All's Right With the World, 3/3
Mar. 7th, 2007 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chaletianTitle: All’s Right with the World, 3/3
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters, Pairings: Dean, Sam
Summary/Notes: Dean Winchester’s life is pretty close to perfect. He has a loving family, a nice house, a great career. He had to sell the Impala when his daughter was born, but hey, you can’t have everything. But now that life is flickering in and out like a bad light bulb, and Dean can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.
Dean stays home for a week. Jack had listened to what he’d said, and had suggested the time off, and Dean was so grateful for the fact that he hadn’t been admitted to the psychiatric ward straight off, that he agreed. More time to spend with his family, he’d said, with a grin which fooled neither Jack nor himself. “Concentrate on relaxing,” Jack had said. “It’s probably just stress.”
“Yeah,” said Dean, and he tries to believe it. Tries real hard. It’s as good an explanation as any other: stress. It’s a hazard of the occupation, after all. Doctors spend much of their time battling stress, and though Dean has never really had much of a problem with it before, he thinks maybe it’s all backed up, and come out like this, all at once. But he doesn’t really think it’s stress. Dean thinks he might be going mad.
He dreams, all the time. Not just when he’s asleep, but any time he lets his mind wander. He’ll be at the sink, rinsing a glass, and then he’s somewhere else entirely, talking to people he’s never met, seeing things he’s never seen. He’s constantly disoriented now, seems to flicker between reality and this crazy dreamworld. He tries to concentrate on the here and now, to make sure his mind is fixed on mowing the lawn, or playing with Amy, or sorting laundry, or shooting hoops in the back yard, but his mind won’t cooperate and keeps slipping away from him.
“Dean, you’re going to be OK.” He’s sitting on a chair in the living room, and it seems to him that both Kate and Sam are talking to him at the same time. Not together, not standing side by side, brother and wife, but in the same place, one laid over the other, like two layers of tracing paper, saying the same words, wearing the same expression of worry and fear. Dean doesn’t believe either of them.
His perfect life is sliding away, and Dean can’t make it stop. His family, his house, his job. Being a decent man, the kind who goes to church, the kind who helps out elderly neighbours. All that is slipping away, he can feel it running through his fingers. Their house is flickering on and off now, like a light with a dodgy circuit. One second Kate is there, and the next second it’s Sammy, and for the life of him Dean can’t keep track. It’s making him dizzy, and he just wants to curl in a ball and close his eyes and wait until the storm passes. He closes his eyes, but it doesn’t help, because he panics that when he opens them again his life will have disappeared and he’ll be in some scummy motel room somewhere with no life and no family and no job, and that’ll be something he deserves. Deep down, he realises that he doesn’t deserve his life, but he can’t figure out why.
Their house is vanishing, and Dean tries his hardest to cling on, but the very walls seem to be dissolving, Kate’s pale blue and white stripes transmuting into a florid green 70s pattern, the wide king size bed with its fresh linen morphing into ubiquitous off-white polycotton. He wants this life. This family. But he feels a large hand clasping his, and Sam’s voice urging him home, and Dean knows it’s not for him.
…
The Winchester boys sit on a jetty overhanging the lake, a six-pack of beer between them. Sam nods to a clearing fifty feet away.
“That’s where it got you.” Dean glances over his shoulder, and shrugs.
“Can’t say I remember.” Sam takes a pull at his beer, and looks at his brother curiously.
“What do you remember?”
Dean is silent. Sam has explained what happened, what the witch had done to him, packed his mind away into a corner of his head where it couldn’t escape. He’d been out for days, Sam said, but Sam had been able to break the curse, and get Dean back. It was all confusing for while, but Dean remembers where he went, who he was, what he had. Nothing he would be having in this life, that’s for sure. So he lies, because he does that.
“Not a damn thing, Sammy.”
“Dean. Seriously, man. It’s Sam.” Dean can’t help but grin at the look on Sam’s face, the look that he swears hasn’t changed since Sam was about eight. He grabs a bottle, and slaps Sam on the shoulder.
“Sure thing, Sammy.” Sam punches him in the arm.
“Jerk.”
“Bitch.” And Dean smiles, and relaxes, because all’s right with his world.
END
OK, yes. Blatantly stolen the concept of this fic from the Buffy ep, Normal Again. I confess. Love me anyway? *g*
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters, Pairings: Dean, Sam
Summary/Notes: Dean Winchester’s life is pretty close to perfect. He has a loving family, a nice house, a great career. He had to sell the Impala when his daughter was born, but hey, you can’t have everything. But now that life is flickering in and out like a bad light bulb, and Dean can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.
Dean stays home for a week. Jack had listened to what he’d said, and had suggested the time off, and Dean was so grateful for the fact that he hadn’t been admitted to the psychiatric ward straight off, that he agreed. More time to spend with his family, he’d said, with a grin which fooled neither Jack nor himself. “Concentrate on relaxing,” Jack had said. “It’s probably just stress.”
“Yeah,” said Dean, and he tries to believe it. Tries real hard. It’s as good an explanation as any other: stress. It’s a hazard of the occupation, after all. Doctors spend much of their time battling stress, and though Dean has never really had much of a problem with it before, he thinks maybe it’s all backed up, and come out like this, all at once. But he doesn’t really think it’s stress. Dean thinks he might be going mad.
He dreams, all the time. Not just when he’s asleep, but any time he lets his mind wander. He’ll be at the sink, rinsing a glass, and then he’s somewhere else entirely, talking to people he’s never met, seeing things he’s never seen. He’s constantly disoriented now, seems to flicker between reality and this crazy dreamworld. He tries to concentrate on the here and now, to make sure his mind is fixed on mowing the lawn, or playing with Amy, or sorting laundry, or shooting hoops in the back yard, but his mind won’t cooperate and keeps slipping away from him.
“Dean, you’re going to be OK.” He’s sitting on a chair in the living room, and it seems to him that both Kate and Sam are talking to him at the same time. Not together, not standing side by side, brother and wife, but in the same place, one laid over the other, like two layers of tracing paper, saying the same words, wearing the same expression of worry and fear. Dean doesn’t believe either of them.
His perfect life is sliding away, and Dean can’t make it stop. His family, his house, his job. Being a decent man, the kind who goes to church, the kind who helps out elderly neighbours. All that is slipping away, he can feel it running through his fingers. Their house is flickering on and off now, like a light with a dodgy circuit. One second Kate is there, and the next second it’s Sammy, and for the life of him Dean can’t keep track. It’s making him dizzy, and he just wants to curl in a ball and close his eyes and wait until the storm passes. He closes his eyes, but it doesn’t help, because he panics that when he opens them again his life will have disappeared and he’ll be in some scummy motel room somewhere with no life and no family and no job, and that’ll be something he deserves. Deep down, he realises that he doesn’t deserve his life, but he can’t figure out why.
Their house is vanishing, and Dean tries his hardest to cling on, but the very walls seem to be dissolving, Kate’s pale blue and white stripes transmuting into a florid green 70s pattern, the wide king size bed with its fresh linen morphing into ubiquitous off-white polycotton. He wants this life. This family. But he feels a large hand clasping his, and Sam’s voice urging him home, and Dean knows it’s not for him.
…
The Winchester boys sit on a jetty overhanging the lake, a six-pack of beer between them. Sam nods to a clearing fifty feet away.
“That’s where it got you.” Dean glances over his shoulder, and shrugs.
“Can’t say I remember.” Sam takes a pull at his beer, and looks at his brother curiously.
“What do you remember?”
Dean is silent. Sam has explained what happened, what the witch had done to him, packed his mind away into a corner of his head where it couldn’t escape. He’d been out for days, Sam said, but Sam had been able to break the curse, and get Dean back. It was all confusing for while, but Dean remembers where he went, who he was, what he had. Nothing he would be having in this life, that’s for sure. So he lies, because he does that.
“Not a damn thing, Sammy.”
“Dean. Seriously, man. It’s Sam.” Dean can’t help but grin at the look on Sam’s face, the look that he swears hasn’t changed since Sam was about eight. He grabs a bottle, and slaps Sam on the shoulder.
“Sure thing, Sammy.” Sam punches him in the arm.
“Jerk.”
“Bitch.” And Dean smiles, and relaxes, because all’s right with his world.
END
OK, yes. Blatantly stolen the concept of this fic from the Buffy ep, Normal Again. I confess. Love me anyway? *g*
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-03-07 05:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-07 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-07 08:59 pm (UTC)he’ll be in some scummy motel room somewhere with no life and no family and no job, and that’ll be something he deserves.
Oh Dean.... *chokes*
no subject
Date: 2007-03-07 10:13 pm (UTC)Nice, thanks :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-03-07 11:04 pm (UTC)Thanks for sharing the fic. Yes, love you anyway :o)
no subject
Date: 2007-03-08 04:06 am (UTC)I like how his not-real life keeps disintegrating, and I felt so bad for him as he realized he just wouldn’t be able to keep what he had. But then he was back with Sam, and he loves Sam, and Sam loves him, so it’ll be OK. :)
Favorite lines:
“Dean, you’re going to be OK.” He’s sitting on a chair in the living room, and it seems to him that both Kate and Sam are talking to him at the same time. Not together, not standing side by side, brother and wife, but in the same place, one laid over the other, like two layers of tracing paper, saying the same words, wearing the same expression of worry and fear. Dean doesn’t believe either of them.
Love this whole paragraph. The imagery here is great, and that last line makes me ache.