and so to soldier onward (the 28 Days Later remix) [Supernatural; Sam/Dean]
Title: and so to soldier onward (the 28 Days Later remix)
Author: winter_baby
Summary: Two men walk into a bar at the end of the world.
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Warnings: Wincest
Spoilers: Croatoan
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Original: and so to soldier onward by obsessedmuch
Notes: I love my beta, starstillwonder.
Day 28
Sam thinks this could go on forever. In front and behind them is a highway that stretches on and on, promising nothing. On either side, two identical seas of untended wheat, bowing in defeat as they drive through whatever state it is they're in now. Occasionally they'll pass a hollowed-out car on the side of the road, dead bodies lolling out of their seats and onto the pavement like tongues. Sam thinks there will never be an end to this - not when they reach the state border, not when they run out of gas, not when they're faced with an endless expanse of ocean. They'll get out of the car, the sun setting over the water blinding in its reflections. Sam will have to hold his hand up against the light.
It will have taken a trail of bodies to have gotten this far, not all of them left by Sam and Dean, but enough. It'll feel like a waste. Dean will turn to him and say, "There's nowhere left."
They'll turn around. They won't head back the way they came.
Day 25
It's been almost a month and this is what they've learned. When the end comes, demons and spirits have very little to do anymore. Dean asks what's the point of haunting and terrorizing people when people are doing such a bang-up job of it all on their own, and Sam has to agree. These days every death is an angry, violent one, but there's barely anyone left to exact revenge on that Sam can feel the spirits fading away into the dull, chaotic roar that is everyday life now. He doesn't know what that means for him. He thinks he only survived the infection because of who - what he is, and when he looks at Dean, tired and haggard but still very much alive, he has to remember that Dean is his brother, made of all the same parts as Sam.
It's that unknowable science that scares Dean the most, Sam can tell. Genetics. Viruses. Blood. It took them a while to figure out that there was nothing supernatural about this, that this infection spreading across the world was born from sheer human ingenuity and stupidity, that Sam and Dean did not have the tools to fight this, that there was no one left to save except each other, over and over again.
They're not the only ones who survived. There are those who were infected but didn't stay dead, clawing their way out from under all the other bodies and lumbering after them with hollow, hungry eyes. But they move slow enough to never be a threat, really. As long as you don't let them bleed all over you, they're just another thing to shoot. What Sam and Dean need to protect themselves from the most are the real survivors, those who are like Sam or just naturally immune. They'd kill you for a scrap of food.
Sam recognizes something in them - that desperation to survive, that feral look. Sometimes all he has to do is look in the mirror. Or at Dean.
Day 23
"Sam, what do you think?"
"..."
"Sam."
"What?"
"The house, Sam. The big blue thing in front of us. What do you think?"
"I think we should keep looking."
"Are you serious?"
"..."
"We can keep looking until our asses fall off, we're never gonna find anything as sweet as this. A hand pump in the back, a generator full of gas, flat land for miles so we'll see anything that's coming."
"..."
"What the hell's the matter with you? You've been bitching about settling down since day one."
"It's not safe."
"Nowhere is safe, but we can't keep living out of the Impala."
"Why not. We have for this long."
"Sam."
"You asked me what I think and this is what I think."
"Sam."
"Let's keep moving."
Day 18
Sam kills his first his human over a bottle of water while raiding a supermarket. The man pulls out a knife but Sam is bigger and stronger and it slides too easily into the man's gut. When Sam pulls it back out, blood following metal, what he notices more than the man's face twisted in pain is his stomach, concave from hunger. He gasps, once, twice, before collapsing over the freezer section. Dean's boots make skidding sounds against the tiles as he runs up to Sam, asking what the fuck happened.
He came out of nowhere, Sam wants to say, but no sound comes out. Dean doesn't ask again, only leads Sam outside to the car and then runs back in to finish grabbing what they need.
That night they break into an abandoned farmhouse, miles off the highway. There's a layer of dust over everything that rises up in a cloud when they fall into the bed. Sam clutches at Dean too hard, probably leaving scratches and bruises, but they've been here before. This feeling is familiar.
Day 14
They haven't spoken to each other in a day. Sam's not apologizing and Dean's not asking for forgiveness. When darkness falls, they break into the first house without any dead bodies that they can find and eat cold SpaghettiOs straight out of the can in the kitchen. Sam eats leaning against the counter and stares at the collection of souvenir spoons hung on the wall, their places of origin printed gaudily on their handles. Niagara Falls. Yellowstone Park. Disney World. Dean usually makes fun of things like these whenever they break into a new house, but Sam can understand. He thinks everyone carries back a piece of the places they've been to - proof that for a moment you existed somewhere. All Sam has to do is look at Dean's body and he could tell you exactly which of Dean's scars is from where, which monster he was fighting, what improbable stunt Dean had to do in order save the girl, or Sam.
Dean throws his dirty spoon in the sink and disappears into the dark hallway without saying a word. Sam follows him out, stopping at the doorway and watching Dean's back ascend the stairs.
He lasts about a whole three seconds before following Dean into the master bedroom. Dean turns around at the sound of his footsteps, face hard like he's ready for a fight, but Sam just closes the distance between them in two long strides. He grabs Dean by the collar and it feels like a struggle but it's not. He just can't let go. Outside, the world is falling apart and everywhere they go there's this thunderous silence - empty houses, still bodies, monsters in plain human face that slip through the night without noise - but here in this dark room Dean's hands against his skin and Dean's voice at his ear feel like the only real things Sam has ever known.
"I'm not sorry about yesterday," Dean whispers into Sam's neck and Sam doesn't answer. The entire time there's the beginning of a joke that Sam can't get out of his head:
Two men walk into a bar at the end of the world.
Day 13
"Fuck. Fuck!"
"Calm down, Sam."
"You shot her, Dean. You shot her."
"What was I supposed to do? She had a gun on you!"
"She was a person, Dean, not one of those things out there. She was human!"
"Look at me, Sam, not at her. Look at me! I would do it again in a second."
"Dean."
"I don't care what they are - alive, dead, undead - I will always choose you. If it comes down to them or you, I will always choose you."
"Dean."
Day 11
Dean has been passed out in the passenger seat since noon. After they had finished siphoning gas for the Impala at the last rest stop, Sam slid into the driver's seat before Dean could, knowing that Dean would be too tired to put up an argument. They've been on the road for almost two weeks now and Sam has no idea where they're going, why they keep heading west, what they think they're going to find once they get to wherever it is that they're getting to. Dean wears the exhaustion in the lines around his eyes and in his clenched jaw. Sam feels it in his bones.
When night falls - silent, open, empty - Sam is still driving. He doesn't stop until he has to, until the idea of falling asleep - of drifting off the road, of wrapping the car around a tree and himself around the steering wheel - becomes too tempting. He imagines the aftermath, the wreckage strewn about him. Windows smashed, doors fused shut, the engine sputtering noisily through the empty night. Dean twisted into an unreal shape. The Impala's headlights would pierce into the darkness, illuminating the night in two thin beams. Aimless and crooked, like broken limbs.
Sam rubs his eyes and Dean startles awake from a dream. There's an abandoned motel on the side of the road. There's respite.
Day 7
"Dean?"
"..."
"Dean, are you sleeping?"
"What."
"Do you have any idea what state we're in?"
"I swear to god, Sam, this is the first clean bed we've found in three days, that better not be the reason you woke me up."
"I can't remember reading a sign. The last I remember we were in Ohio, but when did we cross the border?"
"I don't know. Ask me again in the morning."
"..."
"..."
"Dean?"
"What."
"We should have tried to help those people back there. We shouldn't have left them."
"Why are we having this discussion again?"
"..."
"I told you. We don't have any room. They would have slowed us down."
"Still. We used to help people, Dean."
"That was before. Remember what happened the last time we tried to help someone? He stole our fucking water supply."
"It's just..."
"..."
"It's just, shouldn't we be trying to rebuild?"
"..."
"Dean?"
"Go to sleep, Sam."
Day 5
It's from a man in tattered clothes and a scraggly beard that they find out what's really happening. They stop at a campground on the side of the highway to start a fire, and over an almost spoiled sandwich, the man tells them he's been on the road for about a week now, all the way from D.C. Sam barely hears his tale of men in lab coats and secret government projects gone awry when he sees the disbelief and dull rage in Dean's eyes.
Up until this point, Dean has been talking almost cheerfully about trying to track down other hunters, pooling together their knowledge and somehow putting a stop to this. Neither of them knows what to do with this new information. Sam tries to put a hand on Dean's shoulder but he throws it off, turning away and curling into his sleeping bag. For a long time Sam watches Dean's back, rising and falling in ragged breaths until it smooths out into an uneasy sleep. Sam stomps out the fire and throws a blanket at the man before turning in himself.
When they wake up, the man is gone and so is all their water.
Day 2
"Jesus fuck, Sammy, this is like something out of 28 Days Later."
"I didn't think you watched anything that was made after 1987."
"Pay-per-view, my man. Like I was going to pass up a free zombie flick."
"Just because you don't pay the credit card bill doesn't mean it's free, Dean."
"Says you."
"Great. Real mature."
"Did you learn that witty comeback at college, Professor?"
"..."
"Are you pouting?"
"I don't get how you can watch those movies. Don't you get enough horror film thrills out of our real life?"
"Yeah, but I can't enjoy beer and popcorn at the same time. You're shaking your head, Sammy, but you know I'm right."
"Fine. So how does it end, the movie. Do they live?"
"..."
"Dean?"
"OK, so maybe what I saw was 28 Babes Later."
"You're disgusting."
Day 1
Sam looks out the motel window just as they light fire to the pile of bodies in the town square. Dean's been shoving clothes and towels and anything else he can get his hands on into their duffel bags. All day Dean's been trying to reach other hunters, going down the list of people their dad has in his journal, but no answer anywhere. No Ellen. No Bobby. No one.
"Grab your shit, Sam," Dean barks out and throws his jacket at him.
They're turning onto the highway when Sam looks back at the town they just left. A column of fire rises above the roofs of the houses. He can't hear the screams or the alarms or the sirens. Dean's not saying anything either, but he places a hand on the back of Sam's neck and for a moment that's all Sam can focus on. He has to close his eyes.
Sam thinks this is the end. Sam thinks there will never be anything after this.
Author: winter_baby
Summary: Two men walk into a bar at the end of the world.
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Warnings: Wincest
Spoilers: Croatoan
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Original: and so to soldier onward by obsessedmuch
Notes: I love my beta, starstillwonder.
Day 28
Sam thinks this could go on forever. In front and behind them is a highway that stretches on and on, promising nothing. On either side, two identical seas of untended wheat, bowing in defeat as they drive through whatever state it is they're in now. Occasionally they'll pass a hollowed-out car on the side of the road, dead bodies lolling out of their seats and onto the pavement like tongues. Sam thinks there will never be an end to this - not when they reach the state border, not when they run out of gas, not when they're faced with an endless expanse of ocean. They'll get out of the car, the sun setting over the water blinding in its reflections. Sam will have to hold his hand up against the light.
It will have taken a trail of bodies to have gotten this far, not all of them left by Sam and Dean, but enough. It'll feel like a waste. Dean will turn to him and say, "There's nowhere left."
They'll turn around. They won't head back the way they came.
Day 25
It's been almost a month and this is what they've learned. When the end comes, demons and spirits have very little to do anymore. Dean asks what's the point of haunting and terrorizing people when people are doing such a bang-up job of it all on their own, and Sam has to agree. These days every death is an angry, violent one, but there's barely anyone left to exact revenge on that Sam can feel the spirits fading away into the dull, chaotic roar that is everyday life now. He doesn't know what that means for him. He thinks he only survived the infection because of who - what he is, and when he looks at Dean, tired and haggard but still very much alive, he has to remember that Dean is his brother, made of all the same parts as Sam.
It's that unknowable science that scares Dean the most, Sam can tell. Genetics. Viruses. Blood. It took them a while to figure out that there was nothing supernatural about this, that this infection spreading across the world was born from sheer human ingenuity and stupidity, that Sam and Dean did not have the tools to fight this, that there was no one left to save except each other, over and over again.
They're not the only ones who survived. There are those who were infected but didn't stay dead, clawing their way out from under all the other bodies and lumbering after them with hollow, hungry eyes. But they move slow enough to never be a threat, really. As long as you don't let them bleed all over you, they're just another thing to shoot. What Sam and Dean need to protect themselves from the most are the real survivors, those who are like Sam or just naturally immune. They'd kill you for a scrap of food.
Sam recognizes something in them - that desperation to survive, that feral look. Sometimes all he has to do is look in the mirror. Or at Dean.
Day 23
"Sam, what do you think?"
"..."
"Sam."
"What?"
"The house, Sam. The big blue thing in front of us. What do you think?"
"I think we should keep looking."
"Are you serious?"
"..."
"We can keep looking until our asses fall off, we're never gonna find anything as sweet as this. A hand pump in the back, a generator full of gas, flat land for miles so we'll see anything that's coming."
"..."
"What the hell's the matter with you? You've been bitching about settling down since day one."
"It's not safe."
"Nowhere is safe, but we can't keep living out of the Impala."
"Why not. We have for this long."
"Sam."
"You asked me what I think and this is what I think."
"Sam."
"Let's keep moving."
Day 18
Sam kills his first his human over a bottle of water while raiding a supermarket. The man pulls out a knife but Sam is bigger and stronger and it slides too easily into the man's gut. When Sam pulls it back out, blood following metal, what he notices more than the man's face twisted in pain is his stomach, concave from hunger. He gasps, once, twice, before collapsing over the freezer section. Dean's boots make skidding sounds against the tiles as he runs up to Sam, asking what the fuck happened.
He came out of nowhere, Sam wants to say, but no sound comes out. Dean doesn't ask again, only leads Sam outside to the car and then runs back in to finish grabbing what they need.
That night they break into an abandoned farmhouse, miles off the highway. There's a layer of dust over everything that rises up in a cloud when they fall into the bed. Sam clutches at Dean too hard, probably leaving scratches and bruises, but they've been here before. This feeling is familiar.
Day 14
They haven't spoken to each other in a day. Sam's not apologizing and Dean's not asking for forgiveness. When darkness falls, they break into the first house without any dead bodies that they can find and eat cold SpaghettiOs straight out of the can in the kitchen. Sam eats leaning against the counter and stares at the collection of souvenir spoons hung on the wall, their places of origin printed gaudily on their handles. Niagara Falls. Yellowstone Park. Disney World. Dean usually makes fun of things like these whenever they break into a new house, but Sam can understand. He thinks everyone carries back a piece of the places they've been to - proof that for a moment you existed somewhere. All Sam has to do is look at Dean's body and he could tell you exactly which of Dean's scars is from where, which monster he was fighting, what improbable stunt Dean had to do in order save the girl, or Sam.
Dean throws his dirty spoon in the sink and disappears into the dark hallway without saying a word. Sam follows him out, stopping at the doorway and watching Dean's back ascend the stairs.
He lasts about a whole three seconds before following Dean into the master bedroom. Dean turns around at the sound of his footsteps, face hard like he's ready for a fight, but Sam just closes the distance between them in two long strides. He grabs Dean by the collar and it feels like a struggle but it's not. He just can't let go. Outside, the world is falling apart and everywhere they go there's this thunderous silence - empty houses, still bodies, monsters in plain human face that slip through the night without noise - but here in this dark room Dean's hands against his skin and Dean's voice at his ear feel like the only real things Sam has ever known.
"I'm not sorry about yesterday," Dean whispers into Sam's neck and Sam doesn't answer. The entire time there's the beginning of a joke that Sam can't get out of his head:
Two men walk into a bar at the end of the world.
Day 13
"Fuck. Fuck!"
"Calm down, Sam."
"You shot her, Dean. You shot her."
"What was I supposed to do? She had a gun on you!"
"She was a person, Dean, not one of those things out there. She was human!"
"Look at me, Sam, not at her. Look at me! I would do it again in a second."
"Dean."
"I don't care what they are - alive, dead, undead - I will always choose you. If it comes down to them or you, I will always choose you."
"Dean."
Day 11
Dean has been passed out in the passenger seat since noon. After they had finished siphoning gas for the Impala at the last rest stop, Sam slid into the driver's seat before Dean could, knowing that Dean would be too tired to put up an argument. They've been on the road for almost two weeks now and Sam has no idea where they're going, why they keep heading west, what they think they're going to find once they get to wherever it is that they're getting to. Dean wears the exhaustion in the lines around his eyes and in his clenched jaw. Sam feels it in his bones.
When night falls - silent, open, empty - Sam is still driving. He doesn't stop until he has to, until the idea of falling asleep - of drifting off the road, of wrapping the car around a tree and himself around the steering wheel - becomes too tempting. He imagines the aftermath, the wreckage strewn about him. Windows smashed, doors fused shut, the engine sputtering noisily through the empty night. Dean twisted into an unreal shape. The Impala's headlights would pierce into the darkness, illuminating the night in two thin beams. Aimless and crooked, like broken limbs.
Sam rubs his eyes and Dean startles awake from a dream. There's an abandoned motel on the side of the road. There's respite.
Day 7
"Dean?"
"..."
"Dean, are you sleeping?"
"What."
"Do you have any idea what state we're in?"
"I swear to god, Sam, this is the first clean bed we've found in three days, that better not be the reason you woke me up."
"I can't remember reading a sign. The last I remember we were in Ohio, but when did we cross the border?"
"I don't know. Ask me again in the morning."
"..."
"..."
"Dean?"
"What."
"We should have tried to help those people back there. We shouldn't have left them."
"Why are we having this discussion again?"
"..."
"I told you. We don't have any room. They would have slowed us down."
"Still. We used to help people, Dean."
"That was before. Remember what happened the last time we tried to help someone? He stole our fucking water supply."
"It's just..."
"..."
"It's just, shouldn't we be trying to rebuild?"
"..."
"Dean?"
"Go to sleep, Sam."
Day 5
It's from a man in tattered clothes and a scraggly beard that they find out what's really happening. They stop at a campground on the side of the highway to start a fire, and over an almost spoiled sandwich, the man tells them he's been on the road for about a week now, all the way from D.C. Sam barely hears his tale of men in lab coats and secret government projects gone awry when he sees the disbelief and dull rage in Dean's eyes.
Up until this point, Dean has been talking almost cheerfully about trying to track down other hunters, pooling together their knowledge and somehow putting a stop to this. Neither of them knows what to do with this new information. Sam tries to put a hand on Dean's shoulder but he throws it off, turning away and curling into his sleeping bag. For a long time Sam watches Dean's back, rising and falling in ragged breaths until it smooths out into an uneasy sleep. Sam stomps out the fire and throws a blanket at the man before turning in himself.
When they wake up, the man is gone and so is all their water.
Day 2
"Jesus fuck, Sammy, this is like something out of 28 Days Later."
"I didn't think you watched anything that was made after 1987."
"Pay-per-view, my man. Like I was going to pass up a free zombie flick."
"Just because you don't pay the credit card bill doesn't mean it's free, Dean."
"Says you."
"Great. Real mature."
"Did you learn that witty comeback at college, Professor?"
"..."
"Are you pouting?"
"I don't get how you can watch those movies. Don't you get enough horror film thrills out of our real life?"
"Yeah, but I can't enjoy beer and popcorn at the same time. You're shaking your head, Sammy, but you know I'm right."
"Fine. So how does it end, the movie. Do they live?"
"..."
"Dean?"
"OK, so maybe what I saw was 28 Babes Later."
"You're disgusting."
Day 1
Sam looks out the motel window just as they light fire to the pile of bodies in the town square. Dean's been shoving clothes and towels and anything else he can get his hands on into their duffel bags. All day Dean's been trying to reach other hunters, going down the list of people their dad has in his journal, but no answer anywhere. No Ellen. No Bobby. No one.
"Grab your shit, Sam," Dean barks out and throws his jacket at him.
They're turning onto the highway when Sam looks back at the town they just left. A column of fire rises above the roofs of the houses. He can't hear the screams or the alarms or the sirens. Dean's not saying anything either, but he places a hand on the back of Sam's neck and for a moment that's all Sam can focus on. He has to close his eyes.
Sam thinks this is the end. Sam thinks there will never be anything after this.