Title : Moving On From The Memory
Fandom : Supernatural
Character : Dean (mentions of Sam and Castiel)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Moving On From The Memory
Dean knows now that it was Castiel who put him back into that coffin underground. He knows that it wasn't an intentional act of harm, but he cannot just shrug it off, in the same way he can never shrug off his time in Hell, no matter what he tells Sam about remembering nothing.
Now every time he is in a graveyard, the memory ekes in, sliding under his defences, raising his hackles. Every time he digs a grave to burn the bones, he's reminded and the bitter cold of the memory tingles from his toes to the top of his spine and the ends of his fingers. He finds himself checking his finger nails for where he had scrabbled at the wood above him, finds his breath shortening as if the oxygen in the air around him were short.
He blinks and looks around him, trying to set the memory aside, proving to himself that it was the past, that he isn't ever going to wake up in a buried coffin underground again. He forces himself to breathe long and solid, remembering where he is now, what he is there to do. He knows he needs to keep this to himself. Telling Sam where he woke up, what the devastation in the area was like was one thing. Telling Sam he woke up in his coffin, trapped, starving for breath, screaming with a voice that was hoarse in a tomb where no one would ever hear him, knowing that his life and death lay in his own hands, and death might return him to the Pit, is something he can't bring himself to share. Like Hell, it cannot be shared, in case it becomes what defines him.
He is no longer the man he once was, nor can he ever be again. He must forge himself anew, as if his escape from the tomb was a symbolic rebirth. He needs to lay aside his false fears of what is now past. He must face what is to come.