At Night (Gen, PG)
Title: At Night
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Characters: Dean, Sam, brief mentions of John
Category: AU Vignette of drama and angst
Spoilers: “Faith”
Author’s Notes: This is an AU idea that I pulled out of the episode of “Faith” when I said this: There is no healer to cure Dean. As such, the brothers must grapple with their present together and possible future apart.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the Warner Bros television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.
I. At night, Sam manages their finances.
He charged more than ten thousand dollars to the various credit cards he found in the Impala’s glove box in the first week after Dean’s accident. He paid for hospital visits, special doctors, and medications that he thought would help Dean. Soon, he began to max out the credit cards, which made for very awkward situations when his name wasn’t the one on the plastic. From that initial week on, he carefully records the expenses for each credit card in a neat document on his laptop, knowing exactly how much more he can spend before there will be problems.
Sam doesn’t hesitate to buy anything lately. There is nothing he won’t purchase for Dean if it means giving him an extra day of life. As Sam adds the monstrous totals on his computer, he realizes that such actions are enough to send him to prison without a backwards glance. But, he doesn’t care about that. He only cares about Dean. For himself, Sam will go hungry until he has enough legitimate cash to purchase food. For Dean, though, there is no limit. The prices on the medical bills are numbers that Sam is blind to. The only numbers Sam sees now are the days left for Dean.
II. At night, Dean sits on the closed lid of the toilet.
He lines the orange containers of pills on the bathroom counter in front of him like attentive soldiers with white hats. There are drugs to relax his blood vessels, to strengthen his heart, and to prevent blood clots. Some of the names he can pronounce, others he can’t. They all have one thing in common: Each was handed to him by Sam in hope that the new drug would be better than the last.
Dean tried to take the medication in the beginning, even if it was only to help Sam’s panicked mental state and not his own physical one. But, as the number and size of pills increased, and there was still no end in sight, the drugs became harder to swallow. Dean finds it easier to blast the shower to drown the sounds of him flushing the medication down the toilet, as if he was flushing away his condition with them. Then he sits in the shower with his clothes on, knees drawn to chest and head clutched in his hands. Until his clothes are thoroughly soaked and his skin is wrinkled and puffy, he remains seated under the hot water. He knows that the drugs are not a cure. They are only to make him comfortable until he dies.
III. At night, Sam places phone calls.
He takes both of their cell phones to the car and dials every number on both contact lists after he makes sure that Dean is asleep and resting peacefully. This is always well after midnight, and the lack of sleep is taking its feral toll on Sam, but he pushes on. He has to keep working to remove his mind from his brother’s situation before he loses all his emotional control. While Sam knows it is late when he makes those calls, and he knows that he is disturbing the people from their slumber, such thoughts are trivial now. Dean is dying, and there has to be someone out there who could help him. So, Sam calls and begs.
Sam leaves voicemails for his father. At first they were distant and official, conveying nothing more than medical facts of the situation with a doctor’s sterility. As the time passes and Dean’s health collapses, the words become pleading and emotional. If his father ever received the messages, Sam will never know. Soon, he stops trying completely after days of calls result in nothing but silence from their only surviving parent. Sam decides that he alone will care for his brother. Dean’s life is now Sam’s responsibility.
IV. At night, Dean feels death creep a little closer to him.
He falls asleep wondering if this night will be his last, and if he should wake Sam to properly tell him good-bye. In the beginning, it had been easy to fall asleep from the numerous drugs Sam coerced him into taking. After all, Sam had bought Dean an assortment of pain relievers with sleep aid merely so Dean could properly rest. But as Dean ceases taking the drugs and time passes, he finds the nights becoming infinite and empty.
Dean knows the end is coming when he begins losing sensation in the ends of his toes and fingers where his heart is too weak to pump the blood. When the motel room is silent and Sam has finally settled for the night, Dean presses his face against the worn pillows, and his breath jumps in choked hitches. He doesn’t cry. He can’t cry. But, he wishes he was able to let the tears fall freely because his body is growing colder as each day passes, and he still feels as though he has so much left to accomplish.
V. At night, Sam drives the car from each city to the next.
He had wanted to buy Dean an apartment so the strain of travel would not affect Dean’s deteriorating heart. Naturally Dean would not hear of such a thing and told Sam that wherever his younger brother went, he would go as well because he refused to be treated like glass. So, while Dean sleeps in the backseat, covered with an old flannel blanket and supported by stolen motel pillows, Sam drives to the next doctor’s office on his dwindling list.
Sam held out hope at the first few offices, but as the weeks go by he becomes familiar with the doctors’ looks of despair as they remove their stethoscopes from Dean’s chest. It doesn’t take long for Sam to grow impatient and frustrated with the physicians, producing his own angry obscenities and Dean’s embarrassed silence, neither of which are familiar emotions for them. As Sam helps Dean down from the examination tables, Dean always offers a halfhearted apology to the startled doctors, even though he is the one who is dying.
VI. At night, Dean begins to talk openly.
He had been quiet and reclusive not long after the diagnosis, but as the days roll over each other and the nights meld together, he begins to talk. It is only during the late hours that he talks as such, when Sam clicks at the laptop and Dean punches at the TV remote from his bed. Knowing the end is not far, he doesn’t conceal his emotions and thoughts any longer. He wonders if all dying people feel the need to tell their life’s secrets and treasures as he suddenly does.
Dean talks about the painful subjects he had pushed away from Sam in the past. He talks about their mother and the memories he has of her before she died. He talks about how he felt when Sam announced his departure to California and new life in college. He talks about death, and when he feels scared, truly deeply terrified, he ceases talking and presses his knuckles to his chapped lips. Sam always closes his laptop and comes to the bed then and sits beside him, never saying anything. His presence alone comforts Dean.
VII. At night, Sam starts to lose hope.
He had called every person and scoured every source available, yet no one was able to help Dean. Although Sam wants to turn a blind eye to Dean’s desperate condition, he can only become increasingly focused on his brother’s waning health. It is soon painful for Dean to move in the morning, and Sam frequently has to help him out of bed even though Dean curses through the entire ordeal. Fluid is being retained in Dean’s legs and ankles that swell unnaturally, as his heart does not have the strength to pump blood to his kidneys. His lungs are congested, and he coughs in sharp, painful hacks, trying futilely to clear them. Death is so hard to ignore now.
Sam offered to hire nurses to watch Dean at every hour, but Dean was infuriated by the idea. He is dying, he reminds Sam with a bitter snap, and he will not have some strangers taking care of him during his last hours. The only people he wants with him are the people who matter, and as their father is gone, that leaves just Sam. After Dean tells him that, Sam goes outside to crumble. He falls to the ground and pounds his fists against the rocks and asphalt until his flesh cracks and bleeds. He will not cry just yet.
VIII. At night, Dean asks to see the stars.
He doesn’t tell Sam why he needs to see them, just where Sam is to take him. Knowing there is so little left for him to do, Sam bundles Dean in layers of clothing and blankets as his older brother is always cold. Dean rides in the passenger seat, much to Sam’s dismay, because he tells Sam that he couldn’t see anything out of the back windows before. When they reach the area, and Dean begins to open his car door, Sam leaps out and runs to the other side.
Dean is too exhausted to argue as Sam lifts him like a child out of the car, telling him that he will not climb the hill with his heart in such a form. As his stomach is bloated and he is usually nauseated, Dean doesn’t eat much anymore and has lost an absurd amount of weight. The skin is puckered around his collarbone and jaw line, and his eyes seemed to sink into his skull. His once powerful, muscular body is emaciated, and his bones jut clumsily into Sam as he carries him up the hill. Dean is always dizzy and tired, no matter how much he sleeps, and he wishes the end would come, but first, he has to see the stars.
IX. At night, they stand together.
The hill overlooks a quiet valley that is the epitome of the earth’s brilliance. Tall trees sway gently in the breeze, and the moonlight catches the droplets of dew on the thick blades of grass, turning the water into diamonds. Fireflies dance through the grass, catching the jewels on their backs. It is peaceful and quiet here, soothing and enveloping as if there are no horrors in the world. In the distance, a city’s lights twinkle proudly but soundlessly. A warm wind passes over them, ruffling Sam’s hair and flapping the edges of Dean’s blanket in a welcome to this slice of heaven. Dean can barely stand on his own, but Sam keeps a protective arm around his older brother’s waist so he will not fall. There’s the scent of sweet and fragrant lilacs in the air. Above the world, the stars are so dazzling and close that Sam thinks he could reach up and grab one for Dean.
Dean’s already chilled, and he shudders against Sam, fighting to keep his dark rimmed eyes open. He tells Sam that this is it, this is the place where he wants to go when it’s all over with. When he came here years ago, he knew that this was the right spot for him, only he never thought this time would be so soon. Right here on this hill, so regardless where he looks, he will at last see the beauty in the world that he saw so little of when he was alive. He will see it in the valley and city when he looks down, and he will see it in the stars when he looks up. Sam’s shaken both by the exquisite splendor of the area and the agonizing idea of losing Dean. He agrees, though, to honor Dean’s last request.
They stand together, looking over the quiet world and up at the shimmering stars until Dean’s knees buckle and Sam catches him tightly. Dean’s fingers are cold against his neck, and Sam lifts him again to carry him back to the car.
They leave the hill, and Dean’s breath rattles in his chest. Sam carries him as Dean carried him when he fled from death within the flames. Only now, Sam doesn’t know how to outrun Dean’s death.
He looks up at Sam, and in his older brother’s eyes, Sam can see the stars.
Dean smiles through dry, blue-tinged lips. “Thanks, Sammy.”
X. At night, Sam is alone.
He buries Dean on the hill as he promised, and although he leaves no marker, he’ll forever know the spot where his brother lies. He doesn’t cry as he works, although he can feel the tears heavily pressing on his eyes, ready to come whenever he is ready to admit and accept. As he digs the grave and then shovels the dirt back again, he talks to his brother, whispering apologies and secrets to the wind. He knows that Dean can hear him.
No one knows that a man once named Dean Winchester is dead besides Sam. He left a voicemail for their father after Dean died, but he doesn’t expect a response. Sam wants to give his brother a proper eulogy, but all he can give him is the stars. As Sam gazes up at the sky, muscles shaking and heart pounding, he thinks about his brother, his family, and his hero, and how Dean was more like a star than he ever realized. Sadly, Sam knows that all stars fall eventually. He just wishes he could have been there to catch it.
Fin
He sits in his brother’s car, keys in the ignition, but nowhere to go and no desire to drive. The car smells of leather and sweat, grease and gunpowder. The tank is filled with gas, the trunk with weapons, but the vehicle itself is stuffed with memories. Dean’s fingerprints are still on the steering wheel, and there’s dirt in the floor mats from his boots. Sam’s afraid that if he looks over to the passenger seat, Dean will be sitting there with that ubiquitous grin on his face. He’ll rifle through his flimsy cardboard box of cassettes and plug in one that’ll deafen the engine itself. Then he’ll roll down the window and laugh to the surging wind, fearless. Strong. A star.
Sam is more alone than he could have ever imagined, and there’s a dull throbbing in his heart that pushes with a leaden weight on him. Part of him wishes for his own death so that he will be able to lie in the ground with his brother. They were never supposed to be separated, not like this, never like this. They were destined to walk side by side. Forever.
Finally he bends his head as if in prayer, and he cries his hot tears that choke his jagged breathing until his head swims, and that burn his lungs and throat with fiery pain until his body shivers.
And the sun rises.
End