Supernatural fic: Remember Me, Fondly (G, gen)
So this was supposed to be a 7-10 part meta-fic on the way Sam and Dean have srayed apart and stayed together through the end of season four. Needless to say, I only finished the first two parts. But I figured I'd post them anyway.
Title: Remember Me, Fondly
Author: krisomniac
Rating, warning, pairing: G, none, gen
Disclaimer: Title and excerpts from “The Trapeze Swinger" by Iron and Wine
Word count: 1270
Summary: Codas to 4x10: Heaven and Hell and 4x12 Criss Angel is a Douchebag
Remember Me, Fondly
1.
Please, remember me, happily, by the rosebush laughing. With bruises on my chin, the time when we counted every black car passing
Dean doesn’t meet Sam’s eyes as he climbs back into the car. It’s a long moment before Sam opens the passenger side door to join him. The sun beats down on the dash, and Dean lowers the shade against the glare across the windshield. Their empty bottles litter the back seat, but he can barely feel the distant tingle of the beer in his veins. The adrenaline of the fight and near escape from both angels and demons has left him empty, drained, blind as the moment after Anna went supernova and disappeared.
He didn’t know what he was going to say until it was out, and now it’s there, hanging in the air between them. He licks his lips and tastes the salty tang of dried tears. He feels no relief, no catharsis. There’s only this: the car, the tightness in his chest, the heat behind his eyes, and Sam.
Sam still hasn’t said anything and maybe, Dean thinks, that’s a blessing. There aren’t words for the things-- I started ripping them apart… I lost count of how many souls-- he’s done, only memories that sear when he least expects them, when he uncoils a length of heavy rope, when he tightens his favorite rusted wrench around the nuts and bolts under the hood of the car, when his fist first closed in Anna’s long, red hair.
“Look,” he says, “I don’t want-“ He stares ahead, at the truck cruising along the highway nearby. “I told you because… I guess I thought you should know,” he finishes lamely. According to Anna, his darkest secrets were hot topic around the heavenly water cooler these days anyway.
He feels Sam nod beside him. Sam asks softly, “You had to carry that alone? All this time?” Sam leaves the last question unasked; Why did you say you didn’t remember.
Dean shrugs. “At first, when I came back, I didn’t-- it was just flashes. Then, later, it all came back.”
“When?“
“Colorado.” He quickly stamps out the memory of the hours locked in that hotel room with only his demons for company and the sound of a ticking clock. Instead, he rubs at the ketchup stain behind the steering wheel. “That ghost sickness kinda brought things back.”
Recognition dawns across Sam’s face. “When I said--“ They all have something in common. They all use fear as a weapon.
“You didn’t know.”
Dean tells himself he isn’t looking for forgiveness, that the time isn’t right for absolution, but he never imagined, the thousand times he swallowed the words and the memories and told Sam to focus on the case at hand, how frightened he would be to see disappointment etched across his brother’s face when Sam finally learned the truth, that the brother he’d once looked up to had broken on the rack, had become just another mindless weapon, another thug in hell.
He steals a glance across the front seat, bracing himself.
But it isn’t there.
Sam is staring at him quietly, like a puzzle he hasn’t quite figured out. His eyes are big and wide, and Dean is struck by the memory of Sam as a kid, sitting at the Formica table in some crappy house, chewing the end of his pen with sheets of homework spread in a fan around him, asking Dean for help with his long division, of afternoons when Dean finally got him to set schoolwork aside and practice wrestling in the woods or shooting cans off a fence.
“I can’t imagine,” Sam finally says, “What it was like-“
“Don’t.” Dean shakes his head. “Please don’t try.”
There’s horror lingering around the edge of Sam’s mouth, anger in the hard lines at the corners of his eyes. But it isn’t directed at Dean. “I’ll kill them.”
Dean closes his eyes and clears his throat. “There’s supposed to be a haunting at the local creamery,” he suggests.
“Ice cream ghost.” Sam doesn’t smile. The anger is there, simmering now, but suddenly it feels like they’re in this together.
For a moment the months of tension and distrust, fear and guilt fall away. And for a moment, Dean convinces himself that it’s going to be alright.
2.
They went on to say that the Pearly Gates have such eloquent graffiti like: “we'll meet again” and “fuck the Man” and “tell my mother not to worry”
Sam buries his hands in his pockets as he walks down the street. It’s overcast and grey from horizon to horizon, the kind of spring day that would lead to May flowers if the skies ever opened up and unleashed their rain. Instead hot and cold winds rattle the branches of leafless trees while the clouds swirl overhead.
He can’t shake the memory of Jay’s hollow, hooded eyes, The Amazing Jay, who left his deck on the table and asked the waitress to toss the cards. Sam pocketed them on his way out the door. Now, they’re heavy and reassuring in his hands as he hits the pavement outside the motel. Dean is inside, sprawled on his bed in his boots and jacket, sleeping off a hangover and midnight drive.
At least, Sam is pretty sure he’s asleep. There is no rhyme or reason to when Dean’s nightmares will start, and Sam has gotten nowhere looking for a pattern or way to stop them.
He can’t change the past. All he can do is watch silently as Dean twists in his sheets, wakes with the edges of a scream in his throat, listen when Dean was finally ready to talk about what had happened down there. All he can do is stop Lilith from coming after his brother again.
He asked Ruby if she knew about the torture, if she ever saw Dean when she was down there. But her eyes were dark and she looked away. After her return, she’d been tight-lipped about the things she’d seen. Nothing good, is all she’d say when he asked what it was like and leave the rest to his imagination.
He picks a table at the back of the quiet restaurant where she told him she’d be. There is a single candle and two menus on the polished wood. Sam asks for a water, when the waiter comes by, and says that he’s waiting for someone. The place is empty except for a few suits discussing business over lunch.
He sips the water slowly and pulls out the deck of cards. He should be tired, but his blood is buzzing with the last few days. It should’ve been a simple case; magician kills strangers, hunters kill man. But then they met Charlie and Jay. He cuts the deck and riffles it together again.
It ends bloody, or it ends sad. That’s the life, Dean said, and it was so simple, so certain, Sam’s breath caught in his chest.
Dean courted death, danced with it, whether it was wearing the face of a magician, eternally young, or a dark hole with only a flashlight to guide his way. Sam closes his eyes. This is what he could never tell Dean; that hell had brought him closer to death.
“--thinking about Broody McBroodingpants?”
Sam starts.
Ruby pulls her hands away from his shoulder and raises an eyebrow as she slips into the seat opposite him. “Didn’t mean to startle. Did you learn a new card trick in Magictown, USA?”
“Something like that,” Sam mumbles and puts the deck away.
Title: Remember Me, Fondly
Author: krisomniac
Rating, warning, pairing: G, none, gen
Disclaimer: Title and excerpts from “The Trapeze Swinger" by Iron and Wine
Word count: 1270
Summary: Codas to 4x10: Heaven and Hell and 4x12 Criss Angel is a Douchebag
Remember Me, Fondly
1.
Please, remember me, happily, by the rosebush laughing. With bruises on my chin, the time when we counted every black car passing
Dean doesn’t meet Sam’s eyes as he climbs back into the car. It’s a long moment before Sam opens the passenger side door to join him. The sun beats down on the dash, and Dean lowers the shade against the glare across the windshield. Their empty bottles litter the back seat, but he can barely feel the distant tingle of the beer in his veins. The adrenaline of the fight and near escape from both angels and demons has left him empty, drained, blind as the moment after Anna went supernova and disappeared.
He didn’t know what he was going to say until it was out, and now it’s there, hanging in the air between them. He licks his lips and tastes the salty tang of dried tears. He feels no relief, no catharsis. There’s only this: the car, the tightness in his chest, the heat behind his eyes, and Sam.
Sam still hasn’t said anything and maybe, Dean thinks, that’s a blessing. There aren’t words for the things-- I started ripping them apart… I lost count of how many souls-- he’s done, only memories that sear when he least expects them, when he uncoils a length of heavy rope, when he tightens his favorite rusted wrench around the nuts and bolts under the hood of the car, when his fist first closed in Anna’s long, red hair.
“Look,” he says, “I don’t want-“ He stares ahead, at the truck cruising along the highway nearby. “I told you because… I guess I thought you should know,” he finishes lamely. According to Anna, his darkest secrets were hot topic around the heavenly water cooler these days anyway.
He feels Sam nod beside him. Sam asks softly, “You had to carry that alone? All this time?” Sam leaves the last question unasked; Why did you say you didn’t remember.
Dean shrugs. “At first, when I came back, I didn’t-- it was just flashes. Then, later, it all came back.”
“When?“
“Colorado.” He quickly stamps out the memory of the hours locked in that hotel room with only his demons for company and the sound of a ticking clock. Instead, he rubs at the ketchup stain behind the steering wheel. “That ghost sickness kinda brought things back.”
Recognition dawns across Sam’s face. “When I said--“ They all have something in common. They all use fear as a weapon.
“You didn’t know.”
Dean tells himself he isn’t looking for forgiveness, that the time isn’t right for absolution, but he never imagined, the thousand times he swallowed the words and the memories and told Sam to focus on the case at hand, how frightened he would be to see disappointment etched across his brother’s face when Sam finally learned the truth, that the brother he’d once looked up to had broken on the rack, had become just another mindless weapon, another thug in hell.
He steals a glance across the front seat, bracing himself.
But it isn’t there.
Sam is staring at him quietly, like a puzzle he hasn’t quite figured out. His eyes are big and wide, and Dean is struck by the memory of Sam as a kid, sitting at the Formica table in some crappy house, chewing the end of his pen with sheets of homework spread in a fan around him, asking Dean for help with his long division, of afternoons when Dean finally got him to set schoolwork aside and practice wrestling in the woods or shooting cans off a fence.
“I can’t imagine,” Sam finally says, “What it was like-“
“Don’t.” Dean shakes his head. “Please don’t try.”
There’s horror lingering around the edge of Sam’s mouth, anger in the hard lines at the corners of his eyes. But it isn’t directed at Dean. “I’ll kill them.”
Dean closes his eyes and clears his throat. “There’s supposed to be a haunting at the local creamery,” he suggests.
“Ice cream ghost.” Sam doesn’t smile. The anger is there, simmering now, but suddenly it feels like they’re in this together.
For a moment the months of tension and distrust, fear and guilt fall away. And for a moment, Dean convinces himself that it’s going to be alright.
2.
They went on to say that the Pearly Gates have such eloquent graffiti like: “we'll meet again” and “fuck the Man” and “tell my mother not to worry”
Sam buries his hands in his pockets as he walks down the street. It’s overcast and grey from horizon to horizon, the kind of spring day that would lead to May flowers if the skies ever opened up and unleashed their rain. Instead hot and cold winds rattle the branches of leafless trees while the clouds swirl overhead.
He can’t shake the memory of Jay’s hollow, hooded eyes, The Amazing Jay, who left his deck on the table and asked the waitress to toss the cards. Sam pocketed them on his way out the door. Now, they’re heavy and reassuring in his hands as he hits the pavement outside the motel. Dean is inside, sprawled on his bed in his boots and jacket, sleeping off a hangover and midnight drive.
At least, Sam is pretty sure he’s asleep. There is no rhyme or reason to when Dean’s nightmares will start, and Sam has gotten nowhere looking for a pattern or way to stop them.
He can’t change the past. All he can do is watch silently as Dean twists in his sheets, wakes with the edges of a scream in his throat, listen when Dean was finally ready to talk about what had happened down there. All he can do is stop Lilith from coming after his brother again.
He asked Ruby if she knew about the torture, if she ever saw Dean when she was down there. But her eyes were dark and she looked away. After her return, she’d been tight-lipped about the things she’d seen. Nothing good, is all she’d say when he asked what it was like and leave the rest to his imagination.
He picks a table at the back of the quiet restaurant where she told him she’d be. There is a single candle and two menus on the polished wood. Sam asks for a water, when the waiter comes by, and says that he’s waiting for someone. The place is empty except for a few suits discussing business over lunch.
He sips the water slowly and pulls out the deck of cards. He should be tired, but his blood is buzzing with the last few days. It should’ve been a simple case; magician kills strangers, hunters kill man. But then they met Charlie and Jay. He cuts the deck and riffles it together again.
It ends bloody, or it ends sad. That’s the life, Dean said, and it was so simple, so certain, Sam’s breath caught in his chest.
Dean courted death, danced with it, whether it was wearing the face of a magician, eternally young, or a dark hole with only a flashlight to guide his way. Sam closes his eyes. This is what he could never tell Dean; that hell had brought him closer to death.
“--thinking about Broody McBroodingpants?”
Sam starts.
Ruby pulls her hands away from his shoulder and raises an eyebrow as she slips into the seat opposite him. “Didn’t mean to startle. Did you learn a new card trick in Magictown, USA?”
“Something like that,” Sam mumbles and puts the deck away.