Ghost Tears - SN fic - PG
Oct. 6th, 2006 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tigriswolfTitle: Ghost Tears
Fandom: SN
Disclaimer: not my characters. just for fun.
Warnings: AU
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1080
Point of view: third
Notes: spawned from 'age fifteen' in this fic. And the tenses shift.
He doesn’t remember the accident. Mom does, though. She never talks about it, but he’s heard her crying in the night.
Sometimes he hears shrieking metal in his mind, or smells blood. He tells no one—the doctors did what they could. Parts of him are broken, can’t be fixed.
Momma explained it to him, told him Dad would never be back. “He’s gone home to Heaven, baby,” she said, voice trembling and eyes misty.
For the longest time, she never spoke about Dean. For the longest time, he couldn’t remember his brother.
He remembers hearing the doctor from a distance. “Head wounds are tricky things,” he said and Momma sobbed.
He got better, though. By thirteen, two years after, he’d fully caught up in school and remembered most everything from before the wreck. He knows he’s not what he was—school’s a bit harder now than he recalls, but not by much.
When he turned fourteen he had a vision. Dean appeared before him, Dean with a bright grin and shining hazel eyes, Dean with laughter and jokes—Dean he didn’t really remember but missed so much it hurt.
He asked Mom and she just looked at him. “Dean is dead,” she told him, voice cold. She never mentioned him again.
Two days later she brought Sam back to the doctors.
Dean didn’t reappear for three and a half months. And when he did, Sam ignored him. He wasn’t real, he wasn’t there, he’d been dead for three years.
“Sammy!” Dean finally shouted and Sam whirled around to face him.
“You’re dead,” he whispered. “You’re dead.”
Dean smiled sadly. “I know, little brother,” he answered. “I know.”
Sam never told Mom that he saw Dean again. That he talked with Dean. That they sometimes sat in silence for hours, just... well, being brothers again. It didn’t bother Sam, most of the time, that Dean was a ghost, that they couldn’t touch, that Dean had no breath.
But then sometimes… sometimes, Sam was quite sure he’d lost his mind. He wouldn’t move or speak, wouldn’t acknowledge Mom or teachers or kids at school—or Dean.
For an entire year, that was his life. But after his fifteenth birthday, he never saw Dean, never heard Dean. He thought maybe he’d finally gotten better. Maybe he was moving on.
And then, his sixteenth birthday neared. He’d skipped a grade, had a job, was cooking most of the meals and cleaned the house. Mom hardly ever went outside anymore. She had no life outside of her memory and TV. Sam had a future planned, an escape out of this nightmare.
“I remember the accident,” Dean whispered in the dark of Sam’s room at midnight. “I remember.”
Sam didn’t respond. He just kept on pretending sleep.
But Dean was back. He didn’t often speak anymore, but Sam would see him. See him in the kitchen or the mirror or out in the yard staring at the sun.
Dean still looked like the last picture ever taken of him, fifteen with shaggy dark blond hair and hundreds of freckles and jeans and a white shirt. He was still around 5’10”—Sam wonders how tall he should have been.
Every time Dean appeared, Sam’s eyes skittered away from him. If Sam ignored him, he’d go away. He would.
Dean only spoke whenever he saw Mom. On her few trips from her room, she’d pass Sam. She’d say nothing and she didn’t smile. Dean would follow her with his eyes, and Sam never knew what he’d say. Sometimes, “It shouldn’t be like this.” Or maybe, “Mom, why have you given up?” And one time, Sam thought he saw tears on Dean’s face.
A trick of the light, of course. Ghosts can’t cry.
He doesn’t remember the accident. Sometimes he dreams of metal shrieking and then silence—sometimes, he hears Dean scream his name. But he woke in the hospital after as a half-orphaned only child.
Before, he didn’t believe in ghosts. He still doesn’t—Dean is a figment of his imagination. His guilt at surviving. If he tells himself that often enough, it’ll become the truth.
Then he turns sixteen. He has to escape the silence of his house, the stifling noiselessness. He has to get out, to live—
He just hit a growth spurt—he’s six foot.
Whenever Dean appears, he’s no longer the big brother. Sam hasn’t spoken to him in almost two years. Hasn’t hugged him in over half a decade.
Mom will be dead soon, joining her son and only love, leaving Sam completely alone. Though, if he’s totally honest, Mom died years ago.
The house is quiet, like always. Still. Sam softly shuffles down the stairs. Mom won’t hear him, and even if she did, she wouldn’t do anything, but it’s habit now. He pads through the hall to the front door; freedom stretches out beyond it.
Behind him, something scuffs against the floor and he freezes. Dean has never moved anything before.
He turns slowly; Dean leans against the wall, a smirk twisting his lips. It’s an expression new to Sam, looks out of place. “Goin’ somewhere, little brother?” Dean asks, voice as unfamiliar as the smirk. He shoves off the wall and Sam knows he should run—if he leaves the house, makes it off the property, Dean can’t follow.
But this isn’t Dean. He feels—wrong. Even more broken than Sam thinks himself to be.
If possible, Dean’s smirk grows even more terrifying.
“Tell me, Sammy,” Dean says, “What do you remember?”
Sam backs away slowly. Dean lunges forward and grabs his shoulder—the touch burns and he gasps.
“What are you?” he demands and tries to pull away, but the grip is iron.
“Your guilt,” Dean answers, and laughs.
-
He doesn’t remember the accident.
Dean grins at him, forever fifteen, and he grins back, not a day over sixteen.
People say the house is haunted. That a crazy lady used to live there, her and her boy. His body was found but the woman had vanished. Children dare each other to go in—some never return.
Dean used to promise they’d live forever. Sam knew then, and he knows now, Dean never lies.
Sometimes, shrieking metal echoes in the still house, or blood lightly pools on the floor. But only sometimes.
Ghosts can’t cry. And they don’t know if they’re unhappy or not.
People say the house is haunted. If so, no hunter has hunted there yet.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-07 01:07 am (UTC)My heart cries with denial, but my mind appreciates all the (very) possible slide of things that result from one accident. An accident that the survivors couldn't/wouldn't put in context, be it in terms of cause and effect or of adopting/adapting a mythology to go along with the tragedy. Love the title and its imagery used in the piece. Love the last line and what's unsaid/implied.
And yet, in the lack of it all, including the selective amnesia on Sam's part, the brothers are back together.
I cannot help but wonder which other directions this could have gone from the point of departure which Sam does not recall...
Thank you for sharing this!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-07 01:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-07 01:35 am (UTC)My favorite lines in the entire fic:
“What are you?” he demands and tries to pull away, but the grip is iron.
“Your guilt,” Dean answers, and laughs.
Just, wow. Great stuff. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-07 01:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-07 09:42 pm (UTC)Oh, Sam. *hugs him*
Why must you hurt me so with your writing?
(Which, of course, means: Nicely done!)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-07 10:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-07 09:51 pm (UTC)I guess even death can't separate those which are meant to be together ..
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-07 10:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-07 11:23 pm (UTC)That he talked with Dean. That they sometimes sat in silence for hours, just... well, being brothers again.
Only they could do that when only one of them was corporeal.
But this isn’t Dean. He feels—wrong. Even more broken than Sam thinks himself to be.
I'm wondering if that meant anything, Dean's supposed wrongness *ponders*
Lovely. Thank you for sharing ^^
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-08 12:09 am (UTC)The whole wrongness thing: Dean'd finally lost his mind. Poor guy.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-08 03:56 am (UTC)Oh man, oh man. That's so hard to read, yet completely beautiful. Great job.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-08 01:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-10 04:14 am (UTC)There's such a lovely, haunting sadness to it.
“You’re dead,” he whispered. “You’re dead.”
Dean smiled sadly. “I know, little brother,” he answered. “I know.”
And for awhile, in spite of everything, they have each other until Sam decides that Dean is a wrongness he should ignore. It gets sadder by the scene after that point. Sam deciding to forget Dean. His mother having already buried her memories of him...
And the twist before the end is so sharp, when Dean turns on Sam before the last person who remembers him abandons him for good.
Dean grins at him, forever fifteen, and he grins back, not a day over sixteen.
So sad, and yet so sweet at the same time. Sam didn't live past that birthday, and yet they're happy and they're together.
Dean used to promise they’d live forever. Sam knew then, and he knows now, Dean never lies.
Just so wonderfully bittersweet.
Lovely.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-10 04:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-19 04:41 pm (UTC)Wonderful!
You make me cry.
*sniff*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-19 04:43 pm (UTC)I like your icon.