Then We Came to the End
Disclaimer: I don't own "Supernatural" or profit from it in any way; I merely plunder its intellectual property for my own amusement. Nor do I own Joshua Ferris' book from which I taken my title, or his style from which I've so heavily cribbed.
Author's Note: This is a dark one for me, but it takes a different approach from the usual "Winchester-death." Warning: tissue may be needed.
On a mildly warm day, amidst the trash and exhaust that comes standard with any roadside motel, Death came to find the Winchester brothers.
I
The air feels cool against our skin. It is slightly tinged with salt – the sea. Air and water are two aspects of our duty that we enjoy; it counterbalances all the pain we must invariably face. We take in the soothing power of nature, and then banish people from it. It is who we are, what we do. And now we have a new charge to shepherd down a path accessible only to the very desperate or the damned. After a period of time, people usually become both.
Our human isn't here yet. We trace the peeling white paint of the door to his rented room and feel no heartbeat within. The way the sun falls across his window, showing us a small view of the slept-in beds and used take-out box inside, indicates to us that the man does live here – our instincts have not failed us, even after these millennium – and that there are others with him; but they are not here now. We wait.
As the sun sets behind a far-away row of messily-drawn triangles against the sky, the man returns. His vehicle turns into the parking lot of our resting place, our surveillance station, and pulls near to the door. He is with someone. This is unexpected. We had been led to believe that he would be alone: a man driving down a dark road with no headlights. We had not been told of this, this laughter with his fellow man, this easy exchange of affection. How could someone still so alive barter his soul away so easily? It's comparable to a lifelong swimmer selling the sea to buy a pair of goggles. It makes no difference. We do not come to ponder the quandaries of mankind, just to enforce a law governing their existence. We are not philosophers, debating the existential merits of life and death. We are the darkness, swift and concrete.
Are we found out? As the pair approach their room, the companion of our target pauses for a brief moment, but in that span we can sense an eternity of watchfulness. We are known, but again it matters not. Sensing a beast as it closes in for the kill does not then prevent the outcome. We have seen this before, though admittedly not from two so young. Only in the very old, the very wise, have we seen those elite few experience the foreknowledge of our passing before we have deemed it time for our revelation. We cannot fathom why this select group thirsts for knowledge of our existence; it only makes the inevitable harder. We feel it will be the same with our man and his friend.
II
It is midnight now. Having long been part of the human cycle, we realize the irony of our coming at such a moment. We relish it, though, in actuality, the man-made construct of "irony" provides us as little pleasure as breathing, but just as much long-lost joy as feeling the wind dance across our skin.
Moving through the parking lot we can sense the other crimes at this spot. Staring into the vacant spaces where cars could once have resided, we see the rape-murders of last year, each executed right here. We are then turned to the lost child a few months ago who wandered from his room and was run over as he attempted to cross the street in a panic. So much destruction, touched by chaos and coincidence, and yet we are the feared ones.
The doorknob rests right under our fingertips, glimmering had there been a moon to shine upon its spotted brass. Across the threshold we are certain there are the easy breaths of the two companions: they are sleeping. Closest to the door is our desired one. Fingers ghost across the door and attempt to impose their reality, to open the door. Nothing. Curious, we have rarely been defied with much success; what is this? Another attempt to enter into the room yields nothing. Are we beaten for the night? It would seem so, though we can easily sense the charm that is keeping his life locked inside the motel and safe from our influence. It is a simple mechanism, but one we had not prepared for, and therefore difficult to best immediately. It must have been his friend, the one who sensed us. We will study this possibility and come prepared tomorrow, when he most certainly will not be. No one ever is.
Dawn. From our vantage point in the little grove that runs parallel to the motel across the street, we see the door open. What do they expect: us to rush in, heedless? We will wait; their "opening" is nothing more than a continuing indication of their living – which is good, because it will be our job to end that; ours alone.
The friend steps from the protection of the darkness (another irony we find endlessly amusing). His first steps seem imprecise, unsure. His tall, well-muscled frame thrums with indecision. As the sunlight gets a chance to more fully reveal him to the awakening motel we notice he must be lost – or cold. Over these last days, our observation has revealed some things; among them, the fact that our target and his friend layer themselves endlessly with clothes. But at this very moment, the friend – who of the two wore more coats, shrouds, and jackets than even we are famous for – is wearing very little. The small piece of tight white fabric around his upper-thighs we recognize as "briefs," but it is a thing we witness usually only as we make a call to the bed-ridden or the insane. His friend is not the former, is he the latter?
The friend is moving. He has finally made up his mind and is darting towards their dark vehicle. Does he think to run? No, something in his walk indicates the opposite: he would much rather be inside the room with our charge. This is strange – it must have something to do with his odd garb. The boy reaches the car, darts inside for a moment than dashes back with a bag; his "briefly"-clad body a lost visage against the morning highway traffic.
What was in the bag, another trick? This decides it: our move must come very soon.
The door opens again, but this time the one we want exits. Again, he too is wearing very strange things: instead of his friend's "briefs," his is a material that is a little longer, but just as tight and white. The other pair of underwear is still present however, except they are on this one's head. From the crack left by the closing door we hear groans of protest and then we notice our target has started a deep laugh from within himself. It is a game. These last moments have been nothing but a game between the two, a dare or a practical joke perhaps. It is another sign that our man is very atypical to what we had expected – interesting.
The man outside turns to us as we begin our movement to him, our time decided. Before we reach him though, something calls him back into the motel…where we must then immediately follow. Foolish, if the friend seeks to protect this boy from us. It will not work.
"Dean!"
III
The grain of the wood against our fingers is rough and cheap. It will provide little protection from anything, let alone us. If we were axe-murderers, our the common rape-pillager we might have given a moment's pause. But not now.
The door swings open through our will.
In a second's time we are discovered. The tall one who has known us all along sits now at a desk, a book propped up before him. He is shirtless, but a pair of torn-jeans covers his once-brazenly displayed "briefs." His friend his arranged on the bed in a manner we recognize as befitting relaxation. He has not covered himself, though his "headdress" has ben tossed carlessly on his companion's bed. He turns as the first one calls to him. We sense the fear in the former's voice; we expected it, as we do from all. But again, the unexpected: as the latter turns towards his compatriot, we realize the palpable level of concern and protection radiating from him. The pair are brothers. How had we not guessed? Instead of moving for the kill, swift and silent as a the sea, we will wait a moment or two. It is like that for us occasionally: we come to the house of a husband and his battered wife and as we kill the former, we pause to see and hear the voice of the latter. This will be much the same situation – we can feel the connection between the two, and watching human's struggle to justify the passing of such has always given us a curious enjoyment.
They begin to speak.
"Dean, you have to listen to me: this motel is full of Death."
"A little harsh there Sammy, aren't you? I mean, the stains are bad but-"
"That's not what I mean! I mean, Death – the Grim Reaper, the Harbinger of Souls, and so on – is here. In this room. For you." This comment takes us by surprise. Only once or twice before have we been so intimately sensed.
"But isn't it a tad early: don't I have, like, another two weeks?" There is deflection in that comment from the one we want. He is seeking to direct his brother (younger brother, we are now certain) into another avenue of righteous anger.
"Demons lie, Dean. Maybe the one who made our deal fudged some on the numbers. The point is we have to figure out a way to get Mr. I'm Going to Kill You out of here. Fast." Dean's tactics have not worked. We are not surprised: the urge to destroy grief before it strikes can become obsession in the blink of an eye…or a house fire (what an odd vision we receive from the two of them).
"Sam, you know I have to leave sometime. My piper is here now, I've gotta pay him. But you're right, you need to leave. You do not need to see this." That light-hearted joking in Dean's eyes has been replaced; there is a fierce sense of urgency there now.
"But Dean-" And to that urgency, we feel the younger one – Sam – bending, albeit reluctantly.
"No Sam, no protests. I made a deal a while back so that you'd be around to protest in the years and years after this. And I won't let that be spoiled by watching your older brother save you one last time."
"I can't leave; I can save you. I've done it before."
"We both know this is different. This is Death, Sammy. One of the Big Things even we don't mess with much." They are also demon hunters, a noble cause from a man so wretched as to sell his person.
"I can't let you...I can't let you die Dean. I won't" The resolve summoned in that statement lasts a fraction of the time we know Sam would want it to. As it crumbles, so does his face.
"Just go, but and remember: I've always loved you Sammy. I always will." Suddenly he is off the bed and grabbing Sam in a rough pull towards the door. A moment's indecision: do we let them pass? They are through. Dean turns his propelling motion into a tight embrace and we taste salt on the air again – this time it is tears.
"You can't leave me Dean; I'll be consumed alone by everything, by Dad and Jessica. You're my anchor."
"I know kiddo, but I'll always be here. If, next week or in just a few hours, you still need me, just think my name and I'll be there. I swear." We have known such solemn oaths before, but for a millisecond even we are assured of his continued life, folly as it sounds.
Dean swings the door closed in Sam's face – now covered in a sheen of mourning before his time – and turns to us, even though he surely knows not where we are.
"Ok. Let's get this over with." We have heard this call to action before, but never has it crossed a pair of human lips that it isn't flavored with some resentment, some will to fight This. Until now.
It is done.
Outside the connection so cherished by Sam has been cut, and we feel that he feels it. There is no Dean residing here, only a body: smoke curling towards the sky, fever dreams on a molding ceiling. As we exit the building, back to our favored resting place, a symphony of despair explodes into our ears from one muffled, endless scream: a mixture of "I love you," and "goodbye."
Half way across the parking lot we are frozen for a breath of moments, endless to us it seems. For the first time, we know what tragedy feels like.
The End