Author's Note: Please, support my frieds' attempt to bring an all-original Supernatural musical to the stage and to youtube! Their campaign page on indiegogo dot com is: projects/supernatural-the-parody-musical/x/13051454#/
Also... OMG, I wasn't actually intending to spend so many of these prompts torturing Dean...
#4 Last
Sam had fallen asleep next to him on the couch, probably from all the eggnog. Feeling suddenly oddly sentimental, Dean had to resist the urge to pet him. He hadn't expected the memories their half-assed improvised Christmas had brought to actually make him feel nostalgic about their childhood – after all, their Christmases had been pretty rubbish. Even so, with his impending descent to Hell almost anything before he had sold his soul looked like sunshine and roses. He found himself longing for those years when all they had to do was stay safe. It had been a very long time since Dean had had keeping himself safe anywhere on his 'to do' list and, frankly, it sounded like pure luxury now. Sure, their childhood was probably more dangerous than that of most kids and Dean was certainly held responsible for a lot of things but there was still a sense of security in having a 'superhero' father who was maybe a little rough sometimes but who knew everything and could come fix your messes.
This was probably what Dad would see this as, he realised – a mess Dean had cooked up. After all, they were only here because he'd failed to protect Sam in the first place. The memory emerged unbidden – Sam's lifeless body, the blood, his own pathetic, panicked pleas… It seemed like he'd spent most of his life trying to compensate for messing up and disappointing Sam and Dad, at least this time the price he was going to pay was big enough that he could maybe stop feeling guilty. Except he still felt guilty because even he could tell Sam was devastated at the idea of losing him. There was a bittersweet sense of relief that came with that but mostly it added to Dean's anxiety when he worried about leaving his brother all alone. Several times in the past month it was almost like he'd seen little Sammy again – his baby brother, still bright-eyed and trusting, the kid who'd once thought the world of Dean. It was so damn ironic because he'd said to himself more than once that he'd give anything to get that back and it seemed like the universe had finally come up with just the thing to ask of him.
And now it was their last Christmas and it was…
It was making him want to cry, rage and lie down and never get up again all at the same time.
Because he should have tried much harder to make all those previous Christmases better so that this wouldn't look like such a sad, last-ditch attempt.
Because he didn't want to have a last Christmas. He didn't want to have a last anything.
Because he could be brave if all he had to do was die – dying only took a certain amount of time and then it was over – but this was an eternity in Hell he was facing and he was terrified out of his mind and he wanted his Dad but his Dad was in Heaven and Dean would never get there.
Because he didn't want to leave a life in which he had Sam, and Sam clearly cared, and maybe even needed him a little.
He reached for his brother again but checked himself and retracted his hand. He was remembering the time when they'd been young enough that he could hug Sam and pretend he was comforting him instead of the other way around but the last thing he needed was for Sam to wake up and think he was being groped by a weird pervy older brother. Besides, if he kept thinking about them as children he'd have a mental breakdown soon and Sam would probably find him in the morning rocking in the corner with his boxers on his head.
He set about drawing reindeer antlers on Sam's forehead with a sharpie instead as the last minutes of their last Christmas trickled quietly away into oblivion.