One Breath

[vail_kagami]

Title:  One Breath
Author: vail_kagami
Genre: gen
Characters: Sam, Dean, a reaper
Rating: G
Word count: 2122
Warnings: death, outside pov
Spoilers: Doesn't coincide with canon but spoilers up to 6.11 to be safe.
Summary: Three people are standing by as Sam dies. One of them is himself.
Note: Witten for this prompt bythelocation at the h/c prompt challenge.


There is a room that is full of silence, despite the noises that fill it. There is a window that would reveal that night has fallen if anyone would give it that much attention. There is a cell phone lying heavy in a pocket; a call waiting to be made.

There is a woman standing in the doorway. She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t look at the man who is dying in a hospital bed because he was fast enough to avoid the werewolf’s claws but not fast enough to avoid the car slamming into him. She doesn’t look at the monitors that speak of a life about to end.

She doesn’t look at the man sitting by the bed, slumped and pale. He doesn’t touch the other’s hand, but his hollow eyes never leave him. He’s counting the breaths because there’s nothing else he can do. The woman knows and doesn’t look at him.

She looks at the other man, the one standing beside the man on the bed, his eyes never leaving the man in the chair; the one no one but her can see, the only one who can see her.

Their eyes meet, briefly, and in his she can see pain and desperation. In hers he can see patience and understanding. She doesn’t move, not yet.

The heart monitor beeps.

I can’t leave him, he says. Not like this.

You have to, she answers, and he knows it, of course he knows. Even if you stay, you can’t go back. Her voice is soft and the heart of the dying man beats a little slower. Your time is over.

But his time has been over before. His time has been over for a long, long time. When she looks at him she can see centuries of torture and agony following him like a shadow, and even if he could get back into the body that was taken from him so long ago, his Hell would get in there with him and there would be nothing for his brother to cling to but pieces that would tear yet another soul to shreds.

But that will not happen. The body is almost gone, and without it, there will be nothing holding the wandering soul in this world. The woman in the doorway knows that the soul is ready to leave - would be ready to leave if not for the man sitting beside the bed, the one who never got his brother back and never will.

She knows the loss is felt not only by the living one. The soul of this boy finally found him after so many years, and only to find himself unable to reach him.

Not like this, the boy repeats. I have to tell him. Please, he has to know.

It’s keeping him here, and it’ll continue to keep him here forever even though every fibre of him wants to leave. Leave this room, this empty shell on the bed, the echo of Hell that follows him wherever he goes. He wants to leave everything but his brother, and that love for his brother is stronger than everything else.

What does he have to know? She asks softly, gently, because she cares. It is not her task to judge, but she knows this one and doesn’t want him to become a restless spirit, unable to move on and cursed to return to Hell if ever banished. And he knows what will happen to him if he doesn’t go, better than most, but he would accept it for the hope of reaching his brother one day, just for a moment, just once. Why do you have to tell him?

He looks helpless, like he doesn’t really know. But he does - He has to know that I’m not down there anymore, he says. That without him I couldn’t have done it. He has to know that he can let go. His eyes are large and bright and he looks like he wants to cry but he doesn’t. I have to talk to him one more time. It’s been so long.

She smiles at him, a little sad because she can’t help him. He knows that you love him.

No, he doesn’t. Not now. That… He looks at the man on the bed, his own body, almost gone. That can’t be the last he sees of me. It won’t let him rest.

And it won’t let him rest as well. She understands that the soul she’s come to reap needs this one last moment not only for his brother’s sake but for his own as well. He can’t move on as long as there is any fear in him that his brother resents him now, will be happy to be rid of him, sees him in the soulless shell that can’t love him.

The woman finally looks at the man in the chair, really looks at him for the fist time. There is nothing happy or relieved about him. There is only desperation there, grief and regret over the knowledge that any hope of getting his little brother back is slipping away right before his eyes. She only sees a man on the verge of losing everything, once again.

This time for good.

The soul knows this as well, yet he doesn’t. He and his brother know each other perfectly, yet they don’t. She sees the love that binds them together and knows it causes them to tear each other apart, even now.

They deserve better than that, but there is no time for them to make it all right. Even if the soul could return, it would be only for a moment; too brief to knit a lifetime of hurting each other for all the wrong reasons.

There is irony in the fact that it was the body’s impending death that enabled the soul to pull free of Hell and find its way here. The boy has hoped and struggled for so long only to find that in the end he can’t even say goodbye.

It isn’t fair, but death rarely is. She heard them all, every variation of the rant about the cruel randomness of fate, and while she cares, she doesn’t care enough to interfere. She doesn’t care too much. She knows the rules and what happens if they are broken, and therefore she is never tempted to make this one exception, to spare this one life.

She isn’t tempted now, yet the fact that the boy never asks touches her more than she is able to ignore. He knows the rules as well, knows she cannot break them, knows what will happen to him if he stays when it is time to go. It makes his desperation to do this one last thing, have this one last moment all the more heartbreaking - knowing he is losing his last chance of connecting to his brother, right now, when really there has never been any chance at all.

The heart monitor skips a beat. The man on the chair shifts, his eyes filling with tears. Sammy, he says. Not yet. Not like this. But he still doesn’t take his brother’s hand even as his brother’s hand passes through him in a desperate attempt to reach across the distance that keeps them apart.

After centuries at the mercy of two hateful archangels, this is all he wishes for. It seems cruel to deny him this little wish, so insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but cruel is what she is used to being called and there is nothing she could do even if she wanted to. If she left now, without doing what she came for, nothing would change, except that they would all be stuck here, neither of them able to let go and move on.

Sam, she says softly as the heart skips another beat, and another. It’s time to go.

He doesn’t answer, doesn’t acknowledge her at all. His eyes are on his brother and his brother is all he sees. His hands, however, are on the frame of the bed, squeezing so hard his knuckles turn white even though they are nothing more than the memory of flesh.

And the metal frame cracks under his grip. It’s only the slightest of fractions, too small to come to the attention of the living one who doesn’t hear anything but the sound of his brother leaving him behind, but it happens, and she flinches at the sound.

It’s the angry spirits that do this. That break things, hurl around things and screams and people. The angry ones are always stronger, as it is their anger that fuels their powers and only grows in the process, until anger is all that remains and they forget why they became so angry in the first place. Not all spirits stay out of anger. Sometimes it’s love, or worry binding them, but those souls rarely gain the strength to be noticed in the world of the living. Often, as time goes by, even those spirits get angry in the face of their powerlessness and gain power while they lose what they stayed for. The woman finds it sad. She does her best to prevent it from happening as much as she can, because it is in her nature and because all those souls are lost. She can’t force them to leave, though. In the end, the choice is theirs, and she has learned to accept that she cannot help everyone.

So if this is the way he has chosen for himself there is nothing she can or will do about it. She will offer one more time, and if he doesn’t come with her she will leave, and take care of the next soul ready to leave this world behind.

Only there is no anger when she looks at him. Desperation, yes, and fear, but not for himself, and while she knows that in the end it will make no difference, she would hate to have this boy damn himself for love, again.

Sam, she says again, and at the same time the man by the bed says Sammy, and Please, and she knows her voice will not be heard.

Neither is the boy’s when he says his brother’s name with such longing her heart would have broken were she human and had one. The sound is lost to the dead air around them, but he keeps reaching for the only thing that can connect him to his brother again, the only thing he knows how to handle even if he can’t touch it.

But he has been able to break the bed frame instead of passing through it and maybe she shouldn’t be surprised when the soul before her disappears and the man on the bed opens his eyes.

They have only a moment. The body doesn’t want the soul and the soul carries too much for the body to handle. The second the boy forces himself back into the shell he lost too long ago, the failing heart gives up, but the man by the bed doesn’t seem to hear the endless sound coming from the heart monitor.

She finds herself walking closer, drawn towards the scene by more than her nature, but she walks slowly, one step at a time, keeps her eyes on the boy on the bed as he struggles to draw in one more breath, struggles to find his voice somewhere in a useless throat, struggles to form words. But he’s dying; he’s dying and his body doesn’t have strength for even that much.

The older man watches, not moving, not blinking. He doesn’t even breathe, as if the slightest movement would destroy the moment, and the woman feels, irrationally, that it might - it is that fragile.

It is only will and determination that make the bluish lips move, forces the air out of the throat in a gasp that turns into a word. A single word just - it’s all her boy can manage when there is so much he wants to say. So many words that need to be heard.

Dean, he breathes, weakly, almost below the human range of hearing, and it’s enough.

The woman is almost beside him when the older man takes both limp hands in his and holds on to them as if they were all that kept him alive. Sammy? he whispers. Sammy?

A tear is running down his face, followed by another, while his brother, who cannot make another sound, answers with the ghost of a smile, the only thing he can offer. He never closes his eyes.

Not even when she offers her hand and he takes it, letting go of everything else.

January 1, 2011