[Fanfic] - Memento Mori - (Wincest, PG-13)
What is it about being deathly ill that makes me want to write? I'd capitalize on this, except I feel too dreadful to want to feel anything remotely resembling it again in the near future.
Title: Memento Mori
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester
Prompt: 008. Everything Burns - Table 1.
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairings: Sam/Dean
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1597
Summary:Dean closes his eyes, sometimes, and fights to picture Sam's face lit by the moon that shone, brilliant, in through the windshield of the Impala. He dreams about moments lost, and moments never gained, and all the while he goes through the motions because he has to. He promised.
Notes/Warnings: Spoilers through the end of Season 5. In specific, spoilers for the end of 5x22.
Everyone hurts, and everyone bleeds. Everyone cries, and everyone screams. Everyone lives, and everyone dies and, oh, sometimes it really is as simple as this. Break the whole into the parts because the universe has lied to you, Dean Winchester, and happy endings don't exist in a world full of monsters and demons. He'd sold his soul to the devil, once, because all he wanted was his family and was that really too much to ask?
Sammy is gone, and Sammy isn't coming back. Dean would tear the whole world down for his little brother, but Sam would save it just for Dean and he did, he did, and he isn't coming back - not from this, not this time.
Don't go poking at the lock on the door, Dean. Once the devil is back in the box, that's it and it's over and that's all she wrote because Sam gave his life so that Dean might have one. Sam jumped into Hell itself so that Dean could spend the rest of his days happy and healthy and alive.
Except.
Except all Dean ever wanted was Sam. No exceptions, no substitutes. Sam had been his since the first time he'd lain eyes upon his baby brother cradled in their mother's arms at the hospital - all soft down hair and bright pink skin. Sam was his brother, his responsibility, his lifeblood, and his reason.
Protect Sam. No matter the cost.
And he failed.
Somewhere down the line, he couldn't pinpoint when, he'd gone and made a mess of things. Maybe it was before Sam fled to Stanford, or maybe by letting Sam step out of his sight long enough to get snatched up by Azazel that fateful night that feels like lifetimes ago, and perhaps it was. Regardless of how or why or when, Dean failed and now...
Now he'd never see Sam again. Not in this life, and not in the next, because Sam was trapped in the pit with Lucifer for good. Forever. Eternity and there was nothing he could do, nothing at all because Sam was now so terribly far out of reach.
Bobby stood still and silent behind him as he knelt, numb, in the middle of the battleground that never was in a circle of grass flattened where two angels fell and took his little brother with them tip-tumbling down into the hole.
His beautiful baby brother. Arrogant, proud, and amazingly brilliant. Clever and strong and blessed with a smile that could light up the sky. He clenched his fingers in the grass, shoulders slumped and heavy. His Sammy, who laughed at bad jokes and cried during chick flicks and couldn't hold a tune to save his life. His brother, who had two left feet and tended to hunch in his seat because he didn't like that he was so freakishly tall and railed against Dean's bad dietary habits. His lover, who kissed like Dean was the center of his whole world and tasted like cheep toothpaste and ranch dressing and something uniquely and utterly Sam that Dean craved.
I'll be alright, he'd said. It'll be okay.
It won't be, and never will be again, because Sam was gone and the cold certainty of this was beginning to set solid and real in his bones. Dean fisted the grass beneath his hands, hung his head, and bit back a sob. Pride goeth, but Dean couldn't feel anything except an acute sense of loss.
Castiel stood, stoic and solemn, murmuring prayers to a God who wasn't listening for Sam's soul.
Not that it would help, not down there in the home of the damned with the devil himself.
Everything has it's time, and everything dies.
He wasn't ready. He thought he...he didn't known what then he thought, but he didn't think it would burn as badly as this. After a time, when his shoulders stop shaking and he's left empty in a cemetery where the sky is beginning to dim, he lets himself be lifted by Castiel and guided to his car by Bobby. He sits in the passenger seat where Sam had sat not more than a day before and feels the sting anew.
He spends the first day numb. Sitting still and lost in the middle of Bobby's kitchen because it's much too quiet, now. He turns his head, and something moves in the corner of his eye and for a moment, a fraction of a second, he can't help but feel hope rise in his chest because maybe.
It never is.
The second day, and the next few after, are spent breaking anything he can get his hands on. He's furious, because they won and they were supposed to be here, now, standing strong together having taken on Heaven and Hell and won and it was supposed to be them, together, at this - the new beginning. But he's left standing alone, and the victory is empty, because what is the point in winning if you lost too much to get there? He rages, because it isn't fair, and he'd rather have watched the world burn than watch Sam fall too far out of reach to be saved.
Cas leaves. Whether it's because he now has duties elsewhere because Heaven is a wreck with Michael gone or because he can no longer stand to watch Dean tear himself apart into tiny pieces as his soul shatters and fractures under the weight of everything, Dean doesn't know. He does know, however, that he woke up one morning to Jimmy's bright blue eyes regarding him with an expression of such sorrow that it's purely Castiel and then he's gone, just like that, leaving Dean alone with Bobby in a house that is much too big and much too empty.
From there, things blur, and everything reminds him of Sam.
He does what Sam wanted. He goes to Lisa. He sets himself up in the apple pie life that's safe and sound and he lets himself grow soft as Sam would have wanted but as the days pass and he goes through the motions and laughs with a hollowness in his eyes that Lisa refuses to mention, he finds himself dying a little bit more inside because it isn't right. It isn't. Lying in bed with Lisa, his arms draped over her waist and his nose buried in her hair, it's wrong. Because she doesn't smell right, she doesn't taste right, and she doesn't fit into Dean like the missing piece of his soul because she isn't, and she can't ever be.
Sometimes at night, Dean stands out on the porch and closes his eyes and pretends. He'll cast his mind back, back, back to the time when nothing was safe and the world was ending but he was happy, somehow, amidst all the chaos.
It fades, with time.
He watches, an outsider in his own skin, as his memories of Sam fade with each painfully passing day until he can no longer rightly recall the way Sam's mouth would twitch up at the left-hand corner of his mouth before he would burst into full out laughter, until he can no longer remember the exact smell of Sam's clothing and he starts to forget just how his little brother liked his salads prepared. Until he can't really remember what it felt like to hold Sam in his arms, curled up and tangled together atop the covers while watching bad TV on a flickering set as they make their way across the country hunt by hunt, cheap motel by cheap motel.
Dean closes his eyes, sometimes, and fights to picture Sam's face lit by the moon that shone, brilliant, in through the windshield of the Impala. He dreams about moments lost, and moments never gained, and all the while he goes through the motions because he has to. He promised.
There is something hollow and empty inside that was born the moment Sam fell, and it doesn't fade or heal with time. It hurts and it feels endless, the emptiness, because it is and Dean knows that as he fights to keep up the charade of normalcy and goes through the grand act of love and life and happiness with Lisa who deserves so much better and acts like he's moving on that he isn't.
Because everything has it's time, and everything dies.
Including himself.
__________________________________
“It'll be alright, Sammy.” Dean soothes with his arms wrapped tight about his precious baby brother, and Sam can't help but smile up at his lover. Tinged with a sadness that Dean cannot name, Sam cups the side of his cheek with a gentle hand. He cradles Dean's chin in his palm and his fingers brush lightly against the stubble of Dean's jaw. His gaze is soft, but steady - like he's memorizing this moment for when touch is no longer within his reach and Dean's heart tightens sharply in his chest.
“I love you.” Sam murmurs so softly in reply, eyes bright in the dark of their motel room, because it won't be alright. The world will be safe, the apocalypse safely diverted, but it won't be alright because this is the end of all things here, now, in this dinghy little motel room and Dean feels his heart shattering piece by tiny fractured piece.
“I love you.” Sam repeats, leaning up and pressing his lips against Dean's and Dean's eyes drift shut, carving out the feeling of this moment into his soul and listens, silently, to the sound of his heart breaking.
Prompt was thus: Everything Burns
The Table
Title: Memento Mori
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester
Prompt: 008. Everything Burns - Table 1.
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairings: Sam/Dean
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1597
Summary:Dean closes his eyes, sometimes, and fights to picture Sam's face lit by the moon that shone, brilliant, in through the windshield of the Impala. He dreams about moments lost, and moments never gained, and all the while he goes through the motions because he has to. He promised.
Notes/Warnings: Spoilers through the end of Season 5. In specific, spoilers for the end of 5x22.
Everyone hurts, and everyone bleeds. Everyone cries, and everyone screams. Everyone lives, and everyone dies and, oh, sometimes it really is as simple as this. Break the whole into the parts because the universe has lied to you, Dean Winchester, and happy endings don't exist in a world full of monsters and demons. He'd sold his soul to the devil, once, because all he wanted was his family and was that really too much to ask?
Sammy is gone, and Sammy isn't coming back. Dean would tear the whole world down for his little brother, but Sam would save it just for Dean and he did, he did, and he isn't coming back - not from this, not this time.
Don't go poking at the lock on the door, Dean. Once the devil is back in the box, that's it and it's over and that's all she wrote because Sam gave his life so that Dean might have one. Sam jumped into Hell itself so that Dean could spend the rest of his days happy and healthy and alive.
Except.
Except all Dean ever wanted was Sam. No exceptions, no substitutes. Sam had been his since the first time he'd lain eyes upon his baby brother cradled in their mother's arms at the hospital - all soft down hair and bright pink skin. Sam was his brother, his responsibility, his lifeblood, and his reason.
Protect Sam. No matter the cost.
And he failed.
Somewhere down the line, he couldn't pinpoint when, he'd gone and made a mess of things. Maybe it was before Sam fled to Stanford, or maybe by letting Sam step out of his sight long enough to get snatched up by Azazel that fateful night that feels like lifetimes ago, and perhaps it was. Regardless of how or why or when, Dean failed and now...
Now he'd never see Sam again. Not in this life, and not in the next, because Sam was trapped in the pit with Lucifer for good. Forever. Eternity and there was nothing he could do, nothing at all because Sam was now so terribly far out of reach.
Bobby stood still and silent behind him as he knelt, numb, in the middle of the battleground that never was in a circle of grass flattened where two angels fell and took his little brother with them tip-tumbling down into the hole.
His beautiful baby brother. Arrogant, proud, and amazingly brilliant. Clever and strong and blessed with a smile that could light up the sky. He clenched his fingers in the grass, shoulders slumped and heavy. His Sammy, who laughed at bad jokes and cried during chick flicks and couldn't hold a tune to save his life. His brother, who had two left feet and tended to hunch in his seat because he didn't like that he was so freakishly tall and railed against Dean's bad dietary habits. His lover, who kissed like Dean was the center of his whole world and tasted like cheep toothpaste and ranch dressing and something uniquely and utterly Sam that Dean craved.
I'll be alright, he'd said. It'll be okay.
It won't be, and never will be again, because Sam was gone and the cold certainty of this was beginning to set solid and real in his bones. Dean fisted the grass beneath his hands, hung his head, and bit back a sob. Pride goeth, but Dean couldn't feel anything except an acute sense of loss.
Castiel stood, stoic and solemn, murmuring prayers to a God who wasn't listening for Sam's soul.
Not that it would help, not down there in the home of the damned with the devil himself.
Everything has it's time, and everything dies.
He wasn't ready. He thought he...he didn't known what then he thought, but he didn't think it would burn as badly as this. After a time, when his shoulders stop shaking and he's left empty in a cemetery where the sky is beginning to dim, he lets himself be lifted by Castiel and guided to his car by Bobby. He sits in the passenger seat where Sam had sat not more than a day before and feels the sting anew.
He spends the first day numb. Sitting still and lost in the middle of Bobby's kitchen because it's much too quiet, now. He turns his head, and something moves in the corner of his eye and for a moment, a fraction of a second, he can't help but feel hope rise in his chest because maybe.
It never is.
The second day, and the next few after, are spent breaking anything he can get his hands on. He's furious, because they won and they were supposed to be here, now, standing strong together having taken on Heaven and Hell and won and it was supposed to be them, together, at this - the new beginning. But he's left standing alone, and the victory is empty, because what is the point in winning if you lost too much to get there? He rages, because it isn't fair, and he'd rather have watched the world burn than watch Sam fall too far out of reach to be saved.
Cas leaves. Whether it's because he now has duties elsewhere because Heaven is a wreck with Michael gone or because he can no longer stand to watch Dean tear himself apart into tiny pieces as his soul shatters and fractures under the weight of everything, Dean doesn't know. He does know, however, that he woke up one morning to Jimmy's bright blue eyes regarding him with an expression of such sorrow that it's purely Castiel and then he's gone, just like that, leaving Dean alone with Bobby in a house that is much too big and much too empty.
From there, things blur, and everything reminds him of Sam.
He does what Sam wanted. He goes to Lisa. He sets himself up in the apple pie life that's safe and sound and he lets himself grow soft as Sam would have wanted but as the days pass and he goes through the motions and laughs with a hollowness in his eyes that Lisa refuses to mention, he finds himself dying a little bit more inside because it isn't right. It isn't. Lying in bed with Lisa, his arms draped over her waist and his nose buried in her hair, it's wrong. Because she doesn't smell right, she doesn't taste right, and she doesn't fit into Dean like the missing piece of his soul because she isn't, and she can't ever be.
Sometimes at night, Dean stands out on the porch and closes his eyes and pretends. He'll cast his mind back, back, back to the time when nothing was safe and the world was ending but he was happy, somehow, amidst all the chaos.
It fades, with time.
He watches, an outsider in his own skin, as his memories of Sam fade with each painfully passing day until he can no longer rightly recall the way Sam's mouth would twitch up at the left-hand corner of his mouth before he would burst into full out laughter, until he can no longer remember the exact smell of Sam's clothing and he starts to forget just how his little brother liked his salads prepared. Until he can't really remember what it felt like to hold Sam in his arms, curled up and tangled together atop the covers while watching bad TV on a flickering set as they make their way across the country hunt by hunt, cheap motel by cheap motel.
Dean closes his eyes, sometimes, and fights to picture Sam's face lit by the moon that shone, brilliant, in through the windshield of the Impala. He dreams about moments lost, and moments never gained, and all the while he goes through the motions because he has to. He promised.
There is something hollow and empty inside that was born the moment Sam fell, and it doesn't fade or heal with time. It hurts and it feels endless, the emptiness, because it is and Dean knows that as he fights to keep up the charade of normalcy and goes through the grand act of love and life and happiness with Lisa who deserves so much better and acts like he's moving on that he isn't.
Because everything has it's time, and everything dies.
Including himself.
__________________________________
“It'll be alright, Sammy.” Dean soothes with his arms wrapped tight about his precious baby brother, and Sam can't help but smile up at his lover. Tinged with a sadness that Dean cannot name, Sam cups the side of his cheek with a gentle hand. He cradles Dean's chin in his palm and his fingers brush lightly against the stubble of Dean's jaw. His gaze is soft, but steady - like he's memorizing this moment for when touch is no longer within his reach and Dean's heart tightens sharply in his chest.
“I love you.” Sam murmurs so softly in reply, eyes bright in the dark of their motel room, because it won't be alright. The world will be safe, the apocalypse safely diverted, but it won't be alright because this is the end of all things here, now, in this dinghy little motel room and Dean feels his heart shattering piece by tiny fractured piece.
“I love you.” Sam repeats, leaning up and pressing his lips against Dean's and Dean's eyes drift shut, carving out the feeling of this moment into his soul and listens, silently, to the sound of his heart breaking.
Prompt was thus: Everything Burns
The Table