Not a Nightmare - SN fic - PG13
Oct. 16th, 2006 06:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tigriswolfFandom: "Supernatural"
Disclaimer: not my characters. just for fun.
Warnings: AU for "Faith"
Pairings: none
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 790
Point of view: third
Sam takes a deep breath and keeps walking.
“He isn’t going to wake up.”
He starts walking faster. The wind is howling, but he can still hear the voice.
“You failed.”
It’s funny—it sounds a lot like his conscience.
-
Dean resigned himself to early death around his fourteenth birthday. He saw all of Dad’s scars and bruises, helped set broken bones. He knew their gig was tough, dangerous—he didn’t romanticize it, didn’t expect much.
He knew he’d be lucky to see thirty; after all, for all of Dad’s old contacts, all the men and women who were grizzled and rough around the edges, there were dozens of fresh-faced kids who got themselves killed on their first hunt.
So Dean hunted with Dad and Sam until Sam left. He fought, and he fought hard. He might not live long, but he’d do his best.
-
“He doesn’t hate you.”
Sam turns a page in The Once and Future King and sips his water.
“He never could hate you, never even tried.”
He takes a bite of his sandwich and swallows, then drains the glass and slams it down.
“Doesn’t mean you didn’t fuck up,” the voice hisses, and Blood Mary flashes through his mind.
-
Dean didn’t hunt for glory or fame, or even hate. He could remember Momma and he knew what’d been stolen that cold November night, but he didn’t hunt for vengeance, either. He hunted so others—little boys and girls, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters—wouldn’t feel the emptiness inside.
Dad hunted because of rage and hate and pain, for vengeance wrapped in Justice’s cloak, and Sam hunted because he had to, until he escaped and became even more like Dad.
Dean hunted for love.
-
“You can’t outrun me.”
Sam rolls his eyes and keeps jogging.
“You can’t ignore me.”
Sam wants to think Watch me but that’d give it satisfaction.
“You can’t forget me.”
Sam runs faster, stretching his legs and taking off.
Laughter follows him, even though the street is empty.
-
So when Dean saw that Layla was a better person than most, that she needed to live more, it wasn’t a hard decision.
After he was healed and he learned a man died in his place—an innocent man, the kind he helped, the kind he’d die for if given the chance—he began thinking. If he’d known the price, he would never have let Roy heal him.
It didn’t strike Dean as selfless or noble or the thing a ‘hero’ would do—it was actually quite selfish, because it’d leave Sam alone.
That was why he slowly backed away from the Reaper at first. The thought of abandoning Sam without even trying to fight, to escape—something inside him balked at such of failure. And then Layla—and the Reaper touched his face.
-“You weren’t fast enough.”
Sam rolls over and slams a pillow onto his head.
“You weren’t smart enough.”
He starts silently chanting a thousand ways to banish a spirit.
“You failed, Sammy. You let him down. And now he’ll never wake up.”
-
Layla wasn’t healed and Dean didn’t die. But the Reaper pulled just enough from him to give Layla twenty years.
Sam found Dean prone on the ground, pale and barely breathing after watching Sue Ann pay for her sins.
The doctors told him Dean would probably never wake.
Sue Ann appeared to him three nights later and hasn’t stopped mocking him since.
-
“It isn’t a nightmare, you know.”
Sam continues flipping channels.
“You smirked while it killed me and I smiled while I prayed.”
He leaves it on Ghostbusters.
“He’s not going to wake, Sam. Never. Has Daddy answered his phone yet?”
Sam turns the volume up.
“You’re alone, Sam. Just like me.”
-
Sam spent every waking moment searching for anything that could help. Last time, he’d succeeded—Joshua told him about Roy and Dean was healed.
This time, there’s nothing but paper cuts and strained eyes. Nothing but Dean on a respirator and nurses with gentle hands and sad smiles. Nothing but Sue Ann’s voice and Dean’s sallow skin and memories of better times playing in his head.
Nothing but You failed echoing in his ears.
-
“It isn’t a nightmare,” she says, smirking in the corner. “You can’t wake up from this, and neither can he.”
“He’s not the wicked one, you bitch,” Sam snarls and whirls to face her. “He never was, never would have been.”
“So you say,” she retorts. “I was doing God’s work.”
“Then why aren’t you in Heaven?” he flings at her, and can’t even feel satisfaction when she has no answer.
-
It isn’t a nightmare. But he still prays every second he’ll wake up.
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