SPN Fic: Untitled (Gen, PG-13)
This was written for the h/c meme tvm hosted right before Lazarus Rising aired, originally posted here. It's my take on an event we were bound to get, and we did. Canon jossed me thoroughly.



It's the first thing Dean asks for, after he's slept for eighteen hours, after he can walk across the motel room without visibly hiding a tremble, after his voice sounds like his own again instead of something raw and too thin. Not the first thing Dean says, but the first thing he asks for.

Because Dean hasn't once asked Sam for anything else. Not for water, for food, for another blanket to hold off the shakes that seized his body the first twelve hours or so. Not if Sam's real, or what time it is or what state they're in.

It's Sam who needs to ask if Dean's real, if he's really there. Instead of asking, he'd kept up a steady stream of talk for those first twelve hours or so, in a low, soft voice, telling Dean what time it is and what state they're in.

Talking about nothing important, telling Dean about the rude motel clerk, the coyote he saw past the pool fencing, eyes silvered, caught in the passing headlights, about how this diner half a mile up the highway has a different flavored pie for each day of the week, so today's Tuesday and Dean gets apple, but tomorrow they've got strawberry rhubarb and after that lemon meringue.

"My car, Sam." Dean's sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, and his voice is strong and sharp when he finally makes a request. "I want to see my car."

"Uh, yeah. Sure." Sam doesn't mean to sound so hesitant. He clears his throat. "Of course."

Dean is already up and has the front door open. He steps out into the dusk, highway lights and red sky at the horizon outlining him.

It seems impossible that Dean could ever have been dead and in hell. Not this Dean, Dean as he should be, solid and kinetic.

"I took good care of her," Sam says, following Dean outside. "Kept the tank full and I followed all the instructions you left. The engine only made that weird noise that one time and—" he knows he's babbling, needs to be talking right then, and can't seem to stop. "It…she…needed a new part, this little plastic piece that cost thirty-seven dollars, I can't even remember what it's called, sorry."

Dean stops in front of the Impala, leans his palms against the hood. "Hey, baby," he says. The windshield reflects his face; he looks calm. Then he turns, his smile slow, crinkling at the corners of his eyes. "She looks good, Sammy."

"Here." Sam tosses the keys at him, and Dean catches them, lightning-quick, and hard to say if Dean raised his hand and Sam threw them in answer, or their hands both moved at once.

As Dean opens the door and slides in, Sam starts to back away, watching as Dean runs his fingers over the wheel, leans back against the upholstery, pats the dashboard. Just sits, staring down at the steering wheel, fingers clenched around it; Sam can see the quick rise and fall of his chest, the tell in the way Dean rubs his knuckle across his chin.

Sam's inside the room when the engine rumbles to life and the sound resonates inside his chest, he feels it from his teeth to his toes. That's when it hits him, at last, that this is real. Closing the motel room door, Sam puts his back against it, slides down, smiles through the first sob of joy that rips through him.

***

+Want some meta after your ficlet? I'm amused that I expected (and wanted) them so much more broken and emotional than they really were. Although the way I like to think of this ficlet now is that this is how canon!Sam felt, somewhere in a dark corner of his brain beneath the shell he's built up for himself.