Fic: Wait For The Ricochet 7/7
:: :: ::
Hell must know, there have been worse things I've done.
I hold out these hands, receive the sun.
A purge these days, will we accept the things we must?
The world will now learn of change to come,
Or no world.
:: :: ::
Images fluttered down, spinning through the shadows, offering up two men over and over; running, eating, fighting, playing; then snatching them away in a flash of white, brilliant in the gloom. They lay scattered on the ground, the same two men, sometimes alone, more often together and he stood there, just one more shadow, one more ghost among the years of memories, blood pooling in his hands and falling with his tears to paint the pictures in crimson streaks, diluted with salt and guilt and grief.
His sobs were silent, as they'd always been, his broad shoulders shaking with the force of the cries he would never give voice to, bruises flaring dark through the torn shirt that hung loosely from his shuddering frame. He stared down at his hands, at the blood coating them and choked on the name that stuttered to his lips, falling to his knees with a heavy thud that echoed dully in the worn room, the thin carpet barely muffling the noise and doing nothing to cushion the force of the blow. But he never even flinched, just stared and stared, broken and terrified; eyes locked on his own, trembling fingers, as if he knew that to even glimpse the deeper shadow in the corner of the room, the black stain slowly creeping thick across the floor towards him, knew that seeing it, seeing into it, would destroy him completely.
The photos still rained around him, spinning in a wind that didn't exist, somehow stirred up into the air again and again; clinging to his back as he hunched forward, struggling to breathe through the tears that were drowning him. Slowly, they stilled, the last few drifting through the dark in an aching blizzard of times long past, memories lost but never forgotten, and the last one fell to land across his hands, freezing his body so completely that no breath fluttered the thin edges, and something already cracked in his eyes broke a little more as he gazed into it, lost and alone as he saw the two men striding through a narrow door, side by side, the neon signs bright against the night washing over their grins.
In the quiet, the dull, clotted splash of blood dripping from his hands into the pool that had finally spread from the corner to his knees was loud; and he flinched violently, dragging in a cold, shuddering breath as his fingers suddenly clenched into fists, the thick paper crumpling and tearing under his white knuckles, and finally he cried aloud, voice ripped and shattered, and lost in the dark, unheard by the one his words were meant for, the only family he had left.
"I'm sorry. Oh god, I'm sorry."
Dean let his fingers fall open, watched the rough confetti tumble over his lap and stir the thick fluid staining his knees into sluggish ripples that wavered through his reflection, tainted with crimson against the black. Ice trailed down his back, curled sharp talons around his spine with a delicate, foul caress as he watched the faces of his brother and his father blur and run into the blood. The image carved into his sight long after the inks had dissipated, the night months before never forgotten, held close, treasured in his heart.
Manning, Colorado, the North Star Motel, the sight of his father pausing to lean against the wooden beam by the door, his stare cold and hard.
"So boys..."
"Yes sir." Sam coming to stand beside him, the answer that should have sprung to his own lips coming from his brother's instead.
"You ignored a direct order back there."
"Yes sir."
And suddenly, he couldn't say it, couldn't silence the sullen, weary retort that burst from him.
"Yeah, but we saved your ass."
He felt Sam shuffle beside him, a quick glance raking over him in surprise, but all he saw was his father's cold, hard stare, unchanging, unflinching. He swallowed; trying to hide the nervous motion with a twitch of his shoulders, a shift of his stance that he knew didn't fool anyone.
"You're right."
"I am?"
John sighed a little, looked down as Dean's eyebrows climbed towards his hairline. When he lifted his head again, the hunter saw his father's eyes fill with fear and distant grief, and something else. Comfort. Joy.
"It scares the hell out of me. You two are all I've got," and his father half-smiled, met his eyes squarely as hope slammed into him. "But I guess we are stronger as a family. So we go after this damn thing. Together."
"Yes sir."
This time, their voices were united, but he could barely hold in the smile that threatened to split his face in two, suddenly feeling like a kid on Christmas morning as they tossed the last of their clothes into their bags. He'd hauled the duffels out to the car as Sam stayed in the room with their father, erasing the last of the obvious protections they'd laid on the room, and he'd turned as they walked out to him, side by side, smiling.
The photo must have been taken from behind him, and his skin crawled with the knowledge that the demon had been right there, watching them, planning this all along. There was no other way Travis could have got the pictures, no way the young man could have followed them for so long unnoticed, and the presence of the thing that had cost them so much twisted the memory, corrupted it sickeningly. "We go after this damn thing. Together." It was everything he'd wanted since he was four years old, every wish come true at once, and now it was stained with fear and anger and guilt.
His hand shook as he lifted it, jammed the heel of his palm into his eye, heedless of the pain that spiked through his head as the pressure aggravated the bruising there. The blood smeared thickly across his face as he dragged his hand down, pressed it against his lips, hard enough to split them against his teeth.
"I can't, Dad. I'm sorry. I know I promised but I can't."
He stared at the scrap of paper, the muddy swirl across it that had been his father's face, and the ache he'd hidden for so long, the gnawing, grinding pain in his heart that he'd pushed away again and again. So many times in the last few months he'd bolted upright in bed, his breath locked in his chest against the wail that threatened to split the air apart; that exhausting, crushing hurt suddenly overwhelmed him.
His ribs stabbed shards of ice into his sides as he curled forward, shuddering and bowing his head into his hands, fisting them into his hair, turning the dark blonde and pale skin beneath to a slaughterhouse portrait. The smell of the blood coated his tongue, slithered down his throat with warm, metallic fingers carried on every staggering breath.
:: :: ::
Sam blinked.
He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again as wide as he could. But it was still dark, utterly, terrifyingly black as he stared into the void, feeling his eyes ache from the strain as he searched desperately for the light, running through cobwebs that sparked lightning along his skin as he raced through them blind and mute and numb to everything but their burning, icy touch.
I'm-m-sor-m-or-m-or-m-or-ory.
The echo brought him slamming to a halt, so distorted he couldn't even begin to understand it. But he recognised it, knew it instantly.
"Dean?"
Nothing.
"Dean!"
Just his own call, dead and hollow in the oppressive night and he screamed his brother's name, again and again until his voice rasped over his throat and amber light brushed a horizon he couldn't see, a hellish crescent rising over the edge of the world. Blood moon. The thought shivered through him, unwelcome memories he knew he would never forget welling up around him, swamping him, drowning him; the bloody light spilling over the rim of the fountain as he slammed an elbow into his brother's back, forced him down into the oily remnants of the once-graceful fountain as Dean whispered his name, begged him, "Sam..."
The echo called him back, and he surfaced out of the past to find himself on his knees, his arms wrapped tight around his chest, fists digging into his sides as he took in a huge, aching breath, staring at the bloody grin above him, the grin that had dragged him away into the darkness inside his own mind and he was sucked back under again; Travis, smiling, his grin eating up the whole world but somehow Sam could see behind his own back, see his brother falling to the ground, to his knees on the pictures that danced through the air around them, groping blindly for the gun; a mirror image to the feel of those fingers inside his head, groping through his mind, searching as Dean pulls the pistol towards him, staggers to his feet and he could feel that presence in his head laugh as Travis found the secret place, the place no-one is ever supposed to go and opened the door and it sounded so loud, like thunder, like the end of the world, like a gunshot...
Sam blinked.
Paper rustled under his body as he twitched, heat blurring through his shoulder and he gasped a soft moan, his right hand flashing up to his shoulder, hovering over it protectively as he rolled awkwardly onto his side, panting.
A shuddering breath, heavy and torn with silent tears, and he reared up, his gaze searching through the dark, locking onto the figure huddled in the middle of the gore-soaked pictures. His heart withered to a husk behind his ribs, stole his breath with a hollow gasp as he mouthed his brother's name.
Dean.
Someone lifted him, commanded his legs to move, to carry him across the remnants of their lives, crimson splashing up from his boots as he stumbled through the fire that slammed into him from his shoulder, his eyes welded to that hunched, shivering figure, curled so tightly that the vertebrae were clearly outlined through his shirt, but all he heard was the fast, steady beat of the grin that glared at him from the shadows, still haemorrhaging blood when the trail that spilled from the third black eye between the empty stare had long slowed and stopped.
"Dean?"
This time his whisper was a scream in the quiet, as he fell to his knees, the thud muted by the sodden paper carpet, the crumpled scraps that haemorrhaged their lives into the blood and he reached out his good hand, brushing his fingers across his brother's shoulder. His blood turned to acid, searing through his veins as Dean shrank away from him. Sam glanced down at the slick warmth on his hand, felt his stomach turn as arid and dead as his heart as he saw the blood coating his skin, and his gaze was frantic as he scanned his brother's trembling body.
"What is it? Where are you hurt? Answer me, Dean!"
The older man shook his head, a tiny fraction of movement, but it was enough for Sam to see his face past the filthy bandages that trailed from his wrist, his skin painted crimson and black, deep-ocean dark eyes muddied with tears and terrible grief. He reached out again, hesitated with his hand an inch away from Dean's shoulder.
"I can't."
The breath of sound cut him, invaded him like the gunshot he'd felt end the life that probed through his mind. He swallowed, curled his outstretched hand into a fist as he followed that broken, awful stare to the fragments of stained white scattered across his brother's lap, and recognised his own jacket, peeping out from behind a long, heavy coat.
Dad's. Me and Dad, when did he take this? How did he take this without us knowing? He couldn't. The demon. It had to be the demon. But the realisation didn't matter as his brother spoke again, his voice empty and dead, the emphasis knife-sharp as it grated between clenched teeth.
"I can't, Sam."
Sam took a breath, began to speak and had to stop as his jaw trembled. He bit
his lip hard enough to feel it split under his teeth before he could manage a reply
"Can't what?"
Part of him knew, part of him didn't want to hear the answer that fell leaden into the space between them.
"I promised, but I can't keep them all, and I don't know how to choose which one..."
He said I had to watch out for you, had to save you, and if I couldn't...You have to stop me...I promise...We'll figure it out, Sammy, and when we find whatever the hell it is that's doin' this, I'll kill it. Swear to god. I'll kill all of them...I promised, and you know I never break a promise...I have to trust that you'll stop me...I promise.
The words curled through him, clawing at his skin from the inside with the defeat that finally rippled through his brother's voice.
You and me and Dad, I want us to be together again, to be a family again...I'm supposed to look out for you, protect you, it's my job...Look out for Sammy. It echoed through him; look out for Sammy, the four words that had defined his family for so long, the father who had to utter them, the son who willingly listened and the brother that never understood what they meant. ‘It's my job.' And we asked him to stop me, made him promise to kill me. He couldn't know he was in time, he couldn't know that killing Travis wouldn't turn me for good. He thought he was killing me.
"Oh God, Dean, I'm sorry."
He reached out his hand again, welcomed the burn in his shoulder as he stretched too far when Dean pulled away from him. His fingers closed around his brother's shoulder, gripped tightly, though a shiver crawled through him as he felt the muscles under his hand twitch and writhe at the contact. He tugged his brother towards him, felt the resistance suddenly melt as the older man let himself be turned away from the fragments of broken lives still strewn across his lap, away from the bloody grin that watched them from the dark again.
Dean finally looked up at him, the desolation in his eyes searing Sam to the core and the younger man felt his face twist, tears scalding his skin as they blinded him, too late to hide the pain in that shadowed gaze.
"I can't save you, Sammy."
His whisper hung in the air between them, writhing in the stench of the blood, a confession he had buried so deeply for so long he felt lost, hollow without it curled inside him. He leant into the touch on his shoulder; let his brother hold him up as the exhaustion drained him, left his vision blurred and his muscles trembling. Every inch of his skin felt flayed, eaten away to the cracked and crumbling bone beneath as the world turned around him, left him behind, and only that hand on his shoulder stopped him falling free of it.
Dean felt his eyes fill, felt the weight of every crystal of salt on his lashes, the ice cold trail as one tear spilled down his cheek, carving a path through the blood. He stared at his brother, watched Sam's face, pale beneath his long, messy hair as he wept slow tears. He could see his brother talking, couldn't hear it through the roaring scream of the nightmare ending in his ears, the end just the beginning. But he felt the sound through the arm that pulled him close until his shoulder was tucked against Sam's chest as his brother crumpled against him, felt the rumble of the words that were never enough, that were all they had, filled with as much love as they were resignation, as much shared grief for a life never lived as they were with bitter rage.
"You always do."
fin
Thanks for reading!
Lyrics:
Bullet For My Valentine, Take It Out On Me.
Coheed & Cambria, Neverender
Breaking Benjamin, Had Enough
3 Doors Down, Loser
30 Seconds To Mars, R-Evolve
Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Don't Forget Me
Deep Purple, Sweet Child In Time
Foo Fighters, Over and Out
KT Tunstall, Paper Aeroplane
Coheed & Cambria, Mother Superior
Breaking Benjamin, You
Coheed & Cambria, Final Cut
Bullet For My Valentine, Tears Don't Fall
Staind, Outside
Stereophonics, Drowning
Foo Fighters, In Your Honor
Lost Prophets, Still Laughing