Wings of a Butterfly 1/1
Title: Wings of a Butterfly
Author: mulkentertain
Rating: PG
Word count: 3.360 words
Pairings: Gen (I guess it can be seen as wincest also, but it is never actually mentioned)
Warnings: Mentally distressed post-hell!Sam (cause we love him that way the best)
Disclaimer: I borrowed the boys for a little bit, but I promise I will give them back.
Summary: Sam is breaking apart. Set after season finale 6x22 The man who knew too much. Told from 2 POV's (Sam and Dean)
Sort of a 6x22 tag, but could take place any time after the wall has fallen. Sort of AU since Sam's reaction to said event are quite different here than on the show
Side note: The Italic can be read as thoughts OR spoken words. It is left open on purpose.
Sam's POV
He feels too full.
Bursting at the seams with ice that burns his insides like an everlasting flame, scorching and eating it's way through his layers until it can reach the outside to poison the world around him. If he looked closely he would see images of blood, pain and decades of torture edged into the sharp surfaces of each ragged piece of ice. His body is vibrating with it's barely contained power, but he can't let it happen, has to keep it inside himself like the cage that carved them. Shaking fingers grab blindly for something to hold onto, something to ground him and suppress the urge to let go and come apart. He can feel his insides shifting, tearing with every rasping breath.
He is not strong enough. No human should have to be. Not when your body feels like a tiny goldfish bowl in which someone tried to stuff the entire Arctic Ocean with all of it's floes that press and push and drift in all four cardinal directions.
A chocked off sob escapes him, high and pitiful. It's too much. He just wants to go to sleep. At least for a little while. An hour, a minute, a heartbeat...please, god, just let him sleep. Let him sink into beautiful oblivion and quiet darkness and never resurface again. But the screeching screams the ice makes as it shifts keep him here until he is stretched as thin as parchment paper, brittle to the touch.
Water runs down his face and he doesn't know whether it's tears, sweat or rain. Is he even outside? He doesn't know and it doesn't matter. Because he is burning up with shattering teeth, his hands buried in his hair while he desperately tries to stay in one piece.
Something warm whispers across his damp skin, light as butterfly wings and he shrieks back in pain. Tries to fold himself even smaller if that was possible. Too much. Too much and too little to hold onto. Everything is a blur and yet too sharp to look at.
I can't...I...please. Please let me die. Just...I...
The butterfly is back. It lands on his hair this time and still it torches through his skin, red-hot. He screams, but there is nowhere left to retreat to. Not when his insides are threatening to turn themselves out. Helpless sobs steal the little air he has left as the butterfly's wings seem to grow and spread somehow. The pain increases until he can feel the heavy wings engulfing his entire scalp. His screams have died down to a feeble and drawn out wail, like a wounded animal in it's death throws.
Please...
The pressure increases mercilessly and suddenly his hands are being pulled to the sides, taking little chunks of hair with them. He tries to resist, but the butterfly must have grown into a giant bat, because it overpowers him effortlessly and then his world shifts. He doesn't know anymore if his eyes are open or scrunched shut, but he can feel himself being lifted up into the air before he is crashing back down to the ground. Only his landing isn't as hard as he expected. It's somewhat soft and too warm and then the heat is folding itself around his entire frame. He waits for the earlier pain to explode across his skin, but it never comes. Instead he feels a heavy beat drumming in time with the shakes that are rattling his bones. With every too fast thud-thud it seems to be pushing the warmth through his pores where it crashes against the frozen miles inside of him. A harsh gasp escaped him as he feels the sharp edges of the ice floes melting away. Slowly at first, then faster and faster until they are smooth and round, manageable. He has no idea what is happening or why, but he is pretty sure that he has to thank the giant bat surrounding him for it. With a longing whimper he pushes into the warmth and feels the strong wings tightening even further around him, forming a little sanctuary for him to rest.
He has no sense of how much time is passing like this, maybe he even drifted off. When he comes back to though, the screaming inside of him has settled down to a low whisper. The first thing he notices is the warmth that is still enveloping him like a soft blanket and a familiar smell of old leather and faint traces of gun powder. Sluggishly he blinks his eyes open. The light burns a little bit, but after a couple of seconds he can make out the specks of dirt on the grey motelroom carpet beneath his sprawled out legs. His brow furrows in confusion of how he ended up on the floor, before his mind registers that he counts four legs instead of two.
"Morning, bro." says a low voice next to his ear, slightly cracking on the last word.
Tiredly he lifts his head up to be greeted by green eyes that are filled with a painfully familiar mixture of gratitude and worry.
"Hey." he rasps back with a ruined voice as his eyes follow the white tracks of skin, that are running down his brothers face where the dirt from the day has been washed away.
"Another one?" he asks, more out of habit than anything else.
Dean just nods his head, his mouth a tight line of concern. With a resigned sigh Sam lets his head drop bonelessly back to his brother's chest.
"How long?" he mumbles tiredly into the warm fabric there, his eye lids heavy with exhaustion. The arms around him fasten almost painfully as Dean answers.
"Too long."
There are so many different things conveyed in those two words. Things neither of them wants to say or hear out loud. So Sam does the only thing he can do and simply snuggles deeper into the warmth his brother offers so freely these days for both of their sanity's sake. For Sam it is the only thing that will pull him back when he is standing at the edge of the abyss in his mind. For Dean it's the only way to fight the helplessness he feels whenever Sam seems to be tumbling back towards the dark pit he threw himself into once before. He fears the day when that won't be enough anymore. When he will have to watch his little brother slip through his fingers like little grains of sand in a storm. But for now Sam is still fighting. And both of them know that Dean will always be there to pick up the pieces and hold on to him with all his might and even beyond that. Because they finally got it.
After years of destinies and misunderstandings and angels and demons and whatever else the supernatural world threw at them they finally got it. There will be no more Sorry's or Thank you's between them. They don't need them anymore. No more promises of applie-pie lives or last wishes. Where one of them goes the other one will follow and there is no changing that.
"Hey D'n?" Sam mumbles, eyes already closed.
"Hm?"
"You really are Batman."
A tired chuckle rumbles through the older hunters chest.
"Go back to sleep, Sammy."
Dean's POV
They are just about to turn in for the night when it happens.
Again.
Dean can practically feel the air around them shift as he watches the familiar little twitch go through his brother's body. That's about all the forewarning he get's as from one second to the next all the muscles in his sibling's body are clamped up so tight that not for the first time Dean is afraid one of them might snap. He is already on his feet to catch Sam, but these attacks come so fast, so sudden that he hardly ever makes it in time if he isn't standing right next to his brother. It's not like the visions, a lifetime ago, when Sam's face would scrunch up in pain, when Dean would have at least some indication no matter how little that one of them was about to hit. He is halfway across the room when Sam's knees hit the grey motelroom carpet with a harsh thud that makes Dean cringe. His own landing isn't much smoother as he drops down in front of his sibling to keep him from tumbling over completely. Pain shoots up his legs, but thanks to the adrenaline pulsing through his veins he hardly even notices it.
"Sam! Hey, hey I gotcha. I gotcha." he mumbles while he tries to manhandle Sam's crushing weight into a more comfortable position. His heart is in his throat, racing in time with the words of comfort that flow from his tongue in a never ending stream. He knows his brother can't hear him right now. This part is only about keeping the younger man from injuring himself by the fall or to drag him away from curious bystanders if it happens in a public place. He keeps up his litany of reassurances nonetheless, because he simply can't stand to listen to nothing but Sam's gasping breaths as his lungs try to pull in air through his clamped up throat.
The first time this happened, just after Castiel had vanished from the old warehouse, Dean had completely lost it, pleading and screaming, thinking his brother was going to suffocate in his arms. By now he knows Sam is in no real danger, won't even remember this bit when (not if) he comes to later. So Dean just holds him in an awkward half-hug against his chest and tries to be thankful that at least the seizures stopped after the first couple of weeks. His fingers are shaking as they massages the muscles in Sam's throat in hope to loosen them up a little bit. He is high-strung in anxious anticipation for the next phase of this little dance they are dancing these days. If there is anything he hates more than this right here, it would have to be the part that is to follow. He knows to read the signs by now, knows more or less what to expect, but it still leaves him rattled and cut open like even Alistair's blade never could.
Every single time he hopes that this will be the time they get lucky and scrape by this next bit. He even sends a silent prayer on it's way to whom ever will listen. Not to god, because that guy can go choke on the very margarita he is probably sipping right now on some way-out beach or cloud and sure as hell not to his majesty's so called vacation replacement who caused this whole mess in the first place.
The famous Winchester-luck, though, seems to stay true to it's fucked up priciples, because as Sam's eyes snap open all of a sudden Dean immidiately recognizes the fearful look for what it is. In a flash he let's go of his brother and his halfway across the room, even though all of his instincts are screaming for him to get his ass back over there and do his god-damned job right the fuck now. And he would love to follow that instinct, which was ingraved into him maybe even deeper than the need to breathe. However he learned the hard way that it wouldn't do either of them much good right now. The first time this happened, Dean's desperate attempts to keep Sam calm earned him a cracked nose, scratch-marks along his forearms and Sam a broken knuckle plus a light concussion as he hit his head on the floor trying to get away from Dean. Simply because Sam has no recollection of who Dean is when he first wakes up from these attacks, sometimes he doesn't even recall who he is himself. The reason Dean knows this is the fact that Sam remembers all of this when (not if, never if) he comes to later. The fear, the confusion, the need to get away or scratch, bite and punch his way free until he can crawl into the tiniest hole he can find and seek shelter from everything and anyone around him. So all Dean can do is watch with his heart breaking all over again as Sam scrambles away from him with eyes as big as saucers until his back collides with the wall behind him. He curls up into a, considering his size, impossibly small ball of arms and legs with only his still dripping hair sticking out at weird angles. His eyes are squeezed shut as he rocks back and forth, mumbling unintelligble things that would give the best shrink a serious headache.
To Dean this is the worst part of all. He wants to run over there and comfort Sam, tell him that he is OUT. He would gladly take all the punches his brother can give, but he knows that his presence will only frighten Sam further and so he sits and waits and breaks right along with his sibling. Codependency all the way, he thinks with a cold chuckle and wraps his arms around himself while his eyes, that are glues to his suffering sibling start to burn treacherously.
He hates this. His incapability to keep it together, his selfish weakness and selfpitty while his brother is going through who-knows-what. The fact that he can't help Sam at all, just... everything.
It's also the reason why some twisted, contorted and hated part of himself rejoices when finally the third and last phase begins, because even though it leaves Sam rattled and scared it also gives Dean the chance to finally do something.
It always starts off the same. First Sam's mumblings and movements will seize and drown the room in a heavy and eerie silence that raises the hair on Dean's arms every single time in anticipation of the inevitable storm after the calm. Sam has always been a stickler for rituals and routines and just like clockwork his breath hitches about 48 seconds into the silence (not that he is counting). In a flash the older Winchester is across the room and by his brother's side as sobs start to tear through the younger man. He wants to wrap Sam up in his arms and pretend at least for a little while that he can make everything better just by being there for his sibling, that he can fix this. He holds back, though, reaches out very, very slowly with only one hand so his fingers barely graze the still wet streaks of the young man's hair. A high pitched scream tears from Sam's throat, that Dean would have teased him about till the end of days on any other occasion. Now he only flinches back and bites his lip painfully hard as he watches two large hands burry themselves deeper into his brother's hair.
"I can't..." Sam's voice is so small, Dean almost would have missed it if he wasn't sitting just inches away from the shaking man.
"Sam, can you hear me?"
"Pl'se, lemme...Jus'...I..."
"I'm here, buddy, I'm right here."
He tries to recall the conversation he and Sam had had about his attacks. He had told him about feeling like being ripped apart from the inside, as if every part in him had taken on a life of it's own and was trying to run off into different directions. Dean's mind only managed to picture it as a cruel game of tug war, his brother being the rope, stretched to the breaking point and any added pressure would rip it in two. His imagination is probably a little off from the real thing, but he doesn't need to completely understand what Sam is going through to be able to help him. If something is about to burst from the inside you have to apply pressure to the outside to support it. Easy, he can do that.
But first he has to stop his brother from tearing his hair out if he doesn't want to add premature baldness to Sam's huge pile of worries. Taking a calming breath Dean inches closer again with both of his arms this time. Carefully he settles them, finger by finger in between Sam's own hands to give him time to adjust to the touch. The helpless wail reaching his ears is expected, but nonetheless almost more than he can take.
"Please..."
Dean has to swallow to bite back the emotions inside himself as his brother's broken voice hits him like a punch to the gut, but he has to do this.
"I'm sorry Sammy."
Before he can change his mind he presses his hands underneath Sam's fingers, grabs a hold of them and pushes out to the sides in one fluid motion, like ripping off a band-aid. He doesn't need to look to know that some hair came off as well, but he is already moving again. His hands slide beneath his siblings arms and circle around his back so he can lock together tightly. With a low grunt he lifts. His arms and spine scream as he barely manages to heave Sam off the ground and he swears he can hear a couple of his intervertebral discs question his sanity with loud pops as he drops his own ass on the ground with his little brother settled on top of his legs. Not in a million years will he admit to the high pitched gasp of air that breaks forth from his throat at the impact and he can only hope that Sam is still too out of it to hear it. Damned, this was so much easier before Sam decided that looking down at your big brother should be taken literal. His back is still throbbing when he folds his arms around his sibling as far as he can reach and simply holds on. Sam is shaking like a leaf and Dean regrets not to have gotten a blanket for him, but there is no way in hell that he can repeat his little Hercules stunt without ending up in a wheelchair. So he settles for rubbing his brother's back, hoping that the friction will create at least a little bit of warmth and tugs his sibling's head beneath his chin. If Sam decides to freak out again he will probably lose a tooth, but he is willing to take the risk if there is a chance of this to work. And maybe the Winchester-luck decided to give them a break, because he can feel Sam's shoulders relax a little bit as the young man pushes his face deeper into his brother's chest and grabs two hands full of his shirt. Dean thinks he hears a few strings rip, but if it means he won't be walking around like the one guy from 'Hangover' he'll take it.
His legs are starting to tingle from the lack of blood, but then Sam's breathing evens out and the last remains of the previous tension drop from his limbs. With a helpless sigh Dean decides that he can stay like this a little longer. Okay, who is he kidding, he will stay like this as long as Sam needs him to and probably a little bit longer just to make sure his brother really is alright.
Sometimes he isn't sure if Sam's girly side is rubbing up on him or if he can blame it on getting older, but chick-flick moments are kind of alright sometimes. He could easily live without them, of course. If they help his brother to ground himself to reality though he will gladly drown him in them until his hair starts to turn pink from all the estrogen.
One of Sam's hands gives a little twitch as he unconsciously buries his head even deeper into the older Winchester's shirt. Dean cradles him a little closer and finally allows his own eyelids to drop closed. Who knows, maybe pink hair wouldn't even look all that bad against the Impala's black coating.
The End