![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: And All But He Departed
Rating/Warning: PG (language)
Wordcount: 5,822
Spoilers: None
Fandom: Crossover, SPN/Discworld
By:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellifer_fic
Category: Gen
Notes: A primer on Discworld's Death. There is no real character death in this story... except the character Death of course.
Notes 2: References to the events of Season 3.
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
Sam’s first coherent thought was nguhhhh.
So, not really coherent but all he could come up with on short notice. Mostly because he was flat on his back and it seemed like every part of his body was bruised. He wanted to move but his body was at that moment not accepting any messages from his brain, instead mostly saying - Try again in maybe six hours. Let’s see how that goes, shall we? before giving his brain the metaphorical finger.
Sam’s arms finally relented and moved of their own accord so Sam could pass his hands in front of his face and curl his fingers closed and then open a few times. It all felt very physical which was odd because Sam was pretty, almost, possibly certain that only a few short minutes ago he’d… well.
He was pretty sure he’d died.
HELLO.
Sam looked up and back from his mostly prone position and saw a rather tall skeleton in a long black cowl standing over him. The skeleton was holding a scythe and kind of shifting from foot to foot as if it was nervous, which made Sam let out a high-pitched little giggle with a rather hysterical edge to it.
OH, ER, THIS ISN’T WHAT YOU WERE EXPECTING I SUPPOSE?
Now the skeleton was looking quite concerned, which was an accomplishment in a face that had no actual features other than polished white bone and dark pits for eyes with blue stars in their depths.
“Am I…?” Sam kind of flailed one of his hands.
UM, NOT QUITE.
“Oh, right. Well, that’s good then… I guess?” Sam was able to sit up as the pain eased off into nothing. Sam frowned down at himself because every niggling little ache was gone as well. He felt like he’d felt at eighteen, before he’d been thrown, choked and otherwise abused for a good four or five years in a row. Even his bad knee from soccer wasn’t twinging like it usually did in cold weather.
On that, looking at the strange landscape around him, Sam was pretty sure it should’ve been cold. There seemed to be an absence of any kind of temperature whatsoever. In some small way, Sam suspected that if he was bundled for the Antarctic or stark naked, he would feel about the same. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam noticed the little pond with a little skeletal gnome fishing a little skeletal fish.
He lay back down.
“Okay, I am dead,” he sighed, throwing an arm over his eyes.
AS I SAID, NOT QUITE. I CAN EXPLAIN. HOW ABOUT YOU COME INSIDE, EH?
Sam pulled his arm away from his eyes long enough to look back up at the skeleton in the robe and grimace. The skeleton, if he was right, was trying to look… disarming.
It all made his head hurt.
000
“Just close your eyes and walk forward.”
Sam had been eyeing the vast distance between the doorway and the table set up at the other end. He was pretty sure it would take him a good ten minutes to walk the space and reach the hunched over little man he could vaguely make out in the distance. What kind of startled him was that the man sounded like he was only a few steps away. The man waved a pan around, managing only just not to heave the entire pile of eggs and bacon in it onto the floor.
Sam supposed that if this was all some very vivid pre-death-induced-by-trauma hallucination then it couldn’t hurt to do what the man said, He closed his eyes, took a breath and took three steps forward. His thighs hit the kitchen table and Sam opened his eyes with a small exhalation of surprise. “See, not so bad?” the man chuckled and motioned again at the table with his pan. “Set yerself down and I’ll dish up.”
Sam slid gingerly into one of the chairs set before the table, folding his hands carefully in front of him. Everything in the place from the furniture to the grass outside had been black so he was relieved to see the eggs and bacon slid onto a black plate under his nose were the usual kind of bacon and egg color.
“The Master doesn’t really get… space,” the man started to explain, waving an arm at the door that Sam was sure he’d just come through but now was tiny with distance. “He tries but it’s all a bit of a hodge-podge.”
“Where am I?” Sam asked because he still wasn’t really clear on that. What kind of a place had a Reaper as a greeter? “Is this purgatory?”
The man stared at Sam for a beat before letting out a loud, braying laugh. His whole body shook with it. Sam was pretty sure he could hear the man’s joints creak. “Purgatory? That’s a good one. I’ll have to remember to tell the Master that one,” he wheezed, the laughter finally subsiding with a few lingering hiccups. The man crossed back to the large, ornate looking stove and flicked off the burners. The flames had been black at the center with a lighter black surround.
“Well, it’s not hell…” Sam began and the man turned a wary eye on him.
“Look, it’s best the Master explain everything. I’m just to feed you and show you to your room.”
“What would a reaper want with me?” Sam asked, still trying to puzzle everything out. So far as he knew, reapers weren’t exactly the type to need humans for anything.
“What do you mean a reaper?” the man demanded, scrunching up his face. “S’only one.”
“No. That’s a common misconception-” Sam started and then closed his mouth because the man was looking at him like he was stepping on puppies and giggling.
“There’s only one,” the man repeated, looking offended and he disappeared through the door Sam had entered by. Sam had to put his head down on the table and breathe for a moment because the man had kind of flicker-snapped like a ghost when he’d moved and it made Sam feel lightheaded.
000
A Winchester and therefore opportunistic, Sam took advantage of being left alone and went exploring. A lot of the rooms were the same and he was shocked and relieved to find a pristine and more importantly working bathroom. About an hour into his search Sam found something far more interesting.
“What the…” Sam breathed as he stepped into what appeared to be a room the size of a warehouse with shelves lining every available space. Crowded together on every inch of shelf was what looked like thousands upon thousands of hourglasses. They ranged from large, regal-looking and jewel encrusted affairs to tiny egg timers. The sound of sand rushing through all of them was disconcerting and made Sam want to back out of the room fast, but something urged him on.
He wasn’t sure what he was looking for but each hourglass had a name engraved somewhere on it. Sam ran his finger along a shelf until he knocked against one with a dull tink. He pulled the hourglass out and held it carefully. It was dull, metallic gray, nothing special but Sam felt gooseflesh break out onto his skin when he had touched it. He turned it around until he saw the nameplate and then nearly dropped the thing in surprise.
“Bobby?” Sam breathed, holding the hourglass up to the light and watching the sand passing from the top bulb to the bottom one. Sam set the hourglass carefully back where it came from and then moved further down the same shelf. He paused and dug behind two old, stone hourglasses and came up with one that was violet with much more sand in the top than the bottom. He read the name and pressed his lips together as his head began to pound. “Hey Jo,” he breathed.
Sam set the hourglass back, clenched his fists and then began to search.
Sam didn't know how long he spent in that room. It could have been minutes or even hours. He wasn't entirely sure how time worked there. When he finally admitted defeat, having searched maybe a millionth of the space and finding shelves and shelves stretching off into the distance, he sat back on his haunches and looked up.
The skeleton who he was now pretty sure was the Death was standing at the end of the aisle he was currently in.
IT'S NOT HERE.
Sam wanted to say something glib like, I have no idea what you're talking about but he was pretty sure you couldn't really lie to the personification of mortality and get away with it.
For very long.
"Is it because he sold his soul?" Sam asked, wincing as he stood. He thought it was a little unfair that his knees were aching when he was pretty sure he wasn't actually existing in the truest sense of the word at the moment.
YES.
"Ah well, that's that then," Sam said, shrugging. "So, if you'll just kindly put me back where I was I'll get on with, you know, dying."
HMMM. I DON'T THINK I SHOULD DO THAT.
"Why not?" Sam demanded, trying not to get angry because again, it seemed a little moot.
YOU'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE.
"I don't remember this place."
NOT HERE HERE, BUT DEAD BEFORE. IT DIDN'T STICK.
"No, I guess not," Sam sighed, leaning a shoulder against the nearest shelf. "But Dean's only got the one soul to sell so this one'll be for keeps."
YOU'D THINK SO, WOULDN'T YOU?
"What does that mean?" Sam asked, frowning.
IT'S COMPLICATED.
"How about you explain it then? I've got eternity apparently."
MAYBE LATER. fALBERT WILL SHOW YOU YOUR ROOM. THEN WE MUST DISCUSS SOMETHING.
"What?"
I'VE HEARD ABOUT THIS NEW FANGLED CONCEPT. IT'S CALLED JOB SHARING.
000
When Sam was safely situated in Ysabell's old room, having been given ample opportunity to stare in horror at the profusion of pink and lace, Albert made his way back to his Master.
"That wasn't very nice," he observed, looking at Death with his head cocked while the personification hovered by a small door out of the way of the main hall of Lifetimers.
WHAT WASN'T?
"You lied to that boy."
I DIDN'T LIE. I OMITTED.
"His brother's Lifetimer is here."
NOT EXACTLY. IT'S NOT HERE IN THIS ROOM. IT'S IN THAT ONE.
Death pointed a bony finger at the smaller door and then curled his arm back, looking as contrite as a tall skeleton could.
IT'S FOR HIS OWN GOOD.
"I don't like it," Albert huffed. "Nothing good ever comes from omitting."
INDEED.
000
“So you’re Death.”
YES
“The Death.”
YES
“We didn’t think you… actually existed.”
WELL, AS YOU CAN SEE I DO. DOES THAT CLEAR UP ANY CONFUSION?
“Not even remotely.”
AH.
000
Sam sat across from Death who was behind a desk and felt like he was sitting for a job interview. In a way, he supposed he was.
I TRIED TO TAKE ON AN APPRENTICE ONCE.
Sam looked up and saw that Death was resting his chin on one hand, tapping thoughtfully with the other on his desk. The sound was like stones rattling inside a can.
DIDN’T WORK OUT.
“I’m sorry?” Sam tried because he wasn’t really sure how he was supposed to respond.
I REMOVED YOU A FEW MINUTES BEFORE YOU WERE DUE TO EXPIRE BECAUSE I HAVE A PROPOSITION.
Sam raised his eyebrows. There was an hourglass sitting on the desk between them and Sam was pretty damn sure it was his. What mostly gave it away was that the grains of sand within were suspended, a few in the process of falling through. There was precious little left in the top bulb. What was more odd was that it looked like only half an hourglass, one side of it completely flat like it fit together with another.
“I’m all ears,” Sam invited, spreading his hands out and resisting the very real temptation to reach forward and grab the very thing that was telling him that he had moments left to live. As if sensing his train of thought, Death reached out a hand and snagged the hourglass, placing it carefully on the corner of the desk furthest away from Sam.
AS I SAID, HAVING AN APPRENTICE DID NOT WORK, BUT THERE IS THIS NEW THING CALLED JOB-SHARING.
“You want to be Death only part-time?” Sam asked, trying not to gape. He was starting to think that maybe he really was just imagining everything that was transpiring. It was all far too surreal.
YOU HAVE A NATURAL AFFINITY FOR THE JOB. YOU WERE ABLE TO FIND LIFETIMERS YOU WERE LOOKING FOR.
“Not every one,” Sam said with a small frown and Death tapped on the desk again.
YOU KNEW IT WASN’T THERE BEFORE YOU STARTED LOOKING, DIDN’T YOU?
Now Death had said it, Sam knew that was true. He’d started scouring the place for Dean’s Lifetimer as Death called it, but he hadn’t really had any hope that he would find it. It just felt like something he had to do while he was there but it had felt like a hollow gesture almost immediately.
“Do I… get to go back to the real world if I accept?” Sam asked, curling forward in his chair.
Death touched a fingertip to Sam’s hourglass and one of the suspended grains of sand slipped through. It hit the bottom with a dull boom that was completely out of proportion to the sound it should have made and Sam felt a dull ache in his chest. He rubbed at it as the pain flared out and settled deep.
YOU WOULD NOT BE OF THE WORLD BUT YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO SKIM THE SURFACE. YOU WOULD HAVE A JOB TO DO.
“Could you help my brother?” Sam asked, getting to the question that had been plaguing him from the moment he had learned who he had been dealing with.
NOT EXACTLY
“What does that mean?” Sam demanded.
I COULD DO NOTHING IN ANY KIND OF OFFICIAL CAPACITY.
“What are you saying?” Sam asked slowly. It was a strange feeling to like Death but he was beginning to. It was odd but Death reminded Sam of his father. There was a dryness to him that made Sam instantly at ease.
WELL, IF YOU WERE TO TAKE ME UP ON MY OFFER, I WOULD HAVE SOME SPARE TIME TO… LOOK INTO THE MATTER.
“You’re kidding,” Sam breathed.
YOU WILL FIND THAT I, IN FACT, DO NOT.
“Right. Okay, so, where do I sign?”
Death clapped his hands together, the sound reminding Sam of dry twigs scraping a window.
NO SIGNING… YET. WE’LL TRY THIS OUT ON A TRIAL PERIOD FOR NOW. I WAS A TAD HASTY LAST TIME AND THAT… CAUSED SOME PROBLEMS.
“But you’ll help my brother?”
AMONG OTHER THINGS, IF I CAN, YES.
“What else are you going to do with your spare time?” Sam asked, incredulous.
I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO PAINT.
000
There was a lot to learn but Death seemed pleased with Sam’s natural aptitude. The fact that he was pretty handy with a scythe earned him extra points. Sam was impatient and troubled with being away from Dean for so long, not knowing how his brother was but Death assured him that time, as he suspected, moved quite differently where they were. Days and weeks to Sam would be only hours to Dean.
“That’s hours too long,” Sam grumbled, knowing his brother would be going out of his mind the minute Sam disappeared from his sight line. The fact that the last time Sam up and disappeared ended with Sam dying wasn’t… huh. Sam supposed the same was true in this circumstance.
He couldn’t help pulling out his cell phone every now and again just in case but of course there was no reception.
He supposed his current phone plan didn’t cover being on another plane of existence, worse luck.
000
“You know what happened the last time you meddled,” Albert said, a note of warning in his tone.
I DO.
“So you’re perfectly comfortable doing it again then?”
YES
“Why?” Albert asked, eyeing his Master.
WHEN I FIGURE THAT OUT, I’LL LET YOU KNOW.
000
“Is he kidding?” Sam asked, staring at the old fashioned time-clock with a set of punch-cards next to it. On one of the cards in complicated black print was written Death with a hole already punched into it.
On the other was, Death (Sam)
“The Master has an odd sense of fun,” Albert said, handing Sam his card.
000
DEAN.
"Jesus fuckin' teaspoons!"
Sam cleared his throat and then kind of grimaced. "Sorry," he said, ducking his head. "Hey Dean."
"Where the hell have you been?" Dean demanded, looking like he couldn't decide whether he was mad or relieved. He stood from the bed he'd been sitting on, from the look of it cleaning every gun in their arsenal and a fair few Sam had never seen before. When Dean was really rattled and didn't know what to do, he bought weaponry. He was kind of like a girl with shoes.
Dean finally launched himself at Sam, but aborted the hug he seemed to be going for at the last minute and instead punched Sam in the shoulder so hard Sam got pins and needles in his hand. "Ow, hey!" Sam protested, stumbling back and tripping on the robe because he wasn't exactly used to it yet. He landed on his ass and looked up at Dean sourly.
"What's with the dress?" Dean asked, blinking.
"It's not a... just shut up and listen a sec," Sam said, rolling up to his feet, getting more tangled as a result and finally settling sideways with an annoyed huff. "Oh man, I am going to kill him," Sam grumbled, wrenching the robe away from his legs so he could get up without embarrassing himself further.
"Kill who?" Dean asked, still staring at Sam like he was some kind of apparition. It was understandable since the last time Dean had seen him, Sam had gotten a two foot spike through the chest and then had apparently disappeared.
"Death," Sam said and then chuffed a laugh.
000
Dean eyed his brother, the seven-foot scythe with a blade of blue light propped against the table and then the other diner patrons. “They don’t see me because they don’t want to see me,” Sam said for perhaps the eighth time and then waved his hands. “It’s a whole thing.”
“You’re Death?” Dean asked, an eyebrow raised in disbelief. He paused when their waitress set his eggs and sausage down in front of him, sidestepping the scythe neatly without even looking at it. “As in the Death?”
“More like Death-in-training,” Sam admitted, grimacing a little. He’d pushed the cowl off and Dean had made a crack about him always being in hoodies, even when he was the embodiment of mortality and they’d bitched at each other for about half an hour, all of it feeling so normal that Sam had almost forgotten, right up until he’d tripped over the edge of the robe coming into the diner. “Death’s taller than me,” he’d grumbled. “Albert is making one for me in my size.”
“Dude, I’m having a little trouble with this.” Dean poked half-heartedly at his breakfast, looking a strange mixture of glum and confused. “Is it like that time you got caught shoplifting at the book store in Yenning when you were like thirteen and ended up with a job there?”
“Um, well…” Sam spread his hands flat on the table, only his fingertips visible under the long sleeves. Dean had always had a knack for paring things down to their bare skeleton, simplifying even the most complex of notions. He had an eye for patterns that his father exploited and a way of explaining things that made him a natural teacher. Once again, he’d pretty much hit the nail on the head. “Kinda, yeah,” Sam agreed, thinking that he wouldn’t have been able to come up with a better comparison if he’d tried.
Yenning had been a small, nothing dot on the map. It wasn’t even the site of anything supernatural, just a go-between when their father had been on the mend from one case and not ready yet to pick up the paper for the next one. Sam didn’t know what had possessed him to do it but he’d been in the single bookstore in the town and he’d seen a battered copy of Huck Finn that had been three dollars in price, two dollars fifty more than he had to his name.
The eagle-eyed shopkeeper had caught him on his way out the door and had told him he could keep the book only if he didn’t mind unpacking crates to pay for it. Sam had readily agreed, visions of his father’s stormy face dancing through his mind if he were to ever know the circumstances behind Sam getting the job. Instead John had merely grunted at the news and said, “Good way to keep you out from under foot I guess but we’re leaving in a few weeks.”
“So you die-”
“I haven’t died,” Sam interrupted and Dean looked up from his breakfast and blinked. “Yet.”
“What does that mean?” Dean asked, voice slow and tentative but there was something like hope sparking on his face.
A horrible hurking noise on the other side of the diner made Sam grimace and stand. “Sorry, I’ll just be a sec,” he said, standing up and flipping the hood over his head. He reached for the scythe but Dean grabbed his wrist.
“What the hell, Sammy?” Dean demanded, looking pensive. Sam pulled his hand free and tried to smile as reassuringly as possible.
“I’ll be right back, Dean,” Sam promised. “I’m just going to the kitchen.” There was a loud crash from the kitchen right at that moment and a woman started yelling for help. Dean made to slide out of the booth but it was Sam’s turn to stop him, putting a hand to his shoulder. “You can’t do anything,” Sam said, shaking his head.
“How do you-?” Dean started to ask but then actually put together what Sam meant, what he was wearing, what he was there for. “Oh, right,” Dean said and nodded, sitting back down.
000
They were back in the motel room before Dean would speak again.
“There just happened to be a guy ready to kick it in that diner?” Dean asked, looking wary. “You didn’t… you know, make that happen did you?”
“I’m a shepherd, not an executioner,” Sam said, reciting the party line that had been drilled into him. Death had looked positively crestfallen when he’d told Sam about how people, ALWAYS HATED THE MESSENGER. I DIDN’T MAKE THEM EAT ALL THOSE STEAKS AND DRINK ALL THAT BEER BUT THEY ALWAYS SEEM SO SURPRISED WHEN THEIR HEARTS GO OUT.
“I’m not supposed to actually come here in anything but an official capacity so I had to find someone who was due to… y’know, close to where you were.”
“Where were you?” Dean asked, staring at Sam hard.
“It’s a little hard to explain,” Sam said, sitting down on one of the beds, hiking the robe up again so that his jean-clad legs were free. Death hadn’t said anything about what he was allowed to wear underneath the robes so he’d taken the liberty. Sam looked at his feet for a moment, waggling them back and forth and thinking that maybe the sneakers took away from the whole mystique. The diner owner, the man who Sam had been present to usher into the afterlife certainly hadn’t looked impressed. Sam figured he had work experience kid written all over him.
“How’d you get here?” Dean asked instead.
“Death dropped me off. He said I would find my own steed here that would take me back.”
“Steed?” Dean said, voice incredulous. “Where are you supposed to…? “ A horrified panic crossed his face and Dean darted out of the room, Sam following, puzzled.
“Dean, what…?” Sam started to say but then stuttered to a stop. Dean was standing in the parking lot, leaning over with his hands braced on his knees.
“Oh goddamitmotherfuckiniknewit!” He ground out, his voice a high-pitched wheeze of rage.
Standing where Sam was pretty sure the Impala was parked when they walked back from the diner was a large black horse.
000
“Why the car, man? Why always my car?”
Dean was pacing back and forth, wearing a flat line in the burnt orange carpeting of the motel room. Every now and again he would tug the room’s curtains aside, groan and then resume his pacing. The horse stood there, looking back at them completely unruffled by the whole experience every time Dean checked.
“I didn’t do that,” Sam said, holding his hands out, palms up.
“Of course you didn’t do it,” Dean said, spinning on Sam. “The Universe did it. The Universe that’s been fuckin’ with me for years, systematically stripping me of everything I care about and I-“
Dean’s voice was going up in volume and pitch and watching him, Sam realized that the car was just an excuse. Dean was letting his panic and grief go, channeled as it was in the prospect of losing the Impala, because the other, the prospect of losing Sam was just too big for him. Sam knew right then and there that he’d been treating this whole thing far too lightly. The idea of dying had become an abstract because he wasn’t actually dead, wouldn’t be for the possible foreseeable future but Dean didn’t see it that way. He’d been without Sam for god knew how long since time moved differently in the…
Sam only realized he’d gone completely rigid when Dean’s hands clamped down on his shoulders and he was shaken hard. “Hey, Sammy? You with me?” Dean’s mortification had dialed down a notch and his panic up when Sam had completely blanked out. He stumbled back like he’d been hit when Sam let out a harsh bark of laughter and clapped a hand to his own face.
“I’m an idiot!”
“I always thought so,” Dean said, voice wary and one eyebrow raised.
“No, I mean, that’s it!”
“You lost me,” Dean said, now starting to look really worried, like maybe something inside Sam had finally flipped.
“Albert lives there. Death adopted a daughter who lived there.”
“I’m still not sure what you-“
“I can take you back with me,” Sam said, hopping from foot to foot like an excited child. Dean was still looking mystified. “I mean, I kind of looked into something like this, hiding you in another dimension-“
“You did what?”
“Just… listen! It’s perfect. The demon won’t be able to find you. Not there.”
Something clicked inside Dean, Sam could see it. A small smirk broke out on his face.
“They got cable?”
000
“I’m not sure this is what the Master meant,” Albert protested, following Dean and Sam into the large black estate at his usual shambling half-run. The Impala was eyeing the black grass at its feet as if it wasn’t sure whether the stuff was edible or not.
“He said he was going to help me.”
“Yes, I’m sure if that’s-“
“I’m just buying us some time until he does.”
“But he might not be-“
“And I’m sure he won’t mind. From what I can tell, he brings people here all the time.”
“That’s not exactly-“
“I never ate breakfast,” Dean said, wedging himself in between Albert and Sam who were glaring at each other. “Can you point me in the direction of the kitchen?”
Albert fumed for maybe another ten seconds before he finally deflated. “Oh all right,” he huffed. “Eggs and bacon?”
“You read my mind,” Dean said, sketching a little wave at Sam as he followed the ancient servant into the house, throwing a, “Wax and polish my… oh Christ, do whatever it is you’re supposed to do to a horse,” over his shoulder.
000
SAM?
Sam paused in the hallway, seeing Death hovering in the doorway leading to his office. Sam had a pile of books in his arms and he nearly dropped them in surprise when addressed. He kind of picked up the knack of the voice but it was still a little startling when used on him. Mostly because he didn’t think he would ever get used to words just appearing in his mind without being spoken.
CAN YOU EXPLAIN?
Death stepped back a little and allowed Sam to poke his head into Death’s office. The usually pristine space was littered with the remnants of what would have been a positively huge breakfast and Dean, sitting on the large chair behind the desk with his feet kicked up on the desktop, head back and mouth open, snoring.
“That’s my brother.”
I AM AWARE OF WHO HE IS.
“Right, then,” Sam nodded and made his escape. He could feel those cold blue eyes boring a hole in the back of his head as he made his escape. A minute later there was the sound of Dean screaming and running feet. He nearly bowled Sam over just as he reached the stairs up to his room.
“A giant skeleton just poked me!” Dean exclaimed.
“That’s Death.”
Dean looked back at Sam and rolled his eyes. “I figured with the whole being a skeleton thing. I just wasn’t expecting to wake up to it poking me in the ribs and saying, er, excuse me, without actually speaking.”
IT’S THE VOICE.
Dean’s eyes widened and he shuddered a little. “Don’t do that,” he complained as Sam grinned. “It’s just creepy.”
000
Dean, as Sam suspected, got bored very quickly. What he didn’t expect was to come back to the scary pink room one day and find Dean sitting at the edge of the frilly bed with too many pillows with two hour glasses balanced on his knees. They looked like a matched pair, both with a flat side that made them look like they fit together. With a start, Sam recognized his own, the few grains of sand left in the top bulb and the few paused in the act of falling to the bottom.
The other though…
The other had more sand in the top bulb than the bottom, a life maybe only a third of the way through. As Sam stared in disbelief, Dean slowly rotated the second so he could see the nameplate. He knew what it would say before Dean was finished spinning it but his mouth dropped open all the same when his eyes were able to trace the script.
Dean Winchester.
“If I understand this right,” Dean said, turning the other Lifetimer so that Sam could see his own name. “This thing says I got all kinds of time before I run out the clock.”
“That’s… I mean, that’s great right? We must find a way to save you. We have to because-“
“This though,” Dean said, cutting Sam’s enthusiasm off at the knees, holding up Sam’s Lifetimer and being careful not to dislodge the few remaining grains. “Means that I don’t give a damn.”
“Dean-“
“I saved you, Sammy,” Dean said, now sounding furious, although Sam wasn’t sure at who, or what. “And you still die before me? That isn’t the way this thing is supposed to play out.”
“Maybe this is the way it’s meant to be,” Sam said, his shoulders lifting in a defeated shrug. “You derail the plan for a little while but the house always collects.”
Dean gave Sam a half-smile as he set both Lifetimers on the small vanity next to the bed. It was already cluttered with statues of Unicorns and kittens. Dean pulled the small switchblade from his boot.
“Screw that.”
Before Sam could react, Dean had brought the knife across in a clean arc, breaking the tops off both Lifetimers. Dean lifted his own just as Sam started forward, hands outstretched and face horrified.
Dean started to pour.
000
“Aren’t you going to do something?” Albert asked, wringing the bottom of his sweat-stained shirt in both hands.
I DID.
000
I see our freedom in my sight, no locked doors, no windows barred
Sam startled awake to the sound of the Impala’s engine and Dean belting out Metallica. He was in jeans and a t-shirt; hair sticking to his forehead in sweaty clumps and Dean clapped him hard on the leg just above the knee as he hit the chorus.
“What the hell?” Sam got out in a strangled yelp and could see the white flash of Dean’s grin. It was dark outside, nothing but the stars above and the road that was illuminated by the Impala’s headlights stretching out in front of them. The road they were on was winding through desert so there weren’t even any streetlights.
“Thought you were going to sleep all the way to Vegas,” Dean said, sounding startlingly chipper.
“We’re going to Vegas?” Sam asked blearily, wondering if maybe everything had been some kind of wacky dream but no, it couldn’t be.
“Where were we just then?”
“I don’t know,” Dean said, shrugging, the leather of his seat squeaking with his movement. “Some outer or inner dimension. You tell me, you were always the twilight zone geek.”
“Dean, I just saw you pour your life out,” Sam almost shrieked, everything coming back to him in a nauseating wave and Dean swerved and finally eased the Impala onto the dirt shoulder, glaring.
“Warn a guy next time you’re going to go into hysterics,” Dean complained, patting the steering wheel anxiously as if in apology for the car’s rough treatment. “And only half of it.”
“What?” Sam asked, hand going up to run at his face.
“I didn’t pour the whole thing out, just half of it. And I didn’t pour it out. I just, lent you some.”
“Can you do that?”
“How the hell should I know?” Dean chuckled. “Just seemed like a good idea at the time and hey, neither of us is pushing up daisies at the moment so I call it a win.”
“I guess,” Sam said, slumping back into his seat, feeling suddenly very drained. Sam felt Dean’s eyes on him and slanted a glance at his brother. Dean had the edges of a smile on his face, like he wanted to be happy but wasn’t sure if it was appropriate. “So… Vegas huh?”
“Can you still do that voice thing?”
“Maybe.”
“I thought you might be able to-“
“No, Dean.”
“You didn’t even know what I was going to say!”
“I’ll take a wild stab in the dark and guess that no matter what you ask, my answer will be no.”
Rating/Warning: PG (language)
Wordcount: 5,822
Spoilers: None
Fandom: Crossover, SPN/Discworld
By:
kellifer_ficCategory: Gen
Notes: A primer on Discworld's Death. There is no real character death in this story... except the character Death of course.
Notes 2: References to the events of Season 3.
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
Sam’s first coherent thought was nguhhhh.
So, not really coherent but all he could come up with on short notice. Mostly because he was flat on his back and it seemed like every part of his body was bruised. He wanted to move but his body was at that moment not accepting any messages from his brain, instead mostly saying - Try again in maybe six hours. Let’s see how that goes, shall we? before giving his brain the metaphorical finger.
Sam’s arms finally relented and moved of their own accord so Sam could pass his hands in front of his face and curl his fingers closed and then open a few times. It all felt very physical which was odd because Sam was pretty, almost, possibly certain that only a few short minutes ago he’d… well.
He was pretty sure he’d died.
HELLO.
Sam looked up and back from his mostly prone position and saw a rather tall skeleton in a long black cowl standing over him. The skeleton was holding a scythe and kind of shifting from foot to foot as if it was nervous, which made Sam let out a high-pitched little giggle with a rather hysterical edge to it.
OH, ER, THIS ISN’T WHAT YOU WERE EXPECTING I SUPPOSE?
Now the skeleton was looking quite concerned, which was an accomplishment in a face that had no actual features other than polished white bone and dark pits for eyes with blue stars in their depths.
“Am I…?” Sam kind of flailed one of his hands.
UM, NOT QUITE.
“Oh, right. Well, that’s good then… I guess?” Sam was able to sit up as the pain eased off into nothing. Sam frowned down at himself because every niggling little ache was gone as well. He felt like he’d felt at eighteen, before he’d been thrown, choked and otherwise abused for a good four or five years in a row. Even his bad knee from soccer wasn’t twinging like it usually did in cold weather.
On that, looking at the strange landscape around him, Sam was pretty sure it should’ve been cold. There seemed to be an absence of any kind of temperature whatsoever. In some small way, Sam suspected that if he was bundled for the Antarctic or stark naked, he would feel about the same. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam noticed the little pond with a little skeletal gnome fishing a little skeletal fish.
He lay back down.
“Okay, I am dead,” he sighed, throwing an arm over his eyes.
AS I SAID, NOT QUITE. I CAN EXPLAIN. HOW ABOUT YOU COME INSIDE, EH?
Sam pulled his arm away from his eyes long enough to look back up at the skeleton in the robe and grimace. The skeleton, if he was right, was trying to look… disarming.
It all made his head hurt.
“Just close your eyes and walk forward.”
Sam had been eyeing the vast distance between the doorway and the table set up at the other end. He was pretty sure it would take him a good ten minutes to walk the space and reach the hunched over little man he could vaguely make out in the distance. What kind of startled him was that the man sounded like he was only a few steps away. The man waved a pan around, managing only just not to heave the entire pile of eggs and bacon in it onto the floor.
Sam supposed that if this was all some very vivid pre-death-induced-by-trauma hallucination then it couldn’t hurt to do what the man said, He closed his eyes, took a breath and took three steps forward. His thighs hit the kitchen table and Sam opened his eyes with a small exhalation of surprise. “See, not so bad?” the man chuckled and motioned again at the table with his pan. “Set yerself down and I’ll dish up.”
Sam slid gingerly into one of the chairs set before the table, folding his hands carefully in front of him. Everything in the place from the furniture to the grass outside had been black so he was relieved to see the eggs and bacon slid onto a black plate under his nose were the usual kind of bacon and egg color.
“The Master doesn’t really get… space,” the man started to explain, waving an arm at the door that Sam was sure he’d just come through but now was tiny with distance. “He tries but it’s all a bit of a hodge-podge.”
“Where am I?” Sam asked because he still wasn’t really clear on that. What kind of a place had a Reaper as a greeter? “Is this purgatory?”
The man stared at Sam for a beat before letting out a loud, braying laugh. His whole body shook with it. Sam was pretty sure he could hear the man’s joints creak. “Purgatory? That’s a good one. I’ll have to remember to tell the Master that one,” he wheezed, the laughter finally subsiding with a few lingering hiccups. The man crossed back to the large, ornate looking stove and flicked off the burners. The flames had been black at the center with a lighter black surround.
“Well, it’s not hell…” Sam began and the man turned a wary eye on him.
“Look, it’s best the Master explain everything. I’m just to feed you and show you to your room.”
“What would a reaper want with me?” Sam asked, still trying to puzzle everything out. So far as he knew, reapers weren’t exactly the type to need humans for anything.
“What do you mean a reaper?” the man demanded, scrunching up his face. “S’only one.”
“No. That’s a common misconception-” Sam started and then closed his mouth because the man was looking at him like he was stepping on puppies and giggling.
“There’s only one,” the man repeated, looking offended and he disappeared through the door Sam had entered by. Sam had to put his head down on the table and breathe for a moment because the man had kind of flicker-snapped like a ghost when he’d moved and it made Sam feel lightheaded.
A Winchester and therefore opportunistic, Sam took advantage of being left alone and went exploring. A lot of the rooms were the same and he was shocked and relieved to find a pristine and more importantly working bathroom. About an hour into his search Sam found something far more interesting.
“What the…” Sam breathed as he stepped into what appeared to be a room the size of a warehouse with shelves lining every available space. Crowded together on every inch of shelf was what looked like thousands upon thousands of hourglasses. They ranged from large, regal-looking and jewel encrusted affairs to tiny egg timers. The sound of sand rushing through all of them was disconcerting and made Sam want to back out of the room fast, but something urged him on.
He wasn’t sure what he was looking for but each hourglass had a name engraved somewhere on it. Sam ran his finger along a shelf until he knocked against one with a dull tink. He pulled the hourglass out and held it carefully. It was dull, metallic gray, nothing special but Sam felt gooseflesh break out onto his skin when he had touched it. He turned it around until he saw the nameplate and then nearly dropped the thing in surprise.
“Bobby?” Sam breathed, holding the hourglass up to the light and watching the sand passing from the top bulb to the bottom one. Sam set the hourglass carefully back where it came from and then moved further down the same shelf. He paused and dug behind two old, stone hourglasses and came up with one that was violet with much more sand in the top than the bottom. He read the name and pressed his lips together as his head began to pound. “Hey Jo,” he breathed.
Sam set the hourglass back, clenched his fists and then began to search.
Sam didn't know how long he spent in that room. It could have been minutes or even hours. He wasn't entirely sure how time worked there. When he finally admitted defeat, having searched maybe a millionth of the space and finding shelves and shelves stretching off into the distance, he sat back on his haunches and looked up.
The skeleton who he was now pretty sure was the Death was standing at the end of the aisle he was currently in.
IT'S NOT HERE.
Sam wanted to say something glib like, I have no idea what you're talking about but he was pretty sure you couldn't really lie to the personification of mortality and get away with it.
For very long.
"Is it because he sold his soul?" Sam asked, wincing as he stood. He thought it was a little unfair that his knees were aching when he was pretty sure he wasn't actually existing in the truest sense of the word at the moment.
YES.
"Ah well, that's that then," Sam said, shrugging. "So, if you'll just kindly put me back where I was I'll get on with, you know, dying."
HMMM. I DON'T THINK I SHOULD DO THAT.
"Why not?" Sam demanded, trying not to get angry because again, it seemed a little moot.
YOU'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE.
"I don't remember this place."
NOT HERE HERE, BUT DEAD BEFORE. IT DIDN'T STICK.
"No, I guess not," Sam sighed, leaning a shoulder against the nearest shelf. "But Dean's only got the one soul to sell so this one'll be for keeps."
YOU'D THINK SO, WOULDN'T YOU?
"What does that mean?" Sam asked, frowning.
IT'S COMPLICATED.
"How about you explain it then? I've got eternity apparently."
MAYBE LATER. fALBERT WILL SHOW YOU YOUR ROOM. THEN WE MUST DISCUSS SOMETHING.
"What?"
I'VE HEARD ABOUT THIS NEW FANGLED CONCEPT. IT'S CALLED JOB SHARING.
When Sam was safely situated in Ysabell's old room, having been given ample opportunity to stare in horror at the profusion of pink and lace, Albert made his way back to his Master.
"That wasn't very nice," he observed, looking at Death with his head cocked while the personification hovered by a small door out of the way of the main hall of Lifetimers.
WHAT WASN'T?
"You lied to that boy."
I DIDN'T LIE. I OMITTED.
"His brother's Lifetimer is here."
NOT EXACTLY. IT'S NOT HERE IN THIS ROOM. IT'S IN THAT ONE.
Death pointed a bony finger at the smaller door and then curled his arm back, looking as contrite as a tall skeleton could.
IT'S FOR HIS OWN GOOD.
"I don't like it," Albert huffed. "Nothing good ever comes from omitting."
INDEED.
“So you’re Death.”
YES
“The Death.”
YES
“We didn’t think you… actually existed.”
WELL, AS YOU CAN SEE I DO. DOES THAT CLEAR UP ANY CONFUSION?
“Not even remotely.”
AH.
Sam sat across from Death who was behind a desk and felt like he was sitting for a job interview. In a way, he supposed he was.
I TRIED TO TAKE ON AN APPRENTICE ONCE.
Sam looked up and saw that Death was resting his chin on one hand, tapping thoughtfully with the other on his desk. The sound was like stones rattling inside a can.
DIDN’T WORK OUT.
“I’m sorry?” Sam tried because he wasn’t really sure how he was supposed to respond.
I REMOVED YOU A FEW MINUTES BEFORE YOU WERE DUE TO EXPIRE BECAUSE I HAVE A PROPOSITION.
Sam raised his eyebrows. There was an hourglass sitting on the desk between them and Sam was pretty damn sure it was his. What mostly gave it away was that the grains of sand within were suspended, a few in the process of falling through. There was precious little left in the top bulb. What was more odd was that it looked like only half an hourglass, one side of it completely flat like it fit together with another.
“I’m all ears,” Sam invited, spreading his hands out and resisting the very real temptation to reach forward and grab the very thing that was telling him that he had moments left to live. As if sensing his train of thought, Death reached out a hand and snagged the hourglass, placing it carefully on the corner of the desk furthest away from Sam.
AS I SAID, HAVING AN APPRENTICE DID NOT WORK, BUT THERE IS THIS NEW THING CALLED JOB-SHARING.
“You want to be Death only part-time?” Sam asked, trying not to gape. He was starting to think that maybe he really was just imagining everything that was transpiring. It was all far too surreal.
YOU HAVE A NATURAL AFFINITY FOR THE JOB. YOU WERE ABLE TO FIND LIFETIMERS YOU WERE LOOKING FOR.
“Not every one,” Sam said with a small frown and Death tapped on the desk again.
YOU KNEW IT WASN’T THERE BEFORE YOU STARTED LOOKING, DIDN’T YOU?
Now Death had said it, Sam knew that was true. He’d started scouring the place for Dean’s Lifetimer as Death called it, but he hadn’t really had any hope that he would find it. It just felt like something he had to do while he was there but it had felt like a hollow gesture almost immediately.
“Do I… get to go back to the real world if I accept?” Sam asked, curling forward in his chair.
Death touched a fingertip to Sam’s hourglass and one of the suspended grains of sand slipped through. It hit the bottom with a dull boom that was completely out of proportion to the sound it should have made and Sam felt a dull ache in his chest. He rubbed at it as the pain flared out and settled deep.
YOU WOULD NOT BE OF THE WORLD BUT YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO SKIM THE SURFACE. YOU WOULD HAVE A JOB TO DO.
“Could you help my brother?” Sam asked, getting to the question that had been plaguing him from the moment he had learned who he had been dealing with.
NOT EXACTLY
“What does that mean?” Sam demanded.
I COULD DO NOTHING IN ANY KIND OF OFFICIAL CAPACITY.
“What are you saying?” Sam asked slowly. It was a strange feeling to like Death but he was beginning to. It was odd but Death reminded Sam of his father. There was a dryness to him that made Sam instantly at ease.
WELL, IF YOU WERE TO TAKE ME UP ON MY OFFER, I WOULD HAVE SOME SPARE TIME TO… LOOK INTO THE MATTER.
“You’re kidding,” Sam breathed.
YOU WILL FIND THAT I, IN FACT, DO NOT.
“Right. Okay, so, where do I sign?”
Death clapped his hands together, the sound reminding Sam of dry twigs scraping a window.
NO SIGNING… YET. WE’LL TRY THIS OUT ON A TRIAL PERIOD FOR NOW. I WAS A TAD HASTY LAST TIME AND THAT… CAUSED SOME PROBLEMS.
“But you’ll help my brother?”
AMONG OTHER THINGS, IF I CAN, YES.
“What else are you going to do with your spare time?” Sam asked, incredulous.
I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO PAINT.
There was a lot to learn but Death seemed pleased with Sam’s natural aptitude. The fact that he was pretty handy with a scythe earned him extra points. Sam was impatient and troubled with being away from Dean for so long, not knowing how his brother was but Death assured him that time, as he suspected, moved quite differently where they were. Days and weeks to Sam would be only hours to Dean.
“That’s hours too long,” Sam grumbled, knowing his brother would be going out of his mind the minute Sam disappeared from his sight line. The fact that the last time Sam up and disappeared ended with Sam dying wasn’t… huh. Sam supposed the same was true in this circumstance.
He couldn’t help pulling out his cell phone every now and again just in case but of course there was no reception.
He supposed his current phone plan didn’t cover being on another plane of existence, worse luck.
“You know what happened the last time you meddled,” Albert said, a note of warning in his tone.
I DO.
“So you’re perfectly comfortable doing it again then?”
YES
“Why?” Albert asked, eyeing his Master.
WHEN I FIGURE THAT OUT, I’LL LET YOU KNOW.
“Is he kidding?” Sam asked, staring at the old fashioned time-clock with a set of punch-cards next to it. On one of the cards in complicated black print was written Death with a hole already punched into it.
On the other was, Death (Sam)
“The Master has an odd sense of fun,” Albert said, handing Sam his card.
DEAN.
"Jesus fuckin' teaspoons!"
Sam cleared his throat and then kind of grimaced. "Sorry," he said, ducking his head. "Hey Dean."
"Where the hell have you been?" Dean demanded, looking like he couldn't decide whether he was mad or relieved. He stood from the bed he'd been sitting on, from the look of it cleaning every gun in their arsenal and a fair few Sam had never seen before. When Dean was really rattled and didn't know what to do, he bought weaponry. He was kind of like a girl with shoes.
Dean finally launched himself at Sam, but aborted the hug he seemed to be going for at the last minute and instead punched Sam in the shoulder so hard Sam got pins and needles in his hand. "Ow, hey!" Sam protested, stumbling back and tripping on the robe because he wasn't exactly used to it yet. He landed on his ass and looked up at Dean sourly.
"What's with the dress?" Dean asked, blinking.
"It's not a... just shut up and listen a sec," Sam said, rolling up to his feet, getting more tangled as a result and finally settling sideways with an annoyed huff. "Oh man, I am going to kill him," Sam grumbled, wrenching the robe away from his legs so he could get up without embarrassing himself further.
"Kill who?" Dean asked, still staring at Sam like he was some kind of apparition. It was understandable since the last time Dean had seen him, Sam had gotten a two foot spike through the chest and then had apparently disappeared.
"Death," Sam said and then chuffed a laugh.
Dean eyed his brother, the seven-foot scythe with a blade of blue light propped against the table and then the other diner patrons. “They don’t see me because they don’t want to see me,” Sam said for perhaps the eighth time and then waved his hands. “It’s a whole thing.”
“You’re Death?” Dean asked, an eyebrow raised in disbelief. He paused when their waitress set his eggs and sausage down in front of him, sidestepping the scythe neatly without even looking at it. “As in the Death?”
“More like Death-in-training,” Sam admitted, grimacing a little. He’d pushed the cowl off and Dean had made a crack about him always being in hoodies, even when he was the embodiment of mortality and they’d bitched at each other for about half an hour, all of it feeling so normal that Sam had almost forgotten, right up until he’d tripped over the edge of the robe coming into the diner. “Death’s taller than me,” he’d grumbled. “Albert is making one for me in my size.”
“Dude, I’m having a little trouble with this.” Dean poked half-heartedly at his breakfast, looking a strange mixture of glum and confused. “Is it like that time you got caught shoplifting at the book store in Yenning when you were like thirteen and ended up with a job there?”
“Um, well…” Sam spread his hands flat on the table, only his fingertips visible under the long sleeves. Dean had always had a knack for paring things down to their bare skeleton, simplifying even the most complex of notions. He had an eye for patterns that his father exploited and a way of explaining things that made him a natural teacher. Once again, he’d pretty much hit the nail on the head. “Kinda, yeah,” Sam agreed, thinking that he wouldn’t have been able to come up with a better comparison if he’d tried.
Yenning had been a small, nothing dot on the map. It wasn’t even the site of anything supernatural, just a go-between when their father had been on the mend from one case and not ready yet to pick up the paper for the next one. Sam didn’t know what had possessed him to do it but he’d been in the single bookstore in the town and he’d seen a battered copy of Huck Finn that had been three dollars in price, two dollars fifty more than he had to his name.
The eagle-eyed shopkeeper had caught him on his way out the door and had told him he could keep the book only if he didn’t mind unpacking crates to pay for it. Sam had readily agreed, visions of his father’s stormy face dancing through his mind if he were to ever know the circumstances behind Sam getting the job. Instead John had merely grunted at the news and said, “Good way to keep you out from under foot I guess but we’re leaving in a few weeks.”
“So you die-”
“I haven’t died,” Sam interrupted and Dean looked up from his breakfast and blinked. “Yet.”
“What does that mean?” Dean asked, voice slow and tentative but there was something like hope sparking on his face.
A horrible hurking noise on the other side of the diner made Sam grimace and stand. “Sorry, I’ll just be a sec,” he said, standing up and flipping the hood over his head. He reached for the scythe but Dean grabbed his wrist.
“What the hell, Sammy?” Dean demanded, looking pensive. Sam pulled his hand free and tried to smile as reassuringly as possible.
“I’ll be right back, Dean,” Sam promised. “I’m just going to the kitchen.” There was a loud crash from the kitchen right at that moment and a woman started yelling for help. Dean made to slide out of the booth but it was Sam’s turn to stop him, putting a hand to his shoulder. “You can’t do anything,” Sam said, shaking his head.
“How do you-?” Dean started to ask but then actually put together what Sam meant, what he was wearing, what he was there for. “Oh, right,” Dean said and nodded, sitting back down.
They were back in the motel room before Dean would speak again.
“There just happened to be a guy ready to kick it in that diner?” Dean asked, looking wary. “You didn’t… you know, make that happen did you?”
“I’m a shepherd, not an executioner,” Sam said, reciting the party line that had been drilled into him. Death had looked positively crestfallen when he’d told Sam about how people, ALWAYS HATED THE MESSENGER. I DIDN’T MAKE THEM EAT ALL THOSE STEAKS AND DRINK ALL THAT BEER BUT THEY ALWAYS SEEM SO SURPRISED WHEN THEIR HEARTS GO OUT.
“I’m not supposed to actually come here in anything but an official capacity so I had to find someone who was due to… y’know, close to where you were.”
“Where were you?” Dean asked, staring at Sam hard.
“It’s a little hard to explain,” Sam said, sitting down on one of the beds, hiking the robe up again so that his jean-clad legs were free. Death hadn’t said anything about what he was allowed to wear underneath the robes so he’d taken the liberty. Sam looked at his feet for a moment, waggling them back and forth and thinking that maybe the sneakers took away from the whole mystique. The diner owner, the man who Sam had been present to usher into the afterlife certainly hadn’t looked impressed. Sam figured he had work experience kid written all over him.
“How’d you get here?” Dean asked instead.
“Death dropped me off. He said I would find my own steed here that would take me back.”
“Steed?” Dean said, voice incredulous. “Where are you supposed to…? “ A horrified panic crossed his face and Dean darted out of the room, Sam following, puzzled.
“Dean, what…?” Sam started to say but then stuttered to a stop. Dean was standing in the parking lot, leaning over with his hands braced on his knees.
“Oh goddamitmotherfuckiniknewit!” He ground out, his voice a high-pitched wheeze of rage.
Standing where Sam was pretty sure the Impala was parked when they walked back from the diner was a large black horse.
“Why the car, man? Why always my car?”
Dean was pacing back and forth, wearing a flat line in the burnt orange carpeting of the motel room. Every now and again he would tug the room’s curtains aside, groan and then resume his pacing. The horse stood there, looking back at them completely unruffled by the whole experience every time Dean checked.
“I didn’t do that,” Sam said, holding his hands out, palms up.
“Of course you didn’t do it,” Dean said, spinning on Sam. “The Universe did it. The Universe that’s been fuckin’ with me for years, systematically stripping me of everything I care about and I-“
Dean’s voice was going up in volume and pitch and watching him, Sam realized that the car was just an excuse. Dean was letting his panic and grief go, channeled as it was in the prospect of losing the Impala, because the other, the prospect of losing Sam was just too big for him. Sam knew right then and there that he’d been treating this whole thing far too lightly. The idea of dying had become an abstract because he wasn’t actually dead, wouldn’t be for the possible foreseeable future but Dean didn’t see it that way. He’d been without Sam for god knew how long since time moved differently in the…
Sam only realized he’d gone completely rigid when Dean’s hands clamped down on his shoulders and he was shaken hard. “Hey, Sammy? You with me?” Dean’s mortification had dialed down a notch and his panic up when Sam had completely blanked out. He stumbled back like he’d been hit when Sam let out a harsh bark of laughter and clapped a hand to his own face.
“I’m an idiot!”
“I always thought so,” Dean said, voice wary and one eyebrow raised.
“No, I mean, that’s it!”
“You lost me,” Dean said, now starting to look really worried, like maybe something inside Sam had finally flipped.
“Albert lives there. Death adopted a daughter who lived there.”
“I’m still not sure what you-“
“I can take you back with me,” Sam said, hopping from foot to foot like an excited child. Dean was still looking mystified. “I mean, I kind of looked into something like this, hiding you in another dimension-“
“You did what?”
“Just… listen! It’s perfect. The demon won’t be able to find you. Not there.”
Something clicked inside Dean, Sam could see it. A small smirk broke out on his face.
“They got cable?”
“I’m not sure this is what the Master meant,” Albert protested, following Dean and Sam into the large black estate at his usual shambling half-run. The Impala was eyeing the black grass at its feet as if it wasn’t sure whether the stuff was edible or not.
“He said he was going to help me.”
“Yes, I’m sure if that’s-“
“I’m just buying us some time until he does.”
“But he might not be-“
“And I’m sure he won’t mind. From what I can tell, he brings people here all the time.”
“That’s not exactly-“
“I never ate breakfast,” Dean said, wedging himself in between Albert and Sam who were glaring at each other. “Can you point me in the direction of the kitchen?”
Albert fumed for maybe another ten seconds before he finally deflated. “Oh all right,” he huffed. “Eggs and bacon?”
“You read my mind,” Dean said, sketching a little wave at Sam as he followed the ancient servant into the house, throwing a, “Wax and polish my… oh Christ, do whatever it is you’re supposed to do to a horse,” over his shoulder.
SAM?
Sam paused in the hallway, seeing Death hovering in the doorway leading to his office. Sam had a pile of books in his arms and he nearly dropped them in surprise when addressed. He kind of picked up the knack of the voice but it was still a little startling when used on him. Mostly because he didn’t think he would ever get used to words just appearing in his mind without being spoken.
CAN YOU EXPLAIN?
Death stepped back a little and allowed Sam to poke his head into Death’s office. The usually pristine space was littered with the remnants of what would have been a positively huge breakfast and Dean, sitting on the large chair behind the desk with his feet kicked up on the desktop, head back and mouth open, snoring.
“That’s my brother.”
I AM AWARE OF WHO HE IS.
“Right, then,” Sam nodded and made his escape. He could feel those cold blue eyes boring a hole in the back of his head as he made his escape. A minute later there was the sound of Dean screaming and running feet. He nearly bowled Sam over just as he reached the stairs up to his room.
“A giant skeleton just poked me!” Dean exclaimed.
“That’s Death.”
Dean looked back at Sam and rolled his eyes. “I figured with the whole being a skeleton thing. I just wasn’t expecting to wake up to it poking me in the ribs and saying, er, excuse me, without actually speaking.”
IT’S THE VOICE.
Dean’s eyes widened and he shuddered a little. “Don’t do that,” he complained as Sam grinned. “It’s just creepy.”
Dean, as Sam suspected, got bored very quickly. What he didn’t expect was to come back to the scary pink room one day and find Dean sitting at the edge of the frilly bed with too many pillows with two hour glasses balanced on his knees. They looked like a matched pair, both with a flat side that made them look like they fit together. With a start, Sam recognized his own, the few grains of sand left in the top bulb and the few paused in the act of falling to the bottom.
The other though…
The other had more sand in the top bulb than the bottom, a life maybe only a third of the way through. As Sam stared in disbelief, Dean slowly rotated the second so he could see the nameplate. He knew what it would say before Dean was finished spinning it but his mouth dropped open all the same when his eyes were able to trace the script.
Dean Winchester.
“If I understand this right,” Dean said, turning the other Lifetimer so that Sam could see his own name. “This thing says I got all kinds of time before I run out the clock.”
“That’s… I mean, that’s great right? We must find a way to save you. We have to because-“
“This though,” Dean said, cutting Sam’s enthusiasm off at the knees, holding up Sam’s Lifetimer and being careful not to dislodge the few remaining grains. “Means that I don’t give a damn.”
“Dean-“
“I saved you, Sammy,” Dean said, now sounding furious, although Sam wasn’t sure at who, or what. “And you still die before me? That isn’t the way this thing is supposed to play out.”
“Maybe this is the way it’s meant to be,” Sam said, his shoulders lifting in a defeated shrug. “You derail the plan for a little while but the house always collects.”
Dean gave Sam a half-smile as he set both Lifetimers on the small vanity next to the bed. It was already cluttered with statues of Unicorns and kittens. Dean pulled the small switchblade from his boot.
“Screw that.”
Before Sam could react, Dean had brought the knife across in a clean arc, breaking the tops off both Lifetimers. Dean lifted his own just as Sam started forward, hands outstretched and face horrified.
Dean started to pour.
“Aren’t you going to do something?” Albert asked, wringing the bottom of his sweat-stained shirt in both hands.
I DID.
I see our freedom in my sight, no locked doors, no windows barred
Sam startled awake to the sound of the Impala’s engine and Dean belting out Metallica. He was in jeans and a t-shirt; hair sticking to his forehead in sweaty clumps and Dean clapped him hard on the leg just above the knee as he hit the chorus.
“What the hell?” Sam got out in a strangled yelp and could see the white flash of Dean’s grin. It was dark outside, nothing but the stars above and the road that was illuminated by the Impala’s headlights stretching out in front of them. The road they were on was winding through desert so there weren’t even any streetlights.
“Thought you were going to sleep all the way to Vegas,” Dean said, sounding startlingly chipper.
“We’re going to Vegas?” Sam asked blearily, wondering if maybe everything had been some kind of wacky dream but no, it couldn’t be.
“Where were we just then?”
“I don’t know,” Dean said, shrugging, the leather of his seat squeaking with his movement. “Some outer or inner dimension. You tell me, you were always the twilight zone geek.”
“Dean, I just saw you pour your life out,” Sam almost shrieked, everything coming back to him in a nauseating wave and Dean swerved and finally eased the Impala onto the dirt shoulder, glaring.
“Warn a guy next time you’re going to go into hysterics,” Dean complained, patting the steering wheel anxiously as if in apology for the car’s rough treatment. “And only half of it.”
“What?” Sam asked, hand going up to run at his face.
“I didn’t pour the whole thing out, just half of it. And I didn’t pour it out. I just, lent you some.”
“Can you do that?”
“How the hell should I know?” Dean chuckled. “Just seemed like a good idea at the time and hey, neither of us is pushing up daisies at the moment so I call it a win.”
“I guess,” Sam said, slumping back into his seat, feeling suddenly very drained. Sam felt Dean’s eyes on him and slanted a glance at his brother. Dean had the edges of a smile on his face, like he wanted to be happy but wasn’t sure if it was appropriate. “So… Vegas huh?”
“Can you still do that voice thing?”
“Maybe.”
“I thought you might be able to-“
“No, Dean.”
“You didn’t even know what I was going to say!”
“I’ll take a wild stab in the dark and guess that no matter what you ask, my answer will be no.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Dude, you've made my week, this is fantastic!
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Oh, Sam. Sneakers and the robe and the VOICE and...heeeeee!
And of course, Dean's solution would be to give Sam some of his life. *OF COURSE*.
:)
*dances*
Wheeeeeee!
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*incoherent squee*
See, this is the problem with writing excellent fics - it kills my ability to reply with intelligent comments!
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He wanted to move but his body was at that moment not accepting any messages from his brain, instead mostly saying - Try again in maybe six hours. Let’s see how that goes, shall we? before giving his brain the metaphorical finger. -- one of my favorite lines!
I needed this...right before my return to work. So, thank you. *g*
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Loved Sam being Death-in-training.
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Yay you!
Thank you for this.
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::HIGH PITCHED DOLPHIN SQUEALS::
OMFUCKING-G YOU WIN! YOU WIN AT LIFE!!!!!!!
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If you write a bonus scene with Dean meeting the Death of Rats I will love you forever.
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OMG OMG
*hyperventilates*
Discworld for the MFin' win!
\m/ \m/
I loved this:
he was pretty sure you couldn't really lie to the personification of mortality and get away with it
Yeah. This? Was awesome. Thanks so much.
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Me: Oh and on a completely random subject change, do you like Terry Pratchett and the Discworld series?
Friend: Yes. Of course I like Terry Pratchett and the Discworld series :P I'd even go as far to say I love them!
Me: Sweet. Coz I am reading this (link to you) right now and its kinda cool.
Friend: ... But that fic is GEN! *stares* *stares at you* *stares at fic* *hehe* You're reading GEN! *pokes you and laughs*
Me: Yes, I know. I don't do Gen. But, dude, DEATH is in it. Beyond awesome. He speaks in capslock and all. I love it!
See? SO MUCH LOVE. Bravo!
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And Sam in the outfit, with jeans... *hehe* :D
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*dies laughing*
I love this.
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Funnily enough, I'm not *that* huge a fan of most of the Discworld stuff, but I love the Death books. I would suggest giving them a try if you liked this... :D
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Your usericon makes me giggle everytime.