song about the heartland - SN fic - R
Title: song about the heartland
Fandom: “Supernatural”
Disclaimer: not my characters. just for fun. Title from “Heartland” by George Strait.
Warnings: AU for “Born Under A Bad Sign”
Pairings: none
Rating: R, just for fun
Wordcount: 1515
Point of view: third
Dedication: to
tru_faith_losteven though she made me lose the thread of the story a couple of times, the brat.
Notes: I’ve been in the mood to write something depressing. I was actually reading “Magnificent Seven” fanfiction the other night and felt the desire to type up a heartbreaking Dean dies for no reason fic, but this is what I’ve come up with instead.
when he remembers to pray, it’s for forgiveness he’ll never receive
-
Nine months after, he dreams of blond hair and fire. He hears her scream in his head, her pleas for everything to stop, and he tries, God how he tries, but nothing listens to his demands.
In the forefront of his mind, It laughs.
-
Bobby doesn’t understand and Dean doesn’t explain. Can’t. There aren’t words fitting, and words were never his strong-suit, anyway. He just goes about his life, rising with the sun and staying up until he can’t move anymore.
-
It talks to him, sometimes. Whispers, murmurs, says sweet nothings drenched with twisted desire and hope. Tells him it’s too late to do anything else, so he might as well give in.
But he clings to memories and a promise he knew it killed his brother to make, and he turns away in the furthest reaches of his mind, pulling close the one bright spot he ever had.
He won’t, you know, It coos. He never could.
But Sam ignores It with the blind determination his father often lamented and just tells himself that Dean will.
-
Bobby quits telling Dean about the killings. He just stocks up on ammunition and salt, researches exorcisms and rituals he’s had memorized for decades, and prays even though he doesn’t believe. He just watches, waiting-Dean is John’s son. He’ll come to one day, and he’ll want… something. To finish it. He is John’s son, the one who followed John without question, without fail. Some part of that must still be in him, somewhere.
But all he can do until then, until Dean wakes up and decides it’s time to hunt his brother and follow John’s last order, is watch the boy, keep him whole and healthy, and listen to pleas he whispers as he sleeps.
-
It killed Jo with his hands, and Gordon and Ellen and Ash and nameless faces at the Roadhouse. It left a swathe of destruction from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico, from Washington to Florida and back again.
Hundreds of hunters came after It with weapons and spells and endless hate. With his hands, with his body, with his ‘gifts’ It killed them all, and then visited their families and their hometowns and showed Its displeasure.
Father formed you, It told him, that first night after Jo, when Dean lowered the gun and It tore out Jo’s throat with a laugh, Father fashioned you, Sammy. With meticulous care and fathomless patience, He wove you as His heir. And only two beings have the ability of ending you.
He didn’t react, didn’t respond, pretended he didn’t hear It, but It still continued on.
Can you guess who they are, sweetheart? C’mon-just one? It chuckled and he curled in further on himself. My father-and after all the efforts He put into you, I highly doubt He ever will-and…
He knew the name before It murmured the word.
Dean.
He sinks deeper into himself with every passing day, no longer even attempting to wrest back control of his body. All he does is beg God and Satan and Fate and Destiny and every deity he can remember for Dean to finally come end it all.
And It just keeps cackling, He never will.
-
A year and then another. The Feds and the hunters slowly give up the chase, realizing that Sam is beyond their reach. Untouchable.
The massacres still happen and the country trembles.
Bobby watches the one man who could end it all watch the sunrise and wonders if any of John’s boy is left of him at all.
-
Words have never been Dean’s strong-suit.
Save him, Dean. Or kill him.
Save him. Kill him.
Dean can’t do either so he does nothing at all.
-
You see, Sammy, It purrs, twisting a little boy’s neck and laughing with his voice, you’re thinking, Dean’ll come and everything will be right as rain, right? It uses his hands to toss the boy’s body aside and moves toward the boy’s mother. Wrong, sweetheart. So fucking wrong it’s more damned hysterical than that flood was. There is no salvation, not for you. Never has been, never will be-you, Sam, were damned from the moment John and Mary conceived you.
He locks himself deep in memory, wraps himself in the warmth of his brother protecting him from everything, and ignores the feel of It using his body as a weapon against the world.
And all the while he begs for Dean to kill him and have everything be over.
-
Five years to the day Jo died, Bobby wakes to Dean gone. Everything of Dean’s but the Impala is still there, though, so Bobby knows Dean hasn’t gone hunting.
Bobby stares at the sky for a minute, then down the road, and wonders what the fucking hell he can do now, because he’s one of the few left and the thing in Sam’s body’ll just keep coming, no matter what is used as a weapon.
And then he prays some more.
-
He’s coming, It says. Bye, Sammy. Meet ya on the frontlines.
And for the first time in longer than he cares to remember, his body listens to him and he’s the solitary presence in his head.
-
Words are not what Dean’s good at, not when it matters. Not to Sammy and-when Dad was alive-not to Dad. He’s better with looks or touches, and even his silence is usually better than when he speaks.
He shoots across the country like an arrow, the Impala never going less than 75mph. Everyone spent so long looking for the thing in Sam’s body any time it fell off the map, but Dean always knew where it was.
Save him, Dean. Or kill him.
Dad’s final order and Dean let thousands die because he couldn’t do it.
He pushes his Impala over 100 and wonders what he thinks changed. It’s been half a decade. Why now?
-
Sam’s asleep when Dean picks the lock and slowly opens the door. It’s the first real sleep he’s gotten in just a little over five years. He slowly rises to consciousness when he feels another presence in the room, but he’s been running on empty for so long, he sinks deeper into the dark.
Dean just watches him for a moment, wondering if it’s his brother or something else in control. He thinks of Dad, of Jo and Ellen, of everyone dead by his brother’s hand-except, it wasn’t his brother at all.
Save him, Dean. Or kill him.
With trembling fingers, Dean reaches out to touch Sam’s face. Five years of refusing to do what had to be done, of watching the news and reading the paper, of Bobby’s silent disapproval and inability to understand, of knowing that he and he alone could end everything-and Sam sighs, shifts, moves into the touch. Dean bows his head, weighs what he knows and what he feels, measures everything that’s been…
He’s put it off for five years now, ever since the thing in Sam’s body tore out Jo’s throat.
Save him, Dean. Or kill him.
Dean can’t save him. He’s already failed there. He knows it, deep in his soul-knows it and can’t do a thing to change it.
Because he can’t kill Sam.
-
In the dream, It’s talking again, murmuring about destiny and blood and how nothing can ever be fully escaped.
Its laughter spirals around the cavern he’s in and no matter where he turns, he can’t ignore the voice, can’t block it out, can’t pretend it isn’t there.
Listen to me, Sammy. I’ve opened the door and you’ve got nowhere else to go. But you won’t be alone, Sam. Father isn’t that cruel, especially not to you. You’re His special one, His obsession, what He’s spent lifetimes on.
Sam howls, trying to make It shut up, but It just keeps on talking.
Destiny, little brother. Blood of our blood. I’ve given you a taste, over the past few years. You won’t be able to walk away.
It’s a shadow that swoops over him, smoke that reaches out to caress his face. And Dean, lovely being that he is, won’t let you walk alone.
-
Sam wakes with a sob and a curse, and isn’t surprised that Dean’s leaning against the wall.
“Tell me it was a nightmare,” Sam begs, but Dean’s bearing tells him it wasn’t.
For a moment, Dean’s silent. But then he says, “We gotta go. Bobby’s probably told ‘em I left.”
Sam almost breaks down in hysterical laughter, because despite everything that’s different, nothing’s changed. But he focuses on Dean, Dean for the first time in five years, and he knows he has to get up, has to move, has to surrender to the inevitable fate he could never have outrun, not really.
“I begged you to kill me,” he whispers and Dean nods.
“I never could,” Dean answers. “Now, move.”
-
when he remembers to hope, it’s fleeting and faulty, and for a moment he forgets what he’s come to be