Title: the ashes of your burning
Summary: On Saturday, Sam drives out into the desert and tears up his dad's journal just to watch it blow away.
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: All Hell Breaks Loose 2
Warnings: Darkness, angst, implied character death
Pairings: None
Category: Gen, angst, deathfic, future fic, probably AU
Word Count: 1,165
Disclaimer: Not mine; not getting paid; I'm just playing with them.
Author's Note: This title was also the title of a poem I wrote recently, but I liked it enough to re-use it. Also, I was supposed to be working on my NaNo novel, but this is what I did instead.
Thursday makes four days since Sam has eaten anything but a handful of stale peanut M&M's and half a bottle of flat Coke he found rattling around in the passenger floorboard.
He drives during the day because the road is there, and it's the only thing still constant in the quicksand wasteland his life has become. At night, he stops at the seediest motel in a run-down little town at the edge of the mountains. Dean doesn't argue Sam's choice. He also doesn't go out to a bar, pick up a waitress, watch porn or do anything else Dean-like.
Sam showers—because somehow that's still important, even though he can't bring himself to eat—and when he comes out, wet hair dripping across his eyes, the room is empty. He blinks back a sudden spike of panic, sees Dean sitting in the ugly plush chair by the bed. Dean's wearing tattered blue jeans, boots, and the leather jacket he inherited from Dad, and his amulet glints golden in the anemic light.
"You can't keep doing this to yourself, Sammy," Dean says. His voice is so distinctly Dean, I'm older and you have to listen to me layered thinly over Sammy, please, you're scaring me. "Man, you look like a ghost. Vampire, maybe." Dean shifts in the chair, plays with the wide silver ring on his right hand. "A lot of hunters already think you're a freak. Now they're gonna be after you for sure."
"I don't care," Sam says, stuffing clothes into his duffel bag. He lists slightly sideways when he gets a low blood sugar head rush.
"You don't meant that." Dean's tone is all the way into Sammy, please territory now.
"Don't I?" Sam turns off the light and climbs into bed. He scoots back up against the headboard, knees to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs. He hasn't curled up like this since he was a kid thrown off-balance by too many moves, too little stability. Back then he used to curl up tight, like maybe if he folded himself small enough the world would start making sense.
Sam can't even hear Dean breathing in the darkness, but he doesn't turn the light back on.
Friday morning he has four new messages from Bobby and two from Ellen. He deletes them without listening while he eats another handful of stale M&M's.
The town looks even bleaker in daylight, stark and faded, framed by desert mountains, brown and gray against brown and gray. Sam wonders whether there's a job here, a monster killing under the cover of darkness, or just stupid people with problems he can't bring himself to care about. He doesn't stay long enough to find out.
Dean doesn't put a tape in the deck, so Sam drives in silence.
"Sam, for God's sake," Dean finally blurts out fifty miles down the road. He has escalated to his you're freaking me the hell out! voice. "You've got to eat. You've got to sleep. You shouldn't even be driving my car when you're like this; you'll wreck it."
"I don't care," Sam says, and this time Dean knows better than to argue.
Saturday afternoon Sam drives out into the desert and tears his dad's journal into tiny pieces just to watch it blow away. It's bone-dry out here, fine dust squirting out from under his feet like water, and he sunburns inside an hour, his lips splitting open. He walks away from the car and sits down in the powdery dust. The sky is pale tan at the horizon, baked blue overhead.
Dean's shiny boots come into view and he kneels beside Sam, his hazel eyes appearing pale green in the harsh sunlight. His skin is light tan as always, just a few faint freckles over his nose and cheekbones. He always did sunburn faster than Sam.
"It's hot," Sam says, his lips bleeding when he moves them. He doesn't have any water. "You should be burned."
"Oh, I'm burning," Dean says too casually, the corner of his mouth curling up in a cynical smirk. Sam draws his knees up to his chest and stares at the horizon. He remembers reading somewhere that bodies mummify in the desert.
"Don't even think about it," Dean says dangerously, but of course he already knows Sam is thinking about it, since he's in Sam's head.
Sam doesn't go through with it. He walks back through powder dust and tiny scraps of paper, climbs into the Impala, and drives away.
Sunday at midnight, or maybe it's Monday, Dean says, "You must know me pretty well." They're somewhere in Nevada. Sam finally finished off the M&M's and stopped to buy a bag of jerky, which made Dean so happy it was almost pathetic. Now it's night, and they're driving through an eerie, otherworldly moonscape.
"The way you remember my expressions and tones of voice and everything," Dean continues. "It's pretty amazing." The moonlight shines faintly off his eyes as he stares out the window.
Sam doesn't answer, because answering makes it real. He doesn't answer even when Dean says, "Sammy, this isn't right, man. You gotta snap out of it. I didn't do everything I did for you to end this way."
Sam's phone rings. It's Bobby. He reaches down to turn it off.
"Sammy, please," Dean whispers in the darkness, but Sam doesn't answer him.
Tuesday, or maybe it's Wednesday, the Impala runs out of gas somewhere in the salt flats of Utah. Sam gets out, slams the door, and starts walking...away from the road. Dean keeps pace with him, worried but silent.
By the time darkness falls, Sam's weaving like a drunk and the salt and blood on his lips tastes like tears. He falls hard to his knees, tearing open his palms. He sits still, doesn't feel the warmth of Dean's hand on his shoulder. Salt burns in the open gashes on his hands.
It gets freakin' cold out here at night, and the stars are crystal-bright overhead. Sam scans the sky, thinks, There's Orion. There's the north star. He flashes back to Dean showing him, arm outstretched, guiding Sam's eyes. See that, Sammy? That's the north star. You know where it is, you'll never get lost.
Bullshit, because Sam can see it right now and he's more lost than he's ever been before. Maybe his north star was never in the sky, though. Maybe it was a lot closer and it had to fall for him to see it.
Sam's so damn tired. He lies back, face turned up to the sky. His mouth is so dry he can't swallow and his skin feels baked and scrubbed raw. His eyes are bloodshot and salt-burned but he fixes them on the north star and doesn't blink.
"Would you have done it," he asks finally, "if you had known?"
But Dean doesn't answer, because Dean's burning in hell.
(end)