Weakness
So apparently, this is my comfort zone: sitting at home, the smells of incense and jasmine and my grandmother's cooking in the air, a super-exciting cricket match on TV, listening to some great music, writing dark and depressing Supernatural fic. IDK.
This was written for the quote-prompt: "Dean: You don't have to. Sam: Yes, I do." (from 2.17: Heart) in the spnquotefic comm.
Warnings: SPOILERS for 5.22: Swan Song. One very tiny, blink-and-you'll-miss-it spoiler for s6. Plenty of torture - physical and mental - blood, gore, weirdness.
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or any of its characters.
Weakness
Sam knows there's more than one way to break in Hell.
He'd been braced for everything he could think of, and still others he knew he couldn't possibly imagine. Even as he stood at the edge of the Pit with the devil coiled around his heart like a piece of rope pulling tighter and tighter - do you see my people sam they will eat you alive you and your brother and the world for eternity- he knew, and he was afraid.
But there lay a broken Dean in a broken world, and he jumped.
There was a period of darkness, he remembers. A period of free-fall where the wind rushing in his ears was the sound of hellhounds slavering for his flesh; where the cold was like a thousand needle-points being driven into his skin; where every touch was one of a million hands reaching out to rip him to pieces.
There was one last moment of intense pain - sharp and intimate like he was being split into two (maybe he was) and then he opened his eyes to light and Dean.
Dean, knife in hand, bleeding from his eyes and ears and-
"Hello, Sammy."
He's watched Dean die in a hundred different ways before. He knows exactly the way Dean's skin breaks, under how much pressure; he knows the feel of Dean's blood pumping hot against his skin as his fingers tangle in matted hair. He thinks there might be nothing he knows better than his brother's pain.
So he thinks it's a little strange they're using this against him.
Dean's suspended in mid-air, stretched out as far as he possibly can, and there's somebody - something- cutting him open with slow, languid strokes of a knife. Sam huddles in a corner, clamping his ears against the sounds of Dean screaming. Nobody's attempted even touching - he has seen no trace Michael or Lucifer or Adam - and he can only think this is some sort of-
Dean screams again, and Sam shudders.
"It's not real," he says again, for what seems like the thousandth time, but his words are lost in Dean's agony.
Sam doesn't know if he can believe them anymore.
Dean's just lying there.
It's been five decades of listening to Dean being systematically tortured, and finally, there's a break, the silence so loud it's ringing in his ears like it's never going to stop. Dean lies limp on the ground, blood pooling beneath him like some sort of macabre halo.
Sam wonders if he's dead, keeps wondering until the echoes in his head die.
Then he crawls over, stumbling and shaking like he hasn't moved in years (he hasn't moved in years) and reaches for Dean's neck. His fingers slip and slide through all the blood but he can feelit - the steady beat of life under the skin, and when he turns Dean's head just so, he can even see it: hot, fresh blood, spurting out of the slashed carotid.
Dean's eyes open. "Sammy," he says, his voice wasted, barely above a whisper, "Sammy."
Sam's hands tremble. "I don't understand," he says. "It's supposed to be me. You weren't - you -" Sam shakes his head, tries to regain control. This is what he wants. This is- no. Can't give in. Can't.
He tries again. "You're not real," he says. "You're not."
Dean smiles. "I'm not."
In one of the years that follow, the shadowy figure torturing Dean turns to face him. Sam's been there so long he thinks he must be petrified - his skin hard and dry and flaking, his eyes glazed over - but he can feel the pain as the figure swipes at him, clawing his arm open.
He stumbles back, clutching his bleeding arm to his chest even as a strange heat starts to fill him; he thinks that maybe this is how it feels to be alive, and thinks that maybe this pain is all that he needs to escape-
(into life and away from his brother's screams)
"No!" Dean yells. "NO! It's me you want! Leave him alone!"
The shadow-figure grins at him - a glint of white against an organic darkness - and turns away.
Sam stands and stares and digs his fingers in his wound and feels the blood flow.
The wound eventually heals. Sam keeps picking at the scab, keeps scratching deeper and deeper until his fingertips are almost permanently stained red, but it's only Dean who keeps screaming.
"Not real," Sam whispers.
He knows what's real.
The second time Dean's given a break - it might be weeks or decades later, Sam has no clue - he has a plan.
He crawls over and spots Dean's knife right next to his brother's body. It shines in the dim light, untouched by time or flesh. Sam thinks it's the most beautiful thing he's seen in a long, long time.
"Sam?" Dean whispers. His throat is slashed open, and Sam has no idea how he's talking - no. That doesn't matter. Won't matter.
(not real)
"It's okay, Dean," Sam says, picking up the knife in one (petrified) hand. "I'm going to take over." He raises the knife over Dean's chest, blade inches from plunging into his heart.
Dean trembles, and Sam thinks his eyes might be filling with tears. "You don't have to do this."
"Yes, I do," Sam says. "I need to."
He brings the knife down and watches Dean die.
Sam's hung on the torture rack even before the shadow-figure arrives. His gut clenches, half with fear and half with excitement.
"I told you, Sam," the shadow-figure says. "I only give you what you want."
Sam swallows, meets what passes for eyes in that monster's face. "I know."
It smiles and digs its hand into his chest.
Finis