Title: Saving Sammy
Author: MissAnnThropic
Spoilers: All Hell Breaks Loose
LiveJournal: miss_annthropic(dot)livejournal(dot)com
Summary: "Dad said that I had to save you...and if I couldn't, I'd have to kill you." All Hell Breaks Loose angst
Disclaimer: None of it's mine. I'm just a sad little fangirl that spends her days writing fanfic and watching DVDs of her favorite shows :(
"You know I'm going to go bad... eventually." Sam's voice is full of reason, as it always is. Dean wishes Sam wasn't so resigned about it.
"You're not fruit, dude."
Dean doesn't see Sam's sad smile so much as sense it.
"Dad told you it might come to this," Sam pointed out softly.
That makes Dean angry. "Yeah, well, Dad was a bastard."
Sam huffs out a half-laugh, full of irony and sorrow. Dean lifts an eyebrow. "What's so funny?"
"Just that it took this for us to agree on that."
Dean shrugs with one shoulder and presses his weight back against the hood of the Impala. He anchors himself to her, his baby, not really comforted by her solid mass beneath him but pretending he is. He lives so much of his life in the dark, but right then he wishes for the sun. He feels cold down to his bones, a cold that he fears will never go away.
"It doesn't have to be this way," Dean begins, and even he can hear the desperation just under his words.
"Dean..."
"You know, screw all of this, screw the job. Let's ditch it. It'll be you and me, just making the best out of life that we can." Dean looks up at Sam beside him standing next to the front bumper with his hands in his jacket pockets. His face says it all. Dean knew that wasn't an option anyway, but maybe if Sam would agree to it they could have pretended.
"It's too late for me," Sam says lowly. "Sooner or later, I'll hurt someone. I could hurt you."
"Maybe I'm willing to take that risk," Dean challenges.
"Maybe you are... but I'm not."
Dean expects that. In Sam's place, Dean would feel the same way. But he's not in Sam's place. He wishes he were; it would be easier.
"This isn't my job, Sammy. I'm supposed to protect you."
"You have, Dean... all my life. Just... you couldn't protect me from everything."
Dean sucks in a breath before it turns into tears. He doesn't want to, but if he should get to cry about anything, this is it. "I can't do it."
Sam steps closer to Dean. "You can. You have to. It's the only way to save me from becoming something neither of us wants."
Dean wipes his face with one hand. "I guess... I mean, shit, I can't let them hunt you."
"And I don't want to become that. I'd rather it end here. I'd rather it be you. While I'm still me."
Dean slowly nods surrender and forces himself to stand upright. Sam doesn't ask Dean if he's going to be okay when Sam's gone. Probably because he already knows the answer.
Dean steps forward and digs into his pockets for the matchbook. His fingers close around it and grip tight.
Then Sam's there, at his shoulder, so gentle and Sammy that Dean wants to throw up.
"Salt and burn me, Dean."
Dean does. He lights the match and throws it on the pyre where Sam's wrapped and salted body lies in wait. So much like their father a year ago.
The gasoline-soaked wood catches quickly and the fire spreads fast.
Dean can't watch, looks away, looks at Sam.
Sam smiles at Dean, nods, then is wrapped in flame as his ghost vanishes.
When Sam was a baby, Dean saved him from fire. He thinks about that long and hard as he stands at his brother's funeral pyre outside of Cold Oak and watches Sam burn.
END