mickeym | New Fic: [ What Forever Looks Like ]

Title: What Forever Looks Like
Author:

mickeym
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating:R
Word Count: ~650
Spoilers: mild references to events from AHBL2 and Magnificent Seven
Warnings: Note the pairing above; possible dub-con, though nothing graphic
Disclaimer: I don't own them, I'm just playing with them.
Notes: So very many thanks to

janissa11 and

rivers_bend for heeding my "help? Beta?" cry earlier and whipping this sucker into shape. It's just a little ficlet; an idea that flickered into my head this morning on the way to work, but it was an idea that wouldn't go away. And it's a Sammy and a scenario I hope we never see.

Summary:Dean was willing to do anything for Sam…but the trouble was, Sam was willing to do the same for Dean.

Dean was willing to do anything for Sam. Anything to save Sam. That was why the whole deal thing, right?

Trouble was -- and Dean was ready to take full responsibility for not realizing Sam wouldn't give up even after he promised -- Sam was willing to do the same for Dean.

Dean wanted to believe that Sam would let him go. Let Dean rest in peace and get on with his life.

He tried to hold on to that belief, lying to himself, right up until Sam's eyes shimmered and warm brown bled into dull, flat black.

It was hard, but he kept trying to hold on when the Demon armies clawed their way into this world -- their new world -- as the blood flowed and ash filled the sky; when dreams bled into nightmares, and laughter turned to screams..

Dean's hope drained away when the Demon armies gathered together to kneel and pay homage to his brother.

To their King.

~~~~~

So Dean doesn't go to Hell.

Hell comes to him.

Hell is his home, now; a barren plain of ash and sand, white bones darkened with scorch marks scattered all about. Sam surveys his kingdom from atop a tall, slender building made of stone and bone, mortared with cement mixed from blood of the sacrifices the lesser Demons make to their King.

Dean has trouble telling the difference between night and day, now, too. The day Sam Ascended (or is it 'Descended'? Dean isn't sure of the semantics, here) the sky darkened to blood-red, so even when the sun is up, it looks like something out of a nightmare. A nightmare he can't wake up from.

Neither of them took the whole 'Anti-Christ' or 'Boy King' thing seriously. Or, well, Dean didn't. He couldn't. The idea of Sammy leading Demon armies? Kind of made him laugh, a lot. Dean didn't think Sam had, either. At least not until Sam couldn't figure out a way to get Dean out of his deal. The deal held by someone much higher up the food chain.

But not, as it turned out, higher than Sam.

No one's higher than Sam, anymore.

~~~~~

Sam holds him at night; cradles him against a body that burns too hot, now.

Whispers to him, "You'll stay with me forever, now, won't you? No one, nothing, can take you away from me."

By contrast the sheets are cool, and the cotton's soft against his cheek. Dean squeezes his eyes shut and tries to remember things like bathtime, and tucking Sammy in, his little body warm and baby-powder scented. Thinks about milky smiles and skinned knees; tears running down fat cheeks, and baby giggles. Brown eyes that sparkled and shone with love, and life; a broad, bright smile that creased into dimples. A nerdy, goofy, impossible boy who grew into a huge geek, who was the smartest, most annoying, most dependable man ever.

He tries to remember the Sam that was; tries to find him in the Sam that is.

Tries to ignore the flare of pain when he can't.

Dean closes his eyes when Sam brushes kisses over his shoulders, over the back of his neck, breath hot and scented like smoke and flames when he paints the words onto Dean's skin. "Tell me, Dean, please? Always, right? You love me, so you'll stay with me forever."

Dean has to swallow down the bile that rises and thinks this is what forever looks like for him, now: smoky dark with things he didn't want; eye-searing bright with memories; everything bracketed by flames and coated with blood.

When the pressure in his chest eases enough to breathe again, Dean rasps out, "yeah, Sammy. Forever."

He breathes through the pain of Sam claiming him, body hot and huge as it fills him, because that's what he is and what they are, now.

He's Sam's. Forever.

~fin~