alwaysenduphere (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alwaysenduphere) wrote2009-10-09 09:19 am
alwaysenduphere) wrote2009-10-09 09:19 am
Entry tags:
fic: white
White
pg-13, gen
1,439 words
Sam tries on a white suit, and Dean kind of freaks.
coda of sorts to 5.04. Unbetaed because I'm lazy, so feel free to point out my silly sentence structure and overuse of punctuation.
They're at a Goodwill store in the middle of Illinois when it happens. Dean's given up trying to match any of his socks with partners ages ago, but the final straw comes when he can't find any two socks without holes big enough his toes won't poke through. So they go shopping and for one single moment in time, Dean doesn't have angels, demons, hell, and destiny breathing down his back. He simply has new (or well, lightly used) pairs of socks and a couple of other additions to his duffel.
He's on his way to the checkouts, five pairs of blackish socks and three t-shirts wadded into his arms, and the words are halfway out his mouth before he turns to direct them Sam's way. "Hey, Sammy, quit dancing in front of the mirror, I got-" And he stops, because reality (destiny, whatever it is), has just given him a cold slap in the face.
White shirts aren't a stranger on Sam. Dean knows there are at least two in Sam's duffel at any given moment; he's washed them with his black tees many a time, until they all just faded to a muted shade of gray. Dean can even recall a memory that once would've made him chuckle, the two of them trying on suits for a prom neither attended, Sam coming out of the dressing room in a suit tailor-made for Saturday Night Fever: the sequel. There's no humor in that image anymore to Dean. In fact, there's nothing happy or peaceful or any of the other five thousand connotations the color white brings with it anymore. There is only one word in his mind, but it carries the weight of a thousand more. No.
One of the sock pairs slips out of his hands and tumbles against the counter before hitting the floor. "Take it off, Sam." The words come out choked and filled with more emotion than Dean prefers to show in public (especially in front of the attractive sales clerk.)
There's a button missing and a brown spot on the right sleeve that screams ketchup stain, but all Dean sees is the future crashing down on him.
It's not even a whole suit, just the jacket, but it's similar enough.
"Dude, it's not like I'm getting it. It's ugly." Sam's attention shifts from the mirror over to Dean. Their eyes meet for a moment before Dean manages to clamp down on his panic, but he sees Sam pick it up and frown at him.
The rest of the socks and shirts miraculously manage to find a place on the check-out counter as Dean clears the emotion out of his throat. "I'm glad you know that. Your fashion sense doesn't exactly scream tasteful sometimes, you know?" He smiles politely at the cashier as she rings up the clothes, trying desperately to remember the line he had intended to use on her, to no avail. He glances hesitantly back over to Sam, who is (finally) taking off the white jacket.
"Like you know about fashion,” Sam mumbles. “I was just thinking about that stupid prom when I was a sophomore. We went to try on suits, you remember? Even though I didn't have a date and you weren't in school. I was really sold on looking like an albino penguin that day." Sam hangs the suit neatly back on its hanger and joins Dean at the check-out empty-handed.
"And then we went home and Dad said it was time to pack up and move again so you didn't talk to us for like another week. Yeah, Sam, I remember. Why the trip through memory lane?" It comes out harsher than he intended, and the cashier (Mary, her nametag reads, and isn't that just another kick in the teeth) gives him a look that renders any and all (currently non-existent) pick-up lines useless as she hands him back the change from his twenty.
Sam frowns as Dean chucks his bag of purchases at Sam's chest on his way out the door. He fumbles at the bag before securing it in his grasp, and then sighs. "I don't know...nostalgia for nostalgia's sake? Given how everything is now..." He doesn't need to finish the sentence. Like hundreds of other sentences to leave Sam's mouth, Dean knows where it'll end. “Besides, how often does a person run across John Travolta's wardrobe rejects?"
Dean smiles tightly as they climb back into the impala.
**
It's nearing three hours since they left Illinois, but Dean still hasn't shaken the uneasy feeling. He knows he's being a hypocrite now, insisting Sam tell him every facet of his life, practically preaching that there should be "no lies between them." And he's carrying around the biggest one of all.
Def Leppard's screaming through the speakers like it has been for four tracks now, tape halfway through side A of Adrenalize when the word strikes out at him like an angry stain, and before he even thinks it through he's jerking the car off to the shoulder.
Sam startles awake when the tires buzz over the rumble strip, question forming on his lips. Dean's grateful when he instead chooses silence, and they sit there in it for awhile, Joe Elliot's voice loud over the hum of the engine. The word comes again and again and then Dean's yanking the keys out of the ignition and stepping out into the humid Midwest air in a split second. Sam follows cautiously, not pressing, and Dean's never been more grateful for quiet understanding than in that moment.
The pavement underneath his boots is worn and cracked, and Dean takes a moment to curse the fact that the rumble strip is even intact enough to wake a person up. He kicks at the rock and gravel, digs out a resting place for his feet as he leans against the impala. Sam leans next to him, close but not touching (never touching), and Dean's sure it’s the closest they've been in months.
"Lucifer wears a white suit in the future." He can't remember exactly what it is he'd told Sam about his angel-made journey, but he's fairly certain he vagued up most of the important details, only including the bits about the virus, the colt, and Castiel's bohemian view on life.
"Shit, Dean. So you did see him."
He nods, pauses before continuing. "Lucifer wears you in the future, too." It comes out so quietly he's not sure he's actually said it out loud, and once it’s out he wants to take it back, push it back down into the barrel of thoughts to never think again, right next to images of severed vertebrae and knowledge of exactly which pressure points cause a body unbearable pain.
But Sam's heard him. He says "What?" like he's not quite sure what he’s heard, but the devastated look on his face tells a different story. "I wouldn't...I told him no, Dean!"
A rock catches under Dean's boot as he kicks at the road. He sends it packing down the lane, watches it stop rolling before he speaks again. "Yeah, now. But then...we hadn't talked in five years."
"Oh," Sam says, ounces of understanding in the sound (because you weren't there, it screams), and Dean's reminded yet again why he couldn't comprehend not talking to his brother for so long. "I didn't have...Okay." Dean watches Sam swallow hard, ducking his head before looking back up to meet Dean's gaze. "That's not going to happen now." Each word is punctuated even harder than the next, and Dean's feeling crueler by the second because he knows it’s him pressuring Sam to feel like he has to prove himself every five minutes.
He nods sharply under Sam's expectant gaze, then busies himself again, kicking more shrapnel down the road and watching it skip and roll. A semi flies by them, first traffic since they've stopped, and the force of its wake nearly knocks Dean off his feet, exhaustion of a week's straight of driving piling on and on. Sam's still looking at him when he looks back up, and Dean tries to shrug off the look of utter sincerity he sees staring back at him. "Just...no white suits, alright, and we'll be good."
A smile ghosts across Sam’s face. “I don’t think that’ll be too hard to avoid.”
“Yeah. You know what, let's just go find a hotel, I'm beat."He fakes a yawn, elbows Sam in the side (the first time they've touched in months), anything to finalize the conversation.
Dean makes sure to pop the tape out of the deck once he gets the car started.
You've got both ends burning
Like a moth to a flame
You're going off the rails
Like a runaway train
It's a no-win situation
And there's no way out
-White Lightening by Def Leppard
pg-13, gen
1,439 words
Sam tries on a white suit, and Dean kind of freaks.
coda of sorts to 5.04. Unbetaed because I'm lazy, so feel free to point out my silly sentence structure and overuse of punctuation.
They're at a Goodwill store in the middle of Illinois when it happens. Dean's given up trying to match any of his socks with partners ages ago, but the final straw comes when he can't find any two socks without holes big enough his toes won't poke through. So they go shopping and for one single moment in time, Dean doesn't have angels, demons, hell, and destiny breathing down his back. He simply has new (or well, lightly used) pairs of socks and a couple of other additions to his duffel.
He's on his way to the checkouts, five pairs of blackish socks and three t-shirts wadded into his arms, and the words are halfway out his mouth before he turns to direct them Sam's way. "Hey, Sammy, quit dancing in front of the mirror, I got-" And he stops, because reality (destiny, whatever it is), has just given him a cold slap in the face.
White shirts aren't a stranger on Sam. Dean knows there are at least two in Sam's duffel at any given moment; he's washed them with his black tees many a time, until they all just faded to a muted shade of gray. Dean can even recall a memory that once would've made him chuckle, the two of them trying on suits for a prom neither attended, Sam coming out of the dressing room in a suit tailor-made for Saturday Night Fever: the sequel. There's no humor in that image anymore to Dean. In fact, there's nothing happy or peaceful or any of the other five thousand connotations the color white brings with it anymore. There is only one word in his mind, but it carries the weight of a thousand more. No.
One of the sock pairs slips out of his hands and tumbles against the counter before hitting the floor. "Take it off, Sam." The words come out choked and filled with more emotion than Dean prefers to show in public (especially in front of the attractive sales clerk.)
There's a button missing and a brown spot on the right sleeve that screams ketchup stain, but all Dean sees is the future crashing down on him.
It's not even a whole suit, just the jacket, but it's similar enough.
"Dude, it's not like I'm getting it. It's ugly." Sam's attention shifts from the mirror over to Dean. Their eyes meet for a moment before Dean manages to clamp down on his panic, but he sees Sam pick it up and frown at him.
The rest of the socks and shirts miraculously manage to find a place on the check-out counter as Dean clears the emotion out of his throat. "I'm glad you know that. Your fashion sense doesn't exactly scream tasteful sometimes, you know?" He smiles politely at the cashier as she rings up the clothes, trying desperately to remember the line he had intended to use on her, to no avail. He glances hesitantly back over to Sam, who is (finally) taking off the white jacket.
"Like you know about fashion,” Sam mumbles. “I was just thinking about that stupid prom when I was a sophomore. We went to try on suits, you remember? Even though I didn't have a date and you weren't in school. I was really sold on looking like an albino penguin that day." Sam hangs the suit neatly back on its hanger and joins Dean at the check-out empty-handed.
"And then we went home and Dad said it was time to pack up and move again so you didn't talk to us for like another week. Yeah, Sam, I remember. Why the trip through memory lane?" It comes out harsher than he intended, and the cashier (Mary, her nametag reads, and isn't that just another kick in the teeth) gives him a look that renders any and all (currently non-existent) pick-up lines useless as she hands him back the change from his twenty.
Sam frowns as Dean chucks his bag of purchases at Sam's chest on his way out the door. He fumbles at the bag before securing it in his grasp, and then sighs. "I don't know...nostalgia for nostalgia's sake? Given how everything is now..." He doesn't need to finish the sentence. Like hundreds of other sentences to leave Sam's mouth, Dean knows where it'll end. “Besides, how often does a person run across John Travolta's wardrobe rejects?"
Dean smiles tightly as they climb back into the impala.
**
It's nearing three hours since they left Illinois, but Dean still hasn't shaken the uneasy feeling. He knows he's being a hypocrite now, insisting Sam tell him every facet of his life, practically preaching that there should be "no lies between them." And he's carrying around the biggest one of all.
Def Leppard's screaming through the speakers like it has been for four tracks now, tape halfway through side A of Adrenalize when the word strikes out at him like an angry stain, and before he even thinks it through he's jerking the car off to the shoulder.
Sam startles awake when the tires buzz over the rumble strip, question forming on his lips. Dean's grateful when he instead chooses silence, and they sit there in it for awhile, Joe Elliot's voice loud over the hum of the engine. The word comes again and again and then Dean's yanking the keys out of the ignition and stepping out into the humid Midwest air in a split second. Sam follows cautiously, not pressing, and Dean's never been more grateful for quiet understanding than in that moment.
The pavement underneath his boots is worn and cracked, and Dean takes a moment to curse the fact that the rumble strip is even intact enough to wake a person up. He kicks at the rock and gravel, digs out a resting place for his feet as he leans against the impala. Sam leans next to him, close but not touching (never touching), and Dean's sure it’s the closest they've been in months.
"Lucifer wears a white suit in the future." He can't remember exactly what it is he'd told Sam about his angel-made journey, but he's fairly certain he vagued up most of the important details, only including the bits about the virus, the colt, and Castiel's bohemian view on life.
"Shit, Dean. So you did see him."
He nods, pauses before continuing. "Lucifer wears you in the future, too." It comes out so quietly he's not sure he's actually said it out loud, and once it’s out he wants to take it back, push it back down into the barrel of thoughts to never think again, right next to images of severed vertebrae and knowledge of exactly which pressure points cause a body unbearable pain.
But Sam's heard him. He says "What?" like he's not quite sure what he’s heard, but the devastated look on his face tells a different story. "I wouldn't...I told him no, Dean!"
A rock catches under Dean's boot as he kicks at the road. He sends it packing down the lane, watches it stop rolling before he speaks again. "Yeah, now. But then...we hadn't talked in five years."
"Oh," Sam says, ounces of understanding in the sound (because you weren't there, it screams), and Dean's reminded yet again why he couldn't comprehend not talking to his brother for so long. "I didn't have...Okay." Dean watches Sam swallow hard, ducking his head before looking back up to meet Dean's gaze. "That's not going to happen now." Each word is punctuated even harder than the next, and Dean's feeling crueler by the second because he knows it’s him pressuring Sam to feel like he has to prove himself every five minutes.
He nods sharply under Sam's expectant gaze, then busies himself again, kicking more shrapnel down the road and watching it skip and roll. A semi flies by them, first traffic since they've stopped, and the force of its wake nearly knocks Dean off his feet, exhaustion of a week's straight of driving piling on and on. Sam's still looking at him when he looks back up, and Dean tries to shrug off the look of utter sincerity he sees staring back at him. "Just...no white suits, alright, and we'll be good."
A smile ghosts across Sam’s face. “I don’t think that’ll be too hard to avoid.”
“Yeah. You know what, let's just go find a hotel, I'm beat."He fakes a yawn, elbows Sam in the side (the first time they've touched in months), anything to finalize the conversation.
Dean makes sure to pop the tape out of the deck once he gets the car started.
You've got both ends burning
Like a moth to a flame
You're going off the rails
Like a runaway train
It's a no-win situation
And there's no way out
-White Lightening by Def Leppard
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