Fic: Declared Dead - Surviving Death
Title: Declared Dead, Part III
Author: annabeth_gray
Pairing/Character(s): Sam Winchester/Ruby, Dean Winchester
Rating: R
Warning(s): character death
Word count: 305
Disclaimer: Characters are the property of Eric Kripke, et al. This drabble/fic was written for fun, not for profit.
Summary: The summer of 2008, as it was for Sam. Mentions characters introduced in Declared Dead.
AN: Also posted on ff.net, ao3 and my journal. Spans Season 4
The summer of 2008 is the worst time of Sam’s life. The only comparison he has is an eternity of Tuesdays and six horrible months. But that wasn’t real. It didn’t happen for anyone but Sam, and it ended.
This will never end.
He distracts himself with Ruby and hunting and pretends he can’t hear the phone whenever the caller ID shows Wendy.
He lies a lot. He lies to Ruby and to Bobby and to himself. (He doesn’t lie to Wendy, but that’s only because he doesn’t talk to her at all.) Lies, lies, lies, lies, until he almost believes. Believes that he’s fine that he’s coping. Believes that Wendy’s fine too, she’ll heal, like she healed after whole family died, after she lost her baby. Believes that Bobby’s fine, because he always is, because he can’t not be fine. Believes that Ruby’s fine, she’s helping him, loves him maybe, saved him.
He does not allow Dean at the front of his mind, even as a fleeting thought.
Eventually, he stops feeling the pain. Stops feeling compassion and protectiveness and a ton of other stuff too, but he figures you’ve got to make sacrifices. Got to be prepared to ignore your conscience and your instincts, got to learn to kill the baddies in new and interesting ways, got to fucking watch your brother get torn to fucking shreds because he wouldn’t let you stay dead.
Months later, in an abandoned church with Ruby, while Dean is trying to knock to door down, Sam is not remembering for the first time.
A few minutes later he’s wishing Dean had just buried him, or cremated him, or fucking let him rot in abandoned house in an abandoned town because there isn’t a single good thing that came out of Sam’s life since he was fucking born.