What I'd Ask
Tag to S5x21 "Two Minutes to Midnight"
Author's Note: Sam's poem in this story is a parody of "All I Ask" by Adele, the song that inspired this part. I recommend listening to that song when you read this part.
After that last conversation, Dean was shaken to the core. There were many things from over the years that Dean didn't know.
The months and weeks passed. Chaos had ensued. They got Cas back. They had to go about the business of saving Mom and Jack from Apocalypse world now.
Sam was in the library, studying until his brain was mush. Cas was watching Netflix. Dean was left to his own devices and his own wonderings. And he was wondering painfully tonight. About the things that he'd learned from Jack's dream. About what other things Sam had kept to himself over the years, considering their last descent into the world of the Apocalypse.
Into Dean's mind flashed an image, unlooked for, of the final days before Sam's sacrifice. Sam, smiling at him, apologetic and placid as he'd used to be. Dean had been too angry about the betrayal and terror of those days to look back for long. But he could see this, clear as day. The day that Crowley had given Bobby back the use of his legs.
Remember when this job was just hunting Wendigos?
Sam was asking Dean to remember when they were brothers in that twilight hour of the world. And truly, the Apocalypse had not been all his fault. How could it? He'd only played the cards he'd been dealt, a bad hand though it had been.
Dean shouldn't have done it. He'd regret it forever, but he could not help himself. He started digging through Sam's things knowing Sam would not emerge from the library for many hours yet. Discreetly, he put everything back the way he'd found it.
Until he found the small leather bound journal that Sam had kept ever since he'd been alone during Dean's time in Hell. He'd used to retain sanity in those dark days, that much Dean knew. He also knew there were notes about his own odyssey in the deep. It stopped sometime around the Trials. Sam hadn't taken up journaling since.
Dean opened the book and leafed through the first several pages. He didn't have the heart to read about while he was gone just yet. He wanted to know what was going on in those days when they were alienated from each other. What had Sam thought during the eleventh hour? What was in Sammy's head right before he stepped off into an Eternity with Lucifer in Hell?
Dean would never be prepared for what he found. A page with the date from the day that he'd just remembered. Written next to that date was "Two Minutes to Midnight". Then below it was:
"If I take on the Devil, it's for him. Everything, always, even when it was wrong was for him. He never could see that.-S.W.".
And under that, set up in meters, a poem or the parody of a song, Dean wasn't certain what. He would have laughed at the thought of geek boy Sam writing poems and such until he realized the doom that was scrawled out here.
What I'd Ask:
I will leave my soul on Hell's floor,
No more words, it's all been shouted out before,
And now I'll just play pretend,
Like I'm not scared of what comes next,
Or scared of his just being left-
Don't get me wrong, I know
There is no tomorrow,
But if there was, What I'd ask…
If this is my last night with him,
Wish he'd see me as more than a means to an end,
That he'd give me a memory I could use,
It matters how it all ends,
Cause I will never love again-
And all I have's his honesty,
It's in his eyes, and I can see,
My guilty eyes won't speak for me,
No one knows you like I do,
And since you were the only one who mattered,
Tell me what am I supposed to do?
But don't get me wrong, I know
There is no tomorrow,
Still, if I could ask….
If this is my last night on earth,
See me as more than a means to an end,
I need a memory I can use,
Take my shoulders in hand, so we'd do what brother's do,
It matters how it all ends,
I know I'll never love again-
A painful lesson for me in love,
This is the way that I remember us,
Just this once don't be cruel or vicious,
I can't ask you for forgiveness,
If I could ask-
Cause this, this is my last night on earth,
Couldn't I be something like your friend?
I need a memory I can use,
I wish we could do what brothers do,
To me, it matters how this ends,
Cause I will never rise again…
Those words hit Dean like a torpedo going off in his guts. He was expecting tears. Anger with Dean. Horror. It never registered to Dean that Sam would be so resigned in the end. That he would bottle all of this up. That he would dedicate his final act for Dean. It wasn't so much about penance for him as it was about making things right with and for his brother.
But he'd not had the heart to ask. He thought he didn't deserve it. That his dying, his burning in Hell would be the only way to earn it. Of all the things he could have wished for as a dying wish (Dean knew how that worked, and he'd had plenty) this was the cruelest one. He wanted his brother. Wanted his brother to be his brother again. He thought he didn't love him anymore. That he'd only seen him as a means to cleaning up the mess.
Sam had gone away to fight Lucifer with the mindset, perfectly founded at the time, that he would be there in the deep for Eternity. Which meant that he'd been prepared to stay there until the planets burned away, and Dean was long placed in some Utopia version of heaven that was decidedly lacking in Sam's half. Sam wasn't just dying. Young men on the battlefield for centuries had been able to resign themselves to the hope of a glorious afterlife. Even Dean had a bit of a shield when he'd died because Hell was more of a mystery. Sam knew who he'd be with forever, and what the guy would have a mind to do to him for it.
And his last thought had just been wishing for a happy ending between him and his brother, his reason.
Dean laid the journal on the bed. He took three steps and passed out in the hallway.
Cas found him lying there. He read his mind and was mortified. Then, he carried him to his bedroom. He decided not to tell Sam about it. It was better if Sam and Dean worked these things out on their own.
Cas didn't remember a single time in his life that he had to hole up somewhere and cry for several hours. But that night, knowing what Sam and Dean had sacrificed to save the world last time...Cas cried.
Sam went to bed wondering why everything was quiet. He saw the journal on his bed and had the sick passing thought that Dean had seen his soul naked. Shaking his head, more pressing matters shooting paper airplanes around his mind, he set the journal on the table and went to sleep. In his dreams, the Devil tortured him like he'd done for eons. No one would ever know about it.