icons: 24 and 2,000 words
Stacked Crooked
Supernatural; post-2x21 AU
~2,000 words, 24 icons
Warnings for multiple character deaths and angst.
The strangest thing is the quiet.
The absence of breath, rustle of sheets. The air that moves outside but not in, from his mouth not Sam’s. No vision, no omen, no sound can wake Sam, make him scream in his sleep and reach out his hands like he used to. Can’t shake him, say his name and pull him back with a frown on his face like before.
Dean knows; Dean’s tried.
Dean’s tries to wake Sam in all the ways he can. He throws things and shouts, he chants and kisses a woman with red eyes, tries to trade his soul for Sam’s stare, but nothing will open his brother’s eyes.
He’s stuck in this room, stuck here with Sam, but they’re not together, together is four pairs of blinking eyelids and two too-fast heartbeats. This is Dean’s dry skin and dirty hair and a pulse he’d swear is slowing by the second. This is alone.
Even Bobby leaves after a while, after dark, after Dean throws the fourth bottle. Bobby says “I think we should burn the body” and Dean says “you’d better burn me with it.”
A shard of glass cuts Sam’s cheek, breaks his skin and Dean bandages it even though there’s hardly any blood to lose. In his mind, Sam winces and calls him a jerk and Dean smiles. In the room, Sam lies there cold and Dean doesn’t try to wake him this time.
Dean’s tried, and Dean’s tired.
Sam doesn’t burn. Fire is for evil things, unnatural things, for bones soaked in salt and violence, for guns and gasoline. Fire is for ghosts and for John and for Dean. Sam never wanted that fire, and so Dean doesn’t burn him.
Dean digs a grave and sits beside it for a day and a half once it’s full. Sometimes he sees Sam, flickering and sad, standing in the light of a cloud-covered moon, but he blinks and the ghost is gone. He sits and he stares and he thinks “I didn’t burn you, Sammy, I didn’t burn you” so where are you and all he wants is that soft voice to answer “I’m here.”
The second time the sun rises, Dean drives to Bobby’s. Knocks on the door and says he needs a book and to not ask questions. Bobby asks questions. He asks what book and what the hell does Dean think he’s doing and “I swear to god, boy, if you -“
Dean knocks him out cold, folds a blanket under Bobby’s head, and leaves, book under his arm.
Dean did the ritual right, he swears. Pronounced words, kept the candles lit, drew the symbols. Only stumbled once, when Sam appeared, but he finished the chant and held in his tears while the wind swirled and coated his clothes with graveyard dust.
But it’s quiet, that strange dead quiet, unmoving, unblinking quiet.
“Look at me,” Dean says from low in his throat. Sam’s tall shoulders hunched, face turned down, hair in his eyes. “Dammit Sammy, look at me!” Dean reaches out his hand, wanting to move Sam’s face, to shake him, to hug him, to hit him, but his fingers move through like there’s no one there. “Please.”
Sam’s expression is slack and empty, eyes half lidded and wet, drained and grey in the night. The face of a dead man, a dying man.
“Okay, um.” Dean steps back, mouth and movements fumbling. “Come on, come - let’s get you inside.”
The spirit, Sam’s spirit, follows him without a word.
Dean swears he did the ritual right. He swears on his brother’s grave.
They drive to Bobby’s because Dean is sorry and he wants Bobby to see Sam.
His face is all relief and trepidation when he opens the door, eyes shadowed but staring right into Dean, mouth open like he wants to speak but doesn’t know what to say, how to ask, if he wants to know the answers. He doesn’t look at Sam.
Sheepish smile and Dean says “hey Bobby” and tries not to flinch. “You okay?” Bobby asks, and this time Dean’s is a real smile. “I am now.”
Bobby doesn’t look at Sam.
Sam is looking at Dean now for the first time, and his eyes are dark and his lips are pale and his skin is white and he almost shimmers like he’s made of metal, shivering, tiny vibrations disrupting the lines of his body. Dean wants to cry, but instead he twists his lips, says “c’mon Sammy, say hi to the man.”
And Sam does.
Huffing a laugh, smiling harder than he has in years, Dean claps Sam on the shoulder and doesn’t care that his hand passes through.
Bobby doesn’t look at Sam, but his eyes go wide -
“Dean, there’s nobody there.”
It happens like this:
Dean, he tells Bobby about the book. He tells Bobby about the ritual. The blood and the candles and the symbols and the words. He tells Bobby and Bobby says, voice soft and a little skittish, “that book was a fake Dean. Yeah, I’m serious. Bought it off a guy in Delaware, said it had real mojo, turns out it was some Latin buff running a scam out of his basement. Pages aren’t even old, just soaked in coffee.”
Dean shakes his head and Sammy’s hand shoots out, flash of holy water hitting Bobby’s skin. Bobby, who doesn’t notice the smoke rolling off him, hissing and boiling. Sam is shouting and Dean is backing up fast and Bobby is scared and exploding, flash of red, hole in his shirt where his heart beats. He’s falling backward and Sam’s gun is smoking and Dean thinks he can touch things before he blinks and glances at Bobby’s body, lying there still and radiating silence.
And in Dean’s hand is a gun, warm and heavy, and with one bullet gone.
It’s Sam’s idea to hunt, and Dean goes along even though he’s scared.
What if someone tries to hunt Sam, what if Bobby’s friends come after them, what if Dean dies and Sam is left alone, what if, what if, what if.
But they drive and they hunt, run and catch, salt and burn, and they’re both alive. Dean tells himself that resolutely every day, every time he wakes up and Sam is there, standing over him because ghosts don’t sleep and because Dean is the only thing in his world now.
They hunt, and Dean shoots where Sam points because he thinks maybe Sam is a better hunter now than Dean ever was, ever could be. Sam sees demons where Dean can’t, sees black eyes and splashes holy water where Dean sees only fear and trembling limbs. Sam sees the evil in the world and Dean kills it, shuts his eyes to the screams around him and the way the newspapers call their hunts murders.
Point and shoot, point and shoot, Sam says, and nothing else matters.
They’re both so alive.
Dean points and shoots his way into a ring of cops one night in Texas.
They’ve got their guns and their cuffs and their men in black and shiny badges, and Dean just got done killing a ghoul in the shape of a teenage girl and all her friends - who were evil too, Sam said - and the cops don’t seem to care.
Dean shouts, “they’re monsters” and the men say, “drop the gun”, and Sam says, “it’s okay Dean, drop the gun.”
The bulletproof vests say he has the right to remain silent, but all Dean does is call out to Sam, Sam who stands there tall and surrounded by blood, bodies that aren’t cold yet, and mouths “I’ll be right behind you.”
Sirens ring in his ears along with voices on the radio, “we got him, thank god, we finally got him”, and his wrists sting behind his back. Driving fast in the wrong car, Dean leaves the blood behind.
The cops don’t see Sam.
Bars of a cell are more confining than the walls of a room, the doors of a car. Look through them like you would a window and all you see is more, more dark hallways, more metal, more gruff voices and hard beds. Can’t pick the locks or squeeze through, can’t dig up or climb over. Can’t move.
Sam appears on the second day, and Dean’s never been more happy to have a ghost - alive - for a brother.
He holds out his hand, holds out a gun, and Dean takes it. Sam’s hands are colder than the metal, touching Dean’s for a brief moment before dissolving like ice fog around his fingers. His eyes are almost black.
The gun is heavy and familiar and Dean smiles, “thanks, Sammy.” Sam’s smile is hard and angry, a demon’s smile, or maybe it’s the jailhouse light making his eyes dark and his face sharp.
“They weren’t ghouls, Dean.”
Dean’s eyebrows move together.
“None of them were ghouls. Texas? Just a girl and her friends.”
“What -“
“None of them, Dean. Not the banker in Washington or the demon in Indiana. Not even that big guy in Tennessee.”
“His eyes -“
“Blue. They were blue, even after you killed him. They were always blue.”
Sam is smiling. Wider and wider and wider. Dean’s knuckles are white on the gun.
“You did it because I told you to, Dean, you saw it because I said I saw it and you wanted to believe me. Wanted to believe I was really the man you brought back, right? The man you lost. Ever wonder why they can’t see me? They can see the other ghosts, but not me.”
Sam’s real, he’s real, he’s real and he’s there in front of Dean, has been since that night in the graveyard. Dean swears on his brother’s grave.
“You’re the only one who can see me now.”
And Dean wants to say it’s because I brought you back, it’s because I stumbled over the Latin, it’s because I love you, but Sam’s still talking.
“You’re the only one who sees me.”
His eyes flicker, land on the gun.
“I want to be the only one who can see you.”
Dean’s hand is moving, moving, rising, the gun is turning until he’s looking right into it.
“Death is for evil things, right? You always said. But now that’s you. You’re the evil thing now.”
He’s looking right into that darkness and it’s looking back.
“Evil things burn, Dean.”
The whole cell is cold, cold like ice not cement.
“I want you to burn.”
He’s so cold.
“Burn for me, Dean.”
And so he does.
Supernatural; post-2x21 AU
~2,000 words, 24 icons
Warnings for multiple character deaths and angst.
The strangest thing is the quiet.
The absence of breath, rustle of sheets. The air that moves outside but not in, from his mouth not Sam’s. No vision, no omen, no sound can wake Sam, make him scream in his sleep and reach out his hands like he used to. Can’t shake him, say his name and pull him back with a frown on his face like before.
Dean knows; Dean’s tried.
Dean’s tries to wake Sam in all the ways he can. He throws things and shouts, he chants and kisses a woman with red eyes, tries to trade his soul for Sam’s stare, but nothing will open his brother’s eyes.
He’s stuck in this room, stuck here with Sam, but they’re not together, together is four pairs of blinking eyelids and two too-fast heartbeats. This is Dean’s dry skin and dirty hair and a pulse he’d swear is slowing by the second. This is alone.
Even Bobby leaves after a while, after dark, after Dean throws the fourth bottle. Bobby says “I think we should burn the body” and Dean says “you’d better burn me with it.”
A shard of glass cuts Sam’s cheek, breaks his skin and Dean bandages it even though there’s hardly any blood to lose. In his mind, Sam winces and calls him a jerk and Dean smiles. In the room, Sam lies there cold and Dean doesn’t try to wake him this time.
Dean’s tried, and Dean’s tired.
Sam doesn’t burn. Fire is for evil things, unnatural things, for bones soaked in salt and violence, for guns and gasoline. Fire is for ghosts and for John and for Dean. Sam never wanted that fire, and so Dean doesn’t burn him.
Dean digs a grave and sits beside it for a day and a half once it’s full. Sometimes he sees Sam, flickering and sad, standing in the light of a cloud-covered moon, but he blinks and the ghost is gone. He sits and he stares and he thinks “I didn’t burn you, Sammy, I didn’t burn you” so where are you and all he wants is that soft voice to answer “I’m here.”
The second time the sun rises, Dean drives to Bobby’s. Knocks on the door and says he needs a book and to not ask questions. Bobby asks questions. He asks what book and what the hell does Dean think he’s doing and “I swear to god, boy, if you -“
Dean knocks him out cold, folds a blanket under Bobby’s head, and leaves, book under his arm.
Dean did the ritual right, he swears. Pronounced words, kept the candles lit, drew the symbols. Only stumbled once, when Sam appeared, but he finished the chant and held in his tears while the wind swirled and coated his clothes with graveyard dust.
But it’s quiet, that strange dead quiet, unmoving, unblinking quiet.
“Look at me,” Dean says from low in his throat. Sam’s tall shoulders hunched, face turned down, hair in his eyes. “Dammit Sammy, look at me!” Dean reaches out his hand, wanting to move Sam’s face, to shake him, to hug him, to hit him, but his fingers move through like there’s no one there. “Please.”
Sam’s expression is slack and empty, eyes half lidded and wet, drained and grey in the night. The face of a dead man, a dying man.
“Okay, um.” Dean steps back, mouth and movements fumbling. “Come on, come - let’s get you inside.”
The spirit, Sam’s spirit, follows him without a word.
Dean swears he did the ritual right. He swears on his brother’s grave.
They drive to Bobby’s because Dean is sorry and he wants Bobby to see Sam.
His face is all relief and trepidation when he opens the door, eyes shadowed but staring right into Dean, mouth open like he wants to speak but doesn’t know what to say, how to ask, if he wants to know the answers. He doesn’t look at Sam.
Sheepish smile and Dean says “hey Bobby” and tries not to flinch. “You okay?” Bobby asks, and this time Dean’s is a real smile. “I am now.”
Bobby doesn’t look at Sam.
Sam is looking at Dean now for the first time, and his eyes are dark and his lips are pale and his skin is white and he almost shimmers like he’s made of metal, shivering, tiny vibrations disrupting the lines of his body. Dean wants to cry, but instead he twists his lips, says “c’mon Sammy, say hi to the man.”
And Sam does.
Huffing a laugh, smiling harder than he has in years, Dean claps Sam on the shoulder and doesn’t care that his hand passes through.
Bobby doesn’t look at Sam, but his eyes go wide -
“Dean, there’s nobody there.”
It happens like this:
Dean, he tells Bobby about the book. He tells Bobby about the ritual. The blood and the candles and the symbols and the words. He tells Bobby and Bobby says, voice soft and a little skittish, “that book was a fake Dean. Yeah, I’m serious. Bought it off a guy in Delaware, said it had real mojo, turns out it was some Latin buff running a scam out of his basement. Pages aren’t even old, just soaked in coffee.”
Dean shakes his head and Sammy’s hand shoots out, flash of holy water hitting Bobby’s skin. Bobby, who doesn’t notice the smoke rolling off him, hissing and boiling. Sam is shouting and Dean is backing up fast and Bobby is scared and exploding, flash of red, hole in his shirt where his heart beats. He’s falling backward and Sam’s gun is smoking and Dean thinks he can touch things before he blinks and glances at Bobby’s body, lying there still and radiating silence.
And in Dean’s hand is a gun, warm and heavy, and with one bullet gone.
It’s Sam’s idea to hunt, and Dean goes along even though he’s scared.
What if someone tries to hunt Sam, what if Bobby’s friends come after them, what if Dean dies and Sam is left alone, what if, what if, what if.
But they drive and they hunt, run and catch, salt and burn, and they’re both alive. Dean tells himself that resolutely every day, every time he wakes up and Sam is there, standing over him because ghosts don’t sleep and because Dean is the only thing in his world now.
They hunt, and Dean shoots where Sam points because he thinks maybe Sam is a better hunter now than Dean ever was, ever could be. Sam sees demons where Dean can’t, sees black eyes and splashes holy water where Dean sees only fear and trembling limbs. Sam sees the evil in the world and Dean kills it, shuts his eyes to the screams around him and the way the newspapers call their hunts murders.
Point and shoot, point and shoot, Sam says, and nothing else matters.
They’re both so alive.
Dean points and shoots his way into a ring of cops one night in Texas.
They’ve got their guns and their cuffs and their men in black and shiny badges, and Dean just got done killing a ghoul in the shape of a teenage girl and all her friends - who were evil too, Sam said - and the cops don’t seem to care.
Dean shouts, “they’re monsters” and the men say, “drop the gun”, and Sam says, “it’s okay Dean, drop the gun.”
The bulletproof vests say he has the right to remain silent, but all Dean does is call out to Sam, Sam who stands there tall and surrounded by blood, bodies that aren’t cold yet, and mouths “I’ll be right behind you.”
Sirens ring in his ears along with voices on the radio, “we got him, thank god, we finally got him”, and his wrists sting behind his back. Driving fast in the wrong car, Dean leaves the blood behind.
The cops don’t see Sam.
Bars of a cell are more confining than the walls of a room, the doors of a car. Look through them like you would a window and all you see is more, more dark hallways, more metal, more gruff voices and hard beds. Can’t pick the locks or squeeze through, can’t dig up or climb over. Can’t move.
Sam appears on the second day, and Dean’s never been more happy to have a ghost - alive - for a brother.
He holds out his hand, holds out a gun, and Dean takes it. Sam’s hands are colder than the metal, touching Dean’s for a brief moment before dissolving like ice fog around his fingers. His eyes are almost black.
The gun is heavy and familiar and Dean smiles, “thanks, Sammy.” Sam’s smile is hard and angry, a demon’s smile, or maybe it’s the jailhouse light making his eyes dark and his face sharp.
“They weren’t ghouls, Dean.”
Dean’s eyebrows move together.
“None of them were ghouls. Texas? Just a girl and her friends.”
“What -“
“None of them, Dean. Not the banker in Washington or the demon in Indiana. Not even that big guy in Tennessee.”
“His eyes -“
“Blue. They were blue, even after you killed him. They were always blue.”
Sam is smiling. Wider and wider and wider. Dean’s knuckles are white on the gun.
“You did it because I told you to, Dean, you saw it because I said I saw it and you wanted to believe me. Wanted to believe I was really the man you brought back, right? The man you lost. Ever wonder why they can’t see me? They can see the other ghosts, but not me.”
Sam’s real, he’s real, he’s real and he’s there in front of Dean, has been since that night in the graveyard. Dean swears on his brother’s grave.
“You’re the only one who can see me now.”
And Dean wants to say it’s because I brought you back, it’s because I stumbled over the Latin, it’s because I love you, but Sam’s still talking.
“You’re the only one who sees me.”
His eyes flicker, land on the gun.
“I want to be the only one who can see you.”
Dean’s hand is moving, moving, rising, the gun is turning until he’s looking right into it.
“Death is for evil things, right? You always said. But now that’s you. You’re the evil thing now.”
He’s looking right into that darkness and it’s looking back.
“Evil things burn, Dean.”
The whole cell is cold, cold like ice not cement.
“I want you to burn.”
He’s so cold.
“Burn for me, Dean.”
And so he does.