Disclaimer: Not real, not mine, not making money from this.
A/N: Title taken from "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver. Also, a shameless borrowing of Tam Lin.
OTHELLO
Think on thy sins.
DESDEMONA
They are loves I bear to you.
OTHELLO
Ay, and for that thou diest.
- Othello (V.2.40)
1
It is another day. There's a road. You're supposed to follow it. You've never liked driving. Too many variables, you said. And then Dean put those keys into your hands and his eyes warned, don't let me down and take care of baby and fuck, Sam stop being a girl and so you drive, down this road that runs on and on with no end in sight, and you think of everything (girls, boys, Dean) except how you stuck that knife into that empty shell of a person back there in Bobby's house, the one you'd look at in the mirror but don't recognise, and ain't that a fucking cliché. And someone says what the hell is this shit doing on the radio anyway before a hand disciplines the stereo into silence and Sammy drives. Sammy drives and Dean smiles, proud of his little brother with the too-big hands on that steering wheel, palms slippery against the leather and you smile too.
2
The sun spins its way across the sky and still you drive, down this one-lane highway with dust billowing in your wake and Dean sleeping across the back seat. Funny how it's always the other way round in the stories, because you'd like to think you take care of him too, your too-old brother with the heavy step and the crass humour and all the weight of the world in between. You adjust the rear-view mirror and take in his whole body, breathe him in like age-old whiskey. There doesn't seem to be any other cars on the road anyway. Are they on a case? Ghouls, cheerleaders, an angel wrapped around your ribs. Eat, Sammy, you need to keep up your strength. A hand against your head and a spoon against your lips, and the bowl streaks red. Eat, eat. Let me in. It's just another day on the road.
3
There are many things you promise. No more guns, no more boys, no more demon blood dribbling down your chin as you gorge yourself for that one last time. Who was it who said, dear god, make me good, but not yet? A joke, always a joke, to pass the time. Head to the altar, knees to the floor, one boy is a window, the other's a door. No more jokes, Sam, be serious now. Please god, you say, take it away, make it end, anything. You'll be good, you'll offer up your hands as penance, let Dean stab them over and over with those bitten-down nails and pretend there isn't just the faintest hint of pleasure pooling in the pit of your gut, there, there. Oh.
4
There are many things you make Dean promise. At first you don't even have to ask for them, you only have to lay down Jess' burning corpse and those barbed arguments with Dad and heave up all that ravaged guilt that's been gnawing at your insides and place them at his feet and that'd do, that'd do just fine, Sammy, don't you worry, I got your back. And then it would all get better. Yet love always finds a way to twist us to its will, and one day you make Dean promise to end you, better that you die a human at your brother's hand than a demon at another hunter's, with black eyes and god knows what coursing through your veins, and still it's all good, you've got his word, drunk or no. (It's just as well that years down the road you'd be facing that same burden you had branded on his hand and be just as useless with the demon knife and a slackened wrist and his eyes sneering recompense.) And what seems both like yesterday and centuries ago you make Dean promise to leave you in the Cage and live that apple-pie life normal and boring enough for you both but this time he says nothing, only turns his eyes to the road, knuckles white against the steering wheel as the Winchesters continue driving down the fucking asphalt that paves the way to hell. And now, between gulps and ugly sobs which you've forgotten how to be embarrassed about, you make him promise to stay.
5
And then there are the many things the Devil says. Or so you think. Since it's all in your head, isn't that just what you say? Particularities, he snickers, details, waves a hand, not my domain. You've never wanted to kill yourself, ever. You've only ever wanted it to end, hunting, vengeance, the fuck-up that was all your fault shut tight in a tinder box. Make it all stop. Late nights that blink their way blurrily into morning and wind back down into night again, fifty-six hours awake, the skin peeling off your arms and then some, tongue over chapped lips, your head in your hands. Oh for god's sake could you please just stop crying. You'd show them, you would. Have Dean come back and weep over your fucking corpse, he'll see what that does to him, he'll see. See, Sam, semantics.
6
So it's just another day on the road, feet to the pedal, pedal to the floor. Dean has his head against the glass, gazing out at the side of the road as the world slides by. It's something he doesn't do very often anymore, ever since he took the wheel. But now you're driving. The road curves, a hairpin turn. It greets you by surprise but you take the turn by instinct and the tires screech and the car goes into a tailspin and the only thing you can think of is shit, Dean is going to kill you as the Impala makes doughnuts in the sand and wreaths in your hair and for all your pathetic yelling and pawing at the air Dean still isn't looking your way and desperately you reach across and shake him and shake him and finally he turns but it's a blank face all skin and no features and you jolt wide awake gasping his name.
7
You're screaming. It must be, you make a silent inventory, you've always been good at that, because shh, just a little secret between you and me, there's this shrill sound that ricochets off the walls and there are legs stumbling towards you in frayed jeans and a cast and your throat is raw and your face is hot and even as everything spins itself into a perfect whorl of your ear pressed to his chest, see Sammy, it beats, there's a hand, it's a hand now, still, still against your front where your heart threatens to leap and rend, 'cause you're really good at making lists, see Dean, I made a list, celery, olives, tomato soup. That's good, Sammy, really awesome. Oh god, you say, when the screaming stops, oh god, oh god. So much for lists. So much for fists. Shh, shh, Sammy, I got you, don't say a word, you don't have to say a fucking word.
8
There are many ways a blade can make its way around your face. You lie perfectly still and the Devil would do a little Picasso on your right profile, a little Van Gogh on your left. What a laugh, Sammy, and your ear falls off and you blink, you do know it wasn't really deliberate, don't you? A soft clean towel against your cheek. It's smooth now, where minutes ago there was week-old scruff. Such a bear, you are. I really was, you know, his chiefest inspiration. Dean works quickly, drawing the razor in clean, downward strokes the same way he saw Dad did, secretly eyeing the bathroom mirror from behind a magazine. Let's widen your smile a little, shall we? A drop of blood, a perfect hemisphere bubbles its way to the surface of Sam's skin and Dean curses, low in his throat as he smears it away, and you pull Dean close and say don't, don't, and you're good, you're really good. You'll be good this time.
9
Another day on the road. Dean's driving. The night is dark, a black inky darkness you can almost touch, if you were to stretch your fingers out of the car window, which you do. The door gives and you tumble out, cheek to rough gravel and hair in your face as you roll to the side of the road and lay there, breathing. There's elderflower in the breeze, rose, too, you think, but that's just the Devil talking. The streetlight beams brightly down at you like a giant sunflower and you praise it, though you just want to go to sleep. But always these hands find you and shake you awake. They pat you down, looking for cuts and bruises and broken bones and you cannot sleep, not when you have Dean yelling your name in your face over and over and he has that smile with the teeth when you can finally bring yourself to meet his eyes. They murmur that you're a monster, so you look down at your hands and find talons instead. You draw them down his chest and they leave six deep tracks and he screams bloody murder but still he holds you. You rip strips of flesh off his back as broken wings spring from your shoulder blades and stretch sixteen feet wide across the road, blocking out the light and tearing at Dean's face leaving nothing but shreds but still he holds you. It's not your fault, he's the one who put them there. Sam, he says, Sammy, I'm sorry. And then your stomach roils and heaves as the wings wither away and you've become a giant serpent, all scales and sharp spines that work their way under Dean's skin as he struggles to get a hold of your slippery hide while you writhe and strain against his grip. After what seems like eternity it's morning and you're a man again, naked but whole and still Dean holds you, against your will, or so you say, but for your head against his shoulder and your heart against his chest.
10
The florescent lights in the Gas-N-Sip are way too bright. You try to ignore them and it's not too hard, really, shuffling forward with your eyes on the floor and the plastic handles of a shopping basket tight between your fingers. It's almost akin to the first time you had been allowed to venture out alone, the world stark and ready for conquering, rasa your tabula and all that. Grown-up things like choosing between chicken noodle or minestrone and making sure you don't grab the reduced fat version of the beans by mistake. Deciding which pie to get. Rhubarb's for old ladies, Sam. Peach, then, peach is good. You reach for it. The raspberry has a fist inside, drowned in blood, throbbing. That's not too bad, you think, that's familiar territory, as the room sways a little and you catch the faint chime of chains in the distance. The lights flicker. You're still holding the pie. And your damned nose is bleeding again.
11
Dean grumbles as he jabs a finger exasperatedly at the cast on his leg. Fucking monster, he growls, fucking son of a bitch I'm gonna end every single one of those bastards, and knocks back the last of the whiskey. He eyes you warily, you can feel it, behind the pages of this boring paperback you've been entertaining for the past hour. It's a romance novel so there's a love triangle and periodic weeping and lots of gratuitous sex. Not the sort of thing you would read in real life but here you are reading it anyway. So there's a red-haired girl lying unconscious in a bloody bathtub. So the liquor cabinet's emptying way too fast and the jar of antiseptic that Bobby replenished last week is empty. So you draw lines with a blade down the smooth, hard planes of your stomach and Dean scolds you for it. Fuck, man, what are you trying to do, so you shrug and he punches you square on the jaw, and it actually does hurt. You're surprised. Even on crutches he packs a mean swing. He stares at you as though you might swing back or crumple and cry but you do neither, it's like your face's cast in stone, it feels so cold. He stalks away, slamming the door behind him. You touch the beginning of a bruise on your jaw and for the briefest of moments a hand's just a hand and your face is your own and two years later you won't leave charred holes in the place of eyes for a young Asian boy.
12
You lie on the floor and count your sins. The cracks in the walls preach from yet another gospel where a boy becomes a bargaining chip between his brother and an angel, where the Devil fucks you five times a day, where things happen and things happen and you just cannot seem to stop them from happening. You lie on the floor anyway. It seems like the best thing to do, what with Dean shouting outside, garbled angry syllables you're too tired to make out, and Bobby in some other corner of the cabin pointedly ignoring him. Also, there's a man singing in the bathroom. Spider under a bell jar, girl up on the ceiling, he sings. He knows you're there, but it will all be fine if you keep very still.
13
Dean is calling for you. It's not long before he finds you on the floor, staring at the ceiling. The world's better horizontal, you say, half-mocking, half-serious, and Dean snorts. You almost expect him to drag you up again and herd you to the table and put another bowl of that broth in your hands, an idea which makes you want to retch. Really, he says archly, and you nod. He sits down beside you, thinks better of it and lays his body out next to yours, close enough but not touching. You keep your eyes on the colony of mould in the far corner. In Hell, Dean says, I could cut up any soul Alistair put on the rack because it wasn't you. I could do anything. I would carve out a heart and squeeze out its last tremors in my hand. I would drape their intestines over their heads like a garland. You listen. He begins to shake very slightly. They would scream and I would grow to love the sound. He laughs hollowly. Beats your own screams. You listen. After a while everything becomes easy. Everything but you, Sammy. You say nothing.
14
On the first day you wake up not screaming, a pale surprise at not screaming and then you wake up for real and oh, it is another day. Dean is sprawled across the misshapen couch opposite you, limbs careless and loose and so alive and for the first time you don't think of bodies stretched out on racks, the butt of a rifle kissing the back of a neck as a man curls in unto himself, searching for the gun under the pillow but finding nothing but air. You don't have to think about that today. Dean sighs in his sleep, a catch in his breath. You watch his throat bob up and down as he swallows and turns over. He's always been a messy sleeper, you both were, weren't you, before life beat it out of those small frames. You smile. It is another day, and maybe, just maybe, this is the day you are finally ready to talk about it.