Sam couldn't sleep.
His bed was too short, too narrow, too hard.
Or maybe that was just his life.
Mom was dead.
Again.
The Mom he'd never known, the Mom he'd hardly known.
Their Mom. His Mom.
Mom.
He couldn't sleep.
He didn't want to sleep.
Mom was dead.
She was at peace, Cas said, she was with Dad. That was better than any life she could've had. She'd died instantly and painlessly, Cas said that, too, and that was better than any death she could've had.
She was in Heaven.
She was better off.
She was dead.
She was dead and she was with Dad and maybe she and Dad were talking about their family dinner last month.
Their one and only, ever, family dinner.
Just last month, for just a few hours, they were all together, they were a family.
Just a family.
Now Dad was dead, again, and Mom was dead, again, and he and Dean were just – him and Dean, again.
They were Sam and Dean who had just lost their Dad, had just lost their Mom.
Who knew who else they were going to lose?
Sam couldn't sleep.
He didn't want to sleep.
He wanted – it was funny, but it wasn't – he wanted Dean.
That lifelong reflex kicking in, a broken toy, a broken heart, a broken dream; the habit, the instinct, the default: if there's trouble, find Dean.
So simple for so many years – when Sam hurt, he wanted Dean.
Not so simple now. Not simple at all.
Dean was grieving, he was enraged. He was fixed and focused and primed to detonate at the slightest provocation.
Maybe he needed that. Maybe that would help him.
Maybe nothing would help.
Mom was dead.
Dad was dead.
Sam was drowning, feeling too much, layers of old grief crashing down, bubbling up, pushing and propelling new layers of grief, layers and clouds, sharp and scouring and limitless.
Mom was dead.
Mom was dead and Sam couldn't sleep and there was nowhere to go in the Bunker, nowhere to go in their lives, that didn't have the smell and grit of death permanently fixed to it.
Dead and death and dying and never being used to it.
Never not dying more inside with each and every loss, each and every loss punching a hole, another hole, an everlasting hole, into their lives, feeding a rising tide of blood that would never end until it finally, eternally, swept them away with it.
Mom was dead.
Dad was dead.
Sam didn't want to sleep.
The End.
A/N: please pray for my nephew who has suffered for years from horrific depression that no medicine has been able to touch. It's so bad, he "just wants to die." (Thank you!)