The weight of dark
Sam pulls the shabby curtains gingerly to the side. He wants to see daybreak. He doesn't want Dean to wake up, so the light mustn't stream in the room. Rather the other way round, Sam is the one that has to go to it. He lets the curtain fall, satisfied in the feeling of receding dark. Then he drapes his jacket around his shoulders and goes outside.
Dad doesn't show up again.
Day breaks.
He doesn't know how to feel about the dark. He knows how to move in it, drape it around his shoulders like a jacket, till he's one with the shadows. He knows how to work in it, in honky-tonk bars with cheap beer and hustling games. He used to know how to treasure it in the small hours with Jess pressed against him. He knows, and is still learning, to stir in it, fathom it mile by mile next to his brother. All miles the same. All miles different. And the dark still dark.
He doesn't know how to carry it.
There's a burn mark on the soft inside of his right arm that says otherwise. Sam doesn't want to listen.
He remembers slicing Wandell's throat. He remembers hurting Jo, the physical need to fuck her through the bar till she'd go limb, the need to tear her apart body and soul. They weren't his sentiments, but he remembers the feel of them, and he hates it. Remembers how the bullet glinted as it travelled fast, so fast, to knock Dean in the water.
He lets his finger trace the burn. Bobby gave him a burn salve, told him that burn marks fade as time passes. Sam doesn't think time is his ally. Knows that even with the burn mark gone, he'll always see it, always remember. Always carry that weight.
This time Dad shows him Jess.
She looks like when she had appeared to him on a street corner, blonde hair streaming behind her, white clothes almost luminous, eyes reaching deep down his soul. Back then he thought he had gone insane. But that was before his visions. Before his mind moved things. He wishes he was crazy.
Knows he isn't.
She's got the same eyes, lingering on him, only this time there's a smile hidden at the corner of her lips and Sam feels his chest tighten with love, longing, pain.
A black horse materializes through the wall, gallops through the room, jumps to the other side, its gallop a dull sound through the night. Sam follows it with his eyes, and when he looks again, Jess is gone.
Dad is there.
"She died just like Mary did," John says. He passes his hand through his hair. "You dreamt of it. Sam. Oh Sammy."
Doesn't say anything else but Sam hears it anyway. It wasn't your fault, but they died because of you.
"I'm sorry," Sam says. "I'm sorry."
Dad passes a hand through his son's hair.
"I know, son, I know."
Sam prays for daybreak.
Mom looks just like when Sam had seen her back at home, before she fought the poltergeist. Luminous, warm, and Sam's chest contracts with pain for something he's never known, but will always need and still misses.
The black horse is standing in the middle of the room, neighing slightly. Its hide glistens and powerful muscles move beneath shiny skin. Mary strokes it tenderly, then looks at Sam.
"Sam," John says.
Sam's eyes dart to him, then back again. The horse is still there, but Mary is gone.
"We love you, you know. We'd give our life for you, boys," John says.
"You already have," Sam points out, feeling his throat close up.
"That's why our sacrifice can't go to waste, Sam," John says. "You know what you got to do."
"I do?" Sam asks. John takes his boy's hands in his own.
"You do," he replies and Sam looks at his hands. There's a gun cradled by his fingers, and John is gone. The horse is gone.
It's a rainy night, and daybreak is grey and misty. Sam clutches the jacket tighter around him and thinks of darkness and the gun and his brother.
"We burnt you," Sam says. "Why do you keep coming if you don't really tell me anything?"
The black horse is chewing a pillow. It's got big dark eyes.
"Can you handle the truth?" John says. Sam traces the burn mark with his fingers. He doesn't know how to carry darkness. Is not sure he can carry the truth. He nods anyway.
"You know that you can't stay in the light forever, Sam," John says. "The Demon won't let you win."
"I know, dad," Sam says quietly. "That's why you told Dean he had to kill me."
"That's why you made him promise to stay true to that."
Sam nods again. He isn't the only one carrying darkness.
"But you know that Dean would rather die than see you dead."
And Sam knows. Has witnessed it one too many.
"I know, dad."
John's hand caresses the shiny hide. His eyes look as black as the animal's.
"So this is how it's got to go, Sammy. Dean can't kill you. So you got to take the burden from him. You got to keep him safe."
Sam lets out a sob.
It's stopped raining when day finds him. The sun falls through grey clouds for just a moment like a thief, glints over the gun Sam's cradling in his lap. Then the sun hides again.
Sam gets up, tucks the gun at the small of his back. Then Dean comes out asking him if he's ok, how many hours he's slept.
All through the night, Sam's thinking. Not at all.
Both are true.
Sam doesn't like truth much lately. He thinks it weighs as heavy as the dark, if not heavier.
That night dad shows him Dean. The black horse is galloping in and out of the walls in a graceful, frightening gallop.
Sam is puzzled.
"Dean?" he asks. It breaks the pattern. Sam's good with patterns. There's a pattern to logic, argumentation, law, to a white fenced life (birth, growing up, family, grandchildren at the porch, death), patterns to the way things work.
"Dean?" he repeats. Dean breaks the pattern. "Why Dean? Dean's still alive."
"For how long, Sammy?" John asks. "How long do you think till he burns too?"
Sam wants to say No. Wants to scream the way he did when he opened his eyes and faced the ceiling the day his life tilted.
"No," he whimpers. "Not Dean. Dad, you have got to save him."
"Your turn now, Sammy," John says.
Dean looks at him strangely the last days. Keeps a close eye on him, an eye Sam can feel like balm and curse at the same time.
"You'd tell me if something was wrong, wouldn't you?" Dean says.
Sam rolls his eyes. "Of course I would."
He doesn't like the truth. He doesn't like the dark. Lying is more comforting. Rolls off his mouth like a song, like shadows growing longer as day recedes.
He dreads nightfall.
Dad doesn't show him anyone anymore. It's just him and the black horse and the dark. And the truth.
Dad is angry, cajoling, threatening, imploring and Sam feels like a fucking Hamlet. Night after night. After night.
"I wish there was another way," John says. "But you got to do this for me. You gotta save your brother. I gave my life for him. None of this was his fault, Sammy, and your downfall will be the death of him. The death of this world. Kill yourself and save the world, Sam. Save your brother. You know it's the right thing to do. You got to do it."
"I got to tell Dean," Sam says. He's imploring.
"You think Dean would let you?" his father yells and for another long moment his eyes have the same colour as the horse's. "You think this is one more burden he can carry? No, Sam, this is your burden. You wanted redemption, this is it. Cuz it's all your fault, Sam."
"Dad…"
"Do it, Sam," John says forcing the gun back to his hands. He helps him cock it, steady it. "Do it, Sam."
"Dad…"
"Do it," John rasps. "Do it. I'd rather lose one than lose you both. Do it."
Metal feels cold on his temple. His tears feel warm. He lets the gun slide down. His fingers loosen around the grip.
"Dean would never forgive me."
"Don't you dare say you're not doing it for him, Sam," John says, his hand clasping his son's. He forces the fingers closed.
"I love you, Sammy," he says. "I do. Hell, I don't even know if I'm your father, but I still do. And that's god's honest truth. But there's nothing left for you here. Jess is dead and people always die around you. You got to help Dean live."
Sam wants to ask him what he means by not knowing if he's his father. But Sam doesn't like the truth.
His father's hand is warm against him. Sam looks at the gun again, a compact piece of darkness there, in his palm.
"Time's running out, Sammy," John says. "You have to do it. Do it, Sam. Do it. For your brother. I'll be right here with you. You won't have to go through this alone. And Dean will never have to feel guilty about it. Do it, Sammy. You wanted redemption. This is it."
The gun is solid in his hands. Heavy and cold, and really, the answer is here, isn't it? He won't have to wait for another daybreak. Won't have to wait for another nightfall. A piece of dark to chase truth and dark and burden away. Redemption.
Redemption.
It shouldn't taste like iron. Shouldn't taste like ash.
Sam pushes the gun into his father's hand. Tears have dried on his face.
"No," Sam says. John looks at him.
"I know you always did the opposite I told you out of principle, but this is not a good time, Sam," John says.
Sam shakes his head. John takes one step back, furious. He's cradling the gun by his side. His voice comes out in a hiss that escalates with each phrase.
"It'sall your fault. Jess, Mary…you're the one that wrecked our life, Sam. If it weren't for you, Mary would never have died. You're only trouble, Sam, that's why I told Dean to kill you. I tried loving you, son, we all did. I tried. But you made it so hard. So fucking hard. You left us and I told you not to come back and you didn't, not till your white fence burned up. And we still loved you, Sam, we always loved you. Dean always loved you, he'd die in a heartbeat for you and you can't do it for him? You asked him to kill you but you can't show enough backbone to do it yourself now? For him? Does it always have to be about you?"
"This is not about me!" Sam says. He wants to say how it's about the light falling through the clouds, and the scent of rain, and the miles he spent by Dean's side. About the way Jess smiled cuz she loved him, about the way mom saved them back home. About the way John gave his life for Dean with a song in his heart.
"This is about you," Sam says. The black horse is standing completely still, except for one hoof shoving the ground over and over again. "This is about you. My father would never tell me to do this."
John is standing completely still, except for his foot, slightly shifting back and forth.
"My father would never make me kill myself," Sam says. He clenches his fists, takes one step forward. "My father loved me. My father loved me!"
The gun falls on the floor with a thud.
"You're god damn right he did. Dude, what the hell's been going on?"
Sam looks behind him. Dean looks at him through eyes that are wide awake, despite the sleep lacing them.
Sam wants to tell him about the dark. How sometimes it's so solid it weighs like the whole world. About truth, that weighs as much as a gun. About pain that is not weighed but fathomed in depth, like the deep bed of the ocean. About love that can't be weighed, because there's nothing to weigh it against. About ghosts that rocksalt can't chase off, because they're carried inside. He doesn't say anything.
Day is breaking.
He lets his hand wrap around his brother's and Dean doesn't crack any chick flick jokes.
"Dean," Sam says.
And that weighs just enough.
-The End.
SIDENOTE: The horse can be explained thus: http://en. and I don't own them. I just love them. And wish I could do both.