spn drabble dump
A series of drabbles (or, for the more pedantic among you, ficlets) I wrote for a meme on tumblr. I do like how they turned out, so.
Ranging from s4 through s9.
1. Sam/Gadreel, s9, prompt: Merciful
There are some things Gadreel knows to be absolute truths, borne by millennia of existence-like the fact that nothing can be created from vacuum, not after the great Beginning of all things. You cannot make something does not exist; you can only hope to transform one thing to another. You cannot give what you have not received; you cannot feel what you have not experienced.
Gadreel knows love-a bitter, jagged form of it, a glass shard breaking cold light into a million colours. He knows anger, and he knows pain, and he knows the terrible exhaustion that comes from having both simmer within him for centuries. He knows duty, and he knows rebellion; he knows gratitude, and he knows resentment.
He sees all of these in Sam, and he matches them all, wrestling Sam’s battered, battle-worn soul into submission.
And then he sees the things he cannot-
-Sam, visited great horrors and torture by ones he loved (loves), by ones he trusted (trusts), and Gadreel knows all of this too well, expects to feel the sick coil of rage tightening like a noose-
-but there’s Sam, extending mercy that he has never known all his life to these beings that destroyed everything that he could ever be. The notion is worse than alien; it is a dream Gadreel knows he must aspire to, but is too crippled to even consider.
(He knows shame better.)
He’s contented himself so far by filling Sam’s body alone; now he slowly unravels in Sam’s mind. There’s a tiny, terrible, clamouring part of Sam that knows Gadreel is there. And it doesn’t just know; it understands. It accepts. It reeks of sulphur and is scorched over and over by grace, and it has already forgiven Gadreel.
Sam Winchester, fractured and impossible, defying everything Gadreel’s ever known to be true by creating something out of nothing; to hold out mercy in the vacuum of despair and unimaginable pain.
(beautiful.)
When Metatron unmasks him and Sam sinks to the bottom of his own mind, Gadreel is there to catch him, to show mercy. He wraps Sam in the universe of his choosing, shielding him from the terrible things he is about to do with his body. And this mercy shall remain as long as this delicate balance exists; if (when) it is shattered, Gadreel shall know vengeance once again.
2. Sam/Amelia, s8, prompt: Adoration
There’s a point-a short while after they’ve set up their home in Kermit, Sam thinks-when the long, awkward silences between them stop being about them trying to reach out and shutting down at the same time, and just become long silences spent in companionship instead. They are silences spent sitting on the porch with Amelia’s head against his shoulder, the setting sun dappling gold and orange through her curls, while Riot’s a warm weight on his feet; they are evenings at the cinema holding hands; they are lazy Sunday mornings spent vacuuming dog hair off the sofa, experimenting in the kitchen and licking egg and flour off each other.
They are nights when Sam hurts everywhere, phantom pains chasing grief chasing physical pain in an ever-escalating circle, and Amelia presses her naked body against his and gives soft kisses along his collarbone while he twists his hands in hers. They are wordless discoveries: Amelia’s college graduation photo, her father so proud that he looks like he was about to burst, but nobody else; a series of thin, ridged scars along the insides of Sam’s arms that Amelia ghosts her fingers over; the last postcard she ever got from her husband, watermarked and a little frayed; all of Sam’s hunting journals that she wordlessly unpacks and hands over to him, and watches while he locks them all away.
(They know everything that they need to know about each other, and they know nothing at all.)
There’s one day when Sam’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, gently moving his lips along the curve of her foot and enjoying the way her toes curl and she shudders. “Sam,” she says, “Baby-you have to know-uh, my father called.”
He stops briefly and looks up at her. “And?”
“He wants to come visit.” She smiles nervously. “I said that he’s welcome. That’s okay with you, right?”
Sam smiles and takes a deep breath. This is the day their silence shatters, though he doesn’t know it yet. But for now, he contents himself with pressing a soft kiss to her ankle.
“Of course,” he says. “I’d love to meet him.”
3. Sam/Ruby, s4, prompt: Cheerful
The night after Dean comes back from the dead is special.
Since this is Sam, there’s fear. There’s doubt. A metric ton of guilt and angst. But there is also something positively vicious in the way he kisses Ruby that night, crushing her lips against his, biting down hard enough to draw blood, lingering enough to savour the taste.
“After everything,” he says, the beginnings of a manic gleam in his eye and the end of a bloodstain on his lips, “everything, he’s--back!”
“We need to celebrate-properly,” she says, giving him a jaunty grin.
They end up exorcising one more demon that night, both of them laughing as black smoke funnels into the sky. They have at it once again in that narrow back-alley, quick and dirty, before he’s off chasing a brother’s approval that he’ll never get and a vengeance he’s carving a bit of his soul out for. For her, everything she’s spent centuries working for-has spent centuries enduring unimaginable pain for-has crystallised at long last, and she’s so close to both tremendous victory and catastrophic defeat that she can taste both at the back of her throat.
Before all of that, there’s this moment of perfect happiness, and as they prop up the unconscious possession victim between them, Sam and Ruby look at each other and grin and grin and grin until it seems like their faces might crack.
4. Sam and Dean, s5, prompt: Bitter
Dean’s hands are covered in blood, Sam’s gurgling the stuff, and their clothes are dripping with it. The ambulance lurches through the night towards treatment they can’t afford and Sam probably doesn’t need, and there are bubbles at Sam’s lips and a hole in his chest. Dean’s reminded of the time Dad struggled to feed formula to baby Sam and he hated his brother like only a little child could, and Sam would giggle and gurgle and blow bubbles then, too. Oblivious.
Sam’s gasping turns long and agonising and rattling, and a monitor’s beeping somewhere. The paramedic’s bent over him, tube in one gloved hand and a sterile scalpel in the other, and all Dean can think of is a dead-eyed Sam saying, Lucifer told me he’ll just bring me back, leaving Dean’s mind spinning with a dozen horrible implications, and Dean can’t do this anymore, he really can’t. He lurches forward, knocks the paramedic aside before he can start (saving Sam’s life) cutting into Sam. Within minutes, both paramedics are knocked out and the ambulance is abandoned on a side road. Dean drags Sam out, trailing blood.
Sam’s still breathing, his eyes rolling, unaware.
Dean keeps dragging his brother, wondering if Sam might die permanently after all; if Sam might go to Heaven again. Wonders the wealth of little universes inside Sam’s head of which Dean wasn’t a part, or never meant to be a part, and how many of them Sam would live through before Dean joined him there. Wonders if Sam might spend a few moments there even if Lucifer brought him back, even as Sam bucks for breath one last time, then stills.
Dean waits and wonders until dawn breaks and Sam opens his eyes, drawing in a deep breath.
“Welcome back,” Dean says, and the words are hollow, bitter, but he can’t bring himself to care. Sam looks at him, then quickly looks away, his hands scraping ineffectually at all the dried blood.
“We need to find my car, come on,” Dean says, and walks towards the sunrise without looking back.
Ranging from s4 through s9.
1. Sam/Gadreel, s9, prompt: Merciful
There are some things Gadreel knows to be absolute truths, borne by millennia of existence-like the fact that nothing can be created from vacuum, not after the great Beginning of all things. You cannot make something does not exist; you can only hope to transform one thing to another. You cannot give what you have not received; you cannot feel what you have not experienced.
Gadreel knows love-a bitter, jagged form of it, a glass shard breaking cold light into a million colours. He knows anger, and he knows pain, and he knows the terrible exhaustion that comes from having both simmer within him for centuries. He knows duty, and he knows rebellion; he knows gratitude, and he knows resentment.
He sees all of these in Sam, and he matches them all, wrestling Sam’s battered, battle-worn soul into submission.
And then he sees the things he cannot-
-Sam, visited great horrors and torture by ones he loved (loves), by ones he trusted (trusts), and Gadreel knows all of this too well, expects to feel the sick coil of rage tightening like a noose-
-but there’s Sam, extending mercy that he has never known all his life to these beings that destroyed everything that he could ever be. The notion is worse than alien; it is a dream Gadreel knows he must aspire to, but is too crippled to even consider.
(He knows shame better.)
He’s contented himself so far by filling Sam’s body alone; now he slowly unravels in Sam’s mind. There’s a tiny, terrible, clamouring part of Sam that knows Gadreel is there. And it doesn’t just know; it understands. It accepts. It reeks of sulphur and is scorched over and over by grace, and it has already forgiven Gadreel.
Sam Winchester, fractured and impossible, defying everything Gadreel’s ever known to be true by creating something out of nothing; to hold out mercy in the vacuum of despair and unimaginable pain.
(beautiful.)
When Metatron unmasks him and Sam sinks to the bottom of his own mind, Gadreel is there to catch him, to show mercy. He wraps Sam in the universe of his choosing, shielding him from the terrible things he is about to do with his body. And this mercy shall remain as long as this delicate balance exists; if (when) it is shattered, Gadreel shall know vengeance once again.
2. Sam/Amelia, s8, prompt: Adoration
There’s a point-a short while after they’ve set up their home in Kermit, Sam thinks-when the long, awkward silences between them stop being about them trying to reach out and shutting down at the same time, and just become long silences spent in companionship instead. They are silences spent sitting on the porch with Amelia’s head against his shoulder, the setting sun dappling gold and orange through her curls, while Riot’s a warm weight on his feet; they are evenings at the cinema holding hands; they are lazy Sunday mornings spent vacuuming dog hair off the sofa, experimenting in the kitchen and licking egg and flour off each other.
They are nights when Sam hurts everywhere, phantom pains chasing grief chasing physical pain in an ever-escalating circle, and Amelia presses her naked body against his and gives soft kisses along his collarbone while he twists his hands in hers. They are wordless discoveries: Amelia’s college graduation photo, her father so proud that he looks like he was about to burst, but nobody else; a series of thin, ridged scars along the insides of Sam’s arms that Amelia ghosts her fingers over; the last postcard she ever got from her husband, watermarked and a little frayed; all of Sam’s hunting journals that she wordlessly unpacks and hands over to him, and watches while he locks them all away.
(They know everything that they need to know about each other, and they know nothing at all.)
There’s one day when Sam’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, gently moving his lips along the curve of her foot and enjoying the way her toes curl and she shudders. “Sam,” she says, “Baby-you have to know-uh, my father called.”
He stops briefly and looks up at her. “And?”
“He wants to come visit.” She smiles nervously. “I said that he’s welcome. That’s okay with you, right?”
Sam smiles and takes a deep breath. This is the day their silence shatters, though he doesn’t know it yet. But for now, he contents himself with pressing a soft kiss to her ankle.
“Of course,” he says. “I’d love to meet him.”
3. Sam/Ruby, s4, prompt: Cheerful
The night after Dean comes back from the dead is special.
Since this is Sam, there’s fear. There’s doubt. A metric ton of guilt and angst. But there is also something positively vicious in the way he kisses Ruby that night, crushing her lips against his, biting down hard enough to draw blood, lingering enough to savour the taste.
“After everything,” he says, the beginnings of a manic gleam in his eye and the end of a bloodstain on his lips, “everything, he’s--back!”
“We need to celebrate-properly,” she says, giving him a jaunty grin.
They end up exorcising one more demon that night, both of them laughing as black smoke funnels into the sky. They have at it once again in that narrow back-alley, quick and dirty, before he’s off chasing a brother’s approval that he’ll never get and a vengeance he’s carving a bit of his soul out for. For her, everything she’s spent centuries working for-has spent centuries enduring unimaginable pain for-has crystallised at long last, and she’s so close to both tremendous victory and catastrophic defeat that she can taste both at the back of her throat.
Before all of that, there’s this moment of perfect happiness, and as they prop up the unconscious possession victim between them, Sam and Ruby look at each other and grin and grin and grin until it seems like their faces might crack.
4. Sam and Dean, s5, prompt: Bitter
Dean’s hands are covered in blood, Sam’s gurgling the stuff, and their clothes are dripping with it. The ambulance lurches through the night towards treatment they can’t afford and Sam probably doesn’t need, and there are bubbles at Sam’s lips and a hole in his chest. Dean’s reminded of the time Dad struggled to feed formula to baby Sam and he hated his brother like only a little child could, and Sam would giggle and gurgle and blow bubbles then, too. Oblivious.
Sam’s gasping turns long and agonising and rattling, and a monitor’s beeping somewhere. The paramedic’s bent over him, tube in one gloved hand and a sterile scalpel in the other, and all Dean can think of is a dead-eyed Sam saying, Lucifer told me he’ll just bring me back, leaving Dean’s mind spinning with a dozen horrible implications, and Dean can’t do this anymore, he really can’t. He lurches forward, knocks the paramedic aside before he can start (saving Sam’s life) cutting into Sam. Within minutes, both paramedics are knocked out and the ambulance is abandoned on a side road. Dean drags Sam out, trailing blood.
Sam’s still breathing, his eyes rolling, unaware.
Dean keeps dragging his brother, wondering if Sam might die permanently after all; if Sam might go to Heaven again. Wonders the wealth of little universes inside Sam’s head of which Dean wasn’t a part, or never meant to be a part, and how many of them Sam would live through before Dean joined him there. Wonders if Sam might spend a few moments there even if Lucifer brought him back, even as Sam bucks for breath one last time, then stills.
Dean waits and wonders until dawn breaks and Sam opens his eyes, drawing in a deep breath.
“Welcome back,” Dean says, and the words are hollow, bitter, but he can’t bring himself to care. Sam looks at him, then quickly looks away, his hands scraping ineffectually at all the dried blood.
“We need to find my car, come on,” Dean says, and walks towards the sunrise without looking back.