Rest In Peace

[nixducky]

Title: Rest In Peace
Author: NixDucky
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam Winchester
Rating: M
Word Count: 1162
Disclaimer: Unfortunately Supernatural does not belong to me.
Summary: Sam is tired. But it's going to be okay. Set during Season 2, All Hell Breaks Loose. Spoilers.

Sam knew that it was okay for him to die.

He felt like he’d been fighting so hard, for so long. Fighting against his dad. Fighting against the way of life he’d been raised in. Fighting against hunting. Fighting against monsters. When he’d finally left for Stanford, he’d thought the fighting would be over. He’d been so wrong. He’d found he’d had to fight against his every instinct there. Had to fight against always looking over his shoulder, fight against salting the windows and doorways, fight against carrying some sort of weapon with him wherever he went. Fight against the near constant urge to call Dean, find out how he was, how Dad was. Find out if they were even alive.

Then he’d met Jess and she eased the fight in him. Sam felt he could finally breathe, didn’t have to fight so hard.

But then the dreams had started. And so he started fighting again. Fighting to stop Jess seeing how badly he was freaking out, fighting against the horrible feeling he couldn’t shrug off that it was all about to go to hell. Then Dean had shown up and Sam was fighting Dean, fighting against going back to their old way of life.

And Jess died. Sam obviously hadn’t fought hard enough because Jess still died. Then Sam was fighting to find his dad, to find the thing that had murdered Jess, that had murdered his mom. And throughout their search, Sam was fighting Dean’s blind faith in John, never understanding it. Never understanding how Dean could fall in line so easily with the man who had raised them to be soldiers. Who had effectively stolen any chance either of them had ever had at a childhood.

The dreams got worse. And the waking visions started. And the physical pain that went along with them was unbearable. And Sam started to feel that the thing he really should be fighting was deep inside of him. He was fighting himself. Fighting some damn dark destiny that he wanted no part of but couldn’t see how to escape.

Dean had promised that nothing bad would happen as long as he was around. He promised to look out for Sam, like he always had, and he promised – eventually – that he would kill Sam before he went darkside. And Sam had felt that maybe he didn’t have to fight so hard, because Dean would take care of it, like he always did. But Dean had lied. As good as his intentions were, when push came to shove, he couldn’t kill Sam. Sure Sam had been possessed at the time and was really fucking grateful Dean hadn’t killed him, but he remembered what Dean had said when the demon, pretending to be Sam, had begged Dean to kill him. The demon had made sure Sam was awake for that and Sam would never forget the look on Dean’s face as he said, “I can't. I’d rather die.”

Then Sam found out more and more about the other children, that the demon that had killed Jess and his mom had plans for them all. Hell, John’s last words had been to practically order Dean to kill Sam if he couldn’t save him. Sam felt like he was fighting an impossible battle, with no way out but for giving in to the demon. And Sam was damned if he was ever going to give that yellow-eyed son of a bitch the satisfaction of seeing Sam give in to him. He would rather die first.

The last few days, it had felt like his fight was coming to a head. First he woke up in some god forsaken ghost town with no clue where he was and with Dean nowhere to be found. Then he’d found Andy and Ava and the others like them and had realized that the demon was herding them together. But he couldn’t figure out why. Then came more demons and his companions started dying and Sam was fighting to keep it together while at the same time running out of ideas on how to keep fighting. Then the yellow-eyed demon had visited Sam in his dream. Told Sam his plans and showed Sam his mother’s death. Showed Sam how he’d fed him demon blood while Sam had lain in his crib. Fuck. He had demon blood inside of him. How the fuck was he supposed to fight that?

And then Andy had died and Sam had realized Ava had stopped fighting and had simply accepted. A part of him started to think how easy it would be…

But Jake had killed Ava and Sam had thought well, at least someone is still fighting. But no; the demon had visited Jake as well and all Jake was fighting was Sam, and Sam was so goddamn tired of fighting. He’d knocked Jake out, God knows how as Sam was beat to hell, but he’d knocked Jake out and had left him alive because that’s what good people did. Good people showed mercy.

And Sam had heard Dean’s voice and breathed a huge sigh of relief, because Dean was here and everything would be okay. He’d followed Dean’s voice, saw Dean and Bobby coming towards him, started moving faster towards Dean, but Dean was shouting now, shouting something… Sam had felt a white hot, burning, tearing, slicing through his back, like something was slowly ripping his spine out.

And Dean was running now, running and shouting, but Sam was falling, falling, falling. But Dean caught him. Like Sam knew he would and it was okay. Everything was fuzzy and black around the edges and there was a strange buzzing in Sam’s ears, but Dean caught him and was telling him it wasn’t even that bad. Sam focused on Dean’s voice, the same voice that would make up stories about their mom and sing Led Zeppelin songs to Sam until he’d fallen asleep as a kid.   The same voice that called him a bitch, that demanded pie and that told him stupid, cheesy jokes just to get Sam to smile when he was in one of his funks. Sam focused on that voice telling him how Dean was gonna patch him up, how Sam would be as good as new, how Dean was gonna take care of him.

“I got you,” Sam heard. “That’s my job, right? Watch out for my pain-in-the-ass little brother?”

Sam smiled. It was all going to be okay. Dean had him. Why was Dean saying no? “No, no, no, no, God.” Sam wished he could comfort Dean, tell him that it was all okay, that he was going to be fine.

The last thing Sam heard was Dean cry, “Sammy!” And he smiled again, because only Dean got to call him that and Dean had him. Dean had Sam safe and Sam knew that it was okay for him to stop fighting.

Sam knew that it was okay for him to die.