SPN fic: Creeping Past Forever (it's a long way down)

[snowdarkred]

Title: Creeping Past Forever (it's a long way down)
Author: snowdarkred 
Word Count:  ~1.5K
Pairings: gen; past Sam/Jess
Rating/Warnings: PG-13. Some darkish themes.
Author's Note: I found this on my computer a little while ago. Apparently, I wrote it? Who knew I could do introspective and circular? (Okay, so that isn't a surprise, but whatever.) I love Sam, and I love Sam thinking thinky thoughts. So of course I'd writing him having them, wouldn't I?

Summery: Dean sleeps by the door, between the outside world and Sam. Between Sam and the outside world.

Creeping Past Forever (it's a long way down)

There are times, in the dark dead of the night, right after the witching hour has passed, that Sam will lie awake and think. His thoughts wander in circles, binding him tighter and tighter, drawing him closer to the inevitable end. It happens every night, one after another, in motel room after motel room, until the pattern is imprinted on his brain; he can never break the cycle, no matter how hard he tries. Each night feels like an ending, another chunk torn away, but he can never seem to figure out which pieces are missing when morning comes and the sun makes its presence known through the dirty windows. He gave up trying to fight it after the first year, and now he just lies there, a prisoner in his own headspace.

 

He sees Jess in his mind's eye, beautiful and laughing, just like she was before. He focuses on a particular memory and lets the rest fade away. They were coming out from the library; she had unearthed him once again from the endless rows of books. She was excited. There was going to be a party that night, a big one with all their friends, jammed together in a too-small apartment on the low-rent end of town, dust crusting in the corners. There would be sweat and loud music and rowdy college boys too drunk to walk straight, and Sam didn't want to go. He wanted to turn around and head back into the library, where it was safe.

 

The familiar, universal scent of books lingered on his skin, and it was as a part of him as the Impala was to Dean: inseparable, unchangeable, a physical representation of his personality. When people thought of Samuel Winchester, they thought of books stacked into reaching pillars, the crisp click of laptop keys, the hushed whispers of a library. They thought of the sound of turning pages and the soft sigh of concentrated breathing.

 

When Sam thinks of Samuel Winchester, he thinks of the heavy grating of Latin on his tongue, the rolling motion of the Impala, the sleeping mumbles that bleed over from across the motel room. He thinks of shadows and secrets, that dull ache that comes with the morning and fades with the hunt, the way the sunlight dances across the Impala's hood. He thinks of sharp blood and too-tight skin, like he's being squeezed from the inside out, like he's too big and empty on the inside, too full of darkness to exist.

 

Jessica Lee Moore thought of small smiles shared across a crowded lecture hall, soft laughter that tingles from head to toe, and firm hands that are always, always gentle. She thought of long mornings and quick lunches, comfort food and slow-baking cookies. She would whisper it in his ears as they came down from orgasm highs, twined together on the bed her brother bought them because they were too poor to afford one on their own.

 

Sometimes, in this time after the witching hour, Sam wonders what Jess would think if she saw what he was now, someone who embodies shadows and gives them life, someone with spots on his soul so dark that monsters turn and run at the sight of him. Someone who did the demon who killed her proud.

 

Dean doesn't run when he sees them, those spots. His face goes white, sometimes, when Sam says or does something not right, when Sam makes the wrong move and lays himself bare on accident. But. But Dean doesn't run from that darkness. He turns and hides, he pretend not to see it, but he doesn't run.

 

He should, Sam thinks, listening to the distant hum of cars on the highway. It's lulls him a bit, makes him sink further into the tightening circle. Roads are the interlocking veins of the continent, the winding web of lines that link all of society together, a tangible display of connection. He feels it sometimes, when he closes his eyes and lets himself drift. He feels that connection like blood pumping beneath his hands.

 

Dean should run. He should leave while he can, before the dark spots get even bigger, before they swallow him whole.

 

But the thought of his brother leaving makes Sam's heart clinch tighter than a demon's grip. It makes breathing difficult and his head spin. He doesn't want to be alone, not again. He doesn't want to stand on his own two feet. He doesn't want to try and realize that he no longer can.

 

He wants Dean to stay, no matter what. No matter what it takes.

 

And that thought just leads him back to staring at the spots on his soul, wondering if Jess ever saw them and what would she say now, if she could speak to him at this very moment, with Dean in the other bed, so far but not. What would she think of this dance they do, of the things that they don't say?

 

Dean sleeps by the door, between the outside world and Sam. Between Sam and the outside world.

 

Sam imagines himself getting up. He imagines himself standing, slipping on his shoes, creeping out through the door. It would be for Dean's own good, he tells himself, but he knows that that is a lie, just like he knows that if he leaves, he will just turn around again before the night is half done. He would lose his nerve, start thinking about shadows and spots and bloodstains that never quite leave and how his brother dealt with him leaving the first time, the second time, the third time, the fourth time, all the other times.

 

Sam is tired of leaving.

 

(Angry shouting, angry words, angry foot steps as he walks away. Angry words growled at him back.)

 

Sam is tired of being left.

 

(Blood on his hands as his brother's life fades away, and Sam is left alone with the rapidly cooling body.)

 

It is much easier to just lie there, as the morning draws closer and that itch itch itch grows steadier, stronger, clearer. It's easier to just give up and lie there, to just go with whatever and hope for the best. He's tired.

 

Too tired to leave, too tired to stay.

 

He wonders what Jess would think of him now. Would she wonder what happened to that smiling boy coming out of the library, the scent of ink and paper clinging to him? Would she wonder what happened to the boy who baked cookies with her, who held her hips steady so that she could get to the highest shelf when he could have just reached up himself? Or would she stay unimpressed, unsurprised.

 

What would Dean see, if he could see into Sam's head? Would he turn away in disgust? Would it drive him away when nothing else has?

 

Sam's thoughts wind tighter, constricting, and his body feels heavy. He's been too long without sleep, it feels. Too long with the shadows. He sleeps a lot during the day, squished up in the Impala, tucked into himself like he's trying to hide. And he is. He's hiding under all these layers, and he doesn't know what he would find if he ever pull them all back. Who would he be, laid bare and open for all to see? Who would he be, if you cracked him open and let all the darkness spill out?

 

What would he look like, if all the world could see him?

 

Tighter and tighter, a hard rope around his neck. A cold hand against his throat.

 

If the angels gripped him tight, if they striped his soul from his body and laid it next to Dean's, whose would have the darker stain? Dean's soul was touched by hellfire and torture and agony, but Sam's was touched by choice. Sam's blood was filled with alcohol and evil, and he didn't even care.

 

He cared, but he didn't care enough to stop it. He didn't care enough to face it.

 

Dean saw him, though, and he didn't run away. He turned away and hid, but he still came for Sam. He still came for Sam.

 

The sky is growing lighter, and Sam gets the urge to move move move. Hit the road and never look back, keep running until it all looks tiny and insignificant in the distance, just dark colored splotches against horizon. Keep running until everything fades away and he's just him and the hard open air, him and the crawling darkness, him and himself, alone. Him and himself, broken.

 

Sam doesn't move as the sun shows through the window. He just lays there, waiting for Dean to get up so that they can go eat breakfast and find another case to work.

 

Tighter and tighter, he thinks. The circle is getting tighter and tighter.

 

Comments

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

Beautifully intense!

I felt Sam's desperation and his resignation.

[snowdarkred.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :D