fic: Trouble Breathing

[biketest]

Title: Trouble Breathing
Genre: gen, angst
Characters: Dean, Sam, (Bobby)
Words: 1898
Spoilers: 7.10
Warnings: attempted suicide/homicide, depression, anxiety, alcoholism, language
Summary: You die before me, and I’ll kill you.

A fill for this prompt on the hoodie-time  holiday meme. Title and cut text from this song by Alkaline Trio, my soundtrack while

Comments

[kalliel]

This is lovely. The suffocation, entrapped-ness, Dean feels here is palpable. Excellent tag. Thank you for sharing!

[biketest]

Thanks for reading!! I'm so glad you like it, you're like my fic writing idol.

[kalliel]

<3333333!!!

[dollarformyname]

Holy shit, I LOVE YOU. This is so beyond perfect, I don't even know where to start.

♥ ♥ ♥

Okay, yes I do. The opening scene with Dean being smeared in Bobby's ashes and Sam getting so pissed at the hallucinations trying to infringe on his grief. Ugh, so amazing and visceral. MY HEART. And then, oh, Dean's desperation to black out, and the current model Impala (genius), and Saaaam, and DEAN.

I think my favorite part, though, is Sam hauling Dean out and knocking him down, and then just nodding at Dean's terrible, beautiful little confession and crying some more as he drives them away. 'Cause Dean isn't quite lost to him but he's so so close, just the barest thread of that physical body and not much left of the brother he knows inhabiting it, and Sam is crazy and hurting and just. GAH. So heartbreaking but still absolutely the BEST THING.

Youuuu! All the cookies for you. <3 Please keep writing and never stop.

[dollarformyname]

Okay, I re-read and...

The car rumbles to life and Sam backs slowly out of the mangled guardrail. There’s minimal damage, really. The bumper’s dented but the car starts fine. It drives fine. The fucking airbags didn’t even activate. Dean feels like an idiot.

I love this detail so so much.

After a couple minutes of silence, Sam starts crying, gross, powerful, convulsing sobs. Each breath wracks his whole body; the noise makes Dean want to disappear into his seat. He tries his hardest to fade into the gray cloth, but he doesn’t, of course he doesn’t. All he can do is cover his eyes and listen, try to breathe.

YES YES YES. Still the best.

[biketest]

Ahhh I'm so happy right now. You pointed out all the parts I wasn't sure about (the ashes, the current model Impala, the nodding), I'm so relieved they worked for you! Thanks for such a thorough comment, I'm glad you think I did your amazing prompt justice. :D

<3!!

[honeylocusttree]

Oh holy hell, this is *fantastic*.

Man, what can I say? You already said everything. Jesus.

I do like this a lot:

He can’t remember the last time he cried.

I get a little tired of all the prompts about breakdowns and crying because honestly it's not that believable--eventually a person just loses that ability. So it's nice to see that acknowledged here so accurately.

*throws superlatives at you*

Re: <3!!

[biketest]

Thank you!! I'm really happy you liked this. :D

I totally agree about the crying. I looove crying!Dean fics, but I don't know how believable they are. We haven't seen him cry in quite a while (at least that I can remember) and I think that when he has a breakdown it will be more violence than crying.

Also thanks so much for reccing this at your journal! <3

[vikingprincess]

Beautifully done, and very intense.

[biketest]

Thank you!

[maypoles]

This is so raw and REAL and gorgeously painful. I loved it.

[maypoles]

Oh, and yay for this being your first real fic! I can't wait to read more from you. <333

[biketest]

Thank you! One of my new years resolutions is to write more outside of school, so hopefully I will be working on fic a lot more consistently. :)