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Fandom: "Supernatural"
Disclaimer: Not my characters. Poem is “The Hollow Men” by TS Eliot. Just for fun.
Warnings: character death; AU
Pairings: incesty slash of dear old Sammy and poor beautiful Deanio; Sam/Jessica
Rating: R
Wordcount: 1140
Point of view: third
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without color,
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
It burns. Of all the things to think, to feel, that is what he grasps, to hold madness and grief at bay.
He can’t forget her hair—how gold it was, sunkissed flaxen, and how it burst into red and orange and purple at the end.
He can’t forget her skin—tanned and strong and satin, and how it scorched as his brother pulled him from the room.
He’s always been fascinated with fire; it was unhealthy, all the flames he started and took care of, nurtured for small snatches of time before his brother found him and blew them out.
Sammy, this has to stop. You can’t—if Dad knew.
Don’t tell him, Dean, please don’t tell.
Variations of the same conversation for years—until he left and found her.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer –
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
The first time Dean finds Sam with a lighter after Jess, he watches. He doesn’t take the lighter, doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move closer than the hotel door. Just watches, silently.
The flame dances in the air, moves with the deep breaths Sam takes and exhales. The flame seems to laugh and smile and dare Sam to touch it—which he does, with barely a glance to Dean, but Dean still doesn’t move, just stands still like a statue and lets Sam hold his finger in the fire as long as he can: a full minute.
Sam’s been practicing.
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
The fifth time, Dean takes the lighter and shoves Sam against a wall, gets right up in his face, and snarls, “Hurting yourself won’t bring her back, you bastard.”
Sam pushes Dean away and snarls right back, “I know,” grabbing Dean’s shirt and swinging him around, reversing their positions.
“Explain the fire,” Dean demands, letting Sam support his weight, not fighting. “Explain what you’ve always seen in it.”
Sam smirks coldly, the heat flowing out of him into Dean, until only the brother Dean sometimes pretends never existed is all that remains. “Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies. Remember, Dean?”
Dean smiles in return, even colder if possible. “Don’t think I’ll ever forget.”
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men
They crisscross the country twice, looking for Dad and evil to kill, looking for a reason. They play games, with random passerby and each other, with Fear and Hope, and even Death makes a stop.
They swiftly reach their father’s tally of kills, even though they don’t know it, and then surpass it. They grow as hunters, top the pinnacle of legend, and continue on, unknowing.
Sometimes the darkness whispers of their fading, but no one listens.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
The two hundred and twelfth time Dean found Sam with a lighter, he gently pulled it from Sam’s grip, lightly traced the edges of the finger he’d been burning, and slid down beside him. “Does it still hurt?” he asked, tossing the lighter onto the bed. “The hole where Jess used to be?”
Sam laughed. “What do you think I was burning?”
Dean nodded and smiled, reaching out and pulling Sam’s face down. “You’ve gotta stop burning, Sam,” he murmured against Sam’s mouth before sealing a brand onto his little brother’s lips. “Before there’s nothing left.”
“There’ll always be something left,” Sam murmured back, before grabbing Dean and spinning him around on the bed.
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
It burns. The fire, the sun, the memories—Dean. All burn.
Sam watches Dean burn in the night, the flames reaching toward Heaven, trying to reclaim the stars, and the gun feels heavy in his grip.
The lighter rests on the ground beside his feet, silver in the moonlight, beckoning. Calling him, with false promises of soothing. But he knows that not even fire can calm him now, can save him, can erase his pain—
Because Dean burns. Dean burns now, in his place.
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
And the gun feels so heavy, as he raises it to his head. And the gun feels so heavy, as he rests it against his temple. The gun feels heavy and smooth and cold—and the flames stretch higher, dancing and roaring and singing, trying to gain the notice of the stars, but only the moon watches.
He’s waiting for you, she says, in Jess’s voice. Go to him. He’s burned for you your entire life—burn for him, now.
The gun feels lighter than air as he pulls the trigger.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.