Supernatural: Ground Zero
I can't believe I haven't posted it a long time when it was written. Maybe I'm sclerotic... I checked the tags, this one wasn't posted. Hmm...
Title: “Ground Zero”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG-13 for coarse language and angsty Dean
Timeline: Season 2
Summary: Things Dean wishes he could say to Sam; dreams both Winchesters wish they never saw; tears Dean is ashamed to admit he has shed. Dean’s POV. Please R&R!
Disclaimer: belongs to CW, Eric Kripke and whoever else that is not me.
A/N: A ficlet I wrote after seeing ‘Born Under A Bad Sign’
GROUND ZERO
I wake up in the middle of the night in a small room that smells vaguely of beer and that eternal mixed stench of sweat, blood and something I don’t even want to think about. We always bring it back from the hunt.
The bed is somewhat uncomfortable, too narrow and hard, but I’ve had worse. Try sleeping in a car with a broken heater in winter!
Sammy is sitting by the window. He hears me shift and his chest heaves convulsingly as he sobs, trying to disguise… Oh hell, he’s what, crying?
“What’s the matter?” I ask warily, practically leaping towards him.
He turns his head away, but I have enough time to notice that I was right: his cheeks glisten in the twilight. He wipes his nose with his sleeve, probably expecting some nasty comment. Indeed, I plan to make one, but nothing comes to my mind. Geez, I’m losing shape!
“Go back to sleep,” Sam mutters.
“Hell no! Not before you tell me what’s wrong!”
“Dean, I mean it: everything’s all right!”
“Of course!” I snicker. “I always cry my eyes out like a girl when everything’s all right!”
Yay for the nasty comment! Sam gives me a glum look. At least now that I managed to annoy him he can stop pretending things are going fine. Last time he cried like that was when he was four and he accidentally fired Dad’s gun at me. It was loaded with salt. Not lethal but extremely painful! Dad nearly killed me for that. He said I was supposed to keep an eye on my little brother and not let him anywhere near the firearms.
I hasten to remind Sammy about that and I’m delighted to see a small smile that flashes upon his lips. I drill him with a waiting look, and finally he exhales abrupt neurotic laughter that dies in short gasps.
“I keep having these dreams,” he murmurs. “Every night…”
“I know.”
Sam shakes his head gravely. “Not my visions. Dreams where I kill someone. Every night, Dean! This can’t go on!”
I start to my feet and throw my hands up irritably. “Not gonna ask me to kill you again, are you, Sammy? We’ve been through this discussion.”
He looks at me, and he resembles a homeless puppy left out in the rain.
“What if these dreams become reality?” Sam asks. I turn my back on him and take a veeeery deep breath. I think I’m gonna explode if he says something else. And he does. Of course, he does. “How do you think I’d feel if I woke up one day to learn it was true?”
In my rage, I project the way I could answer to that depressing mumbling. I spin around to face him and I begin to yell:
“How do I think you’d feel!? How the fuck do you think I feel all the time!? I’m so fed up with that bullshit, Sammy! You’re not the only person in the world who has problems! People have died for me, Sam! Died! As in ‘gone to hell’ or whatever, and it’s not necessarily pink hearts and fleecy clouds for them now! Including Dad! I feel guilty! But I don’t fucking talk about that all the time! Don’t you suppose it’s kinda cruel to ask your brother who fucking loves you to kill you - all the time! Especially considering you’re the only family I have after Dad’s death! For Christ’s sake, Sammy, if life bugs you so much, why don’t you go and kill yourself!?”
If I had told him that (oh how I wish I have!), he’d have given me that annoying puppy-look again and thrown a fit. He’d have accused me of being a senseless jerk, and told me I’d been hiding my feelings (or whatever psychological crap he has in stock for me), and then he would have probably run off.
That’s why I don’t tell him anything. I turn around very slowly, pat him on the shoulder and go back to bed, saying: “It’s okay, Sammy, we’ll figure things out.”
* * *
Everything is on fire. It boils around me, and I have to squint to keep my eyes from exploding. The pain is excruciating. It bores into me as I run through the fire, but I can’t understand where the hell it comes from. Oh right, the hell…
It tears me from the inside. It’s the first time I run without any specific destination. I’m lost, I don’t know what I’m doing, and Sam’s not with me. Shit! Why is Sam not with me? I promised to keep an eye on him! I swore to protect him.
Black shapes emerge from the flames. They look like slightly distorted human silhouettes: a bit longer, a bit thinner; they stagger as they move towards me, and their movements are sleek and deliberately slow.
A shrill whisper breaks out in my head: “Humans… are all… born to… die.”
I raise my gun, ready to shoot. The fires still rage around me. And from those fires Sam steps out, looking just as strange and abnormal as they do. He spreads his arms and gives me a persuasive look, daring me to shoot.
Fuck! I can’t shoot my own brother! In spite of all I promised Dad, I just can’t. How would he feel? Don’t answer that; I know he’d be okay. What if that thing is not my brother? But I don’t know!
I notice that my hand is shaking. My palm is sticky, and the gun almost slips out of it. And that damned creature keeps smiling the way Sammy would never smile.
I pull the trigger. Blood splatters in my face in red rain.
I wake up and roll over in an instant, pressing my open mouth hard into the pillow, and it consumes my scream. Only a muffled moan comes out. I hope Sam hasn’t heard it.
I hate being in a panicky state. But tears burn in my eyes, and I slam my fist into the mattress, and I almost fall back at the sound it makes. I look back at Sammy’s bed. He’s asleep. Thank God he’s asleep! The last thing I need right now is somebody to see me crying.
It’s not crying in a conventional sense. I don’t cry. I prefer to think of it as water trickling down my cheeks. Salt water.
The body on the next bed shifts. I squint my eyes; looks like he’s looking at me. I tense. No, it was just a line of shade on the ceiling. Flashlights of passing cars leave such things. I lie back very quietly, and I softly fall asleep, still musing whether he has really seen me or not.
In my world things are simple: we find the demon, we kick his ass, and we move on. Sammy still has a lot to learn.
June 18-22, 2007