ashorttriptohell | the rusty nail } { my strength is fading, I have to give in

Current Mood: drunk

Entry tags:

the rusty nail } { my strength is fading, I have to give in

Dean didn't know what he was doing in Smallville.

He shouldn't be in Smallville. He was supposed to be in Indiana, with Lisa and Ben, trying to see if he could handle living the normal, apple pie life, but he wasn't getting there. He wasn't even sure if he really wanted to go. All he knew was that he had made a promise to Sam to get out, and he didn't know if he could do it.

He had only left Lawrence a few hours ago, but he hadn't made it very far before being in serious need of a hard drink. In fact, it was the kind of drinking that he really didn't want to come up from, but after the very butch bartender of the Rusty Nail (worst bar name ever, in his humble opinion) decided that he needed to be cut off for the night, he paid his tab and stumbled his way out, hands fumbling in his pockets for his keys. He wasn't planning on driving -- that car was all he had left, and he wasn't about to destroy it -- but he needed somewhere to sleep, and he wasn't going to make it to a motel. Back seat was comfortable enough -- wasn't like he hadn't done it before.

The cool, fresh night air hit him like a blast to the face and woke him up a bit, making him sway a little less and walk a little straighter. He was surprised that he had even had enough sense not to just buy his own booze and give himself alcohol poisoning, but he had, and right now, he just wanted to sleep it off. He pulled the keys out of his pocket and went to unlock the passenger's side door, one hand rubbing his face slowly as he did.

Tomorrow was going to suck, and not just because of the hangover.

[If you need more ... lemme know?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Lana didn't know what she was doing going back to Smallville.

Two years ago, she couldn't leave fast enough, if only because she knew if she stayed long enough to say goodbye, she'd never would. She thought that they could make it work now that she knew Clark's secret, but as soon as she was free from Brainiac 's control, she knew they couldn't. Deep down, she'd known for a while.

The last time she came back was for Chloe's wedding about a year and a half ago. There were no shining reasons like that now. She just got in her car and that was the direction she ended up driving.

She happened to glance toward the side of the road to see a familiar form walking out of the bar. When she slowed, Lana realized who exactly it was she was looking at.

Or she thought she did.

She pulled over and walked his way as quickly as she could.

"Jason? Jason, is that you?"

The last time Dean went by the name Jason was a lifetime ago. Literally. He had been resurrected so many times since then, that anything that happened prior to Dean going to get Sam at Stanford seemed like someone else's life. Someone who hadn't been royally fucked by the cosmos and had to live with some bullshit destiny that ended with his brother in a hole.

It had been a fluke. Dean was passing through Smallville and met this girl at a coffee shop, and didn't feel like being himself. He gave her the name "Jason Teague" -- an alias he was rather proud of at the time -- and wound up staying for over a year, living someone else's life. It had been nice, not to be Dean Winchester for a while, and Jason's life with Lana ... well, it had been pretty sweet. Something next to normal -- or as normal you can get in a town like this.

It had been five years, a trip to both sides of the afterlife, and a whole lot of pain and suffering since he had been called that name in that voice, but God, it was almost sweet to hear it again. He also knew that he had drank enough that he was probably hallucinating, so he didn't heed it, just unlocked the front door of his car, getting ready to slide inside.

"Sleep it off, Winchester," he muttered. "Deal with the fact that you're losing your mind in the morning."

Lana was confused to say the least. It was him, she was sure of it, but this was strange behavior, even for a drunk man.

"What? Winchester?" She reached out for him and attempted to turn him toward her. "It's Lana, remember? Lana Lang?"

He turned pretty easily, given the state he was in, and when his eyes landed on her, it felt like a punch to the gut. He had thought about times when he would see Lana again, before things really went to shit, but it had never been like this. He was more drunk than any man should be, an emotional mess, but ... it was good to see her. It was really good to see her.

"Lana. No, I -- I remember." There was a beat, and then, lamely. "Hi."

She grinned up at him weakly. "Hi." She rubbed at the sides of his arms a bit. "Do I even want to know?"

"Not really, no." He didn't even want to know. But her rubbing his arms felt good, and familiar, and he really wanted to lean into that. Even though he really knew that he shouldn't. He glanced away for a moment, before starting to pull away to open the door. "I should go."

She quickly took hold of his arm. "Not like this you're not," she said gently but firmly. "You'll get yourself killed."

"I wasn't going to drive," he said, a completely innocent look on his face. "I was just gonna ... sleep." Which was the truth. He was just going to sleep. Not the ideal, but he did know his limits.

"In the back of your car?" She shook her head. "No. No, we're getting you a room. You can come back for your car in the morning."

Dean shook his head. "It wouldn't be the first time. I'm fine. You don't have to get me a room." It wasn't that he didn't appreciate what she was trying to do, but he didn't have the energy to be Jason who was nice and normal, and he wanted to at least maintain some part of that life for her. It was only fair, after all.

"Really, Lana. I'm not worth the effort. I could do with a good sleep in my car."

There weren't many things that shocked, not after all she'd been through before and after this man came into her life, but she was taken aback by his behavior.

Really, she shouldn't be. There were times when he'd acted less than normal, especially before he left.

Maybe it was the obvious drowning of his sorrows that made the difference.

"Why would you say that?" Lana did her best to put herself between him and the car, her concern apparent. "I'm not leaving you like this."

"Oh. Lots of reasons," he sighed. He wasn't going to blab all of them out to her right there in the street, but in the end, while he didn't want to ruin the illusion, she deserved a little bit of honesty. "The most important of which being my name isn't really Jason, and ... I'm so friggin' far from the guy you knew back then.

None of what he was saying made any sense. God, what did he drink?

"What are you talking about?"

A lot. He drank a lot, Lana.

"My name isn't Jason Teague, and I'm not a mechanic," he sighed, running a hand over his face. "It's Dean Winchester, and I'm ... " He paused, because he wasn't even sure what he was anymore. He was broken and he didn't know how to fix it. "... I'm the guy that gets everyone killed."

For some reason, Dean always felt the most terrible when he was being honest with someone. Now was definitely one of those moments.

Lana was quiet. Probably long enough to make him feel more terrible than he already did. This was her life, just like this. No one was ever exactly who she thought they were, and usually, the moment the realization hit her was the moment she wanted to run away from it all and find a place that felt safe from what she always seemed to be blind to.

Now definitely wasn't one of those moments.

She almost felt like she was looking at Clark. She could almost feel whatever weight it was he carried, how much he cared about whoever he thought he let down. She couldn't bring herself feel angry for the lies he told her, just the sting it her eyes and the slight blur of her vision that came with it.

"What happened?"

"You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you," he began, swallowing hard as he ran a hand over his face. It was hard to actually put all of it into words, or even know where to start, because it was all twisted and connected together. But here he was, and he knew he had to give her some kind of explanation.

"You know how when I left, I had just gotten a call from my dad and said I had to go find my brother?" he continued slowly, watching her face as he spoke. "Well, things got bad. Really bad. And ... I'm the only one left."

It took every bit of willpower he had not to have his voice choke on that last sentence. It was all still so real and raw, and finally admitting out loud to the fact that he was completely alone was one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do, second only to actually letting Sam go.

Her heart broke more with every word. There were things she wanted to ask, so many empty spaces that she wanted to fill with information. But more than that she knew he needed someone. Maybe it wasn't her—it was never her—but that didn't mean she couldn't try to help.

Like she could stop herself.

She carefully wrapped her arms around his torso.

A hug was not what he was expecting. Dean had never really been a hugger, but that didn't mean he didn't want to be held every once in a while. He froze at first, unsure as to what to do, but eventually he just leaned into the familiar, sliding an arm around her shoulders to pull her closer, just burying himself in what he already knew.

It was familiar. Dean could use a little bit of familiar right now, even if he wouldn't admit it. His lips came to rest against the top of her head, just staying as close as he could. "I'm sorry I left like that."

"Don't apologize," she answered softly as she held onto him. "From the sound of it, I can understand why you did." She grinned weakly, though she knew he couldn't see it. "Besides—given the number of times I've done the same thing since then, I can't really pass judgment."

He nodded once, considering for a moment all the other things that he should be apologizing for, but there was one among them that easily covered all the others. "I'm sorry for lying to you." He pinched his eyes closed again. "I know you said don't, but I feel like I should."

"You're right. For that, you should." She sighed before she continued. "I don't have to tell you how much I hate being lied to. Anyone who knows me is aware of that...and back then, if I'd found out, I'd have been furious. But I've gained some perspective since then. Sometimes people lie to protect those they care about, and I know what that looks like. That doesn't mean I don't want to know why, I do...but if you won't tell me...I can accept that."

She paused, shifting her position just a bit. "Maybe you're not who I thought you were, but I know you're a good man."

"To be honest?" Which ... he was on a streak at this point. He was just going to keep going. "I wasn't such a big fan of me at the time. I just ... wanted to be someone else."

There was a beat.

"Not saying that I wasn't me. There's just a lot of shit that's attached to the name 'Dean Winchester' and I didn't want that to impact us. It probably sounds really stupid compared to where I'm standing now, but ... I just wanted to be a regular guy who didn't have this insane life. Jason ... he could have that."

Another weak grin. "Believe it or not, I've heard something like that before."

"Really?" He was surprised. He didn't think that Lana would be the kind of girl who had a lot of people like that in her life. "Because that all sounded really pathetic in my head."

She pulled away from him just enough to look at him. "I think you've forgotten where we used to live."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject