Supernatural Fan Fiction ❯ And Now I Am Returned To The World ❯ And Now I Am Returned To The World ( Chapter 1 )

Title: And Now I Am Returned To The World

Author: roguebitch

Rating: G

Pairing: None. Sam, Dean, Bobby

Summary/Spoiler: AHBL 1. Sam's POV post-resurrection.

Length: 1,108 words

Disclaimer: I own my car, my computer, various other ephemera, but I do NOT own the Winchester boys or their associates. That privilege belongs solely to Kripke and The CW.

Beta: Ably and nimbly beta'ed by the gracious lady_fox.

A/N: Title comes from the book “Reader and Raelynx” by Sharon Shinn

 

 

 

 

Suddenly, you wake up.

 

You take a deep breath and start coughing. It feels like your lungs are full of cobwebs and coughing causes spasms of pure agony in your back, elastic and red. You wheeze and rasp and groan until your breathing normalizes and you open your eyes.

 

You are in a room that is so old that everything is faded to a monochromatic grey. The ceiling is silvery and hung with spiderwebs, and you can now smell the musty scent of age from the mattress you are laying on.

 

You call for your brother but receive no answer and realize you are on your own for now. Your training tells you to assess your surroundings.

 

Levering yourself up on your elbows brings waves of fresh pain from your mid-back, but you grit your teeth and stand up like a good soldier.

 

There is a mirror against the wall and you regard the pale reflection with abstract curiosity. Washed-out skin, eyes like smudged holes, tattered-looking hair. Who is this revenant? You step closer to the mirror and the reflection does the same, which does nothing to help your sense of unreality.

 

You want to see what it is that is causing your back so much grief, so you turn around, pulling up your shirt and jacket.

 

There. On your back, a diamond shaped scar, looking raw and pink and incongruously new. Where did that come from?

 

A noise in the next room gets your attention and you turn around to see that it is your brother. You are momentarily stunned so see the bleak desolation on his face - what could have caused that? - chased away by joy and gratitude when he catches sight of you.

 

He barrels forward and captures you in a hug that sends the tender flesh of your back into screaming conniptions and you half-groan, half-laugh out loud. Your brother's reaction seems kind of excessive. After all, you've taken wounds in a hunt before.

 

Dean, what happened to me? you ask.

 

Well, what do you remember? Dean returns, and you know it for the evasion it is, see the flinch in the back of his eyes, but why?

 

You cast your mind back, trying to reach past the wall in your brain that blocks the what-came-afters.

 

I-I saw you'n'Bobby, then I felt this pain - this sharp pain like white hot, you know? And then you started runnin' at me and - that's about it.

 

You don't know why, but you feel apologetic for not knowing more.

 

That - that kid stabbed you in the back, Dean says, eyes on your face like it might disappear. You lost a lot of blood. It was pretty touch and go for a while.

 

Then you know, deep down in your soul, that Dean is lying to you, using the full-faced con that he excels at. Only you're not a mark, you're his brother.

 

Now you know he's hiding something.

 

But Dean, you can't patch up a wound that bad, you say, knowing it to be true, knowing that whatever happened, it couldn't have healed to new pink skin in the mere hours you'd been gone.

 

Been gone. Were you gone? Gone where?

 

Dean brushes off your explanation.

 

Nah, Bobby could, he says.

 

Listen, you hungry? he says, changing the subject abruptly the way he does when it veers too close to the confessional.

 

You realize that you are, that you feel like you haven't eaten in a hundred years. Dean sits you down carefully, orders you to stay where you are and don't move, and leaves to get some food.

 

You fall into a fugue state, not really thinking, just sitting there with the sense that something enormous has happened to you, to Dean, and Dean is keeping it hidden. You circle around the knowledge dully, not getting anywhere with it.

 

Dean comes back with a giant feast of take-out and you fall upon it ravenously.

 

The pizza stops tasting like ashes after a couple of bites.

 

Dean starts questioning you about the Yellow-eyed Demon and why you were brought to the town. You tell him nearly everything. You don't tell him about the things the Demon showed you in your nursery: the blood, your mother. You can lie, too, if need be.

 

It is when you see Bobby that you finally realize what happened to you.

 

Or no, not realized.

 

You pretty much knew what happened as soon as you saw the desperate abandonment on Dean's face before he saw you. It is Bobby's expression of amazement and superstitious fear that confirms it.

 

You died. You died and there was no light, no white-hot revelation, you didn't see your mother. You were just gone. Just meat.

 

Somehow Dean brought you back. The frantic chant of WHAT DID YOU DO WHAT DID YOU DO beats inside of you when you look at him, but you can't bring yourself to ask the question, confirm the truth.

 

There is no time to ask anyway, there is too much to do. Events are coming to a head rapidly with the Devil's Gate and the Yellow-eyed Demon's plans coming to fruition.

 

Even after, with the demons released and the Yellow-eyed Demon dead forever, Jake killed, the gate closed, Dean won't just tell you. He evades and dissembles and leaves you hanging.

 

You stand there battered in every way and connect the dots on your own because he is too stubborn and too ashamed to be straight with you. You know he just wants to protect you but it doesn't excuse the stupid desperation of what he did. It doesn't excuse the fallout that you now have to deal with.

 

Your anger with him at this is at least as vast as your love.

 

You can't believe that Dean values himself so little that he would give his life away to have you back. You can't believe that he holds you in such high regard that he would do such a thing. How have you ever deserved such sacrifice? How could you ever live with the knowledge of him doing such a thing?

 

You have a year to get Dean out of his deal. You have a year to fix this mess or you lose the only thing that really matters to you.

 

So you do the only thing that you've ever known how to do. You keep moving forward, with Dean beside you, doing the work, hunting evil. And if you have to fight him every step of the way, you will show him that he matters to you, and to the world, by keeping him in it.

 

You've got work to do.