night
pass by behind the window. When he speaks again his voice is soft,
almost gentle. "You could always say you're sorry."
"I'm not sorry!" It comes out harshly and rather aggressively, and the
reflection of Dean's face closes down into a frown.
Sam
breathes deeply for a couple of miles before he trusts himself to speak
again. He knows he should ask, because he knows he should be able to
let go. "Do you want me to apologize?"
Dean doesn't answer right away.
Sam
isn't sure he can apologize, if Dean asks him to. He should. He knows
Dean would, in his place. But there's abstract ideals like right and
wrong, and there's situations where abstracts just don't apply, because
other things are more important.
For example... If Sam had
been the one to see the reaper, not Dean – if Sam had been the one to
realize that all Le Grange was doing was exchanging one life for
another – he would not have stopped the man. Not before he healed Dean.
Sam knows this about himself now, and he's less bothered by the
knowledge than he suspects he should be.
But Dean is not like Sam. The rage and grief of it burn in Sam even
now, and his hands tighten on the steering wheel.
He
can feel the weight of Dean's attention on him – he always could, but
it's stronger now, almost like a physical touch. It's probably
something to do with Sam's Shining. Either that, or it's just his
imagination.
Dean's smile is the same it's always been, even
when nothing else is. He reaches over to ruffle Sam's hair, and duly
ignores Sam's protest. "Whatever, Sammy. You gotta do what you gotta
do."
This is all that's left. He'll do whatever he has to
in order to keep it. He thinks he'd keep Dean here even if he wanted to
go, and the relief that Dean will not force him to find out for sure is
strong enough to lodge in his chest like pain.
Take care of that car, Dean had said. Or else.
Sam
remembers the feel of the crowbar in his hands, the sound of glass
shattering, the dull impact of metal on metal. He'd taken the crowbar
to the motor after smashing the headlights and windows, and by the time
he'd moved on, it had been only a twisted, stinking lump dribbling oil,
water and gas. Last, he'd smashed the tape deck and broken apart every
last one of Dean's cassettes, reeling out Twisted Sister and Skynyrd
and Nazareth in long, gleaming tangles that he'd ground into the shards
and oil and gasoline with his shoes. If he'd thought to bring a
lighter, he would have set fire to the wreckage right there in the
hospital parking lot.
"Thanks," Sam mumbles, and blinks a
little until his vision is clear again. Dean pretends he's been looking
out the window all along.
Sam never could let go.