Dean Winchester (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hasperkynipples) wrote2009-12-22 08:22 pm
hasperkynipples) wrote2009-12-22 08:22 pm
[MW] Friedrich Nietzsche
[Set in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
andallthesmiles. Sam is ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
imnot_likeyou because I wouldn’t inflict this kind of thing on any Sam but my own.]
“When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you.”
They say that solitary confinement is the worse form of torture a person could be subjected to. Twenty-three hours a day confined by iron walls, no human interaction, not even with the guards who brought them their food. There’s no apprehension, no fear that comes with being held prisoner. You’re just left alone with yourself, for an indeterminate amount of time. You don’t even have a watch to count the minutes or some kind of way to keep the time. It was just—time. In some extreme cases, there was no way for you to even tell night from day. There was just six thick walls closing them in and shutting them out from everything else.
Dean had been in solitary confinement before, but he really wasn’t there long enough to get a good enough feel for the experience. However, as hellish as he’s heard solitary confinement is, he’s pretty sure that what he’s going through now is worse. Dean had been to the actual Hell, and he considered this ten times worse. At least in Hell, even if it was torture, he could make contact. He could feel something.
Here, the only think he could feel was the feel of him slowly losing his mind. He couldn’t touch, he couldn’t be heard. It was almost as though he didn’t exist, a prisoner in his own mind, left alone with the guilt of the choices he had made, and the ones that had gotten him here. Even if he knew that in the end, it wasn’t his choice that had gotten him there.
It was Sam’s.
Lucifer wasn’t a stranger to low blows. He wanted what he wanted and he would do whatever he had to do to get it. He would get Sam to say yes in whatever way possible, and in the end it took the threat of Pestilence to a school building full of kids to get Sam to finally throw in the towel and do it. Dean tried to talk him out of it, said that Lucifer’s endgame was extermination and there was no way of knowing whether or not he’d hold up his word once he got Sam. Once there was no way for Sam to stop him anymore. But Sam knew the risks. He said that Lucifer doesn’t lie and even if he did—he didn’t want to take the risk. They were kids. And if nothing else Dean could understand that. To his credit, Lucifer didn’t lie. Pestilence didn’t take out those kids.
Lucifer did that job himself.
It was more than a massacre. It was—horrific. The blood covered everything, and ran out of the doors like a river. Dean had seen a slew of dead bodies in his time, of all different shapes and sizes, but this was the first time that a scene had made him physically ill. He barely made it out the door before he was losing anything he had eaten that day to the grass just outside the school. It was terrifying. And because of that, Dean knew he didn’t have a choice.
Making a deal with a demon is easier than trying to make one with an angel. Demons will give you whatever you want in order to get your soul, but angels won’t do a damn thing unless you do it their way. Convincing Michael to play things his way was like pulling teeth but in the end he made it out with his terms intact—worded clearly to make sure he didn’t get screwed around the way Sam had done with Lucifer. In the end he got what he wanted:
1. Sam lived. Period, end of story, no ifs, ands or buts.
2. The minute this was over, Michael was out of his body, regardless of what that meant for him.
What he hadn’t counted on was the fact that the garrison wouldn’t let him die. Or the fact that the things Lucifer had done had broken his brother so far beyond repair that Sam could barely tie his own shoes, let alone take care of himself. This would be one of those moments that Dean would usually shrug off and go “hindsight is twenty-twenty” were it not for the fact that it so royally sucked. There was nothing he could do about it now, especially considering he was now ghost boy.
Today was a good day for Sam.
Granted, the doctors probably considered every day that they could actually get him to leave his room without tossing them around like rag dolls. Sam may be crazy, but muscle memory was muscle memory which made him twice as dangerous. Today Sam was not only with the rest of the patients—he was engaging, as much as he possibly could when most of the things he said sounded like jumbled up nursery rhymes with a brutal twist. One of the nurses had set him up with a puzzle in the corner of the room, and even Dean could see that he was better when he was focused.
He still babbled like a loon, but he was better.
“Hey, Sam,” one of the doctors said with a smile, sitting down across from him. “What’re you working on?”
Sam looked up, and for a second it was like he was looking beyond her, where Dean was sitting on the table behind them. Dean knew that Sam couldn’t see him, not really, but it was a bit of a comfort that maybe Sam thought he could.
“Flowers,” he replied softly, before looking down at the puzzle again. “In pieces. You have to put them back together or else they’re broken.”
“I see that,” she said with a nod, before reaching to the overturned top of the box to pick up a piece. “Would you like me to help you but it back together?”
“NO!” Sam didn’t lash out at her, but the way he said it was enough to make her sit back, hands up as though he was going to. His eyes dropped almost as soon as he realized that he had said something wrong. “I have to do it myself. Can’t fix it, I have to do it myself.”
“She just wants to help you with the puzzle, Sammy,” Dean chuckled. “You’re looking at that a little too figuratively.”
“Some things you can’t fix,” he continued, almost as though he wasn’t talking to anyone but himself. “Some things don’t go back together after they’re broken. They just scream. Scream loud and loud and over and over and over and they don’t stop not for a second, even if you closer your eyes and cover your ears and—” Sam’s hands started to cover his ears, his eyes clenching closed and curling onto himself.
“Hey, hey, easy.” She made her way closer, sliding an arm around him, and Dean fought back the pang of guilt that came with it. That should be his job, comforting Sam. If he was able to get out of that damn bed it would be. But right now he had to make do with what he could do which was a whole lot of nothing.
And that was usually Dean’s cue to leave.
He’d wander back up to his hospital room, hopping up onto one of the tables near the door of the room and staring back out through the window, watching as the birds flew by and the worlds kept spinning while he stood still.
It had barely been a few weeks, and he could already feel himself slipping.
1258 words
andallthesmiles. Sam is imnot_likeyou because I wouldn’t inflict this kind of thing on any Sam but my own.]“When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you.”
They say that solitary confinement is the worse form of torture a person could be subjected to. Twenty-three hours a day confined by iron walls, no human interaction, not even with the guards who brought them their food. There’s no apprehension, no fear that comes with being held prisoner. You’re just left alone with yourself, for an indeterminate amount of time. You don’t even have a watch to count the minutes or some kind of way to keep the time. It was just—time. In some extreme cases, there was no way for you to even tell night from day. There was just six thick walls closing them in and shutting them out from everything else.
Dean had been in solitary confinement before, but he really wasn’t there long enough to get a good enough feel for the experience. However, as hellish as he’s heard solitary confinement is, he’s pretty sure that what he’s going through now is worse. Dean had been to the actual Hell, and he considered this ten times worse. At least in Hell, even if it was torture, he could make contact. He could feel something.
Here, the only think he could feel was the feel of him slowly losing his mind. He couldn’t touch, he couldn’t be heard. It was almost as though he didn’t exist, a prisoner in his own mind, left alone with the guilt of the choices he had made, and the ones that had gotten him here. Even if he knew that in the end, it wasn’t his choice that had gotten him there.
It was Sam’s.
Lucifer wasn’t a stranger to low blows. He wanted what he wanted and he would do whatever he had to do to get it. He would get Sam to say yes in whatever way possible, and in the end it took the threat of Pestilence to a school building full of kids to get Sam to finally throw in the towel and do it. Dean tried to talk him out of it, said that Lucifer’s endgame was extermination and there was no way of knowing whether or not he’d hold up his word once he got Sam. Once there was no way for Sam to stop him anymore. But Sam knew the risks. He said that Lucifer doesn’t lie and even if he did—he didn’t want to take the risk. They were kids. And if nothing else Dean could understand that. To his credit, Lucifer didn’t lie. Pestilence didn’t take out those kids.
Lucifer did that job himself.
It was more than a massacre. It was—horrific. The blood covered everything, and ran out of the doors like a river. Dean had seen a slew of dead bodies in his time, of all different shapes and sizes, but this was the first time that a scene had made him physically ill. He barely made it out the door before he was losing anything he had eaten that day to the grass just outside the school. It was terrifying. And because of that, Dean knew he didn’t have a choice.
Making a deal with a demon is easier than trying to make one with an angel. Demons will give you whatever you want in order to get your soul, but angels won’t do a damn thing unless you do it their way. Convincing Michael to play things his way was like pulling teeth but in the end he made it out with his terms intact—worded clearly to make sure he didn’t get screwed around the way Sam had done with Lucifer. In the end he got what he wanted:
1. Sam lived. Period, end of story, no ifs, ands or buts.
2. The minute this was over, Michael was out of his body, regardless of what that meant for him.
What he hadn’t counted on was the fact that the garrison wouldn’t let him die. Or the fact that the things Lucifer had done had broken his brother so far beyond repair that Sam could barely tie his own shoes, let alone take care of himself. This would be one of those moments that Dean would usually shrug off and go “hindsight is twenty-twenty” were it not for the fact that it so royally sucked. There was nothing he could do about it now, especially considering he was now ghost boy.
Today was a good day for Sam.
Granted, the doctors probably considered every day that they could actually get him to leave his room without tossing them around like rag dolls. Sam may be crazy, but muscle memory was muscle memory which made him twice as dangerous. Today Sam was not only with the rest of the patients—he was engaging, as much as he possibly could when most of the things he said sounded like jumbled up nursery rhymes with a brutal twist. One of the nurses had set him up with a puzzle in the corner of the room, and even Dean could see that he was better when he was focused.
He still babbled like a loon, but he was better.
“Hey, Sam,” one of the doctors said with a smile, sitting down across from him. “What’re you working on?”
Sam looked up, and for a second it was like he was looking beyond her, where Dean was sitting on the table behind them. Dean knew that Sam couldn’t see him, not really, but it was a bit of a comfort that maybe Sam thought he could.
“Flowers,” he replied softly, before looking down at the puzzle again. “In pieces. You have to put them back together or else they’re broken.”
“I see that,” she said with a nod, before reaching to the overturned top of the box to pick up a piece. “Would you like me to help you but it back together?”
“NO!” Sam didn’t lash out at her, but the way he said it was enough to make her sit back, hands up as though he was going to. His eyes dropped almost as soon as he realized that he had said something wrong. “I have to do it myself. Can’t fix it, I have to do it myself.”
“She just wants to help you with the puzzle, Sammy,” Dean chuckled. “You’re looking at that a little too figuratively.”
“Some things you can’t fix,” he continued, almost as though he wasn’t talking to anyone but himself. “Some things don’t go back together after they’re broken. They just scream. Scream loud and loud and over and over and over and they don’t stop not for a second, even if you closer your eyes and cover your ears and—” Sam’s hands started to cover his ears, his eyes clenching closed and curling onto himself.
“Hey, hey, easy.” She made her way closer, sliding an arm around him, and Dean fought back the pang of guilt that came with it. That should be his job, comforting Sam. If he was able to get out of that damn bed it would be. But right now he had to make do with what he could do which was a whole lot of nothing.
And that was usually Dean’s cue to leave.
He’d wander back up to his hospital room, hopping up onto one of the tables near the door of the room and staring back out through the window, watching as the birds flew by and the worlds kept spinning while he stood still.
It had barely been a few weeks, and he could already feel himself slipping.
1258 words