Title: Rise Above This
Author: SxyMo0finMan
Rating: T for minor language
Word Count: 2,303
Sequel To: I'll Follow You Into the Dark
Summary: Sam is sitting alone doing some paperwork, trying to figure out what's the best cemetery to bury his brother in. His mind starts visiting darker places, and soon he's in a state of despair. With the help of his daughter, he manages to rise above that moment, to look at the brighter side of Cas's disappearance from the world.
Author's Note: I'm not really a big fan of this story, but it's part of my three piece one shot series, all with song titles. This one is loosely based off of Seether's Rise Above This, which is a song about the lead singer's brother who had committed suicide.
Sam sits silently at his desk, hands buried deep in his thinning hair. He knows he shouldn't be pulling at the strands, now streaked with silver, but he can't help it. The trifold brochures in front of him blur together, titles in blocked letters displaying names like 'Greenwood Cemetery' and 'Rose Hill Burial Park' become one in a garbled mess. He's crying again. Hard shaking sobs that he fights to hold back wrack his frame. His eyes are pinched tight so that his crow's feet are more pronounced, the wrinkles standing out like tiny creases in a rumpled sheet. Sam bites down on his thumb, just under the first knuckle, to keep himself from screaming in his distress.
Oh how he fucking hates this.
Sam hates crying, hates feeling like his world is being ripped open. But that's what happened. Dean's gone. Cas's gone, presumably with Dean, which, hey, he understands, but how could the angel be so selfish as to leave him with all of this preparation? He has funerals to pay for, had to tell his fucking children that Uncle Cas had gone away, too, and had to see the look on their faces. Granted, they're a bit older now, old enough to grasp at the meaning behind his words and to understand. It also helps that they know a thing or two about life and the world that thrives behind the societal backdrop.
They had taken those little tidbits, like… well like the kids they are, treating the family history like story time. Sometimes they even requested that they be told about their daddy staving off the apocalypse with the help of Uncle Dean and a fallen angel as a bed time tale instead of listening to him read from a very old, very worn Harry Potternovel. Even despite the feeling of the knife of grief twisting in his throat, cutting off his air and piercing him to the core, Sam can't help but give a choked laugh as he remembers their reactions to what were, in his opinion, Earth shattering revelations for simple civilians. Oh cool, Uncle Cas is an Angel? Can I see his wings?/ So, wait, you're telling me that there are freaking vampires out there? Do they all look like Lestat? Or, are they like Robert Pattinson? Because, either way, I'm okay with that./ Werewolf, you took on a werewolf? Were they like the movies, Pa?/ Dude, Uncle Dean was wanted by the FBI? Awesome./ Mommy said you saved her from a ghost with a razor blade… How romantic!
The Winchester takes in a shuddering breath, laying his head down on his arms. He focuses on slowing down his hitching breath, counting silently to ten over and over until he is relatively calm. When the pain in his chest subsides, Sam sits back in his rolling chair, the leather creaking under his weight, his shoulders sagging. He stares down at the brochures and at the half-completed documents, lip curling slightly when he realizes that he had smudged his signature pretty badly and rendered it illegible. "Whiteout," Sam mutters to himself as he starts shuffling through the papers on his desk, looking for the little white bottle filled with liquid eraser. He knows he had it somewhere, that he had seen it within the last couple of hours. But where?
Sam spends the next few moments opening and closing drawers. He knows he's acting frenzied, but he can't help it. If he just finds the damn Whiteout, he can fix his mistake and get these papers finalized and sent to the funeral directors. And while he's doing that, he might as well sign him and Sarah up for a plot right next to Dean's. Hey, it'll be a family reunion in the afterlife, he thinks with a sardonic laugh, the soft noise sounding half crazed to his own ears. He pushes his hands through his hair again and sits back, accepting defeat. This is stupid, he thinks letting his hands fall flat in his lap. I'm falling apart. His fingers press into the crease in his slacks at his knees, smoothing out the thin lines, stretching the fabric out so that it's tight over his thighs. He stares ahead at the wall in front of him, taking in the cork bulletin board that's punctured by bright assorted tacks of red, blue, yellow, and green, each pin holding up a corner of old family photos.
There's him and Dean from summers passed, standing by the grill, a lopsided chef hat perched on Dean's head as a joke and a spatula held firm in his hand, his other arm wrapped tightly around Sam's shoulders as he smiles at the camera. Sam remembers that day well enough, remembers that the only reason why they had posed for that photo was because Cas just wouldn't let up and wanted to test out his new digital camera that Dean had gotten him for their anniversary. Dean finally had given in to the photo with a laugh and had wrapped Sam up in a one armed bear hug, squeezing his shoulders so hard that Sam swore he could feel the bones grinding together. In the end, Sam is glad they took that photo. There's not many of him and Dean together, let alone happy ones. Plus, that had been the day that Sam finally told Dean that he was going to be a proud uncle.
The photo next to that one is of him and Sarah holding their first baby, a beautiful girl with crisp gray-green eyes and a wisp of dark hair that clung close around her tiny head. He remembers Dean pulling him aside and asking if he could name the girl. All Sam wanted to do was sit and rest, to check on Sarah and the baby, but no, Dean had to talk his ear off, telling him that "hey, Cas n' me aren't gonna be having a baby any time soon. So can I please have a hand in naming her?" Sam remembers the injustice of it all, at having to hear Dean plead his case about choosing to namehis own child. In the end, Dean got his way; the little girl was named Mary Ellen after the two amazing women who had put up with the Winchesters' crap and had both died because of them, one on the night that started it all and the other in a hapless attempt to take on the devil, casualties in a war the brothers never wanted to be a part of. Whenever Dean gloated at having picked out a beautiful name, Sam would just roll his eyes and tell him that the Ellen bit was the only concession Dean had gotten because Mary was already going to be his baby's name.
Tucked underneath that gem of him, Sarah, and Mary Ellen, is the one of Adam, tiny and just a few hours old, small body hooked up to a number of tubes and wires. He'd been lying in an incubator, eyes screwed tight and hands clenched into small little fists, his feet kicking so that they're blurred in the photo. It had been the most energy he'd had at the time so Sam quickly snapped the photo, wanting to have at least one memory of his little boy in case he didn't make it. That time had been a scary one. Sarah was nearly in her forties when she found out she was pregnant with their second; it was a rough time to have a bun in the oven. That pregnancy had been a doozy. She was sick all the time and there were a lot of scares. Adam almost didn't make it. He was born almost two months early, and he spent nearly as long in the NICU unit. Adam proved to be a fighter and he has been ever since, just Sam's little pride and joy.
Sam looks from one face to another, all staring back at him, smiles on their faces, mocking him in their little cork board world. He wishes he could be that happy. Hell, he wishes he could be that young again. There're photos of him and Dean sharing a beer after a hunt, photos of him holding Sara in his arms on their wedding day, photos of Dean and Cas. At the picture of his brother and the nerd angel, Sam feels another pang of misery hit him. He sucks in a breath and pinches his eyes closed, trying to work through it, to not go back to where he was not just five minutes ago.
"Pa?" Mary Ellen questions out of the blue, making Sam jump in his chair, the leather creaking in protest. He swivels around to face her, banging his knee under the desk in the process. Through a Herculean effort, he manages not to curse out loud, big hands going to massage the now screaming joint. "What?" he asks finally, voice a little thin and worn.
"You okay, Pa?" she asks softly. Mary Ellen is half hidden by the door frame, her head poking around the corner as she looks in at him. She's got one hand resting against the frame, the other clenched at her side. She's nervous, Sam can tell. He heaves a mighty sigh and opens his arms to her. At fourteen years old, she's still not too old or too proud to sit in her daddy's lap and that makes Sam happy. Mary Ellen steps closer to him and turns just right so that she can perch on his uninjured knee, shifting slightly until she is comfortably leaning against his torso, his arm wrapped around her to keep her steady. "I heard you crying," she says softly.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Sam stays rigid in his seat, squeezing Mary Ellen gently in a hug. She relaxes against him, letting him rest his chin against the top of her head. He breathes in the scent of strawberries and lavender, finding comfort in the gentle fragrances of her auburn hair. She looks just like her mother, the only part of him to be found in his daughter is the color of her eyes. Those gray-green eyes search his face for answers, peering up at him until Sam feels like she is looking into his soul. "Where's your brother?" he asks to break the silence and keep her from asking questions he doesn't have the answers to.
"He's in the kitchen eating the rest of Aunt Charlie's three cheese casserole."
"Trust Adam to act as a garbage disposal, huh?" Sam says to try and make light of the situation. After the news of Dean's passing and Cas's disappearance, casseroles had rained down aplenty on the Winchester household, and the funeral hasn't even happened yet. God knows that they'll get more food then, so they've been trying to eat as much tuna casserole and three cheese casserole and hamburger and broccoli—a combination both Adam and Sam thought disgusting—casserole as they could before their kitchen would be truly flooded with home cooked meals. His quip garners a tiny smile from Mary Ellen, but it was a laugh that he was looking for. Sam sighs again and buries his face in her hair, wishing for the world that everything was different, that Dean was still alive.
"Uncle Dean's fine," Mary Ellen says suddenly, her voice strong and unwavering. It was such a big statement that Sam's eyes widen from the surprise of it tumbling from her lips. If it had been Sarah, he probably wouldn't have flinched. He's used to her straightforwardness. But from Mary Ellen? Sam guesses she's more like her mom than he thought. After a beat, he clears his throat and asks, "What makes you say that, hun?"
"Because Uncle Cas is with him," she says, turning to face him and pinning him under the weight of her gaze. "You said that Uncle Cas disappeared after Dean died, right? Pa, Cas is an angel. If they're together in heaven, nothing is going to happen to Uncle Dean. He'll be happy there, I just know it."
Sam sits there in silence. He looks away from her and stares at a spot on the wall as he mulls over what she said. Yes, there is a simple logic to it. Castiel is with Dean, and he knows from experience that the angel would never allow any harm to come to his older brother. This knowledge calms him, a smile growing on his lips.
"You know what?" he asks, leaning back in his seat so he can get a better look at her. "You're absolutely right."
Mary Ellen's smile grows to rival his own. She ruffles his hair in a similar motion as Sam used to ruffle hers, and he tries to feign anger but ends up laughing. God, what wouldn't he do without his children? He shoos her off his lap after a moment, saying that he needs to return to his work. He's got paperwork to finish. Before he can even touch the pen to paper, Mary Ellen turns back to say, "By the way, pa. White Out's in the kitchen."
Sam just sits there and stares at the wall. Now he remembers where he had last seen it. It had been sitting on the kitchen counter next to a Tupperware dish full of some kind of casserole or other. He had taken it out there when he went to get lunch earlier, but Sam isn't sure. Come to think of it, he still is kind of hungry. With a sigh, he puts his pen down and stands up, pushing the chair back out from the desk. The paperwork can wait for another day. Right now, family is more important. With them, he can rise above this.