for the Sam Winchester Prompt-a-Thon on ao3 - 'You tricked me, Dean. And now I'm the one who wakes up in the middle of the night seeing my hands killing Kevin, not you.'
title from i'll be good by jaymes young
Sam can't look at Dean. Dean thinks he's being petty, Cas too, probably. He can feel Kevin's disapproving frown following him around even though his ghost left the Bunker weeks ago. Not that that matters; Sam sees Kevin all the time now. Mostly at night when the dreams come to him, when he's trapped in his own mind as hands that both are and aren't his own reach out, out, out -
And then he wakes up, arms outstretched, Kevin's dying face burned onto his retinas. He's not had a full night's sleep in weeks - not since Gadreel left his body, in fact, which is a whole new level of irony. He wouldn't trade it, though. He doesn't want anything that's not him inside his body ever again.
Was it worth it, Dean? Sam wonders sometimes. Is this what you wanted?
He never bothers asking, though, because he already knows the answer. Dean would think anything would be worth the cost just so that he could have Sam by his side, breathing, alive. He proved that a long time ago - years and years ago, when Sam died in the ruins of a ghost town and Dean traded his soul away just for another year of what he considered to be happiness. He never thinks about what Sam wants. Back then, it was the safety of his family. Now, he just wants peace.
Sometimes, Sam thinks of the cabin in the woods in his mind where Death awaited him. God, he wishes he could go back. Kevin would be alive, if he'd just gone with Death - Dean hadn't known about that part, had he? The promise that no-one else would die because of Sam. Would he have made the same choice, if he'd knows?
Probably. Still.
And maybe Sam isn't entirely blameless in this; he'd still had a choice. He could have said no. But he never imagined that it was a trick, that Dean was going to do the one thing Sam had sworn would never happen again.
So now Kevin is dead, and Sam has to relive it every single night, even though he barely remembers it. It lingers at the edge of his memory, like all this missing time does, a blank that he's desperately trying to fill, but all he can create is a patchwork of sounds and images and feelings.
He remembers - "Hey Sam."
He remembers - Kevin screams, his eyes flaring and burning out of their sockets.
He remembers - "There ain't no me if there ain't no you."
He feels sick.
After too many nights seeing Kevin die over and over, Sam decides to just stop sleeping. It's not a great solution, he knows this, but he can't stomach it anymore and nothing seems to stop the dreams from coming. Not even that time he decided to try and drink himself into oblivion; if anything, that had made it worse, stripping away Sam's control over himself until it was like Gadreel was back inside him.
Anyway, Sam's had plenty of practice avoiding sleep. Enough that he knows his limits, knows when he absolutely has to get some shut eye, however brief. He supposes he ought to thank Lucifer for that.
He has a least a week until then, though. A week with the spectre of Kevin only lingering at the corners of his vision instead of assaulting him in his sleep. And he can ignore that for now.
He's had a lot of practice with that, too.
i haven't been active in this fandom for a while, so apologies if i got anything wrong. i've kind of drifted away from the show for various reasons, but i still love sam and i had to do something for his birthday (shhh i know that was may 2nd but the challenge lasts the whole month it's fine). hope you all enjoyed!