Songfic #1
"Simple Song" – Iwan Rheon
* Dean/Sam (Supernatural)
"Simple Song"
I don't mind,
If you're leaving tomorrow,
If I can hold you tonight.
Sam Winchester was afraid. It was the 24th of December and he was barely twenty-five years old. This winter had been one of the coldest in his memory, and he'd seen some pretty cold winters back home. He glanced frantically down at his watch and tapped his worn-out boot on the gravel. His brother, Dean, was exactly one hour and forty-three minutes late. Lack of punctuality wasn't unusual for Dean, and Sam knew that. He was, however, unaccustomed to feeling the brunt of his brother's unreliability. For the last few years, he'd been traveling with Dean, going all over the country. Being apart from him for more than a few days was starting to eat away at him, like half of him had suddenly and unreasonably disappeared.
Sam huffed out a breath and gathered up the courage to walk over to the door of the dingy motel. When he'd first arrived, he'd been shocked at how… sketchy the place was. He'd reached onto the dashboard to grab the crumpled piece of notebook paper on which Dean had hastily scribbled the address. Yeah, this was the place. Dean had to be here somewhere.
Emptiness,
In the garden of wanting,
If I can hold you tonight.
"Excuse me, is there a Dean Winchester checked into this motel?"
The small man with straw-colored hair that stuck out in all directions stared at Sam. He looked at him up and down and back up again. Sam was starting to feel uncomfortable when the dumpy fellow announced,
"Nope, no 'Dean Winneychester' here."
Sam cursed softly under his breath and remembered that Dean would never have used his real name. He wracked his brain to come up with his brother's most recent pseudonym, but none were coming to mind.
"Forget it," he told the small man and turned to walk back out the door. The man's quiet cough pulled his attention back to the dark room in the dark motel.
"There was a boy, came here four days ago," the man sighed. "Looked a lot like you. He's up in Room 16." He grunted and, as Sam turned back around to face him, he handed him a key. Before he could even thank the man's strange and random act of kindness, the man had stomped off, back to some small recess of the office.
'Cause I've been listening to the radio,
And it's been telling me to be alone.
But now, I'm singing that they're on their own,
Simple song.
Please don't ask me why I feel afraid,
I'll take these thoughts and feelings to the grave.
Let us laugh and cry a soulless song,
Simple song.
Prove me wrong.
"Dean?"
Sam stepped from the bright sunlight and into the motel room, letting a few seconds pass for his eyes to adjust. When the room came into focus, what he saw terrified him. He was standing in a dimly lit bedroom, and every single thing in the room around him was trashed. The pale pink lamp was shattered into large clay pieces on the floor, the television set had been knocked off of its stand and was now smoking on the floor, and the sad excuse for a bed was most of the way off of its frame. Sam's eyes grew wide as he took everything in. Muffled noise reached him from through the bathroom door, and he walked over to it.
"Dean?"
What he had realized as humming stopped abruptly. He heard his brother freeze, afraid of whatever could be on the other side of the door.
"It's just me. It's Sammy," he said. He felt the lock click open under his palm, and he pushed open the door.
"What the he-," Sam's thoughts flooded out of his mind when he saw Dean sitting on the edge of the bathtub. He had red cuts carved into his face and into the flesh on his forearms. Tiny drops of blood seemed to decorate his arms as rubies in a horrid and breathtaking way. He had bruises on his neck that were turning to violet right before Sam's eyes. He had a long gash running from the base of his cheekbone down to the tip of his chin, and, as he looked up to meet his brother's eyes, Sam noticed that he looked older and more tired than he'd ever seen him.
"Hey, Brother," Dean made a weak attempt at a smile and lit one more piece of paper on fire. He dropped it, and Sam watched it float gently down to join the other flaming slips of paper in the murky water of the bathtub.
Sleep tonight,
On a bed made of promise.
Let your hope be your light.
Sam crossed the yellowing tiles of the bathroom floor in one stride and sat down on the closed lid of the toilet.
"What happened here?" He got in front of his brother's face and watched his eyes to see if what he said was the truth. He knew Dean so well that he knew if he bit his lip too much or took a blank look on his face, he was lying. And he lied a lot.
"They came for me, for us," Dean muttered. As he tossed his lighter into the sink with a clatter and splashed the bathwater full of ashes with his bloodied hand, Sam knew he had broken him. Dean wouldn't be lying today.
"Who came here?" Sam demanded. He watched as Dean drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out through his teeth. When he had chosen what he wanted to say, he looked carefully at Sam.
"The thing that killed Mom… there was more than one of it."
Dream tonight,
Let each breath fill the darkness,
And your love is your light.
"I don't understand," Sam admitted. "Why would it come here and bother you?" And, as an afterthought, he added, "That's why you didn't come out to the car today. They were in here with you and I was just outside… I could have helped you."
At this, Dean's eyes shot up and he glared at his brother who was still so shocked at the whole scene that he was close to tears.
"Okay, so they were in here. I'm fine now. They didn't want anything much, just to cause trouble and taunt at what they did to Mom. I tried to fight them, but they're gone now, and they aren't coming back. You couldn't have done anything, you hear me?" Sam was staring down at his hands, not sure if he could look at Dean anymore, knowing that he could have prevented him from getting so badly hurt.
Dean tried to stand, but he was too weak. Just as he was stumbling backwards, he felt Sam's strong arms wrap around his body.
"Don't worry. I've got you," Sam whispered as he supported Dean's weight out of the bathroom.
'Cause I've been listening to the radio,
And it's been telling me to be alone.
But now, I'm singing that they're on their own,
Simple song.
Please don't ask me why I feel afraid,
I'll take these thoughts and feelings to the grave.
Let us laugh and cry a soulless song,
Simple song.
Prove me wrong.
It had been six hours since Sam had arrived at the motel and four hours and seventeen minutes since he'd entered this room. He was now situated in the corner, tucked into the armchair and reading a dull book provided by the motel.
He glanced around the room and noted how different everything was now compared to just earlier that day. The broken television was gone, but a new lamp had been provided. This was a dusty rose color, and it complimented the room better than the pale pink one ever did.
Yeah, I've been listening to the radio,
And it's been telling me to be alone.
But now, I'm singing that they're on their own,
Simple song.
Please don't ask me why I feel afraid,
I'll take these thoughts and feelings to the grave.
Let us laugh and cry a soulless song,
Simple song.
Prove me wrong.
Sam smiled to himself as he watched his brother sleep on the flimsy mattress. He observed his slow, steady breaths move in and out of his broad chest. His eyes moved to the scars on Dean's arms and the bandages over the ones that he'd been able to bandage. He took in the elongated slash on his face that, at first, had been unnerving but was now becoming sort of beautiful.
He got to a semi-interesting part of the book but couldn't go on as the following pages had served as the fuel for Dean's bathtub fire. He laughed to himself in the shadowy room and stood up, stretching, from his chair.
He wandered over to the TV stand where a grimy radio sat. The motel staff must have brought it when they took away the remains of the television. He fiddled with the knobs and, after a few seconds, classical music was flowing through the ancient speakers of the radio. Shrugging, Sam accepted the fact that this was probably the extent of his musical options here in the middle of nowhere. He turned the noise down a bit, so as not to wake Dean, and crawled into the bed. He fell asleep beside his brother as the quiet compositions faded into the night.
Oh, tonight.
See the trees, they are turning,
While I hold you tonight.