[SPN]: Games.
So, I wrote a little fic set just after 4.14 called Games. It was rubbish, so I re-wrote it. It isn't that much better in my opinion, and I think I'm going to go back and do another re-edit on it, and fix it up a little more cause I'm not happy with it, but I'm happy enough with it that I'm sending it out. And besides, I'm tired.
Title: Games.
Rating: PG-13. There's a bit of language. Additionally, it's Gen. There's no romance whatsoever.
Characters: Sam (centric), with mentions of Dean, Ruby, the angels and the demons.
A/N: Set not long after season 4 begins, with slight spoiler for 4.16. Feedback is liked, but since I'm doing another edit on it sometime soon, I don't know how useful it will be. But I am sensitive, so harsh critiques I can take as long as they're given as nicely as possible.
A/N2: Was written with several theories in mind about Ruby's position and Sam's frame of mind. Starts on the right side of the page. Slightly post-modern in form.
***
White moves first.
When Sam hits ninth grade, he joins the school chess club. Well, one school’s chess club. He doesn’t tell Dad and he doesn’t tell Dean, and he doesn’t need to, because the club congregates during lunchtime, which means there isn’t a need to stay after school or come in early or waste any other time that could be spent on training. That, and Dean would tease him endlessly until he told Dad, who’d pack them up and move them on for drawing too much attention.
Pawn, E4.
And anyway, it turns out Sam’s pretty good at chess. He supposes that it might have something to do with his upbringing. Dad’s always been good at strategies, Dean’s a quick improviser and Sam’s great with patterns. It’s why, he reasons, he’s on research most of the time. So it’s this that helps him win his first ever chess game, and then every other chess game after that- except that one against the math teacher, but Sam was distracted because Dean walked past the door halfway through the game and he was terrified he’d get caught.
Pawn, E5.
So when Dean dies, Ruby arrives, and the first thing he recognises is the patterns and he gets the fact, through the hazy thickness of a bottle of Jack, that the whistle’s blown and he’s just been called on to the field of the biggest game of his life. And contrary to popular belief right now with all the Ruby association, Sam’s not stupid.
Queen, H5.
He knows the angels are playing games with them. The way they separate him from Dean, talk to him alone, telling him god-knows-what and they’re not even sure if God does know what and they roll the dice each and every time. Sam gets snake eyes under Dean’s double sixes, watching as Dean gets closer and closer to the mousetrap the angels have got running, an earthly pawn in the celestial tirade against hell. Sam thinks Dean, for all his weakness and he didn’t mean it that way should be a knight. He should be looked after and treated with respect because he can do things the other pieces can’t. Dean spent his life looking after Sam. He’s sacrificed everything again and again and now he’s being sacrificed for the sake of war.
Knight, C6.
Ruby, he thinks, is the black queen. He knows on some level that physically it’s more Lilith, who rules and captures and breaks until her side wins, and her king is victorious from the back of the board, the depths of darkness. But Ruby is clever, and she fights Lilith’s king for the sake of her own but Azazel is dead now, Dean killed him, and she entices Sam with empty promises. She’s careful and clever, darting around quickly, playing with end strategy in mind and taking out all the little pieces of Sam’s life one by fucking one. Ruby is ruthless and Sam has no doubt that she views Sam as her pawn, and perhaps to some extent he is- but he is without a doubt the Joker of the pack and so he allows himself to be cast aside or used in the place of another card, representative of everything and nothing all at once.
Bishop, C4.
Sam doesn’t play by the rules. He plays as both sides, as pawn and knight and bishop and rook. He moves along straight lines, and curves and evades as he determines. He is both attack and defence and he knows he is beginning to lose himself in the process. He often wonders what he’s attacking- Lucifer certainly, and Lilith, but also heaven and himself and Dean, something he, at seven years old whispering Amen through grubby knees and clasped sweaty palms on a thick, scratchy carpet floor of a back lot motel fives miles south of bumfuck, never thought he’d ever do. He hates himself for it.
Knight, F6.
He often wonders what he’s defending. He stopped praying long ago, and the white king of this game is not God. It can not possibly be God, the almighty abandoner. He thinks sometimes that it's Dean, who he'll protect as best he can, because no-one else is. He’ll do anything for Dean. He’ll die for him if necessary. Dean deserves the world after feeding him and raising him and singing him to sleep with rock ballads and sometimes just rock, saving him and fixing him and dying for him and coming back to him. Sam, demon blood aside, is Dean’s brother,
and he isn’t stupid.
Sam won’t survive this. At first, it seemed the best thing, take out Lilith and go right with her. It seemed the only thing at the time, to go in head first with only a straight against her royal flush. Lilith took Dean and he wasn’t coming back. So Sam had nothing left. But then he showed up on the doorstep of an Illinois motel, accusing Sam of doing something stupid and it was ironic, because killing himself could be labelled as stupid, but he hadn’t even done it yet and now? Now Dean’s back.
Queen, F7.
Alive, exhausted and emotionally tortured, Dean’s back on earth and Sam will do anything to keep him there. Even if it means being without Sam. He’s already got enough money in the bank to overthrow the monopoly board, and Dean won’t be bothered by Sam or his issues ever again.
Checkmate.
So Sam rolls the dice again, re-shuffles the deck and moves another little pawn into the line of fire. He waits for the angels to make their play, for Lilith and her army to take his bait and Ruby to counter his move.
He’s locked, loaded and gripping tightly to the joystick.
Let the games begin.
Title: Games.
Rating: PG-13. There's a bit of language. Additionally, it's Gen. There's no romance whatsoever.
Characters: Sam (centric), with mentions of Dean, Ruby, the angels and the demons.
A/N: Set not long after season 4 begins, with slight spoiler for 4.16. Feedback is liked, but since I'm doing another edit on it sometime soon, I don't know how useful it will be. But I am sensitive, so harsh critiques I can take as long as they're given as nicely as possible.
A/N2: Was written with several theories in mind about Ruby's position and Sam's frame of mind. Starts on the right side of the page. Slightly post-modern in form.
***
White moves first.
When Sam hits ninth grade, he joins the school chess club. Well, one school’s chess club. He doesn’t tell Dad and he doesn’t tell Dean, and he doesn’t need to, because the club congregates during lunchtime, which means there isn’t a need to stay after school or come in early or waste any other time that could be spent on training. That, and Dean would tease him endlessly until he told Dad, who’d pack them up and move them on for drawing too much attention.
Pawn, E4.
And anyway, it turns out Sam’s pretty good at chess. He supposes that it might have something to do with his upbringing. Dad’s always been good at strategies, Dean’s a quick improviser and Sam’s great with patterns. It’s why, he reasons, he’s on research most of the time. So it’s this that helps him win his first ever chess game, and then every other chess game after that- except that one against the math teacher, but Sam was distracted because Dean walked past the door halfway through the game and he was terrified he’d get caught.
Pawn, E5.
So when Dean dies, Ruby arrives, and the first thing he recognises is the patterns and he gets the fact, through the hazy thickness of a bottle of Jack, that the whistle’s blown and he’s just been called on to the field of the biggest game of his life. And contrary to popular belief right now with all the Ruby association, Sam’s not stupid.
Queen, H5.
He knows the angels are playing games with them. The way they separate him from Dean, talk to him alone, telling him god-knows-what and they’re not even sure if God does know what and they roll the dice each and every time. Sam gets snake eyes under Dean’s double sixes, watching as Dean gets closer and closer to the mousetrap the angels have got running, an earthly pawn in the celestial tirade against hell. Sam thinks Dean, for all his weakness and he didn’t mean it that way should be a knight. He should be looked after and treated with respect because he can do things the other pieces can’t. Dean spent his life looking after Sam. He’s sacrificed everything again and again and now he’s being sacrificed for the sake of war.
Knight, C6.
Ruby, he thinks, is the black queen. He knows on some level that physically it’s more Lilith, who rules and captures and breaks until her side wins, and her king is victorious from the back of the board, the depths of darkness. But Ruby is clever, and she fights Lilith’s king for the sake of her own but Azazel is dead now, Dean killed him, and she entices Sam with empty promises. She’s careful and clever, darting around quickly, playing with end strategy in mind and taking out all the little pieces of Sam’s life one by fucking one. Ruby is ruthless and Sam has no doubt that she views Sam as her pawn, and perhaps to some extent he is- but he is without a doubt the Joker of the pack and so he allows himself to be cast aside or used in the place of another card, representative of everything and nothing all at once.
Bishop, C4.
Sam doesn’t play by the rules. He plays as both sides, as pawn and knight and bishop and rook. He moves along straight lines, and curves and evades as he determines. He is both attack and defence and he knows he is beginning to lose himself in the process. He often wonders what he’s attacking- Lucifer certainly, and Lilith, but also heaven and himself and Dean, something he, at seven years old whispering Amen through grubby knees and clasped sweaty palms on a thick, scratchy carpet floor of a back lot motel fives miles south of bumfuck, never thought he’d ever do. He hates himself for it.
Knight, F6.
He often wonders what he’s defending. He stopped praying long ago, and the white king of this game is not God. It can not possibly be God, the almighty abandoner. He thinks sometimes that it's Dean, who he'll protect as best he can, because no-one else is. He’ll do anything for Dean. He’ll die for him if necessary. Dean deserves the world after feeding him and raising him and singing him to sleep with rock ballads and sometimes just rock, saving him and fixing him and dying for him and coming back to him. Sam, demon blood aside, is Dean’s brother,
and he isn’t stupid.
Sam won’t survive this. At first, it seemed the best thing, take out Lilith and go right with her. It seemed the only thing at the time, to go in head first with only a straight against her royal flush. Lilith took Dean and he wasn’t coming back. So Sam had nothing left. But then he showed up on the doorstep of an Illinois motel, accusing Sam of doing something stupid and it was ironic, because killing himself could be labelled as stupid, but he hadn’t even done it yet and now? Now Dean’s back.
Queen, F7.
Alive, exhausted and emotionally tortured, Dean’s back on earth and Sam will do anything to keep him there. Even if it means being without Sam. He’s already got enough money in the bank to overthrow the monopoly board, and Dean won’t be bothered by Sam or his issues ever again.
Checkmate.
So Sam rolls the dice again, re-shuffles the deck and moves another little pawn into the line of fire. He waits for the angels to make their play, for Lilith and her army to take his bait and Ruby to counter his move.
He’s locked, loaded and gripping tightly to the joystick.
Let the games begin.