The opposite of empty
Title: The opposite of empty
Author: missyjack R
Character: Dean/Sam
Words: 437
Spoilers: Up to 03.
Disclaimer: Kripke owns this show and this fandom and my heart (what’s left of it)
Summary: Everyone keeps telling Dean he has a hole inside. They have no idea.
Dean wished he had a hole inside him because you can fill a hole.
Gordon said Dean had a hole inside, that it was getter bigger and bigger and darker and darker. He said use it. Use it to drive you, to fuel your hate, to fuel the hunt.
Sam said Dean had a hole, and that hurt so bad that he couldn’t take it. He said Dean was trying to fill a John-shaped hole with other people.
There was no hole inside of Dean.
There was a small rip in his heart. Not big, barely a pinprick really. It was where the pain got in. Memories like drops of acid. Drop his Dad clapping him on the back after his first kill drop handing him the keys to the Impala drop talking about how he met Mary drop his sad silence when Sammy left drop that last “I’m proud of you son”.
And stuff leaked out of that little puncture. Dean seemed to be losing things - how his Dad sounded when he laughed, what it felt like when those big hands patched his wounds, how he smelt of something that to Dean just meant home.
Dean could deal with this. He’d had never known feelings could hurt as bad as bloody wounds, but Dean had grown up with pain.
He worried about Sam, who struggled to keep from drowning in a sea of anguish. Dean finally realized that not sharing his grief with Sam was adding to his misery. So he faked a pained “I miss him Sammy”, and let his brother comfort him with soft words, strong hands and a hard body. And as Sam moved inside him, he made Sam believe that it was helping and pretended to himself that it wasn’t.
Once, as they came together, Sam breathed ‘I’ll always be here’ onto Dean’s lips and for a day or so it patched the tear in Dean’s heart.
But there was no hole to fill inside of Dean. Instead there was a great weight, as heavy as granite. His Dad had given him this burden, tied it to him with a whisper. It was crushing him inside and it grew each time Dean looked at Sam, every time he held Sam’s face in his hands and tried to kiss away the sorrow.
Dean knew he had to be strong, to keep a firm grip on what he was carrying. But if he let it slip, if he let it crush him, then Sammy would be left alone to face the horrors to come.
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