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mimblexwimbleTitle: It's Lawrence, and it's June
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam
Word Count: 1000
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sam visits Lawrence after Dean's death.
Notes: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
spn_30snapshots. Prompt first thing under the cut.
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
- Easter, 1916
W.B. Yeats
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam
Word Count: 1000
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sam visits Lawrence after Dean's death.
Notes: For
spn_30snapshots. Prompt first thing under the cut.Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
- Easter, 1916
W.B. Yeats
In June, Sam visits Lawrence. It’s sweltering and the air is thick and the sunlight is so bright it hurts. He pretends to take a wrong turn, drives by the cemetery. He doesn’t know who he’s trying to fool. Hey, Mom, Dad – fancy meeting you here. I knew this place looked familiar. Uh-huh.
But it’s easier to pretend than admit that he’s losing control and needs to do something, anything. Killing things, it’s just not working for him the way he thought it would. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t make things easier. It’s all he can think about, it’s all he can do, but with ever monster that he kills, the hole inside him just gets deeper and it feels like he’s slowly digging his own grave. After all, is the world worth fighting for? Is it worth dying for? There may be less evil in the world, but there’s also less good.
Someone’s been taking care of the grave. Sam wonders who (Missouri crosses his mind) and if he’ll run into them. He hopes not, because he has a feeling that a breakdown is on the way, and wouldn’t that be a pleasant meeting? But he looks around and sees no one else in the graveyard and no one on the streets, and realizes, not everyone’s as dumb as him. It’s Lawrence, and it’s June, and if a changeling wanted to commit suicide, this would be the perfect place to burn.
It’s really John that Sam wants to talk to, he realizes as he sits down across from the headstone, grass rustling around him. Which, even in the broadest sense of the word, is downright insane because Sam never really wanted to talk to John when he was alive, did he?
He sits there in silence for the longest time, sweat trickling down his forehead, his back, his stomach. His shirt’s pasted to his body and there isn’t enough air. His skin itches where Dean’s amulet rests, below his collar. He’s searching for words, but he’s lost so many of them in the past month – he never realized that talking required practice. He tries to remember the last time he actually talked to someone – Bobby, about three weeks ago, probably. Ruby’s been AWOL for a while now, and Sam doesn’t really care. He remembers that one phone call of course; the one where he’d been in the library knee-deep in research, and he’d picked up his cell and dialed Dean’s number to ask him a question. He even left a message before reality came and dealt him a sharp left hook. He’d gone back to the motel and managed to suck down six bottles of beer in forty minutes. That doesn’t count as talking though – dead people can’t really answer messages.
"Dean’s dead," Sam blurts out finally and feels suddenly cold as the words leave his mouth. He doesn’t think he’s ever said it out loud before. "Dean’s dead." I’m the mess he left behind.
He thinks the words should come bursting out of his mouth, then, dam broken, because hell, if he can say that then he can say anything. But they don’t. The air shifts, breeze swimming through the heat, choking and dry.
There are things he wants to say, yes. Things like, “No one left to wipe up my mistakes, Dad. No one left to stop me from making them.”
But there’s a difference between wanting to do and doing and there’s something blocking them, the words, and they pack steadily into his throat, until it’s hard to swallow.
Maybe he’d also like to say sorry. Because he knows now, he understands. Better even than he did after Jess, why John was like that. Sam can feel it too now and he’s sorry, he’s sorry he was so hard on him. He’s sorry he didn’t get it. He’s sorry he never bothered saying I love you, not when it would have meant something, more than just a child’s simple happiness. Because he did. He does.
Sam remembers the moments when he’d slip and ask Dad about Mom. When he’d been too young to recognize the pain that marred John’s features at the questions. He’d ask and Dean would always pull him away, ever gentle, or John would remain silent long enough even for Sam’s young mind to understand there would be no answers. It felt like rejection, even then.
Sam doesn’t know his mother, not really. He doesn’t remember a thing about her, not what she smelled like or how her voice sounded. It’s only through pictures that he’d known her face as a child, and then that one meeting, in their old house.
“But I’ve told her goodnight every single night of my life. But I’ve never said it to you, and I still don’t – and you’re the one who was alive,” Sam would like to say. What kind of curse is it, to really only appreciate what you had when you no longer have it? Is it a simple human affliction, or is it something wrong with him?
But there was Dean, and now there isn’t, and if there was anyone…
He remembers why he’s here, again, and what brought him, and the despair comes rushing back.
He wants to say, “Did you ever even think I could do it? This? On my own? It was always ‘Take care of Sammy, Dean,’ and ‘Make sure Sam’s safe, Dean’.”
And maybe, “Why’d you have to put that on him? Why’d you have to do that? It’s your fault he’s gone, Dad, it’s your fault he’s dead, because you made him think his fucking life was all about me. Why did you do that? Why? Why?”
His vision blurs and then clears and there’s wetness on his cheeks that evaporates quickly. It’s too fucking hot.
“Dean’s dead,” he repeats. “Just thought you should know.”
It’s Lawrence, and it’s June and it’s not hotter than Hell. Sam stands up and brushes his hands off on his jeans and walks to the car. He doesn’t look back.
But it’s easier to pretend than admit that he’s losing control and needs to do something, anything. Killing things, it’s just not working for him the way he thought it would. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t make things easier. It’s all he can think about, it’s all he can do, but with ever monster that he kills, the hole inside him just gets deeper and it feels like he’s slowly digging his own grave. After all, is the world worth fighting for? Is it worth dying for? There may be less evil in the world, but there’s also less good.
Someone’s been taking care of the grave. Sam wonders who (Missouri crosses his mind) and if he’ll run into them. He hopes not, because he has a feeling that a breakdown is on the way, and wouldn’t that be a pleasant meeting? But he looks around and sees no one else in the graveyard and no one on the streets, and realizes, not everyone’s as dumb as him. It’s Lawrence, and it’s June, and if a changeling wanted to commit suicide, this would be the perfect place to burn.
It’s really John that Sam wants to talk to, he realizes as he sits down across from the headstone, grass rustling around him. Which, even in the broadest sense of the word, is downright insane because Sam never really wanted to talk to John when he was alive, did he?
He sits there in silence for the longest time, sweat trickling down his forehead, his back, his stomach. His shirt’s pasted to his body and there isn’t enough air. His skin itches where Dean’s amulet rests, below his collar. He’s searching for words, but he’s lost so many of them in the past month – he never realized that talking required practice. He tries to remember the last time he actually talked to someone – Bobby, about three weeks ago, probably. Ruby’s been AWOL for a while now, and Sam doesn’t really care. He remembers that one phone call of course; the one where he’d been in the library knee-deep in research, and he’d picked up his cell and dialed Dean’s number to ask him a question. He even left a message before reality came and dealt him a sharp left hook. He’d gone back to the motel and managed to suck down six bottles of beer in forty minutes. That doesn’t count as talking though – dead people can’t really answer messages.
"Dean’s dead," Sam blurts out finally and feels suddenly cold as the words leave his mouth. He doesn’t think he’s ever said it out loud before. "Dean’s dead." I’m the mess he left behind.
He thinks the words should come bursting out of his mouth, then, dam broken, because hell, if he can say that then he can say anything. But they don’t. The air shifts, breeze swimming through the heat, choking and dry.
There are things he wants to say, yes. Things like, “No one left to wipe up my mistakes, Dad. No one left to stop me from making them.”
But there’s a difference between wanting to do and doing and there’s something blocking them, the words, and they pack steadily into his throat, until it’s hard to swallow.
Maybe he’d also like to say sorry. Because he knows now, he understands. Better even than he did after Jess, why John was like that. Sam can feel it too now and he’s sorry, he’s sorry he was so hard on him. He’s sorry he didn’t get it. He’s sorry he never bothered saying I love you, not when it would have meant something, more than just a child’s simple happiness. Because he did. He does.
Sam remembers the moments when he’d slip and ask Dad about Mom. When he’d been too young to recognize the pain that marred John’s features at the questions. He’d ask and Dean would always pull him away, ever gentle, or John would remain silent long enough even for Sam’s young mind to understand there would be no answers. It felt like rejection, even then.
Sam doesn’t know his mother, not really. He doesn’t remember a thing about her, not what she smelled like or how her voice sounded. It’s only through pictures that he’d known her face as a child, and then that one meeting, in their old house.
“But I’ve told her goodnight every single night of my life. But I’ve never said it to you, and I still don’t – and you’re the one who was alive,” Sam would like to say. What kind of curse is it, to really only appreciate what you had when you no longer have it? Is it a simple human affliction, or is it something wrong with him?
But there was Dean, and now there isn’t, and if there was anyone…
He remembers why he’s here, again, and what brought him, and the despair comes rushing back.
He wants to say, “Did you ever even think I could do it? This? On my own? It was always ‘Take care of Sammy, Dean,’ and ‘Make sure Sam’s safe, Dean’.”
And maybe, “Why’d you have to put that on him? Why’d you have to do that? It’s your fault he’s gone, Dad, it’s your fault he’s dead, because you made him think his fucking life was all about me. Why did you do that? Why? Why?”
His vision blurs and then clears and there’s wetness on his cheeks that evaporates quickly. It’s too fucking hot.
“Dean’s dead,” he repeats. “Just thought you should know.”
It’s Lawrence, and it’s June and it’s not hotter than Hell. Sam stands up and brushes his hands off on his jeans and walks to the car. He doesn’t look back.
