WHO: Sam Winchester; narrative. WHAT: Dean is dead. WHEN: Evening; right after Sam finishes his call with Booth. WHERE: Lawrence, Kansas. RATING: A for ANGST and R for RAAAAAGE.
WHO: Sam Winchester; narrative. WHAT: Dean is dead. WHEN: Evening; right after Sam finishes his call with Booth. WHERE: Lawrence, Kansas. RATING: A for ANGST and R for RAAAAAGE.
The grip that Sam had on the phone buried between his fingers tightened, his knuckles going white in the process. He felt wrong. Like someone had reached right into his chest and pulled everything out. His heart, his soul - everything. Sam knew this feeling well. After losing one's brother over a hundred times in a single lifetime, it was certainly the type of feeling that one didn't just up and forget. Pain. Agony. The feeling of a heart aching so badly that nothing else in the entire world could possibly compare - no, not when Dean Winchester was dead. Because, truly, what was life without his brother? Sam had walked that path before. Alone, he had fallen apart. He was nothing without Dean. While Sam may have been known for his need for independence - especially during his earlier years - there was something about his relationship with his brother that held him together. Even back when Sam had gone to Stanford, knowing that Dean was out there somewhere (alive and as well as one could have been in his situation), Sam had been okay. He had missed his brother, but he had been okay. That was exactly how things had been between them now, too. Dean had been alive, but there had been a great amount of distance between them. Less so in the physical sense, but a vast and notable distance that he had acknowledged nonetheless. It had bothered him, but Sam had been able to deal with all that. There had been a quiet sense of hope that he had buried inside of himself, one that kept assuring Sam that everything would get better over time. That they were going to fix things. That he was going to fix things. After the mess that he had made of their relationship, Sam had been set on making things right. Even if Dean had been angry with him, even if he felt like he couldn't trust Sam anymore...none of that had mattered. Why? Because Dean was there. Sam would have worked on it. He would have given it everything that he had, even if the process would have been, without a single doubt, painful to endure. Not having that trust, knowing that Dean would never be able to see him exactly the same way again? It wouldn't have been easy. In fact, it might well have taken an entire lifetime to make everything even a little like how things had been before. But Dean had been there. He had been alive. Even with the Apocalypse on their heels, that was all Sam really needed. Dean to live. Everything else, Sam would have taken care of. He would have made it all better. He would have.
Sam couldn't do that anymore. Dean was dead.
The phone slipped from his fingers as his grip loosened, falling free from Sam's hold and immediately hitting the pavement with a dull clatter. Sam was quick to follow. Knees roughly collided with road, everything surrounding Sam coming along in the form of nothing more than a blur. The overwhelming torrent of emotion combined with his exhaustion from the past two weeks made the fall inevitable. He couldn't physically withstand the news that Booth had poorly delivered over the phone, let alone emotionally hold it in long enough to take himself somewhere private to react. No, Sam was here. In the middle of the street - albeit a practically abandoned one, but still hardly subtle enough for his usual preferences - down on his knees, hands shaking and running through his hair. All the while, Sam could do nothing but stare at his phone, as if doing so would retract every bit of the bad news that Booth had just delivered. It wasn't real. Dean was alive, sticking close to Dawn and savoring the fact that Sam had finally figured out what was plaguing the city. He was going to be fine and Sam was going to make things right and then they'd all figure out how to stop the Apocalypse together and everything would be okay in the end.
Not this. This brutal reality that always seemed to land in Sam's lap, often hitting him unexpectedly and harder than anything else in the world possibly could have. Hands gripping at his hair, Sam bowed his head and barely managed to suppress a sob. He'd never be able to show Dean that he still cared. That it wasn't his fault that they were broken. That even though they were both two entirely different people now, Dean would always be important to him. He was and would always be, no matter what either of them did, his brother. And now he was gone. Ripped out of his life once more, all because Sam had been reckless enough to leave him be in the middle of a damned crisis. He had promised himself that things were going to change. God, how wrong he had been. God. Dampened eyes turned upward, glaring up at the sky. This was his fault too. All of that praying that he had done throughout the entirety of his life, all that hope that Sam had left in the hands of some higher power...what good had it ever really been? Why had he bothered at all? Sam's jawline hardened as he seethingly stared up at the clouded skies. It was a game. All a game. They gave him back his family, then they tore it all away from him again. Was this what God planned on doing with the rest of his family too? Would he take Mom away? Ruby?
No. God wouldn't. Because Sam wouldn't let him. In fact, Sam wasn't going to let anyone - higher power or not - get away with taking Dean away from him. He'd find a way to bring him back, just as he'd find out who was truly responsible for Dean's death. Sam had led himself to believe that he was long since past that side of himself that was revenge obsessed - Lilith had practically ensured that part of his life was over - but now? With Dean gone again? It was back. It was angry. And it wanted blood. God, Lucifer, Heaven, and Hell all be damned, Sam was going to save Dean - even if that meant he'd have to lose himself in the process.
Same old story. Maybe some things didn't change after all.