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I started my submission for the Supernatural ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
family_secret challenge last night, but I hated the structure. Great idea, bad language. It's hilled and duned with too many "hads", so I'm going to break it down into something sleeker. I'll cannibalize the best parts and chuck the rest. Here is what I had originally:
For just a moment as he lies on the floor of a grubby shop of second-hand tasteless in Toledo, Ohio, Dean wishes that the pain would kill him, just rupture a temporal artery and turn his skull into a stewpot of brain and blood. Then he remembers that Sammy is lying beside him, weeping his own guilt in thick, bloody tears, and he renews his effort to reach the mirror. He might deserve to die for the things he has done and the lies he has told, but Sammy sure as hell doesn't, and so he wills his clenching fingers to open and close the distance between them and the tarnished, black frame of the mirror. It's the only chance they have, and Sammy isn't going to pay for his mistake. His secret. Not again.
Sammy has always paid, from the day they left that godforsaken house and its charred memories. The first sacrifice he had made to someone else's greater good had been the yellow onesie he was wearing the night the Devil ate his mother with a tongue of fire. Dad had pulled the truck over to the side of the road a few miles out of town, unstrapped Sammy from his car seat, and stripped him to his diaper on the gravel shoulder. It had been November in Kansas, not cold enough to snow-not that night-but cold enough to make him bow his tiny baby body and howl. Dad had said it was because they were dirty and smelled like smoke, but even five years old and stoned with fear, Dean had known he was full of shit. Everybody was dirty and smelled, Dad worst of all because he had stayed and fought the demon the longest. He had reeked of sulfur and defeat, two smells with which Dean would become well acquainted over the hard course of his growing up.
It was the blood that had made Dad strip Sammy in the middle of winter. There hadn't been much, just a stipple on his soft forehead and three more drops on the fabric over his tummy like hastily added buttons, but Dad hadn't wanted them to soak through to Sammy's skin. His father never said it, but Dean knows that it was because he hadn't wanted it to taint Sammy, to give him the Mark of Cain. He hadn't known that was what it was called then, hadn't even known it had a name, but he had instinctively known that's what it was. It had been written all over Dad's white, vacant, desperate face and in the roughness of his hands as he had ripped the unoffending baby clothes from a hysterical, red-faced Sammy. Until that night, he'd never seen Dad handle Sammy with anything but gentle reverence, as if he were made of blown glass and dusted gold and not baby fat and sturdy, growing bone.
There were some things he had understood at five, and he had known that the real reason for Dad's disposal of Sammy's clothes was his Secret, the first of many. At least, he'd thought it was, and Dean had kept his mouth shut while Dad had tossed Sammy's clothes into the freezing sluice water of a culvert and watched them bob and drift into the blank, yawping maw of the drain. He'd maintained radio silence when Dad had passed him a screaming Sammy through the open rear window, and pretended not to see when he puked into that same ditch in a wrenching, grey splatter that had bent him double. Nor had he said a word when Dad had gotten in the car again with vomit on his breath and emptiness in his bloodshot eyes and driven away from all the world had left of his mother. He had simply cradled a shivering, bawling Sammy against his bird-bone chest and sung "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star over and over again because it was the only happy song he could remember. He had gone to sleep that night with the song returned to him in his own quavering falsetto, superimposed over the image of his father's soot-blackened hands tearing hanks of sunshine from Sammy's body. He'd never said a word about Dad's little secret. He could be smart, too, when he wanted.
Thing is, he thinks as his fingers inch towards the frame and the pain ratchets up another imfuckingpossible notch, Dad's efforts were in vain. He hadn't been fast enough to spare Sammy the Mark. It had been...[section incomplete]
Bastard that he is, he's grateful that Sammy is too busy with his own agony to notice the blood streaming from his eyes in slow, sticky rivulets. That means there will be no explanations, no uncomfortable truths narrated to the grinding power chord of Metal Church. He can pretend he isn't a bastard for a little while longer. It's the only hope he has left.
family_secret challenge last night, but I hated the structure. Great idea, bad language. It's hilled and duned with too many "hads", so I'm going to break it down into something sleeker. I'll cannibalize the best parts and chuck the rest. Here is what I had originally:For just a moment as he lies on the floor of a grubby shop of second-hand tasteless in Toledo, Ohio, Dean wishes that the pain would kill him, just rupture a temporal artery and turn his skull into a stewpot of brain and blood. Then he remembers that Sammy is lying beside him, weeping his own guilt in thick, bloody tears, and he renews his effort to reach the mirror. He might deserve to die for the things he has done and the lies he has told, but Sammy sure as hell doesn't, and so he wills his clenching fingers to open and close the distance between them and the tarnished, black frame of the mirror. It's the only chance they have, and Sammy isn't going to pay for his mistake. His secret. Not again.
Sammy has always paid, from the day they left that godforsaken house and its charred memories. The first sacrifice he had made to someone else's greater good had been the yellow onesie he was wearing the night the Devil ate his mother with a tongue of fire. Dad had pulled the truck over to the side of the road a few miles out of town, unstrapped Sammy from his car seat, and stripped him to his diaper on the gravel shoulder. It had been November in Kansas, not cold enough to snow-not that night-but cold enough to make him bow his tiny baby body and howl. Dad had said it was because they were dirty and smelled like smoke, but even five years old and stoned with fear, Dean had known he was full of shit. Everybody was dirty and smelled, Dad worst of all because he had stayed and fought the demon the longest. He had reeked of sulfur and defeat, two smells with which Dean would become well acquainted over the hard course of his growing up.
It was the blood that had made Dad strip Sammy in the middle of winter. There hadn't been much, just a stipple on his soft forehead and three more drops on the fabric over his tummy like hastily added buttons, but Dad hadn't wanted them to soak through to Sammy's skin. His father never said it, but Dean knows that it was because he hadn't wanted it to taint Sammy, to give him the Mark of Cain. He hadn't known that was what it was called then, hadn't even known it had a name, but he had instinctively known that's what it was. It had been written all over Dad's white, vacant, desperate face and in the roughness of his hands as he had ripped the unoffending baby clothes from a hysterical, red-faced Sammy. Until that night, he'd never seen Dad handle Sammy with anything but gentle reverence, as if he were made of blown glass and dusted gold and not baby fat and sturdy, growing bone.
There were some things he had understood at five, and he had known that the real reason for Dad's disposal of Sammy's clothes was his Secret, the first of many. At least, he'd thought it was, and Dean had kept his mouth shut while Dad had tossed Sammy's clothes into the freezing sluice water of a culvert and watched them bob and drift into the blank, yawping maw of the drain. He'd maintained radio silence when Dad had passed him a screaming Sammy through the open rear window, and pretended not to see when he puked into that same ditch in a wrenching, grey splatter that had bent him double. Nor had he said a word when Dad had gotten in the car again with vomit on his breath and emptiness in his bloodshot eyes and driven away from all the world had left of his mother. He had simply cradled a shivering, bawling Sammy against his bird-bone chest and sung "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star over and over again because it was the only happy song he could remember. He had gone to sleep that night with the song returned to him in his own quavering falsetto, superimposed over the image of his father's soot-blackened hands tearing hanks of sunshine from Sammy's body. He'd never said a word about Dad's little secret. He could be smart, too, when he wanted.
Thing is, he thinks as his fingers inch towards the frame and the pain ratchets up another imfuckingpossible notch, Dad's efforts were in vain. He hadn't been fast enough to spare Sammy the Mark. It had been...[section incomplete]
Bastard that he is, he's grateful that Sammy is too busy with his own agony to notice the blood streaming from his eyes in slow, sticky rivulets. That means there will be no explanations, no uncomfortable truths narrated to the grinding power chord of Metal Church. He can pretend he isn't a bastard for a little while longer. It's the only hope he has left.
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