Fragility - SN fanfic - PG13

[tigriswolf]

Title: Fragility
Fandom: "Supernatural"
Disclaimer:  Not my characters. Just for fun.
Warnings: AU; character death
Pairings: none
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1144
Point of view: third

Blood on the air. In the water. On his soaking skin. Dripping down, falling to the ground, staining it crimson red. So much blood… more than should be in a body. More than should be anywhere.

Sound muted in his ears; he couldn’t hear the little girl screaming or her brother begging him to “Stay awake! Help’s coming! Please, we need you—what if it comes back? Stay awake!”

He couldn’t hear the beast’s shriek or the roar of the gun or the river rushing by. He couldn’t hear the little girl sobbing and her brother trying to comfort her while crying himself. He couldn’t hear his own brother demanding he open his eyes and talk, demand he breathe, demand the blood get back inside him because he needed to live.

“Please,” he didn’t hear, and didn’t feel his brother pull his body into his arms, “please, don’t do this. Don’t leave me.”

So much blood… he couldn’t smell the cloying stench and he couldn’t taste the copper in his mouth and he couldn’t feel the sticky liquid pouring out of him, even though it should all already be gone.

“Please,” he didn’t hear his brother beg, and he couldn’t see the sun rise, shedding light on just how injured he truly was.

The little girl’s keening wail rose through the trees, and her brother tried to shush her, because his already had his hands full.

He didn’t see his brother lean over, look into his eyes. He didn’t feel the kiss his brother pressed to his forehead. He didn’t smell the gasoline his brother poured over his body. He didn’t taste the gas and blood mingled in his mouth. He didn’t hear his brother’s own sobbing. And he didn’t feel his body burn to ash and blow away in the wind as his brother got the kids to safety.

But he sure as hell felt it when he woke up a ghost and couldn’t find Dean anywhere. 

-

Another night, another hunt, another missing of something.

He’d hunted before Sammy came back, hunted with Dad and alone, but he’d gotten used to Sam, to Sam’s common sense and way of usually overlooking nothing.

They were a team, complete together—and now Dean’s alone with memories and the hunt and the bitter taste of regret in his mouth. He’s alone with weapons and Sam’s laptop and Dad’s journal—he’d tried calling Dad, tried for weeks, and never got through.

Finally, though, he realized—truly, in all the world, he’s alone. Sam’s dead and Dad’s dead, and all that’s left is the hunt. All that’s left for him is the fight that stole his mother and Jess and Dad and Sammy.

So he does. He crisscrosses the country six times in a year, always looking for something, anything to kill, and it’s not long before humans make the list. Humans, after all, he reasons to himself, kill and maim and torture and rape—why should monsters of the human kind live when all others are fair game?

Five years to the day Sammy died, Dean sees a man walking down the street, a man with Sam’s hair and Sam’s build, and he hurries the other way because it’s nothing new. He sees Sammy anywhere and everywhere—a shrink would talk about guilt and projection and how Dean’s needs to let his brother’s death go, but Dean knows he’s being haunted. And he can’t exorcise Sammy, can’t send Sammy home—can’t send Sammy to Jess and Momma and Daddy, because he’s alone, and the ghost of his dead brother is better than nothing at all.

-

And it’s ten years after the wail that broke his eardrums—his own screams still echo in his ears, sometimes—that the ghost first actually talks to him. 

“Hey, Dean,” Sammy’s voice says softly and Dean lunges from sleep with a mad roar that might’ve given even a lion pause.

Ghost shouldn’t be solid, but the ones he seems to face almost always are, and he hits Sammy’s chest with a thud, slamming him to the floor. And he’d heard Sammy’s voice—thought he’d heard Sammy’s voice—and the face just below his was Sammy’s, the angles and planes he’s had memorized since almost before he can remember, and the eyes—

“Sammy?” he whispers brokenly. “Sammy?”

“Yeah, Dean,” Sammy whispers back, and ghosts shouldn’t cry but he is.

Hunters shouldn’t cry, either, and Dean’d thought he was all out of tears.

He rolls off Sammy and helps his little brother up, ushers him to a chair and doesn’t look anywhere but Sammy for a good five minutes.

Sammy takes it with good humor, waiting for Dean to finish his inspection, and is surprised when Dean says, “You want me to let you go?”

Sam nods, meets Dean’s eyes. “It’s been ten years, Dean. I should go home.”

Dean bites his lip, looks away. “But what if I can’t?” he asks, and Sam sees the boy he used to be shining through, the little boy who couldn’t understand why Momma was gone and Daddy was crying and Sam needed him so he grew too fast.

Sam stands and walks over, pulling Dean into his arms. “I need to go, Dean,” he whispers into Dean’s ear. “My time has long since passed.” Dean’s arms wrap around him and his body shudders with sobs.

“I can’t let you go,” Dean says, “Unless I can join you. Can I join you, Sammy?”

-

The maids never could get the blood out of the carpet. 

-

“Dean…” Sam tells him, pulling back. “No. You can’t kill yourself—” He licks his lips and reaches down, gently brushes tears off of Dean’s face. “Please, don’t…”

-

No one knew much about him, though he left some pretty freakish stuff in the room. Weapons, research, and a journal—he had to have been some kind of freak. A Satanist, maybe, looking for sacrifices. 

One of the younger maids vehemently denied that. “He was a good guy,” she told reporters. “He was nice.” 

-

Dean sadly smiles up at him and says, “I’ve become a monster, Sammy. And there’s almost nothing left. Please—let me come home.”

-

His clothes were donated to the Salvation Army and the weapons taken by police, along with the journal. 

They couldn’t ID him—they didn’t know which of the licenses were real. But a search turned up dead serial killer Dean Winchester, and that caused quite a headache. 

-

Sam rests his forehead against Dean’s and sighs. “Okay, Dean,” he whispers and steps back. Dean walks over the dresser where he’d placed the bag and pulled out a gun.

He grinned at Sam and said, “See you soon.

-

Pretty soon he was forgotten—bad things always happen, right? 

But the maids never could get the blood out of the carpet.

Comments

[1grl-revolution.livejournal.com]

Aww, boys. *wibbles*

[tigriswolf]

Thanks!

[percysowner.livejournal.com]

So sad, but they're together at least.

[tigriswolf]

Yes. So long as they're together, all is good.

Thank you for reading!

[lark_ascends]

Man, you really can say so much in what feels like very few words.

Heartbreaking.

[tigriswolf]

Thank you!

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

O!!!

OOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

*Sobs*

*Shrieks madly and yanks at hair*

*Falls in a puddle of sheer adoring at your feet*

*Sniffles*

*Loves*

*huggles*

[tigriswolf]

*offers chocolate and tissues*

*blushes*

*accepts hug*

*thanks you for reading*