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dykeydean · 3 months

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We’re standing under the neon vacancy sign of the motel, and you’re starin’ at me and I’m lookin’ anywhere else. I’m takin’ a drag of the cig and handing it back to you, and I’m tryin’ to drag my eyes away from you takin’ a pull of it.

“Don’t it bother you?” you say, and I finally flick my eyes back up to yours. “That shit your dad says?”

I smile despite myself, ‘cause you’re just so damn honest. Not joking so I got nothin’ to snap back with. It’s new to me, the way you talk: all honest and genuine but still quick and funny. Not that stupid soft shit chicks are into, but not all rough edges like I am. I think I like it a little more than I prob’ly should.

I cross my arms over my chest and stare back out at the sky. Even after all these years, I still like it out here in small Midwest towns rather than the big East Coast cities. Lets you see more stars, and sometimes I can look up and pretend I’m at a ranch out in the country rather than a motel on the edge of another nameless town. “Do you get along with your dad?” I finally say.

You scrunch your nose up and pass me back the cig, and I’m smiling too much to take a drag of it. “Not the same, Dean,” you say.

I snort and take another drag, slow and careful with it. I can feel your eyes on me, and damn if I don’t blush. You prob’ly think I blush easy, with how much you make me do it, but it’s only you that brings it out. Only you.

“Sure, Lee,” I say. “Sure.”

And here’s the thing I’m not saying: I like that you care but I got no freakin’ clue what to do with it. No clue how to tell you all the shit about my dad ‘cause it’s been balled up inside me for years and I got a strict set of instructions in my brain when it comes to him. How to survive. How to survive when it feels like I got a shotgun for a father.

I told you once that sometimes I feel like no more than an extension of my dad and his gun and you took my hands in yours so gently, so gently and said you’re so much more and if I didn’t know any better I’d’ve started crying right then and there.

I don’t get you, Lee. You’re all lefts and rights. Rights and wrongs, sugar and salt. A hunter but not like me ‘n dad, a drinker but you don’t got that anger that comes with it, a lover but you ain’t cheap and fast about it.

I try not to think about how I know that when I see dad’s car pull up, like he’d be able to read my mind.

“You should go,” I say, dropping the stub of the cig and scuffing it under the toe of my boot. Dad’s headlights turn off.

“I thought the old man liked me,” you say playfully, with a little half-smile, but you know. We both know.

Sure, he tolerates you on hunts, but that’s about the extent to which he tolerates anyone- and that’s including me ‘n Sammy, even if I won’t say that to you. Last time he caught us drinkin’ together this late at night he pulled a gun on you. And when you left, he tucked his gun away and took out his fists.

Sometimes, I think I’d prefer the gun.

“Don’t know if he really likes anyone,” I say, laughing, but it comes out weak- nothin’ really to laugh about, I’m just tryin’ to make it seem better than it is. You see right through me and I know it. “And he sure won’t like… this.” I gesture between us, and you nod.

“See you, then,” you say, and I nod, and for a second I think you might kiss me, but you walk right past me and into the night.

I stare after you as you leave ‘cause I wanted it so bad I can’t think.

#deanlee #dean winchester #lee webb #my writing #ficlet #spn #supernatural #spn fic #a study in pov #dean pov #set nebulously pre-canon #ezra posts

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the-coda-project · 8 months

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The Coda Project | 1.05 Sinking in the Quicksand

Dean knows Sam noticed his eyes bleeding when they were fighting Bloody Mary, but Sam hasn't asked why. Dean spirals as he wonders what that means.

Toledo is three hours in the rear view, and Dean still has dried blood flaking at the edges of his fingernails. Itching under his collar.

He desperately needs a shower, but getting out of town before more cops arrived at the trashed antique store was a whole lot higher on the priorities list than stopping to wash up, and he'd had to settle for wiping the worst of it from his face with an ancient KFC wet wipe and a wad of napkins as he'd steered the car toward the interstate with his other hand. He's been fantasizing about hot water and a fresh change of clothes ever since. Now, as he glances down at the dashboard, he silently thanks his baby for the excuse that her near-empty fuel tank is giving him.

"Almost outta gas," he says aloud when he takes the next exit ramp, and in his periphery he sees Sam flinch at the sound of his voice. "You mind filling the tank while I hit the head?"

"Yeah, sure."

It's the first time either of them have spoken in hours.

Keep reading

#supernatural fic #cass writes fic #imogenbynight #the coda project #S01E05 Bloody Mary #Episode Coda #1.5k words #Gen #Dean POV

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babysoftboyking · 4 months

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“you’re purifying me, dean.” sam says, a smile painted reverently on crimson stained lips as he grasps dean’s gushing wrist in his palm, partaking of the flesh.

“its working, you make me feel…” Sam pauses, yellow-tinted eyes flitting up to meet the conflicted viridescent of Dean’s. his gaze flickers all across Sam’s face, desperately searching for a sign, holding out hope for even the slightest hint of the soft, kindhearted nature that defined his baby brother—a softness which he does not find, all hard edges now. A softness, a death which he has to be willfully ignorant to. Dean stares as Sam’s face twists into a cruel grin as he continues, mouthful of blood, “—clean. I think you’re washing the poison out, all that demon blood, but you—you’re making me holy again, can’t you feel it, big brother?”

It’s mocking in essence, a mimicry of the real Sam, of his fears and desires. Dean turns his head, can’t bear it anymore. He feels like he’s going insane, mind slowly unraveling as he spends more time around.. it. He feels movement suddenly, Sam slithering up his body and curling into his lap, wickedly reminiscent of when they were kids and he’d do the same thing. He feels the wet hot of Sam’s breath as he presses his lips to the shell of Dean’s ear, whispering, “I can hear everything you’re thinking.” Dean shivers.

Apart of him wants to turn and look, to spit or curse or yell some more, but he can’t bring himself to move so much as a muscle. it’s not like he’s restrained, he’s here by choice and because, as Sam put it, “running is futile, i’ll just track you down anyways.” Just as the thought crosses his mind that he is infact, not restrained and that he can move, Sam has the gall to snort-laugh at him before he gets up and goes into the bathroom, door shutting swiftly behind him.

Dean stares after him, missing his little brother like hell, only made worse by the fact that it’s his fault Sam’s all twisted up like this in the first place; if he hadn’t made that deal, they could’ve avoided this mess entirely, but a world without Sam in it is no world worth living in. it couldn’t have been any other way, he couldn’t have gone on without Sam, yet, here Sam is, worse for the wear (or better, in Sam’s opinion), and apart of dean is still glad just to have him. a bigger part of him knows he has to fix this, knows he has to make things right. he wants his little brother back, not some soulless reincarnate. he’ll get Sammy back, he has to. He just doesn’t know how… yet.

#blood mention #religion mention #this was supposed to be just the first sentence but it. evolved #boyking!sam #dean pov #w.i.p #also weirdish/non canonical timeline cause this takes place in s2 but the demon blood sam mentions is supposed —#to be ruby’s (even though he’s had azael’s blood in him since birth)#masons ramblings #weirdcest #oh also blood drinking #<<thought process was that sam just does it bcuz it’s fun and that he enjoys the thought of dean’s blood inside him

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spntism · 3 months

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It was an established fact in Dean Winchester’s life that nobody actually cared about him except for his brother. His father cared only about what Dean could do for him. The counselors at windblown schools didn’t care about him, they just saw a kid who attended school for a few weeks here and there and never left a forwarding address as a problem to be solved. Sticking their mandated reporter noses into every fucked up kid who seemed slightly off.

Dean knew this but it still hurt. Hurt like knees digging into dirty concrete for hours at a time, clutching wrinkled bills and hoping. Hoping that maybe - just maybe - this was enough for food for the rest of the week or until his father came back, handfuls of bills saying what his words never would. I’m sorry I didn’t stay, I’m sorry I left you on your own. I’m sorry you’re having to do two parents jobs without having any for yourself.

How does a boy become a father, a boy become a man at four years old? Messily. Growing pains ripping him apart. Fights with Sam over anything and everything, resentment always bubbling under the surface. But even with that, always clutching Sam close and promising to protect him from both the world and John Winchester’s rage. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, right? Better the brother who loves you than the father who resents you.

Brotherhood is a bond that can’t be easily broken. Except maybe by your brother choosing something other than you under your nose. And on one hand he’s proud of the kid for wanting better than credit card scams, and hustling pool, knowing the shittiest motels in the most forgettable towns intimately and never having a fixed address. But on the other hand now Sam’s leaving Dean to deal with the roving hurricane that is John Winchester all on his own. And Dean knows that he’s a grown-ass man and shouldn’t rely on his baby brother for things like this. But Sam was always the best at cracking a joke that wasn’t really a joke, and taking the edge off the situations where the tension cut like a well tended blade.

What was Dean without Sam? Dean hadn’t been without Sam since before he was a four year old bawling over his mother’s death without even a picture to remember her by, the only tangible evidence she’d existed in his arms and green eyes in the mirror. Dean without Sam was somehow more himself than he had ever been, but less than he had ever thought he would have to be.

Dean coped the way he always did. Copious amounts of alcohol, the first girl he saw at a bar, rinse and repeat. Except this time, it didn’t work so well and left him with a bad taste in his mouth.

So he did the next best thing. He found something that needed killing, didn’t sleep for a week, and made sure that fucker was dead. And then he did it again.

#ficlet #can’t tell if this is finished or not #this could be a case fic in the making idk #my words #dean #dean pov #sawyerposting #spn #supernatural #supernatural fic #dean fic #spn fic

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prosopopeya · 2 years

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Drabble Day 4: Memories

Prompt from @deancaskiss 's drabble challenge.

Dean's a good bed sharer; he's used to staying crammed on his side. Cas is a rough sleeper, and sometimes Dean gets woken up with an elbow in his face. (Which is probably why they keep rotating out who gets stuck with Cas.)

He wakes up when the bed shakes as Cas rolls around; a few seconds later, he rolls over again, the bed squeaking. Cas's breath hits him in the back of the neck when he sighs, loud and frustrated.

"You got problems?" Dean asks. Behind him, he can hear Cas regret waking him up.

"Sorry."

He glances over his shoulder to see Cas, framed in the moonlight sneaking in through the gap in the curtains. Insomnia's not new for Cas--well, not for human!Cas. He looks apologetic for it, dropping his eyes to the bed.

Dean shifts over, and Cas lifts his arm so he can rearrange the blankets, and then they're facing each other. Their body heat creates this warm space in the bed between them, but Dean's face is just outside of it, where the overly cool air of the motel's AC almost stings.

"It's my--my thoughts. I can't get them to stop."

Dean knows what that's like. Knows there isn't much anyone can say. Still, he tries to think of something, until he lands on a memory and huffs. "Too bad I can't help you the way you helped me."

And then Dean--3-AM-not-thinking-things-through!Dean--reaches out and lightly touches Cas's forehead, a parody of Cas touching him, of Cas helping him to sleep. Dean's fingers linger longer than is probably wise, until he pulls his hand away, something anticlimactic about it.

"You help," Cas says, then turns his eyes, pale blue in the dim light, up to Dean's.

virginia is for lovers: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

#dreamydrabble #dreamydrabbles #profoundnet #deancasfic #destielfic #dean pov #supernatural #a more profound bond #my fic #still not a drabble but it IS. becoming a series.

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hebrokein30 · 2 years

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when sammy is two - and you remember the number correctly for it's when he is always yelling and your ears start ringing faintly when you go to bed at night and you wonder how anyone can be so upset all the time - when it is the coldest winter you ever remember living through. so cold, that streets have turned into an angry, frozen river and the motel rooms are as chilling as if haunted by a thousand ghosts. it's when sammy is two and the motels are haunted, that dad buys sam a pompom hat made out of real wool by an elderly lady downtown, who took pity on the lost looking family of three with the unhappy child and left it to dad almost for free. it is all white, like snow, and the earpieces are elongated to use as a scarf, so long that they wrap around sammy's delicate baby neck three times. he looks a bit as if he's always having tooth pain and at fist you think he's gonna reject it, like he rejects when you try to wash his hair at night or dad's get-well-soup. but he loves it, and soon you cannot imagine the hat without the little upturned nose underneath and the wide green eyes trying to see through the thing when it has fallen into his face. and when he jumps into your bed at night, the hat still firmly in place, the little pompom bounces around excitingly, like a rabbits tail and you cannot help but grin and prod little sammy's nose and listen to him protest because of it and draw him down into your arms, for the room is haunted and he is warm and the pompom scratches your nose the whole night through.

when sammy is eighteen - and you remember the exact number, because sam has been brooding for over a year and, lying next to him, you can hear him brooding even in sleep and you wonder how anyone can be brooding all the time and with such an intensity - there is a thunderstorm looming in the sweltering summers air, growling like a preying monster. and it is when the monster is preying that you stand outside of the house dad rented for the summer and you watch your little brother shoulder his bag and walk away into the night, and there is something in your chest but you can't get it out because breathing hurts so much. you watch those long legs walk away from you and you glitch, and you see a white hat made out of real wool by an elderly lady downtown, and a little upturned nose underneath, and your little boy turns around and runs at you, trusting you'd catch him, and the little pompom bounces excitingly, like a rabbit's tail. you glitch again, and the monster is growling and the little boy is walking away and does not turn back.

when sammy is twenty-five - and you know the year exactly, for you have been dead in hell and lived only with him - there is a war raging that is not yours but you're gonna pay the prize anyway. and it's when the war is raging that sammy stands before the opening ground, arms outstretched, and you glitch, and you see a white hat made out of real wool, and sammy is lying in the snow, arms outstretched, little upturned nose pointing towards the sky. you cannot distinguish the hat from the snow but sammy is laughing when he's been crying so much lately, so you let yourself fall into the snow and teach him how to make angels, sammy, look, just like an angel's wings. you glitch again and sammy stretches his arms like an angel's wings and the angel inside him must be howling with rage, but he says its okay, dean, look, i got him. so you look, and see his little upturned nose pointed towards the sky as he falls into the earth and the earth closes above him and the war that was not yours is over and you don't wonder how that can be, for before there was a little boy with a pompom hat - and now there is nothing.

#when i'm feeling inspired #my writing #sam and dean #gencest #you can read it as #wincest #too if you want #dean pov

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sluggmuffin · 6 months

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HI IM BACK!!

okay so i have a poly dean and fulton thoight 😇

i think them tryinf to confess to someone who’s oblivious woukd be rlly funny cause they’re giving the most obvious hints ever and they still aren’t getting it until someone actually tells them

Literally like they would be eachothers hypemen and then when u don't get it they'd just flat put tell u and ur like "wtf I would have never guessed" and deans like "what do u think I meant when I said I want to date someone like u" while fulton tries to contain his lsughter

#fulton reed #dean pov #marlee 🦖#slugs replies!

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dessertbird · 6 months

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Daily Destiel 💙💚

Saying goodbye. 🥺😭💔

#Destiel #deancas #destiel is canon #their love is real #lost and found #saying goodbye #dean pov #sam #jack #widower arc #😭😭💔💔

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aishitara · 5 months

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PB 100 Prompt Fill - Brush

Dean fell off a horse, once.

What he was doing on it in the first place was irrelevant. The point was: hitting the ground like that had knocked the breath out of him so bad Dean could’a swore he’d been kicked in the throat.

It’s nothing compared to the beating his heart takes when he touches the fan of Cas’ eyelashes with the tips of his fingers, the barest tender brush against skin.

“You’re here,” Dean whispers, a tear spilling down his cheek. “You’re back.”

Tears leak from Cas’ smiling eyes, too. “So I am,” he says with a laugh.

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cascigarette · 1 year

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flames & ashes

for November 5th

destiel ~600 words

He had lost almost everything in the fire.

Almost everything.

He still had Sam. Until Sam left for college, he always had Sam. He always could count on getting a pat on the back when he protected him, when he fed him, when he looked out for him. And then Sam had left. Then Dad.

He lost everything in the fire.

The fire that was neon lights in shitty bars, flickering overheads in men’s bathrooms, on his knees until they ached and then limped away with a fifty in his back pocket. The fire that was chugging burning bourbon until he passed out in the backseat of his father’s car all alone, waking up to the bright sun to drive more and drink more and fuck more and hunt more.

He lost Dad to the fire.

Well to be fair, he lost Dad to the first fire, 23 years ago. There was something simultaneously damning and freeing to losing Dad to the fire that he built on that tall pyre. No more mirror to look into to tell him he was doing something right for once.

He couldn’t make a fire for Sam.

No, that was one thing he could never give to the fire. He bled for that kid and always would, he couldn’t collect his ashes and spread them out, he couldn’t watch his body fade and flicker away into nothing. He couldn’t smell Sam’s burning flesh. Just couldn’t. So he went to the crossroads and made a deal. To burn forever so Sam wouldn’t have to.

Sam went to Hell anyway.

There was a time where the fire burnt him away to nothing, just a monster with black eyes and a seething soul. He had meant it when he said he liked the disease. It was pure, it was freeing. It was no more being scared of the flame. He was the flame now, and he was going to burn everything in his wake. Nothing would hurt ever again.

Of course it didn’t last.

…

The fire took and took and took.

The fire bellowed hot and long into the night sky. He had lost too much to count, but this… this was the final blow. He never thought he would lose him. Not him. He was supernovas and sunlight. He was ethereal grace, larger than life. He was forever; even when he seemed lost, he always came back. He always came back.

Now his body, his vessel, was floating up towards the stars. He built the pyre all by himself, refused to let Sam help. He wrapped him in a curtain and tied him with yellow ribbon and carried him by himself. He lit the fire with his lighter by himself. He watched the flames engulf him, feeling so fucking alone.

Cas was burning. He was burning like everything else in his life had burnt. He would never see him again.

…

This time the fire was thick black goo.

He wasn't used to this. He wasn't used to the fire tricking him.

"Why does this sound like a goodbye?"

"Because it is."

Oh God. No, not God. Something bigger, something more terrible and obsolete. He was losing him. He was losing him all over again.

"Something I could never have."

"I love you."

You dumbass. You son of a bitch. Of course you had it, you always had it, I just needed to get my head out of my ass. And I wish I had said it back. I wish I had said it back.

"I love you too."

He was gone.

He lost everything to the fire.

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the-coda-project · 2 years

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The Coda Project | 1.04 Fighting the Fear of Fear

Dean’s been anticipating his own death since he was four years old. He's been training himself to be ready for it since he was seven. More or less resigned to its inevitability since some unknown point in between. He's learned to live with it.

When Dean was four years old, a cardinal collided with his bedroom window.

Cracks spiderwebbed outward from the place it struck, and his mom, who'd been sitting in her rocking chair reading The Together Book aloud, had jumped so hard at the sound that she'd torn a page.

The bird had been singing until it hit the glass. Had been swooping back and forth in the afternoon sun and letting out the high, musical trills that Dean liked to imitate whenever he was playing in the garden. But Dean couldn't hear the song anymore. Just the sound of the breeze in the trees and the excited barking of the dog next door.

Within seconds, he'd been on his feet and running downstairs to see if the bird was okay, ignoring his mom calling out to him. By the time she'd caught up--moving in a slow shuffle thanks to the added weight of Dean's baby brother who was due any day now--it was too late. Dean was already in the living room, ducking under the gauzy curtains to press his face to the glass.

"Don't look," Mary called out, but he'd already seen.

Even from inside the house he could tell that the cardinal wasn’t moving.

It’s brilliant red wing was bent sideways beneath its tiny body. Black eyes glassy and unblinking.

"I think he needs a helper," Dean told his mom, and she had pulled him away from the window.

"My sweet Dean," she'd said through a watery smile, cupping his face in her palm. "You are such a good helper, but sometimes there isn't anything we can do except say goodbye."

He'd learned, then, what it was to die.

A few months later, with the heat of fire on the back of his neck, and baby Sam clutched tightly to his chest, and his heart racing at the sight of his dad looking scared for the first time in Dean's short memory, he’d learned that death wasn’t just something that came for wayward birds.

That's when it started. The anticipation. Knowing that someday, it would be him that death would come for. Or Dad. Or Sam.

He'd carried the fear quietly at first, knowing that if he seemed scared, Sammy would get scared. Dad didn't know how to make him stop crying the way Mom did, so it was up to Dean to be the strong one. The brave one.

Being afraid meant failing Sam, so he hid his fear away. Held it the way his mom had held the cardinal; its limp body cradled in a hand towel as she'd carried it down to the corner of the garden to bury among the yellow columbines. He held it gently. Held it as though one wrong move might somehow make it worse.

When he was seven years old, Dean held his first gun the same way.

It was late spring, hotter than it should've been, and Dad had left Sam with Pastor Jim to bring Dean out to an abandoned farm on the outskirts of Blue Earth, Minnesota. They'd parked outside a rusted gate near the mouth of the driveway, and Dean scraped his palms on the rough metal as he climbed over it. Twisted his ankle when he dropped down onto the hard-packed earth on the other side. It hurt, but he didn't cry. He knew not to.

In his hand, he carried a plastic grocery bag that reeked of stale beer, and the empty bottles inside clinked together with each step he took. He'd been careful not to swing it too much as they'd made their way across the overgrown front yard, through tall, scratchy grass. Through patches of dandelions that he wasn't supposed to pick, no matter how much he wanted to.

When they finally reached the house and barn, John had directed him around the back and past a sagging wooden fence that separated the small backyard from the fields beyond. He'd lined up the bottles along the middle rung of the fence to put them within Dean's eyeline, and facing the barn, he'd pushed the rifle into Dean's hands.

The Ruger was heavier than it looked. Long and cold and difficult for Dean to balance until John had directed him on how to center its weight. He'd been scared, holding it. Scared that if he tried to do as Dad told him and missed the bottles, the bullet could hit one of the birds he could see nesting in the eaves of the empty barn. That if he did as he was told, he could end up being the thing that brought death to something else. Someone else.

But Dad had given him an order. Had told him that this was how he'd be able to protect his brother. So he'd swallowed his fear, and lifted the gun until he could line up the sight. Pushed his fear down and told himself that he had to get it right. Did as he was told. Slowly exhaled as he squeezed the trigger. Once. Twice. Five times.

He hit every bottle, each one exploding outward in a burst of brown glass, and when he looked up at his dad it was the first time Dean had ever seen him proud.

"That's my man," he'd said, and clapped Dean firmly on the back as he took the gun and slung it over his own shoulder. "Now you can keep your brother safe when I'm not around to help you."

It had been equal parts gratifying and awful to hear. Knowing that Dad thought he was grown up enough to be trusted felt good. Knowing that sometime soon, he might be the one thing between Sam and the looming threat of death felt like having the floor pulled out from under him.

When he was sixteen, a few months before he gave up on high school for good, Dean had an English teacher who made the class discuss their hopes for the future.

They'd gone around the room one by one, each student listing out their plans and dreams and lofty goals, and when it had come to Dean he'd been honest. He'd said that he didn't think about it. That as far as he saw it, he could die any day. Any minute. Any second, his time could come, and he'd be done, and he didn't want to waste even a moment of what little time he might have with something as pointless as planning.

He didn't mention that he used to have plans. Dreams. Lofty goals.

Didn't mention that when he was just a little bit younger, he'd wanted to be a mechanic, maybe. A firefighter. A rockstar. Someone who fixes things or creates things that make people happy; someone who helps. Talking about it, the few times he had, made him feel like he was being a bad son. A bad brother. Like wanting something for himself was the same as neglecting his responsibilities.

So he'd learned to push all of that down, too. Compressed it into a tight ball in his chest until it collapsed in on itself like a black hole; something that he couldn't really look inside, but could always feed into.

The teacher had pulled him aside after class to discuss his nihilistic attitude, but even then, Dean had thought there was a pretty big difference between being aware of the futility of planning for a future he wouldn't have, and being defeated by it, but he hadn't bothered to argue. He hadn't seen the point.

(He had seen the irony in that, though--and fuck anyone who thought he didn't.)

Now, twenty-six years old and in his prime, he still feels it.

The fear is like a chronic condition his body has acclimated to. He's readjusted his baseline tolerance, so that despite the fact that it's always there under his skin, hovering at the back of his neck like a phantom hand waiting to catch hold of him at any moment, he's able to mentally separate himself from it enough to get by.

When it's a good day, he can ignore it. When it's a bad day, when the threat of death is tangible and immediate--a werewolf slashing at his chest with jagged claws, a ghost pressing icy fingers beyond the surface of his skin to crush his windpipe--the fear becomes fuel. Oxygen to feed the fire in his belly. It sharpens his focus. Gives him the edge he needs to wrestle some kind of control back from the void that's trying to claim him. And so long as he can fight it, tooth and nail, it's okay. Even if he fails. Even if he dies.

Death comes for everyone sometime, and if he's gotta go down, he's gonna be damn sure he goes down swinging.

This…

This is not that.

Right now, the threat of death is tangible and immediate, but it's not something he can control in the slightest. There's nowhere for him to channel his fear. Nothing to fight against but the threat of gravity and forty-thousand feet of open air.

The plane banks hard to the right, forcing his side against the arm rest as the engines roar, and Dean falters in his quiet repetition of Metallica’s Some Kind of Monster for just long enough that his brain supplies him with a torrent of horrific scenarios he has absolutely no hope of preventing.

A flock of birds sucked into the engine. A freak storm. A crack in the fuselage that none of the safety technicians caught during their inspection, catching the wind and peeling the plane like an orange.

Another plane on a collision path, with the air traffic controller succumbing to the relentless stress of their job and breaking down for just long enough that the pilots have no chance at correcting course.

Outside, the clouds are thick and dark, whipping past the window at a pace, and Dean can't help but think of restless spirits. Fuck, who knows what is out there. They deal with so much shit on the surface of the Earth--where they're supposed to be--that he figures there are probably hundreds of things up here that nobody's even begun to figure out how to fight.

Not to mention the demon he knows is somewhere on board.

Because it's not enough to be trapped in a flying metal death tube--the universe might as well throw in something several notches above his pay grade as well. Just for the hell of it.

If Sam tells him to breathe one more time, Dean’s going to kill him before this plane can.

"Breathe," Sam tells him.

"Choke," Dean replies.

Sam has the audacity to look affronted.

Several hours later, after the demon has been exorcized and the plane is back on solid ground, Dean feels a little like he might pass out. His limbs are loose and tingly. His chest is tight. His stomach churning. His fear has shifted back into its usual holding pattern, but he can still feel sharp edges where it's usually dulled.

He needs to do something. Needs to wrestle back some scrap of control to feel like he's in charge of his own body again.

Suddenly, the fact that they're a sixteen hour drive away from the Impala is all he can think about.

"I'm guessing you don't wanna fly back to Indianapolis?" Sam asks as they make their way through the throngs of travelers at Denver airport, and Dean just levels him with an exhausted stare. "Yeah, stupid question. I'll get us a car."

Dean lets him go, wandering over to the nearest wall and sinking down onto his haunches to sit against it. To breathe. While he waits, he finds himself staring at a sparrow flitting around near the ceiling. Watching the way it swoops and dives over the bustling crowd, searching for a way out. It's probably safer where it is, trapped in the terminal and away from the elements. Free from the threat of predators and planes.

Dean watches it and wonders what it must be like, to be so unaware. To live without fear. He doesn't know if it's better or worse than knowing; if a lack of control is easier to bear if you don't understand the consequences.

As soon as Sam returns with a set of keys, Dean stands and makes a grab for them. Sam yanks them out of reach before he can make contact.

"Dude, what the hell?"

"C'mon, hand 'em over."

"You still kinda look like you're gonna puke."

"Already did in the plane bathroom," Dean tells him, ignoring the wrinkled nose he gets in response. "And driving calms me down."

"It's a long ass drive."

"No shit. I'm not planning on pulling the whole sixteen hours in one go. C'mon, just let me take the first leg."

Sam squints, lips pursed tight, then relents with a sigh.

"Fine." He hands Dean the keys. Even just having them in his hand is grounding.

"What'd you get us, anyway?"

"A car," Sam answers, and heads off toward the door without another word.

"A car," Dean mocks, and follows.

Together, they pick their way through rows of sedans until Sam finally announces that they've reached their rental, and Dean blinks a few times as he looks at the thing Sam is pointing him toward. A bland white paint job. A generic round bumper. An utter lack of soul. He stares at it in disgust.

"What the fuck is this?"

"It's an Impala," Sam says.

"It's a crime."

"It's the 2001 model," Sam adds, and Dean doesn't have to look at him to know he's biting back a smirk. "Apparently it has cup holders."

Despite the car being one of the most offensive things he's ever seen, sinking behind the wheel makes the last of Dean's frayed nerves settle. His chest loosens. His hands feel like his own. With a slow exhale, he turns the ignition and gets them on the road. The drive back to Indianapolis stretches out ahead of him, a long, familiar stretch of blacktop and open plains, and while he can't anticipate every part of the journey, he's prepared for it.

His fear is a silent passenger in the back seat. He carries it carefully across state lines.

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#Supernatural Fic #cass writes fic #imogenbynight #the coda project #S01E04 Phantom Traveler #Episode Coda #Character Study #2.3k words #Gen #rated PG #warning: mention of animal death #john winchester's a+ parenting #dean pov

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