Fic: Sunny Days (Jeff/Dean) ch 4/?
Mar. 9th, 2009 12:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyjanelly
Sunny Days
Jeff/Dean
Dean is gone, and so is his backpack.
The laptop sits on the table where Jeff saw it last. Car keys are on the table by the door, Jeff’s wallet beside them. The bright yellow of a sticky note catches his eye, where it pokes out of his wallet. He unfolds the paper and grins. “I.O.U. $20 -D.” He hasn’t been robbed, he’s been borrowed from. He might be missing some clothes; he’s not sure. The Tupperware of soup from the fridge is gone.
Jeff stays close to the house for the next few days, catching up on some yard work, starting a new painting in the studio. As the week passes though, the feeling that Dean will be back at any minute starts to fade. He goes out with friends again, takes Bisou to the park.
He flies up to New York for a week, shooting a guest spot on some crime drama. He’s home for six days, then drives down to L.A., stays there for a month to work on a movie. He watches the news, checks the internet for weird happenings. A “suspected” serial killer is found handcuffed to the cage he’d kept his victims in. Jeff thinks of Dean, wonders if he’s safe and happy, wonders where he is and what he’s doing.
Sometimes those thoughts come at night, when Jeff’s alone in his bed. He remembers the lean strength in Dean’s arms as he’d held on, the smell of his shower-fresh skin, the feel of his stubbled scalp against Jeff’s cheek. He imagines these things out of the context of pain and comfort, imagines Dean in his bed, touching Jeff with his calloused hands, the way his lips would taste against Jeff’s. It’s ridiculous, how hard he comes when he thinks those thoughts and touches himself.
The movie wraps in thirty eight days. Cast and crew head out to a local hot-spot, all bright-colored drinks in funny-shaped glasses and all Jeff wants is the smell of cigarettes, the clack of pool balls, the taste of beer.
When he gets back home, the city seems empty somehow, full of people Jeff isn’t really interested in interacting with.
His third night back in Seattle, Bisou’s soft whining wakes Jeff at three in the morning. Jeff listens, but can’t hear anything but her nails clicking on the floor, the jingle of her collar as she paces through the house. Jeff drags himself out of bed. “Hey, girl,” he says, as she paces back and forth to the front door, tail-wagging and whining at the same time.
Bisou leads Jeff to the front door, and Jeff knows who’s there. He flicks open the deadbolt, swings open the door, and there’s Dean, leaning up under the front porch light. Dean’s wry smile, accented by a split on his lower lip, reminds Jeff of all the dirty thoughts he’s tried to push down, all the need he’s ignored.
“Hey,” says Dean, like months haven’t passed, like Jeff hadn’t worried he was dead. Besides the lip, he looks good, well-fed, clean. His hair’s growing in, and his clothes are more stylishly worn than falling apart. “Can I buy you a beer?”
“Little late for a bar, isn’t it?” He wants to throw Dean against the wall, make sure he’s real and taste that dark line on his lip where someone’s hit him. He adjusts his robe instead.
Dean’s cocksure grin falters the slightest bit. “Can I come in?” His voice is lower, softer, and Jeff almost lets him in without a challenge.
“Once.” His voice is gritty with sleep and he’s not choosing his phrasing as well as he’d like. “You get to do this once, running off like that. You need time, you need space, you tell me you’re leaving.”
Dean looks down and Jeff resists the urge to shuffle his bare feet. “I fucked up,” Dean says. “Won’t happen again.”
Jeff nods and steps out of the way, waving Dean back into his home, his life. He puts John Winchester away again, clears his throat, forces his shoulders to relax.
“You alright?” he asks as Dean sprawls with exaggerated nonchalance on his couch. Jeff’s been in the business long enough to recognize an Emmy winning performance when he sees one. “Get you something from the fridge?”
“A beer’d be great,” Dean says, and Jeff gets two. He sits on the other end of the couch and ponders his next move.
“It was too much,” Dean blurts before Jeff can even figure out what to ask. The masks crack and he can see a shadow of the pain and confusion behind Dean’s green eyes. He holds his beer, turning the frosty bottle around in his hands. The silver ring glints on his finger. “One minute, I’m at the end of the world and the next I’m in a--a god-damned paradise by comparison. By the time I think I’ve got my bearings, there you are, looking like Him, but you’re not.” He smiles but it doesn’t make it to his eyes. “That story you gave me, man. That was some crazy shit.”
“Just because it’s crazy doesn’t mean it’s not true,” Jeff says, and Dean shrugs.
“Doesn’t mean it is, either.”
“Why’d you come back?” Jeff asks, sipping at his own beer.
“Nowhere else to go,” Dean says, and finally takes a drink. “I tried ‘working.’ There’s nothing out there. I tried finding the patterns, tracking the trouble, but there wasn’t anything. I found some people, but no monsters. Nothing works. Not séances, not summoning. There’s nothing at your crossroads. Nothing in your pauper’s graveyards.” His voice sounds so lost. “It’s like the magic here is cold. Your monsters are all on TV.”
He clears his throat, picks at the label on his beer with his thumbnail. “I can’t get back to Sammy.”
A chill brushes across Jeff’s skin at the thought. Dean can’t. Which means Dean tried.
“What now?” he asks, to move things on. He doesn’t want to hear about Dean’s adventures in self-destruction anymore.
“Hell if I know,” Dean says without looking up. “I could live on hustlin’ pool and credit card scams, but what’s the point?” He drags his fingers through his hair.
“Hey. Look. Here’s your twenty back.” Jeff takes the money--it’s a matter of Dean’s pride.
“I just--” Dean struggles for the words and Jeff waits. “I just need a little time to get my shit together,” Dean says, “Couple of months, tops.”
“What do you need to do that?” Jeff asks. “Money? A car?”
Dean makes another of those helpless little gestures. “I dunno. A job, I guess. I’ll have to get some place to stay. Something to do with my freakin’ time.”
“And after those couple months? You have plans yet?”
Dean puts on his affronted face. “I’ll figure something out. Dude. That’s months from now.”
Jeff smiles, because if Dean’s protecting his image so hard, he must have the energy to do so, and that’s a good sign.
“Okay,” says Jeff, “I’ve got a new movie starting in a week. You ever done any handyman work? I’ve got some projects that I’d like to see started around here that I haven’t had the time for. Stay here, work on your plans, keep up the place for me.”
Dean’s eyebrow goes up as he makes a show of considering the offer. “Yeah? What’s it pay?”
Jeff grins back and wonders just how hard he should negotiate. “Five hundred a week plus room and board and the use of my truck.”
Dean narrows his eyes. “Room and board and beer,” he counters and Jeff mock-scowls.
“You better not be an alcoholic by the time I get back.”
That gets him a half-choked laugh. “Dude. You know you’re not my dad, right?”
“I’d rather be your friend,” Jeff says and thanks whoever it is who looks after aging actors that he doesn’t say the rest.
“Friends,” Dean says and fidgets with the label on his bottle of beer. “I think I can manage friends.”
Jeff figures he must be missing his family to sound so wistful. Must be, because to hope that Dean’s wanting something more than friends is more than Jeff can afford.
.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 05:57 pm (UTC)“It’s like the magic here is cold. Your monsters are all on TV.” Gah! Poor Dean, with no idea what to do. And: Jeff takes the money--it’s a matter of Dean’s pride. Yes. On both their sides: that it would matter to Dean, and that Jeff would accept it because it matters to Dean, not because he cares about the money.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 06:07 pm (UTC)Really good :)
no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 06:08 pm (UTC)“I tried ‘working.’ There’s nothing out there. I tried finding the patterns, tracking the trouble, but there wasn’t anything. I found some people, but no monsters. Nothing works. Not séances, not summoning. There’s nothing at your crossroads. Nothing in your pauper’s graveyards.” His voice sounds so lost. “It’s like the magic here is cold. Your monsters are all on TV.”
I loved that. Sent a chill through me, imagining what that must have felt like to Dean, finding it all gone.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 06:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 07:43 pm (UTC)Lovely stuff, i love Jeff *wanting* but trying not to, and Dean needing him as a point of stability and familiarity in his so-uncertain world.
*bounce*
If you write more, i shall most happily read.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 08:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 09:14 pm (UTC)Looking forward to more.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 09:40 pm (UTC)Such a brilliant idea - but it leaves me with so many questions!
Like, what about Jensen... and, hell, Jared! If Dean was to meet Jared...
Sorry, I get way too involved - my imagination kicks into overdrive and you don't need anything that even sounds like pressure.
Good work! Here's hoping your muse sticks around for a while!
Wren
x
no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 12:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 02:14 am (UTC)It's fascinating that Sam managed to send Dean so far away in space/time/whatever, but then we always knew that Sammy was a talented lad. Poor Dean. I think he would rather have died near Sam. Hopefully Jeff will give him a reason to keep going on.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 06:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 05:25 am (UTC)Don't know about you, but I expected so much more from Sam in S3 and over the summer. I feel better when I think about your universe, in which Sam really did find a way to keep Dean safe from hell, on earth or otherwise.
Dean's sorrow when he realizes that this was a one-way trip, that Sam sent him to a place without magic, demons, or deals, is lovely and painful. But I have to be happy for this Sam, who figured out what to do and did it. I think canon Sam would have given anything to be able to do that.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 04:32 am (UTC)Who can roll with the watchmen?
XD silly times.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 06:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-11 11:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 04:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 12:18 am (UTC)