Roche Limit
by carnageincminor
When Sam opens his eyes, the ceiling is clear.
Most days, he no longer dreams of the body pinned above his bed, mouth torn open in a cry that never makes it to his ears before being drowned by the roar of flames. Each time, he wakes with a start; gasping for air, fresh sweat beading his skin. And if Dean happens to be near and cocks an eyebrow in question, his shaky reply is always Jessica.
Most days, Sam no longer needs to fear the encroachment of sleep, or worry his poor brother with the sight of a haunted, ashen face and shadow-rimmed eyes. The dreams are starting to fade, coming fewer and further between; plaguing him once every couple of weeks, perhaps. Not routine, but familiar enough to acknowledge without words.
Most nights, however, are a different story.
The dreams still come, as though they grow bolder under cover of dark, and while they don't make him insomniac, Sam finds he has taken to sleeping on his side just so that when he wakes he can avoid the ceiling. Sometimes. Tonight he fails.
His eyes are feverish and wide as they pierce the void above his head, knowing what they see is blank and yet seeing retina burns of that face wreathed in fire; that face he knows so well.
"Sam?" The same face watches him from the other side of the motel room.
"Yeah." He clears his throat. "I'm fine." He wishes he could clear his mind of the dream as easily. It was never Jessica he saw; it hadn't been Jess for a long time, since the few months after her death and he left his normal, apple-pie, college life behind. It wasn't that she left his thoughts altogether, and he was still struck with a bullet of guilt every time he did think of her, but time and distance has a way of relegating even the most prominent things in life -- the ones he swore he'd never forget -- to the backseats, little more than hazy, fading memories lingering on the corners of his mind. Why he had let Dean think the dreams were about her, Sam doesn't know. It was just so much easier to lie.
"You sure?" Dean tries again, in his oblique way, to gauge what his brother is hiding, but this is one subject Sam is resolute in keeping from him. Sam can't be sure if it's a vision or mere synaptic distortions in his brain, but as a Winchester he's learned not to count on luck. Yet he holds onto a flimsy hope that if he doesn't let Dean find out, then it won't come true. And he's lasted this far.
"I'm fine." He reiterates, as much for himself as for his brother. But he is running out of time and still doesn't have the faintest idea on how to stop this thing. His premonitions of Jess, of their old house in Lawrence -- those events had all taken place not long afterwards. But this, this had been going on for weeks, and Sam was growing more distraught every passing day. With the coming of each nightmare, terrifying in their clarity, Sam felt surer as his heart sank that this was not going to end well, that the dreams were meant to be prophetic and Dean was going to burn right in front of his eyes and there was nothing he could do. Sam knows somehow that Dean must have pushed his luck too far, having saved him from the fire twice, and the next time... he wasn't going to make it. Dean was going to die trying to guard Sammy from the demon; like Mom, like Jess. And while it pains him to think of how his brother would so readily trade his life without hesitation, at the back of Sam's mind he knows this with as much certainty as he's known that ghosts and monsters exist. And when it happens, there would be no one to pull Sam to safety. He was going to stay paralysed on that bed, staring up into Dean's dying eyes and scream for the end of his world.
"You know," Dean's voice comes again, softer than before, "this has gotta stop, Sam." He shoots his younger brother a sideways glance as he shuts off the laptop, leaving them both in a darkness lessened only by the dim glow of a streetlight beyond the window. "Whatever you're holing up in there that's eating away at you, it has to come out. If it doesn't, it's gonna kill you, and I mean that quite literally 'cause in our line of work... you know what can happen. There was Bloody Mary, for one," he pauses to see if Sam will respond to the memory in any way, but the motionless form on the bed gives him nothing. "And that secret of yours? About dreaming of Jessica's death before it happened -- that came out in the end. So, why keep hanging onto this until it's too late? Sam?"
Sam makes a noise that sounds like a furtive gasp for air to keep a rush of tears in check.
"Sammy? Why won't you tell me what's wrong?" Dean has gotten up from his bed and crouches at the edge of Sam's, watching his brother with intense hazel eyes that Sam doesn't see but feels while he keeps his own gaze fixed on the ceiling. If he turns his head he won't be able to stop the the film of moisture in his eyes from spilling.
"God, Dean, I -- it's not that I... I just can't," he whispers helplessly in broken segments as though leaving Stanford had lost him the ability to construct a full, articulate sentence. "You don't understand."
"What don't I understand?"
Sam doesn't answer. He can't. And as the silence ticks away, Dean doesn't press on. Sam is aware all he's doing is keeping his brother in a tortured state, with not knowing and not being able to help, but he can't bring himself to break the fragile codes he'd placed on his predicament. To say it was to seal it. He would lose Dean because Dean's love for him was unconditional.
A part of him also recognises he was always going to lose Dean, no matter what.
The elder Winchester is no longer by his side, having moved to sitting back on his own bed, but keeping his stare hard and focused on his troubled, undecipherable brother. He realises he doesn't understand after all. There's nothing he can imagine that would make Sam this closed off, this fearful, unwilling to let him in, but he would find a way through. "You know you can't run from me, Sammy." I wouldn't let you go.
Sam squeezes his eyelids shut in futility and doesn't care that the tears fall this time. "I know."
END
August 2006
A/N: If you're curious -- roche limit is, in astronomy, the minimum distance to which a satellite can approach its primary body without being torn apart by tidal forces.