pairing: sam x reader (gn) | genre: heavy angst, no comfort | word count: 2.3k
warnings: reader is dead (death not described), nightmares, mild suicidal thoughts (no action taken), grief and hard feelings, sam feels oh so alone, a lot of talks about death/being dead/dying
notes: i would apologize but i'm not sorry :] i made raspberry muffins wihle i was writing this so you can think of those as your little apology gift !!
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What is left behind when you die?
Something physical, maybe. A favourite book, with a bookmark on the last page you read, and the corner dogeared in your excitement to explain it to someone. A pen uncapped on the desk, ink drying on the nib because nobody has the heart to touch it. A half-eaten sandwich in the back seat of a car, wrapped in diner wrapping paper checkered red and white, lettuce wilted and falling out the side.
Something metaphorical, possibly. The last echoes of your final words dissipating into the summer air like a whisper, catching harsh on the heart of the ones who hold you as you go. The rustle in the grass at the moment you take your last breath, a spirit on a final walk on earth, touching the stalks one last time and feeling them shiver against your skin. A pebble kicked to the side from your boot as you fell, rolling away and coming to a halt with the shadowed side up. The final cry of your name left aching on the tongue of its speaker, voice cracking in the middle and trembling at the end.
Maybe you don't leave anything behind, because maybe there's nothing left to leave. Maybe your only possessions get burned with you, scattering their ashes into the sky and following you up to whatever heaven lays above you in wait. Maybe, when you live out of motel rooms and the backseat of a black Impala, there's nothing for you to leave behind, because there's nowhere to leave it. Maybe the only thing you leave behind is the letters of your name on a carved piece of wood left under a tree behind Bobby's house, because there's no body to bury, and a cross feels too inviting for the haunted.
Sam knows what you left behind. He can see it in the shadows of every path he walks, from the bedroom you shared to the window of the kitchen, down to the tree in the yard and in between the dappled leaves. He hears it with every gust of wind and every breath that sounds like your name on lips that aren't his; so sorry for your loss, they tell him. It's not really loss if there's nothing left to find, is there? How can it be loss if there's no way of finding you again? What could he possibly see left on earth that reminds him of you in ways that don't lodge under his ribs and burn at this heart and make him wish he wasn't such a coward with his finger on the trigger?
Sam sees everything you left behind in aching clarity, the kind that stings behind his eyes and makes him wish he were blind. At least that way he wouldn't have to see it all. Something about the way the ache burrows into his skin and squeezes around his heart and makes him sob into his pillow in the middle of the night tells him it wouldn't be useful. He sees it all whether he wants to or not, whether he tries to or not, and he sees it in all the places he never expected to.
The first month, he slept in a different room than usual. He slept alone, in a bed meant for one person, because that was easier than sleeping alone in a bed he used to share with you. Because the expanses of it were too huge, and it killed him to reach out for you in his sleep and come up with nothing but chilled night air drifting in from the window. The sheets have been washed, and something cracks inside him when he realizes they no longer smell like you or carry your warmth. It's been replaced by a chilling cold that smells like laundry detergent and spring rain. He had to sit in front of the washing machine with his hands on his head for a while after that.
It hit him when he was making coffee one morning. Usually, you'd come ask him to make you something to drink, appearing beside him with an arm around his waist and your head on his shoulder, whispering sleepy requests for breakfast into the skin of his neck. He turned, half expecting you to appear at his side with a lopsided grin and poke him, but nothing happened. Sinking to his knees, he stayed frozen while the coffee dripped over the edge of the mug and then stayed again long after it cooled on the countertop. By the time he finally got to his feet, his eyes were red rimmed and sore, face blotched with pink across his cheeks, tear tracks crawling through the lines on his face and vanishing into his hair.
It hit for a second time later that week, when he went into town with Dean to get more beer for Bobby's fridge. Standing in the aisle, he found himself mentally calculating how many, if any at all, you were likely to drink. And he found himself instinctively reaching for a second pack, before Dean appeared at his side and gently guided his hand with the extra drinks back to the shelf. It took all his strength not to break down in the aisle, and he managed to wait until he was tucked comfortably into the car before letting any tears fall.
Now, he's empty. Dull, washed-out, aching for something no longer there. A piece of him he didn't know he was missing until he felt it leave. The piece of him you took when you kissed him for the first time, the piece that you tucked into your chest amongst your ribs and promised to keep safe as long as you're alive. You’re not here anymore, and you still haven’t given that piece back. He wanders through the house like a ghost, passing through walls and sinking into floors and hiding in shadows because being in the light is too harsh on his sore eyes. He drifts from room to room, tracing his sullen fingers over every book and object you touched, pressing cracked lips to the pictures of you dotted around the house, cradling the one in his wallet to his chest like it hurts him to let it go.
Tonight, he lies in bed and dreams. He dreams a lot of things, because Sam has always had an active imagination. He dreams a life where you're alive, in bed beside him, your chest rising and falling soft with every breath you take that ghosts across the bare skin of his chest. He dreams you wake him up with light kisses that tickle his face, curling his mouth into a smile that he wears as he kisses you in return. He dreams you come running in from outside with a ladybug on your thumb and a grin on your face as you tell him its name, dragging him with you as you set it free into the grass again.
Sam dreams happy things, and he wakes up distraught. He wakes up with a sob in his throat that claws its way up, pushing itself out of his mouth like a bullet and sinking into his heart with finality. He sobs your name over and over, lips shaking and chin wobbling on every syllable, like if he says it enough times, you'll appear at his bedside and kiss his forehead soft and tender. He curls himself inward, chest heaving and breath stuttering, making himself small as his tears wet his face, his shirt, his pillow. The salty taste of them reaches his tongue and he laps it up, desperate for any reminder that he can feel something besides sadness. But the water tastes like sorrow, and his head is going under, and there's nothing left for him to do but pray he can swim to shore.
He falls back asleep a few hours later, ribs aching and eyes sore when they're open, face no doubt puffy and ugly. His hand shakes as he wipes away a stray tear he doesn’t remember falling, tucking his hand under your pillow that he hugs close to his chest, burying his face in it. He twitches in his sleep, misery coursing through him like electricity, desperately trying to put him out of his pain like one might put down a sick dog. He needs you here, because he thinks he’s started to forget your laugh and the colour of your eyes, and the panic that grips him is so strong he finally passes out.
Sam dreams awful things this time. He dreams of your body surrounded by blood, skin slashed and muscle torn, the bones in your body broken from the impact. He dreams of your ghostly expression as you slip away, your weak voice whispering I love you to his battered and teary soul, fingers tracing trails of red down his stubbled cheek as you drop your hand to your chest and never raise it again. And then he dreams of himself laying down beside you, the floor slick with your blood, and he dreams about slipping away with you.
And Sam wakes up smiling.
He wakes up with the feather traces of a grin on his face, dimple popping awful in the moonlight of the bedroom, pearly sheets wrapped around his legs like a creature caught in a hunting trap, target on his head right between the eyes. He hauls himself up and stretches, yawning something soft and brushing the sleep from his eyes. Jacket over his shirt, jeans over his boxers, shoes left untied and the laces tucked into the boot. He's careful not to trip down the stairs, body still getting used to being awake and moving.
He can hear Dean and Bobby still asleep in their separate rooms. He can hear tree branches whistling in the wind outside, the lonely cry of an owl puncturing the night's fragility. Owls for wisdom, he remembers. A sign, maybe, to carry on. Or a sign to stop, to turn back and head to bed. A sign to adapt and change because it's the wise thing to do. Or a sign to finish it through and end up with you, because it's wise to be with a lover forever. He's undecided on the significance, but he tucks his gun into the waistband of his jeans anyway, the safety flicked off. No bullet, because that feels too close to tempting fate. As ready as he is to see you again, he's not quite ready to die.
Sam opens the latch on the door and let's himself out, breeze ruffling his hair and ghosting across the back of his neck like the kisses you leave there in the night. His boots crunch leaves and dead grass, the occasional pebble getting kicked to the side of the path, shadowed side up. Grass rustling at his knees, the blades tickling his palms as he bends to touch them, feeling their smoothness under his calloused fingertips. A breath of wind under his jacket, cold over his heart and warm when it leaves.
These are the things you've left behind.
A broken Sam Winchester. A mourning earth in cold soil and blistering winds. Turned over rocks that remember the tread of your boot. Grass that yearns for your touch. Earth in memorial, standing guard at your grave. Protective. Nurturing. Motherly. It watches your graveside and keeps it clean for Sam when he finally arrives. It curls up around his knees when he kneels and breaks down, and it skitters his gun away from his hand when he drops it because he's shaking too much to do anything with it. It grows the flower he picks to lay at the wooden slab, petals drooping because his sorrow is too heavy.
Sam lays down in the dirt beside you, head lined up with your grave marker and one hand curling in the soft stems of grass over your ashes. His fingers twitch over where your heart should be, curling and unfurling as if he can feel your heartbeat through the dirt and rocks. He takes a shuddering breath, exhaling it out into the humid air like a promise, a vow to return to you someday, somehow. He hates to think of you alone up there, not understanding what happened and so, so frightened. He hates that he can’t hold you, can’t comfort you, can’t press soft kisses to your temple and rub your back and tuck you into his arms like he used to.
His chest rises once.
"Wait for me."
The first words he's spoken since your death. His voice comes out all scratched and torn and wrong, harsh on the edges made sharp by tears.
His chest falls once.
A pause. A stutter.
His chest rises again, because of course it will. He's cursed, after all. Cursed to live while you were cursed to die.
So, what is left behind when you die?
Memories. A mourning earth. A shattered man.
And strangely enough, love.
Sam remembers you because he loves you. He mourns you because he loves you. He's broken because he loves you. You leave behind love because it's all he knew how to do with you. He'll come join you some day because he loves you then, too. And he will bring you his love cradled in his cupped palms like an angel bringing holy water, and he will shower you in it, and he will tell you that you taught him love and left him with it for him to nurture. And he will tell you he loves you. And he hopes you will tell him you love him too.
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You pressed a soft kiss to Sam's cheek, lipstick smudging against his skin.
"C'mon Sammy" You whined playfully "Don't go" You kissed his temple "I want you to stay" Another to his forehead.
"I'm sorry baby but I have to, Dean needs my help and it's too dangerous for you to come"
"I've been on hunts before" A peck to the outer corner of his eye "I'll be fine"
"I just don't want you getting hurt" He turned the puppy eyes up to eleven, charming bastard.
"Fine" You huffed, littering your final kisses to his jaw and down his neck before pulling away.
You rifled through your makeup bag, pulling out some cotton rounds and makeup remover.
"The least you can do is let me clean you up then" You smiled softly, not really wanting to see the dark red marks disappear, but knowing they had to.
"No" He grabbed your wrist as you reached to swipe away a mark "Don't"
"Baby, I just wanna wipe the lipstick off"
"Nu uh"
"Nu uh? What are you, five?"
"Maybe" He smirked pulling you in for a bruising kiss, surely taking the last remnants of pigment from your lips.
"You sure baby? Dean'll see"
"Let him, he knows I can't get enough of you"
"Yeah? You talk to him about me?"
"He won't stop, now hurry the fuck up!" Dean's voice rang from outside the motel room door, at least you got separate rooms this time.
You laughed, leaning into Sam, his arms wrapping around you as you buried your face in his neck.
"God, I didn't know he could hear that well"
"Motel walls, honey" He murmured, hands rubbing along your arms.
"Y'think he could hear everything?"
"Sure could, now we have to go!"
"He's an ass, don't worry about him" Sam kissed the top of your head, hands cradling your jaw as he pulled back to look you in the eyes "But I really do have to go, I'm sorry"
"It's okay" You sighed "I know it's part of the deal, just be careful, okay? I'm the only one who gets to mark you up"
"Yes ma'am" He grinned.
You brushed your thumb lightly over the mark by his eye, red catching against your skin, a whispered "Mine" escaping your lips.
"All yours, baby" He took your hand, pressing a kiss to your thumb, then your knuckles "Only yours"
"Yeah yeah" Dean burst through the door, dragging Sam out by the collar "You're her's and she's yours, real sweet, we got demons to kill Sammy, shift it! And wipe that crap off your face, you look like you're in bad theatre makeup. Again"
"Again?" You questioned "What do you mean again?!"
over the garden wall is just like. here is a cartoon. it is ten ten-minute episodes and is about the length of a movie. you can watch it in a little under two hours. its a masterpiece with incredibly beautiful backgrounds and perfect pacing and an absolutely charming autumn atmosphere. it's only seasonally appropriate to watch for about two months out of the year because It's The Autumn Show. you hear the opening song and your heart fills with so much nostalgia it floods into your throat and you want to start crying. it's a rock fact
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