grains of sand [spn][one-shot]
Title: Grains of Sand
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam, Dean
Word Count: 1500
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Everything Sam can’t live without is slipping through his fingers.
Notes: For paxlux. Set during S3 and immediately post-No Rest for the Wicked.
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
- Auguries of Innocence
William Blake
The day after, Dean wants to celebrate. His grin is too-bright, his palm too-warm on Sam’s back.
“You and me, Sammy,” Dean says cheerfully. “Let’s go get wasted. Forget everything.”
There’s a pleading hope in his eyes that’s hard to deny.
There’s a four inch line down Sam’s back that won’t stop throbbing.
For him, this victory rings hollowly of defeat.
-
This is what drowning feels like.
“C’mon, Sam!” Dean calls from the front, and Sam pries his hands off one more book in one more bookstore in one more back alley shop.
Dean appears, eyes peering at him over the books. He’s standing in the next row of shelves. “Done yet?” he asks quietly, like it would be okay if he wasn’t.
Sam stares at the book, its broken spine, cracks in the binding dust-filled. What if the answer’s in there? What if that’s where Sam’s search ends?
What if it’s not?
“Sam?” says Dean. His voice is a mixture of concern and exasperation. He just wants to get the hell out of Dodge. Research, the kind Sam does these days anyway, has begun to get under Dean’s skin. They’ve been here three hours already.
“Yeah,” says Sam. “Let’s go.”
He takes a deep breath as Dean turns around and feels like he’s choking on air.
-
“You’ll be alright,” Dean says, sometimes. “You’ll be fine. You’re stronger than me.”
It never sounds like a lie, and it never sounds like he’s only trying to convince himself or convince Sam.
It sounds like a fact, like something that does not need proving because it’s already been proven.
Just think: somewhere, someone’s laughing.
-
A poster on the library wall reads, “Winners Write History.”
Dean’s whistling a few aisles away from Sam’s book-stacked table. Sam hears someone shushing him. Dean’s whistle trails off, but probably only because he’s decided he’d rather spend his time charming the pants off his shush-er.
Sam turns a page in his book, taps his pen against a stack of papers.
Winners don’t write history. Survivors do.
Whether or not survival is winning is another story entirely.
-
Dean teaches him how to take care of his car.
Slowly. Patiently. Step-by-step.
He’s already leaving.
-
They’re sitting in a diner with fourteen days to go before Dean’s deal comes due. Sam can taste panic in his throat. It’s hard to breathe.
Dean’s scouring the menu, humming under his breath and pursing his lips, eyebrows drawn together as his eyes flick from one meal to another and all Sam can think is Dean is winding down to his last day and his last meal and his last breath. Here it is: the end, and there’s Dean, who looks no different for any of it.
Everything Sam can’t live without is slipping through his fingers. He’s spent six months sleeping in an empty motel room, sinking deeper and deeper inside his own head, cementing himself in the role of “father’s son”, and three months watching Dean die every single day and he’s not in his right mind. He knows that. So he can’t really be blamed, for the way he can hardly keep food down, the way he doesn’t sleep well anymore, the way he sometimes blurts things out without thinking.
Like now.
“I love you,” is what Sam says. It bursts from him like a punch, loud, forceful and completely non sequitur.
Dean looks up. A hint of confusion, of concern. His eyes trace Sam’s face, searching.
“I know,” he says, after a moment. “I know.”
His lips twitch into something of a smile. It’s uncomfortable.
A waitress asks someone in the booth behind them if they’re ready to order, sunny voice and too much life.
Sam’s hands shake under the table.
-
Afterwards.
He cleans the body.
-
Water to wipe away the blood, stitches for the gashes, a change of clothes.
Dean’s socks are still warm when Sam pulls them off.
-
When he’s finished, Dean’s spilled out all over him, all over his clothes, everywhere.
Bobby says, “Why don’t you take a shower, Sam? We can leave after.”
Floorboards creak under Sam’s feet as he goes to the bathroom. He doesn’t know where he is; somewhere in New Hope, still. Somewhere close by. They didn’t drive long.
He stares at the red in the mirror. There’s blankness and then there’s panic, and he’s rushing out of the room, back to where Dean’s body is lying on the couch, perfect, pristine (empty) and his hands are on Dean’s chest (stitches under his fingers), knees crashing to the wood. Bobby drops the cell phone he was speaking into. He’s grabbing Sam’s shoulders, trying to tug him away and Sam’s half-growling, half-screaming.
Bobby steps back, finally, stops tugging but keeps a hand on Sam.
Sam puts his head down on Dean's (still) chest, face towards the couch’s backrest.
A button presses hard against his cheek.
Sam can see a red mark in the rearview mirror, when they leave fifteen minutes later.
He skipped the shower.
-
Four hours in, on the road to South Dakota. Sam can’t take anymore.
Dean’s head is a heavy weight on his thigh that rolls with the movement of the car. His arm keeps falling off the seat, into the foot well. Sam’s vision is blurred at best.
His cell starts ringing when Bobby notices he’s gone off course.
“What’re you doing, Sam?” he asks warily when Sam answers.
“I’m going to bury him,” Sam says. His voice is level, calm.
“Sam-”
“No, Bobby. Fucking no. Shut up, just shut up,” Sam says harshly. “I’m getting him back, okay? I’m getting him back.”
Silence. And then, “Okay, Sam,” and Bobby sounds as empty as the body Sam’s cradling.
“I’ll meet you back at your house,” Sam says. Then he throws his phone out the window. He hears the crunch as a car runs over it. He turns into the exit.
A sign, half a mile back, reads, To Pontiac.
-
Let’s go back:
When Sam’s five, they rent a house for six months. Sam finds a ratty little kitten hiding in one of their bushes.
He carries it inside under his shirt, where Dad looks at it with a critical eye, ruffles Sam’s hair and says, “Let’s see what we can do, kiddo.”
It doesn’t survive three days. It's Sam’s first (only) pet, though, and the first time he’s seen something die (that he can remember).
At dusk, he and Dad and Dean gather in the yard.
An elbow in Sam’s ribs at some point, and Dean’s raised eyebrows. “You should say something,” he intones, wisely. “That’s what you do at a funeral.”
“A eulogy,” says Dad. There’s something in his voice that Sam can’t put a name to.
Dean nods. “Yeah. Everyone deserves a eulogy,” he says.
Sam looks up at his dad, who clears his throat gruffly and says, looking at the mound of freshly overturned dirt, “You were a very good cat. I’m sorry we couldn’t save you.”
Sam has no idea what he said, all these years later, his own words indistinct and unimportant. But he recalls the ache in his jaw from the effort to keep from crying.
Dean’s words are equally lost in memory; but Sam remembers him putting on a very deep voice for them, slinging his arm around Sam’s neck and dragging him forward until his face was smushed against Dean’s puffed-out chest. He remembers trying to get out of the headlock, remembers giving up when Dean’s hold didn’t loosen and just standing there and listening to Dean’s mock-magnanimous voice. He remembers hearing the rumble of Dean’s words deep in Dean’s chest, and how warm his brother was, and Dad’s muffled chuckle.
He remembers how his tears had dried before they’d even begun.
-
Dean’s eulogy is more choked back sobs than words.
The shovel slices through hard dirt, the noise slices through the silence. The sun’s just begun to set. Sam rubs at his face and his hand comes away wet.
When the grave is done, he makes a marker, and when that’s done, he goes to his knees at Dean’s coffin.
He’s overcome by the strongest desire to punch his brother, pummel his body with his fists and if ever he was going to howl, sob, cry, this would be it. But his hands settle on Dean’s cold cheeks, flesh to flesh and he presses until he can feel Dean’s bones, feel everything that is left to Sam of Dean, now, and all he wants to do is push, until he’s in there, beneath the surface. All he wants to do is get inside Dean and shake him and never leave, never ever leave.
Instead he leans down and presses his lips to each cheek and, at the last moment, removes Dean’s amulet from around his neck and pushes it into his own pocket.
Body in coffin, coffin in earth. The lid thunks down loudly. Birds rise from the trees.
Sam fills the grave.
-
grains of sand is all we are,
crawling on a manic star,
one tiny person and one shiny car,
spinning on a manic star.
manic star
conjure one
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam, Dean
Word Count: 1500
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Everything Sam can’t live without is slipping through his fingers.
Notes: For paxlux. Set during S3 and immediately post-No Rest for the Wicked.
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
- Auguries of Innocence
William Blake
The day after, Dean wants to celebrate. His grin is too-bright, his palm too-warm on Sam’s back.
“You and me, Sammy,” Dean says cheerfully. “Let’s go get wasted. Forget everything.”
There’s a pleading hope in his eyes that’s hard to deny.
There’s a four inch line down Sam’s back that won’t stop throbbing.
For him, this victory rings hollowly of defeat.
-
This is what drowning feels like.
“C’mon, Sam!” Dean calls from the front, and Sam pries his hands off one more book in one more bookstore in one more back alley shop.
Dean appears, eyes peering at him over the books. He’s standing in the next row of shelves. “Done yet?” he asks quietly, like it would be okay if he wasn’t.
Sam stares at the book, its broken spine, cracks in the binding dust-filled. What if the answer’s in there? What if that’s where Sam’s search ends?
What if it’s not?
“Sam?” says Dean. His voice is a mixture of concern and exasperation. He just wants to get the hell out of Dodge. Research, the kind Sam does these days anyway, has begun to get under Dean’s skin. They’ve been here three hours already.
“Yeah,” says Sam. “Let’s go.”
He takes a deep breath as Dean turns around and feels like he’s choking on air.
-
“You’ll be alright,” Dean says, sometimes. “You’ll be fine. You’re stronger than me.”
It never sounds like a lie, and it never sounds like he’s only trying to convince himself or convince Sam.
It sounds like a fact, like something that does not need proving because it’s already been proven.
Just think: somewhere, someone’s laughing.
-
A poster on the library wall reads, “Winners Write History.”
Dean’s whistling a few aisles away from Sam’s book-stacked table. Sam hears someone shushing him. Dean’s whistle trails off, but probably only because he’s decided he’d rather spend his time charming the pants off his shush-er.
Sam turns a page in his book, taps his pen against a stack of papers.
Winners don’t write history. Survivors do.
Whether or not survival is winning is another story entirely.
-
Dean teaches him how to take care of his car.
Slowly. Patiently. Step-by-step.
He’s already leaving.
-
They’re sitting in a diner with fourteen days to go before Dean’s deal comes due. Sam can taste panic in his throat. It’s hard to breathe.
Dean’s scouring the menu, humming under his breath and pursing his lips, eyebrows drawn together as his eyes flick from one meal to another and all Sam can think is Dean is winding down to his last day and his last meal and his last breath. Here it is: the end, and there’s Dean, who looks no different for any of it.
Everything Sam can’t live without is slipping through his fingers. He’s spent six months sleeping in an empty motel room, sinking deeper and deeper inside his own head, cementing himself in the role of “father’s son”, and three months watching Dean die every single day and he’s not in his right mind. He knows that. So he can’t really be blamed, for the way he can hardly keep food down, the way he doesn’t sleep well anymore, the way he sometimes blurts things out without thinking.
Like now.
“I love you,” is what Sam says. It bursts from him like a punch, loud, forceful and completely non sequitur.
Dean looks up. A hint of confusion, of concern. His eyes trace Sam’s face, searching.
“I know,” he says, after a moment. “I know.”
His lips twitch into something of a smile. It’s uncomfortable.
A waitress asks someone in the booth behind them if they’re ready to order, sunny voice and too much life.
Sam’s hands shake under the table.
-
Afterwards.
He cleans the body.
-
Water to wipe away the blood, stitches for the gashes, a change of clothes.
Dean’s socks are still warm when Sam pulls them off.
-
When he’s finished, Dean’s spilled out all over him, all over his clothes, everywhere.
Bobby says, “Why don’t you take a shower, Sam? We can leave after.”
Floorboards creak under Sam’s feet as he goes to the bathroom. He doesn’t know where he is; somewhere in New Hope, still. Somewhere close by. They didn’t drive long.
He stares at the red in the mirror. There’s blankness and then there’s panic, and he’s rushing out of the room, back to where Dean’s body is lying on the couch, perfect, pristine (empty) and his hands are on Dean’s chest (stitches under his fingers), knees crashing to the wood. Bobby drops the cell phone he was speaking into. He’s grabbing Sam’s shoulders, trying to tug him away and Sam’s half-growling, half-screaming.
Bobby steps back, finally, stops tugging but keeps a hand on Sam.
Sam puts his head down on Dean's (still) chest, face towards the couch’s backrest.
A button presses hard against his cheek.
Sam can see a red mark in the rearview mirror, when they leave fifteen minutes later.
He skipped the shower.
-
Four hours in, on the road to South Dakota. Sam can’t take anymore.
Dean’s head is a heavy weight on his thigh that rolls with the movement of the car. His arm keeps falling off the seat, into the foot well. Sam’s vision is blurred at best.
His cell starts ringing when Bobby notices he’s gone off course.
“What’re you doing, Sam?” he asks warily when Sam answers.
“I’m going to bury him,” Sam says. His voice is level, calm.
“Sam-”
“No, Bobby. Fucking no. Shut up, just shut up,” Sam says harshly. “I’m getting him back, okay? I’m getting him back.”
Silence. And then, “Okay, Sam,” and Bobby sounds as empty as the body Sam’s cradling.
“I’ll meet you back at your house,” Sam says. Then he throws his phone out the window. He hears the crunch as a car runs over it. He turns into the exit.
A sign, half a mile back, reads, To Pontiac.
-
Let’s go back:
When Sam’s five, they rent a house for six months. Sam finds a ratty little kitten hiding in one of their bushes.
He carries it inside under his shirt, where Dad looks at it with a critical eye, ruffles Sam’s hair and says, “Let’s see what we can do, kiddo.”
It doesn’t survive three days. It's Sam’s first (only) pet, though, and the first time he’s seen something die (that he can remember).
At dusk, he and Dad and Dean gather in the yard.
An elbow in Sam’s ribs at some point, and Dean’s raised eyebrows. “You should say something,” he intones, wisely. “That’s what you do at a funeral.”
“A eulogy,” says Dad. There’s something in his voice that Sam can’t put a name to.
Dean nods. “Yeah. Everyone deserves a eulogy,” he says.
Sam looks up at his dad, who clears his throat gruffly and says, looking at the mound of freshly overturned dirt, “You were a very good cat. I’m sorry we couldn’t save you.”
Sam has no idea what he said, all these years later, his own words indistinct and unimportant. But he recalls the ache in his jaw from the effort to keep from crying.
Dean’s words are equally lost in memory; but Sam remembers him putting on a very deep voice for them, slinging his arm around Sam’s neck and dragging him forward until his face was smushed against Dean’s puffed-out chest. He remembers trying to get out of the headlock, remembers giving up when Dean’s hold didn’t loosen and just standing there and listening to Dean’s mock-magnanimous voice. He remembers hearing the rumble of Dean’s words deep in Dean’s chest, and how warm his brother was, and Dad’s muffled chuckle.
He remembers how his tears had dried before they’d even begun.
-
Dean’s eulogy is more choked back sobs than words.
The shovel slices through hard dirt, the noise slices through the silence. The sun’s just begun to set. Sam rubs at his face and his hand comes away wet.
When the grave is done, he makes a marker, and when that’s done, he goes to his knees at Dean’s coffin.
He’s overcome by the strongest desire to punch his brother, pummel his body with his fists and if ever he was going to howl, sob, cry, this would be it. But his hands settle on Dean’s cold cheeks, flesh to flesh and he presses until he can feel Dean’s bones, feel everything that is left to Sam of Dean, now, and all he wants to do is push, until he’s in there, beneath the surface. All he wants to do is get inside Dean and shake him and never leave, never ever leave.
Instead he leans down and presses his lips to each cheek and, at the last moment, removes Dean’s amulet from around his neck and pushes it into his own pocket.
Body in coffin, coffin in earth. The lid thunks down loudly. Birds rise from the trees.
Sam fills the grave.
-
grains of sand is all we are,
crawling on a manic star,
one tiny person and one shiny car,
spinning on a manic star.
manic star
conjure one