Fic Post (yes, again): Certainty, Supernatural
To all those on my flist who haven't yet bowed down to Supernatural: I'm sorry.
To those who have: I'm sorry. I killed the Metallicar. Or, well, I will. It would take longer to explain than it would to read the fic.
I seem to be becoming frighteningly prolific. Apparently, January term will do that to you. It's like solitary confinement, but with better food and entertainment. Huh.
This is really quite short.
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: None (gen)
Rating: PG, absolutely arbitrarily
Spoilers: References a single line from Scarecrow, but this shouldn't harm you if you haven't seen the ep yet. Come to think of it, if you've missed Bloody Mary and everything that comes after, this might not make a great deal of sense to you. Otherwise, go for it.
Feedback: Is snuggled like a firstborn child. Even if it's ugly.
Summary: Sam is wise.
Certainty
Sam knows things.
He knows when he’ll die, for one, or at least has an approximation. Has for a good bit now.
It took him a while to figure it out. At first, he saw it all upside-down and backwards. He dreams of Dean, sometimes, sees him facing darkness and the night, sees him smiling and acting like an ass. In his dreams, Dean is never much older than he is now. The only wrinkles he wears are the little ones at the edges of his eyes that came on somewhere between Lawrence and Stanford. His hair is sometimes a little longer, sometimes a little shorter, but never gray.
Sam hasn’t had the heart to tell Dean he’s seen the Impala in ruins.
He was afraid, when he first realized that the pictures in his head never came from more than a few years away, if that. He spent a while being frantic every time Dean got near trouble - which, given that it was Dean, happened with exhausting frequency - until he understood that there were some pictures in his head he hadn’t seen yet in real life.
He lives his days now by the memories that haven’t happened yet, ticking them off as they come. Every moment that he recognizes is one less in his collection. It’s hard to know, exactly, but he thinks the last picture is of Dean laughing, the sun making his hair more blonde than it really is, his shirt a well-worn blue that he’ll probably find in some Salvation Army store.
Sam’s a little embarrassed, really, that it took him so long to understand. One day, though, he wakes from another scene, and realizes that he never dreams post-Dean. That he really has no idea what he would do without Dean, because he’s never seen it. He doesn’t dream of the aftermath, or of himself alone. The understanding brings acceptance.
There are really only two options, then, and neither of them involve him outliving his brother. He’s okay with that.
If nothing else, he knows he’ll at least go first. Dean was right about one thing: Sam is a selfish bastard.
He knows that one day, the sun will shine and Dean will wear blue and Sam himself will fall down once too many. There’s an odd kind of peace in that, but then, his has always been an odd kind of life.