Title: “Perennial” Author: girlguidejones Pairing: Sam/Dean Rating: PG-14; 1600 words Spoilers: none Warnings: non-graphic Wincesty schmoop Disclaimer: Characters property of Mr. Kripke and the CW. I own nothing, and will not own anything more by writing this. Author’s note: written for mini_nanowrimo
“Uh, Sam?”
“Mmm-hmmm?”
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s a plant.”
“I see that, yeah. It’s a plant. In a pot. But why do we have it? Oh, and, uhm...christo?”
Sam snorts and exhales, blowing his hair up and momentarily out of his eyes, though they remain focused on the hole he’s dug under the rear window of their hotel room. “I’m not possessed, Dean.” Satisfied with his excavation, he reaches for the plant and tugs it out of the cheap clay pot it’s been in up until now. “It’s a chrysanthemum. And it’s not staying in the pot. That’s the whole point.”
Dean simply leans against the buckled siding of the U-Sleep Motor Inn and scratches his head, watching Sam begin to fill in the damp earth around the whatever-you-call-it plant. “I’m thinking that’s not really the whole point, Sammy, unless you’re trading in the lawyer act for botany.”
“And I’m thinking I’m surprised you know about ‘botany’.”
Unfazed, Dean answered. “Know lots of things, Sammy. Especially about you. Things like how you’ve never so much as picked a flower, much less planted one, even in your most emo of teen rebellion years. What gives?”
“It’s Sam. And Mrs. Carson gave it to me.”
“Oh. Okay. Sure.”
Sam waits a few beats, beginning to tamp down the chocolate-brown soil around the woody stem of the mum. Looking up, he smiled his most disingenuous smile. “You don’t know who Mrs. Carson is, do you?”
Dean stands straighter now, shifting away from the building. His shoulder was getting chilly from pressing against the cold aluminum siding. Glancing at Sam’s long fingers fiddling in the dirt, he thought about how cold they must be. And about how they would feel against his skin. “Unless that hot blonde at the dartboard last night was lying about not being married, no, I don’t. What difference does it make, anyway?”
“Well for one, it explains why she didn’t give you the plant.”
“What-the-fuck-ever, Sam. Just get ready for supper, or you can walk the two miles to the diner by yourself.” Inexplicably pissed off, Dean turns to leave, but Sam’s grimy fingers on the sleeve of his jacket stop him. Kid moves fast when he wants to. A second ago he was still kneeling on the ground, and now he was standing up, his late-afternoon shadow all loom-some over Dean.
“She’s the lady next door? At four-oh-two?” Sam’s smiling softly now. Dean can’t help but grin back because Sam’s infectious that way, even though he still doesn’t get where this is heading. He’s remembering Sam’s laughter when they checked in and went to find their room. Whoever built the U-Sleep Motor Inn had a quirky sense of humor. There was only one floor, so there wasn’t really a need for room “four” –oh-two. Room "two" would have worked just fine. And the room numbers were completely random, which meant that for the last ten days they had shared a wall with Mrs. Carson in Room #402 even though their door clearly said “Room #6791”. Dean remembers thinking that the original owner must have been a fan of Alice in Wonderland.
“Yeah. I remember now.” Mrs. Carson was elderly, but not so elderly that she hadn’t smiled knowingly at Dean at the ice machine the day after he had fucked Sammy senseless all over the room. “What about her?”
“They came to take her away today. I saw her yesterday morning and she told me she was leaving. I guess they’re putting her in a home or something.” Who the “they” might be remained unspoken, and a few moments of silence hung between Dean and Sam. Dean didn’t know if his brother’s daydreams of the standard-issue, white-picket-fence life had ever included his 2.5 children stowing him away in an old folk’s home someday, but Dean knew his didn’t. He’s never expected to live long enough for that. Sam’s dirty hand was still on his sleeve, and Dean knew he should be giving him the pro-forma bitching about it, but instead he just bent himself closer to Sam.
“Uh...I’m sorry?” He wasn’t sure what the right thing was to say in response to finding out your neighbor of ten days was going away before you could check out yourself, but Sam was smiling down at him, so it must not have been too insensitive of him.
“It’s okay. But she was worried about her plants. She’s taking her inside ones, but she didn’t know what she could do with this one. I guess it’s supposed to come back year after year, but it will die indoors. I didn’t have the heart to tell her we were leaving, too.”
A light was beginning to dawn for Dean. “And you didn’t leave it in the pot because...?”
Sam shrugged, dropping his hand from Dean at last and rubbing them on his jeans. Of course he’d bitch later that he didn’t have any clean ones. “I was afraid no one would water it. At least if it’s solid in the ground it would have a chance, you know?” For a second he looked almost like little Sammy again...the little boy who always looked back through the rear-window at things incomplete or abandoned as Dad carted them off to the next job. “Besides, it was nice to dig a hole to put something living in for a change, instead of digging up something dead and nasty, then killing it and burying it all over again.”
Taking his cue from Sam, he stepped away, nodding. “Yeah. I get that.”
Dean waited in the Impala while Sam washed his hands, and both were silent as they left the hotel lot and headed down the only main thoroughfare in town. Sam sat up and looked quizzically at Dean when he turned down the dirt lane leading to the local greenhouse, but didn’t move when Dean got out and went inside. He returned in a few minutes, getting into the car and handing Sam another potted chrysanthemum. It was like in size to Mrs. Carson’s, but where hers was garnet Dean’s was snowy white.
“Um...thanks, Dean. But I’m not really on a mission to adopt all orphaned chrysanthemums in the county, you know.” Sam was grinning now, happy and clearly feeling indulgent of Dean’s quirkiness. Dean thinks that Sam’s “You really are cute. And sweet, too!” smile should offend him, or at the least annoy him, but all it really does is make a little knot of warmth bloom open and grow through his belly. God. He was turning into such a girl.
“Just figured they would look nice together. Besides...nothing should have to live by itself. Nothing really can, you know? Live alone? Not and make it worth it, anyway.”
Dean wasn’t looking at Sam while he said it, just keeping his eyes on the road as they neared the diner. Sam didn’t answer. Sam’s side was closest to the restaurant when they parked, and he was waiting for Dean to round the nose of the vehicle, hooking his hands into the leather lapels as Dean passed. Hauling Dean in for a kiss, Sam laughs softly into his mouth. “When we get back, I’m going to plant your plant, and then I’m going to go down on you and blow you till you come all over both of them.” Dean’s mouth drops open, bombarded by filthy thoughts of fertilization and come freezing white on the green leaves like last night’s frost.
They’re already too close to the door for Dean to kiss him back, and Sam deftly plays it off as a manly shove as he pushes Dean away from him when a couple of truckers pass them, coming out as they go in. In some matters, they’ve found that old truism “Never borrow trouble” to be just that much truer south of the Mason Dixon. Sam leads the way to a corner booth, and for once he’s the one who’s all chatty and flirtatious with the waitress. Dean just orders a piece of cherry pie a la mode and admiringly watches his brother chip away at the bill the waitress is going to hand them later with that million-watt smile. Sneaking a hand under the table, he does some chipping of his own, fingernail flaking off flecks of the mud caked on Sam’s kneecap while he thinks about things that never die.
Sam leans closer after the waitress finally walks away, and Dean watches the chipped edge of the formica try to snare Sam’s hoodie. “Cat got your tongue, Dean? Don’t like the sounds of my plan?” Dean stutters, struggling to scrounge up some sort of reply as images of Sam sucking his cock flood his imagination. Little fucker was flirting with him now that she’d gone. Dean taught him everything there was to know about flirting, and fuck if he wasn’t turning around and using it on Dean himself. Goddammit, it was working, too.
“N-no. I mean, yes. I like your plan. In fact, th-that’s right magnanimous of you, Sammy.”
“Don’t mention it”, Sam winks. “My knees are already dirty anyway.”