Title: The Sum of Things
Author: Darkbird36
Category: Tragedy, angst, drama
Rating: M
Summary: Sam is dead, but not gone.
Warnings: DEATH STORY, obviously. Don't expect a happy ending, and don't read this if it'll upset you.
A/N: This will be a multi-part story. Please head the warnings.
"Dying" means ceasing to be the same. Though this thing may pass into that, and that into this, the sum of things remains unchanged.
Ovid (43 BC - 17 AD), Metamorphoses xx
Slumped against a birch tree with his brother's head in his lap, Dean pressed a shaking palm to his side and felt blood ooze between his numb fingers. It was more of a reflex than a real attempt to stem the bleeding, though.
Sammy was dead.
There was no reason to fight, anymore.
He looked down at his brother's blank face, feeling a terrible vacuum inside of him, as though his organs had all been sucked out into deep space. Sam's eyes were open, seemingly fixed on treetops lit by an early morning glow. Dean wanted to close them, sever that empty gaze, but could not suppress the irrational conviction that doing so would kill him.
Hisfree hand rested on Sam's chest, still unconsciously trying to stop the bleeding. But Sam had already stopped bleeding - stopped breathing or moving or blinking -the deep, jagged hole in his ribs growing cold under Dean's palm.
Despite that, Dean was frozen, locking in place by a grief so strong it should have crushed him. He stared at his brother's face, waiting for Sam to come back. Because he could not comprehend a life without his brother – the only way the world made sense was with Sam in it. Otherwise, how could the sun be rising, how could birds be darting through the gentle green rustling of the trees, signing?
How could he still be alive?
No. Sammy couldn't die and leave him here. He was the one who was supposed to sacrifice himself foolishly for his brother. He'd been ready to die for Sam since he was a child, always knowing that he would have to. Not because he was brave, or suicidal, but because he knew out of the two of them, Sam was the one who could have survived the death of his brother. Dean could not.
And yet he had.
He felt as if the universe were tearing in two, with him at the breach. Torn between a blinding denial and the most terrible sense of reality he'd ever experienced.
Hisnerves screamed, but he was numb.
Sam was bathed in the golden glow of dawn, yet was cold.
Sam was dead, and he was alive.
None of these things made sense. So Dean waited, for the universe to make sense, for something to fix this, for him to be a brother again.
Or to bleed to death.
Whichever came first.
But so far Sammy was still staring blankly, and the flow of blood through his fingers had nearly stopped.
Dean's eyes somehow regained the ability to move, and his gaze drifted to rest on Sam's right hand, upturned on the forest floor. His brother's long fingers were curled gently towards the brightening sky, the nails a dusky bluish. Blood had trailed down his arm and pooled in his palm, now beginning to congeal and darken againsthis colorless skin.
"Sam," he blurted, his fingers grasping at the stiffening fabric of his brother's shirt.
"Sammy!"
Dean shook him, and Sam's head lolled sickeningly against his hip. Blood dribbled from his parted lips.
Rage and agony met like colliding trains in Dean's chest, metal twisting and screaming.
"Fuck you, fuck you," he sobbed, "You selfish bastard! It was never supposed to be you!"
Sam was silent and unmoving, but Dean could hear his brother'svoice echoing in his head.
You're my brother, and I'd die for you…
Something inside him broke, and he screamed with an anguish so intense that birds exploded from the treetops and the forest echoed with the loss of their song.
A/N: Next chapter soon, if I can resist the urge to cry while I write. (Boy, I need therapy!)