a l l . o u r . t i m e . s l i p s . a w a y

All Our Time Slips Away
[by victoria p.]

Rating: G

Summary: You have to save him, the way he always saves you, and you have to do it without costing him everything he's got left.

Spoilers: through All Hell Breaks Loose, part 2

Notes: Thanks to luzdeestrellas for betaing. Title from Tom McRae.

Word count: 2,115 words

Date: May 23, 2007

Sometimes you think you can see time passing, like those time-lapse videos on the Discovery channel that Dean leaves on after he's fallen asleep--seed to flower to seed again, the circle of life in thirty brightly colored, perfectly filmed seconds.

One minute, Dean is leaning over the body worn by the yellow-eyed demon who'd killed your mother and stolen your father, and saying, That's for our mom, you son of a bitch, and the next, he's bursting into the motel room, asking if you want to take in an afternoon game at Wrigley, before you head to the cemetery that night for a salt-and-burn.

You wonder if this is how parents feel watching their kids grow up, time speeding past, no way to slow it down. Stop and smell the roses, Dean says, happier than any man ought to be with less than a year to live (you have it calculated down to the minute, though math was never your favorite subject; you need to know how much time has gone and how much time is left, slipping through your fingers like sand). The Roses, the Kathleens, the Elizabeths, he says with a leer that makes you roll your eyes, but then you think about never seeing it again, and you have to look away.

You wonder if he tells those girls--he's never had to work to get laid, but you know he enjoys the game, slipping on other people's identities like a little kid playing dress-up--and like a little kid, the seams are always sloppy, and large swathes of Dean show through, if you know where to look, and of course, you do. So you wonder if he's added I've only got a year to live to his repertoire.

It's not like I ever thought I'd see thirty, anyway, he says to you one night after too many shots of Cuervo. You should have stopped him, could have stopped him, but you didn't, wanted him to open up and let you inside the way he only ever does when you break him, and every time you do, you feel guilty, but you can't stop doing it, because it's the only way you ever know what he needs--that he needs anything at all. So you let him get drunk and sloppy and you stumble back to the motel room, barely holding each other up, and you hope he gives you something to cling to, always taking even when you mean to give. You wish you were drunk enough to forget what he's saying and know you aren't, that no amount of tequila will erase the memory of his voice, low and rueful, the lost little boy look on his face that he almost never lets you see.

You brush his hair back from his forehead, gently, the way he used to do for you when you had nightmares as a kid. He leans into it for a moment before he slaps your hand away, and you let him, give him some space and let him recover what tattered dignity he has left.

I never wanted to hear you say that, you answer, though you know you asked for it, have to take what comes even when it's not what you wanted.

He just shakes his head, muttering, Aw, Sammy, not now.

It's on the tip of your tongue, Now is all we have, but you can't bring yourself to say it; instead, you swallow it down like the acrid burn of tequila, determined to make it a lie.

You spend precious hours in the car, miles like time rolling away underneath your wheels, the sound of a ticking clock counting down your brother's life, and he reaches out, never taking his eyes off the road, and slaps the back of your head.

Stop thinking so hard, Sammy. Your face is gonna freeze like that.

You shake your head and sputter, wondering how he can be so nonchalant about the whole thing, wondering if inside he's falling apart the way you are, if he's scared and desperate and trying hard not to show it. You think he has to be, but you're not sure, because as much as you've grown up and grown closer over the past year and a half, he's still Dean, and deep down, you believe he's never been scared, that he can do anything, and you need to keep believing that, like you need to believe he believes in you, because that means you can do anything.

You don't have to do anything, though, you have to do this one particular thing. You have to save him, the way he always saves you, and you have to do it without costing him everything he's got left.

You try to talk about it--sometimes you feel like you've spent your whole life trying to talk about things with Dean, and you're not sure why you do, because you always end up learning things you wish you didn't know.

You fall asleep over a dusty grimoire in a motel room somewhere south of Santa Fe, nightmare creatures from the book showing up to taunt you with answers they won't reveal, until Dean shakes you awake. Hey, hey, Sammy, go to bed, man.

You crack your neck and try to roll the stiffness out of your shoulders, ignoring the phantom twinge in your back--you've been healed up for a while now, but sometimes you'd swear you can still feel the thrust of the knife into your spine, taste the blood flooding your mouth as the light dims behind your eyes.

I'm gonna find a way to save you, you say, head still woolly and full of fragments of dreams where demons laugh and you can't remember the words to the Rituale Romanum, Latin twisting your tongue, knowledge receding into the distance as you chase after it, gasping.

I know you're trying, he says.

You straighten to your full height (you still feel a little thrill whenever you look down at him) and say, You don't think I can do it.

He shrugs. I don't think you're gonna do it tonight. He puts a hand on your arm, and you know it's supposed to be comforting, but it feels like all the weight he's carried all these years has shifted suddenly onto your shoulders, and you don't know if you can take it. He shoves you towards the bed and you go, too tired to argue.

You head east, chasing rumors of more demons, performing exorcisms becoming almost second nature now. The days get longer, and you still have no solution, aren't even close to one. You start sleeping less, waking up in the gray pre-dawn hours to reread websites you've already read half a dozen times, no new answers magically appearing.

Dean drives for long hours on endless stretches of road, and you doze in the car; you like to think of it as multi-tasking, since you can't do anything else with the time, and you spend most of the time when other people are sleeping either hunting or researching, and if you don't, he gets on your back for not taking care of yourself. The old resentment at his mother henning has been replaced by guilt, raw and sour in your belly, so you try to do what he asks.

The change in season is all too apparent in the way the interstates are packed with minivans full of families heading for vacation, bikes strapped to the roofs, kids in the backseat playing license plate bingo. You used to wish you had that, thought you might have, with Jess, but know now you never will. You try not to think about how Dean won't either (and you think now he maybe wants it, but would never say so, which makes it worse). You try not to think about how this might be your last summer with Dean, his last summer ever, and focus on the job at hand, take each day as it comes. You try not to think about how each day that passes is one less you have to save him.

You're hunting a water wraith in Riis Park--a change of pace, Dean says, from tracking down the demons Jake set free that night in Wyoming, something so easy we could do it in our sleep, except that you take your eyes off him for two seconds, distracted by the hungry-looking seagulls circling overhead, their beady eyes intent even in the falling darkness, and when you look back, he's gone, nothing but dark water rippling to show he'd ever been there at all.

You slosh through the sluggish water, fear choking your voice, making it shake when you yell, "Dean," like you're a little kid again, lost and scared without your big brother, mission--and all the years of training that brought you here--forgotten as the cold water laps against your knees and a chill shivers across your skin.

Dean's head pops up, hair slicked back off his forehead, eyes wide and mouth open and gasping for air. "Sam! Goddammit, Sam, the spell!" he shouts, and you remember the little vial of holy water and herbs in your pocket, the words of the banishing spell prickling on your tongue.

You grab his arm with one hand, and he gets to his knees, hooks an arm around your thigh as you empty the vial into the water, chanting in Latin the whole time. The water froths like it's boiling, though the temperature doesn't change, and you can feel it trying to suck Dean under, and you with him, but you dig in your heels and keep chanting until it dissipates with a whoosh and the abrupt return of the humid press of summer air where the chill of the wraith had been.

You haul a cursing, sputtering Dean out of the water, and laugh as he sloshes and squeaks all the way back to the car, adrenaline making your voice higher and tighter than normal.

You pull the towels out of the trunk, hand him one and drape the other two over the front seat, remembering your last trip to Florida, when Dean was determined to hunt some ridiculous swamp monster that turned out to be nothing but a tall tale. You laughed at Dean's sunburn, turning his nose and neck and shoulders pink, and he spent days peeling off bits of skin and flinging them at you at random moments of maximum gross-out potential.

You imagine the towels smell of salt water and suntan lotion, but really they smell of grease and damp from sitting in the trunk for months, and there's no sand to get all over the mats when you unfold them. You wish fervently that you'd gone to the beach while you were there, that you'd forced the issue, but you didn't then, and now you don't know if you'll ever get back.

"Hey," he says, toweling his hair, "you ever been to the beach around here?"

"Planning on taking a vacation, Dean?" You look at him incredulously, and not just because of the suggestion. You don't know how he knows what you're thinking, and you know if you asked, he'd say it's 'cause he's the big brother. Sometimes it still freaks you out when he does it, even when you find it comforting.

He shrugs. "We're here. The beach is there. Couple days off couldn't hurt."

"But what about the demons? And we don't have time--" You stop. You didn't mean to say it, but he just laughs and shakes his head.

"Anyone's gonna save me, Sammy, it'll be you. Now come on. I don't trust the way those seagulls are circling. If they shit on the car, you're washing it off."

You smile, because you're sure his plans for the next couple of days include detailing the car, and get behind the wheel, your own boots squelching a little, as well. You drive back to the motel while he fidgets and slaps at the mosquitoes trying to eat him alive. You try not to laugh at that, but you can't help it--he's always been prone to getting bitten and you haven't. He gives you a scathing look, always so touchy about his dignity, and the laughter bubbles up and you let it free, chest feeling loose and light for the first time in months.

Time's slipping away--one minute you're pulling Dean out of the brackish water of Jamaica Bay, and the next, you're walking the boardwalk at Rockaway Beach, and he's singing the Ramones under his breath--but Dean believes you can save him, and you're not going to disappoint him.

end

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