[SR] Chuck Palahniuk quote
[Set in takea_stepback. Jo is huntersdaughter, Dean is fullonobiwan, and Chuck is capricious_god. Follows THIS.]
“You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice.”
Even if his didn’t have his brother’s not-so-subtle allusions to his height all the time, Sam would still be aware that there was a lot of him. He’d had to stoop, duck, and whatever else to make it through doorways for a long time now, and add to the fact that he’d put on a lot of muscle in the past couple years from getting back actively into hunting again, and yes. Sam was a big guy. That fact wasn’t disputable. Add to the fact that he was also liked to cuddle more often than not and he was a whole lot to deal with.
Jo didn’t seem to mind. In fact, if anything, Jo managed to fit in just perfectly where she was supposed to go, her back pressed against his chest, on arm draped across her side. He slept better with her close, knowing that he wasn’t alone, and he liked the fact that he could hold her and it kept him grounded. Except for when the Devil decided to take the time to screw with his head.
Six months, Sammy.
He didn’t know how he did it. It had started with that time when he was impersonating Jess, just a vision, nothing more than that. He couldn’t find Sam-Castiel had taken that advantage away a long time ago, but apparently that couldn’t stop him from messing with his heads in other ways-invading his dreams, pushing at the walls of his mind. It was always different, sometimes including people he knew, sometimes it wouldn’t. He generally found it safe to assume that these were things Lucifer was currently doing that he wanted to share, hoping that somewhere along the way Sam would break and the playing field would change, but Sam had been having nightmares like that for years, courtesy of Azazel and the demon blood boost Sam got as a child.
What he hadn’t been counting on were the dreams taking a more personal twist. He hadn’t had visions about someone he knew since Jess, and while the visions he was having of Jo were an entirely different beast than just seeing Jess burning on the ceiling. The flashes of Jo changed, a different one every night, each time at his hand in a different way. They also passed through time, through moments of his life that had passed already, starting with the time when he was possessed and moving forward to more recent events. Events where apparently something should have gone wrong and Jo should have died, but she didn’t. She was still there every time he opened his eyes, pressed back against him and there.
It wasn’t until the flashes started to move past Carthrage (hell hounds, Jo lying gutted on the ground, insides hanging out the same way Dean’s did all that time ago) that things started to get a bit more eerie. These weren’t just hypothetical situations of what could have been anymore, these were very real possibilities of the way he could lose her-most of them at his own hand.
“Sam?”
His eyes turned, but the way he was looking through them was different, almost as though he was watching the world through someone else’s eyes. Tunnel vision with this pressure all around him, shoving him down and out of the driver’s seat, but it was different than when he was possessed. This was stronger, and warmer, almost. Like it was supposed to be comforting, but still cold enough to be terrifying.
He watched her face, equal parts worry and confusion, but there was a hint of fear there as well. His body moved without his consent, his hand coming up to brush against the side of her face gently, the exact way he normally would.
“Don’t be afraid.” It was his voice, just the same way it was his hand, touching her, but again, there was no control. Just the idea of being held like a puppet, where someone else was using him to touch her. The big strong body that she didn’t stand a chance of stopping, and now that he wasn’t there, was going to use it to hurt her. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach, and tried to figure his way to the surface to stop him, but he knew that he didn’t stand a chance. Not against that kind of power. His hand landed on her neck, and suddenly he was gripping her tighter, yanking her backwards against him, back to chest, the same way it always was, but this time she was struggling. “It will all be over soon.”
Then there was a snap!, the feel of her body going limp in his arms, and all that he could hear after that was the painful roar of his own laugh.
He jerked awake with a gasp and she was right there, stretched out next to him on the bed. He had been lying on his side next to her on her back, his arm lazily draped across her to keep her close. Him waking up so suddenly startled her a bit, but not enough to wake her completely. Just enough so that she was curling into him more, her head resting against his shoulder. “You okay?”
“Fine,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head lightly. “Go back to sleep.”
And she did. She curled into him, her arms around him, and as her breathing evened back out again, he couldn’t get the words that she had said to him out of his head.
“All of his visions, and his whatever they are, and he told me that when he first saw it, that I didn't stay. I didn't ask when I left, but something changed. Something changed, and I stayed and I don't want you to ever think that whatever changed was a bad thing.”
He didn’t think it was a bad thing. Anything that kept her in his life wasn’t a bad thing, but he knew that whatever was changed, there could have been something big. Something important that they needed to know in order to end this and finally get the chance to move on, but it didn’t happen because she stayed. And maybe, just maybe, if Sam could just ask about those visions and see what Chuck had seen, maybe in those choices would be a step in the right direction.
He didn’t want to change things. Just make them better. Not find the future he was seeing in his sleep. Which was why he found himself at the door to Chuck’s room in the Hyperion, right where he had landed after they had gone to that ridiculous convention about the books. He knew Chuck didn’t like to be bothered and asked about the future, but now Sam thought that this would be a good time.
Better now than later when one of them was dead.
1151 words
“You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice.”
Even if his didn’t have his brother’s not-so-subtle allusions to his height all the time, Sam would still be aware that there was a lot of him. He’d had to stoop, duck, and whatever else to make it through doorways for a long time now, and add to the fact that he’d put on a lot of muscle in the past couple years from getting back actively into hunting again, and yes. Sam was a big guy. That fact wasn’t disputable. Add to the fact that he was also liked to cuddle more often than not and he was a whole lot to deal with.
Jo didn’t seem to mind. In fact, if anything, Jo managed to fit in just perfectly where she was supposed to go, her back pressed against his chest, on arm draped across her side. He slept better with her close, knowing that he wasn’t alone, and he liked the fact that he could hold her and it kept him grounded. Except for when the Devil decided to take the time to screw with his head.
Six months, Sammy.
He didn’t know how he did it. It had started with that time when he was impersonating Jess, just a vision, nothing more than that. He couldn’t find Sam-Castiel had taken that advantage away a long time ago, but apparently that couldn’t stop him from messing with his heads in other ways-invading his dreams, pushing at the walls of his mind. It was always different, sometimes including people he knew, sometimes it wouldn’t. He generally found it safe to assume that these were things Lucifer was currently doing that he wanted to share, hoping that somewhere along the way Sam would break and the playing field would change, but Sam had been having nightmares like that for years, courtesy of Azazel and the demon blood boost Sam got as a child.
What he hadn’t been counting on were the dreams taking a more personal twist. He hadn’t had visions about someone he knew since Jess, and while the visions he was having of Jo were an entirely different beast than just seeing Jess burning on the ceiling. The flashes of Jo changed, a different one every night, each time at his hand in a different way. They also passed through time, through moments of his life that had passed already, starting with the time when he was possessed and moving forward to more recent events. Events where apparently something should have gone wrong and Jo should have died, but she didn’t. She was still there every time he opened his eyes, pressed back against him and there.
It wasn’t until the flashes started to move past Carthrage (hell hounds, Jo lying gutted on the ground, insides hanging out the same way Dean’s did all that time ago) that things started to get a bit more eerie. These weren’t just hypothetical situations of what could have been anymore, these were very real possibilities of the way he could lose her-most of them at his own hand.
“Sam?”
His eyes turned, but the way he was looking through them was different, almost as though he was watching the world through someone else’s eyes. Tunnel vision with this pressure all around him, shoving him down and out of the driver’s seat, but it was different than when he was possessed. This was stronger, and warmer, almost. Like it was supposed to be comforting, but still cold enough to be terrifying.
He watched her face, equal parts worry and confusion, but there was a hint of fear there as well. His body moved without his consent, his hand coming up to brush against the side of her face gently, the exact way he normally would.
“Don’t be afraid.” It was his voice, just the same way it was his hand, touching her, but again, there was no control. Just the idea of being held like a puppet, where someone else was using him to touch her. The big strong body that she didn’t stand a chance of stopping, and now that he wasn’t there, was going to use it to hurt her. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach, and tried to figure his way to the surface to stop him, but he knew that he didn’t stand a chance. Not against that kind of power. His hand landed on her neck, and suddenly he was gripping her tighter, yanking her backwards against him, back to chest, the same way it always was, but this time she was struggling. “It will all be over soon.”
Then there was a snap!, the feel of her body going limp in his arms, and all that he could hear after that was the painful roar of his own laugh.
He jerked awake with a gasp and she was right there, stretched out next to him on the bed. He had been lying on his side next to her on her back, his arm lazily draped across her to keep her close. Him waking up so suddenly startled her a bit, but not enough to wake her completely. Just enough so that she was curling into him more, her head resting against his shoulder. “You okay?”
“Fine,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head lightly. “Go back to sleep.”
And she did. She curled into him, her arms around him, and as her breathing evened back out again, he couldn’t get the words that she had said to him out of his head.
“All of his visions, and his whatever they are, and he told me that when he first saw it, that I didn't stay. I didn't ask when I left, but something changed. Something changed, and I stayed and I don't want you to ever think that whatever changed was a bad thing.”
He didn’t think it was a bad thing. Anything that kept her in his life wasn’t a bad thing, but he knew that whatever was changed, there could have been something big. Something important that they needed to know in order to end this and finally get the chance to move on, but it didn’t happen because she stayed. And maybe, just maybe, if Sam could just ask about those visions and see what Chuck had seen, maybe in those choices would be a step in the right direction.
He didn’t want to change things. Just make them better. Not find the future he was seeing in his sleep. Which was why he found himself at the door to Chuck’s room in the Hyperion, right where he had landed after they had gone to that ridiculous convention about the books. He knew Chuck didn’t like to be bothered and asked about the future, but now Sam thought that this would be a good time.
Better now than later when one of them was dead.
1151 words