Midnight Song, for yanyann

[summergen-mod.livejournal.com]

Title: Midnight Song
Recipient: yanyann
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,680
Warnings: None.
Author's Notes: Dear yanyann, Your prompts were fun and inspiring, and I really hope you enjoy this little episode tag with its (somewhat) less angsty brothers. Dear Mods, thanks, as ever, for making this happen! The title is borrowed from a Dahlia Ravikovitch poem.


Summary: You know that feeling where you're pretty sure the sheets just lightly brushed your skin but there might also be a spider in bed with you?


Midnight Song

Dean was in the driver’s seat, yellow-white headlights the only thing really visible in the dark. Beside him he heard Sam snoring, which brought him back to nights from his childhood and teen years, the sweat-and-cologne of three guys living in close quarters, all the little grunts and clearing of throats and random clicks of tongues that kept you company after conversation petered out on a long trip. Sam snoring as he lay smashed up against the seat. Comforts of home that Dean had not noticed specifically missing until Sam was back again. For the novelty of it, he glanced at the passenger seat to get a look at his brother.

But the seat was empty, even though, when Dean looked back at the road rushing by under the twin headlights, he still heard Sam snoring. He turned over and felt his own face smashed against a pillow and thought, That’s okay then. Just a car dream. Faintly, over the industrial hum of an air conditioner and the dog-pant of a diesel truck outside, Sam was snoring from his bed. Dean bit his tongue just hard enough to be sure he wasn’t still dreaming the sound, and then sank back into the dream, which seemed to have lingered for him. The car dreams always did.

Some time passed with Dean just watching the headlights, feeling at times like he could see Dad’s rear bumper at their far edge, but not too concerned with keeping up. Sam’s snoring persisted, even when Dean turned his head and saw only an empty seat. Gradually, though, he became aware of pauses from Sam, his snoring replaced by snuffling, a different rhythm of breath. Dean pushed back to himself, became aware of starchy sheets and very cool air and the dark hotel room and being a little sweat-damp but surprisingly comfortable. Over on the next bed, Sam huffed loudly, twisting around and flopping onto his back.

Sometimes Sam woke up with a little yell before becoming very quiet, seeming to hold his breath for long minutes. Dreaming of Jess. Dean mostly left him alone then. But this behavior was just him wretchedly uncomfortable in a bad bed. “You all right there, Sammy?” Dean asked, waking up a little more. He knocked a pile of extra pillows out of his way to see the digital clock on the bedside table. Two fifty-nine o’clock.

Sam let out an explosive breath. “This bed feels weird.”

Dean sighed. The luck of the draw had given him a really good mattress, just soft enough, no errant springs. “Switch?”

“No, it’s not that.” He kicked out abruptly. “I keep feeling little insect legs crawling all over me.”

Dean laughed.

“It’s not funny!” Sam said. He turned over again.

Dean cackled and waited for Sam to almost settle in again. When it was quiet, he said, “Remember that motel with the cockroaches nesting inside the comforter?” They had made a squishy crunching sound the moment Sam had thrown himself down on the bed.

Sam sat straight up. “You are a dick!”

“Hey, you’re the one who woke me up with your weird PTSD,” Dean replied, though he wasn’t really bothered. He lived for opportunities to remind Sam of the roach motel. Even Dad had gone a little green that night.

Sam swung his feet over the edge of the bed and stood. “It’s not weird to have a crawling sensation on your skin after last night, Dean. God, they were all over us.”

“Take another shower. Did the trick for me.”

The bedside lamp clicked on, too bright for a moment and then just soullessly fluorescent. Sam stripped the comforter from his bed and violently shook it out over the carpet. Nothing seemed to fly loose from it, except maybe some crumbs from dinner. He folded it up and put it on the desk, then repeated the process with his sheets and pillowcases. Dean watched him then reassemble the bedclothes.

“So when you say we should find honest work instead of playing poker and running credit scams, I didn’t think you had motel housekeeping in mind.”

“It’s good, honest work,” Sam muttered, flopping back into the newly made bed. “And probably worth it to see you in an apron.”

As it happened, Dean had done his fair share of under-the-table housekeeping and handymanning. But to tell Sam would be to give up the game of winding up Sam’s amusement-tinged moral outrage. Last week at the bar, when Dean had come out with his poker winnings to find Sam ready to hop on the case of the strange death in Oklahoma, the dynamic between them had been funny and sort of like old times. The new, older, somewhat more experienced Sam wasn’t just in this for revenge and finding Dad anymore. Dean could tell. Sam liked the work. He enjoyed himself. He laughed at Dean when Dean went over the top to amuse him, and so maybe he’d stay.

“I’d look better in an apron than you and your skinny ass,” Dean said. “Feel better?”

Sam scratched his knee and shrugged. “I guess. Except now I’m awake.”

“Yeah, me too. Thanks for that.”

Sam got up again, this time to find their laptop and set it up at his bed. Dean thought about turning off the lamp and going back to sleep, but honestly, he was kind of bored of the car dream for now, and he kind of liked staying up late with Sam. It reminded him of when they were teens and Dad let them stay in their own motel room so he could do research in peace next door.

Rather than turn on the tv, Dean dug into his duffel and pulled out a paperback he’d found in a cafe somewhere outside of Omaha. He flipped through to the page bookmarked with a receipt from a different diner, this one from Bakersfield with a phone number written on the back. He honestly couldn’t remember whether the number was for a girl or a case. Possibly it was for both.

“Dude, are you reading a Vonnegut novel?”

Dean looked up to see Sam spread out with the computer in his lap, bare legs crossed at the hairy ankle. He had on his “what planet are you from” face, which was always good for some fun, but something was off too. Sam scratched absently at his elbow and then rubbed his ankles together.

“Are you still feeling the creepy-crawlies?”

Sam scowled. “It’ll go away.” He punctuated what was clearly a very wishful thought with a head-scratch. Dean put down his book. “What? What is it?”

Dean made a face. This was going to be such a pain if he was right. But also hysterical. “Hold still,” he told Sam, approaching his feet with caution. The light was just bright enough to get a good look close up. But if he was right, then he didn’t want to get too close up, so he crouched a foot or two away and narrowed his eyes at the skin and hair at Sam’s ankles.

“Yahtzee,” he said. He looked up into Sam’s eyes (“what planet are you from” now edged with wary concern) and said, “You remember what kind of insects we battled the other night?”

Sam nodded slowly, glancing down at his ankles and scratching his elbow again. “There were bees, wasps, mosquitos, beetles, ladybugs…. Dean, please tell me there weren’t--”

“Fleas,” Dean laughed. He pulled away from Sam’s bitten ankles and the tiny jumping critters feasting on them before he could give in to the impulse to give him a consoling pat. “Sorry, kiddo.”

Sam gave a cry of disgust and shuddered across his entire body, as though wanting to escape from his own skin. He put the laptop aside and then bent forward to inspect his ankles, followed by his elbows and knees, making sounds of disgust the entire way as he no doubt caught sight of the little insects. Then he froze and looked down at his crotch.

Dean cracked up.

Five minutes later, Dean had on his clothes and was grabbing his keys while Sam applied calamine lotion with a vengeance in the bathroom.

“I’m telling you,” Sam said. “They have the stuff at the 24-hour pharmacy, okay? Do not break in to a pet store. Do I need to go with you?”

“Absolutely not,” Dean said. “If the car’s not already infested, we’re not tempting fate.”

“Can fleas even survive on vinyl?”

“We’re not gonna find out. Stay here, lather yourself up, and I’ll be back with Flea-Off or whatever.”

“From the pharmacy.”

“We’ll see.”

“I’m not using something made for pets.”

Dean grinned and saluted. “Back in a bit, Fido.”

“I hate you so much. Why don’t you have fleas?”

“Clean living,” Dean said, grinning. He left, locking the door behind him, and climbed into his car. It was too dark to really tell, but he tried looking around for signs of fleas on and around the seats anyway, using the flashlight on his keychain. Nothing, but you never knew. Baby was due for a deep clean anyway.

He tried to tune the radio on the way to the pharmacy, but it was all static out here. They hadn’t made it far past Oklahoma, where sometimes you had to drive a while to get rock instead of church programs, depending which way you headed. Dean sat back and kept in his lane, his headlights really all he could see.

Familiarity with the white noise of the engine and the air rushing past his ear from the cracked-open window turned, as it sometimes did, to surreality. The seat beside him was a black well of darkness, his rear view mirror pointless on the empty road. Dean bit his tongue just hard enough to be sure he was awake, then, on impulse, he picked up his phone and dialed. He was grateful enough to get a signal that going straight to voicemail didn't sting.

“Hey, I know you’re busy, Dad, but you’ll probably get a kick out of this.”

- Fin -