Gretel (no_breadcrumbs) wrote in incompletedata, @ 2017-12-30 11:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | hansel & gretel: gretel, supernatural: sam winchester |
Who: Sam and Gretel
What: Sam's discovered his brother is gone, Gretel tries to help.
When: Backdated to when Dean disappeared
Where: Gretel's room
Rating: Feels
Status: Partial log, completed in comments
Dean was gone. Sam knew it, and had done from the moment he hadn't gotten an answer at his brothers door. There had been a hollow sound when he knocked, not just the kind of knock that went unanswered because Dean was out, the kind that rang out against an emptiness within. He'd done the obligatory search of Dean's usual haunts, asked around the institute but deep down he hadn't expected to find anything. Dean was gone and Sam knew it.
He probably shouldn't have opted to go for a drink, but at least Jo had gone with him which kept him in check a little. He probably should have left with her though instead of staying on alone and continuing to drink his pain away. The slide into a bottle had always been an easy one for the Winchester men and Sam was no different to his father or his brother in that respect. The burn of scotch was a familiar crutch for all the great traumas of his life, why should this be any different?
He didn't know how long he stayed, or how much he drank. All he knew was the grief of losing his brother again - somehow amplified this time more than any other. The overwhelming loneliness of being without Dean was practically instinct to him, having felt it so many times before, and it took a lot of willpower to remind himself that he wasn't alone here. That thought carried him out of the bar without really consciously deciding to leave, through the park and the compound and straight to Gretel's door in Delta.
He cast a forlorn sort of look at the door of the room next to hers, Dean’s door - or what had been Dean's door at any rate - before knocking a little harder than he meant to on hers. One shoulder rested against the door jamb, effectively holding him up. “Dean’s gone.” He all but blurted out when she answered the knock at the door.
Gretel knew two things for sure the instant she laid eyes on him, even before he managed to get those two words out: for one, he was drunk. Very drunk- she could smell the whiskey on him even before she opened the door. The second was something had driven him to that state, and had she guessed, it would’ve had something to do with his brother.
Turned out she was right on.
“Oh, Sam…” she breathed, feeling a band tighten around her chest as she helped him inside and closed the door behind them. With some effort to make sure he didn’t stumble and take them both down to the floor, she eased him to a sit onto her bed. She kept herself close, stooped between his knees so she could kiss his brow, and wrap her arms around his shoulders, hugging him close.
“I’m so sorry.”
Sam allowed himself to be guided by her, honestly he couldn't have fought it even if he'd wanted to. “S’fine.” He muttered as she sat him down. “M’fine, not like he was my Dean anyway. I mean he was Dean before he hated me and thought I was some kind of monster so there was that but I….it's probably better that he's there and not here.” Sam rambled for a while, not really looking at her. “Even if it means he's going back to hate me.”
Sam pulled the hip flask from his pocket, having managed to talk one of the bartenders into filling it for him earlier, before he'd gotten too far gone. He unscrewed the cap and took a long pull of the smoky liquor within.
Gretel sighed quietly, letting him take another drink, but afterward gently tried to take the flask and set it aside. She of all people knew how therapeutic getting dead drunk could be- she’d be a hypocrite if she didn’t allow Sam the same escape- but he was already shitfaced, and probably could do to slow down for a little while.
“If I know Dean, he’s completely incapable of hating you, even when he acts like it-” she murmured gently, running her hand through his hair. “He’s alright, wherever he is… We’ve got no reason to think otherwise.”
Sam threw her a look with those famed puppy dog eyes when she spoke about Dean, he wanted to believe her and had he not been so blind drunk he would have known she was right but in this moment he could relive the way his brother had looked at him in the weeks before he set Lucifer free. He could still feel the damage in their relationship even though it was all but healed in his own time. He just couldn't get passed the fact that that's what Dean was going back to, leaving him here.
He relinquished the flask, though there was a moment where he considered not letting it go so easily. “I know.” He practically sighed out the words. “I just….I don't know how many more times I can keep losing people.”
Those words in particular struck Gretel like a hammer, momentarily stopping her breath; she felt his pain deeply, and not just because it was written all over his face. They’d talked about this very situation more times than she cared to remember- whether it was Dean specifically, or Hansel, or any number of other people they’ve lost in their lives. She hugged him a little tighter, and let her kiss linger on his brow just a little longer.
What could she possibly say about it that they hadn’t already covered? She could promise him nothing- not even that she’d never disappear. Or that he wouldn’t.
“I know, love-” she hummed, letting her eyes close for a moment, willing away the burn. “I’m right here.”
Sam closed his eyes when she kissed his brow, trying desperately to lose himself in it like he had so many times before - to take comfort from her touch. But he couldn't, her words that were undoubtedly meant to be soothing to him only served to pull him right back to his depressing train of thought.
“For how long though?” Sam asked her, though he wasn't really looking for an answer. His eyes searched her face frantically. “I love you…” he said with as much gravity as his inebriated state would allow. “and this is what happens to the people I love, so it can only be a matter of time before I lose you too.”
She’d thought his earlier words had a heavy impact; suddenly Gretel felt like all the air evaporated from her lungs. The burn in her eyes exploded with such intensity she didn’t have time to even try to hold it back; twin tears jumped from her lashes and raced down her cheeks, she was still locked in his eyes. Without thinking, she framed his face with her hands and kissed him- chaste compared they’d kissed in the past, but no less meaningful, or heartfelt.
“Sam-” she exhaled, still so close. Their brows were together, their breath shared. “I’m going to tell you what my brother told me… when I was terrified about what this place could do to us, to you and me…”
She kissed him again, unable to keep herself from doing so, same as brushing his hair back with her fingers.
“Fuck’em,” she whispered against his lips. “We don’t know anything more about what happens here than we would where we come from. Don’t let them decide how we live our lives… And if I had met you in your or my own, I would still love you.”