A while ago, in that fanfic meme thing (in which you're still welcome to participate, by the way), mellaithwen requested a commentary for Scars.



Scars was my entry for the first ever spnflashfic challenge, "souvenirs". I'm a weird and angsty person, so the first thing that popped into my head when I heard the word "souvenir" was my favourite line from the Goo Goo Doll's song "Name":
Scars are souvenirs you never lose,
the past is never far

I thought "How perfect! How convenient!" and sat down and wrote the story. Thank you, Goo Goo Dolls.

(Since it's only 750 words long, I'll write a complete commentary. Whee!)

---

"A small line runs down Dean’s forearm, barely recognisable. It looks a little as if a river carved its way into massive rock, like the Grand Canyon (Grand Canyon reference for the win!), but smaller and more delicate. One time Sam had asked him where he’d gotten the scar from and Dean had just shrugged in reply and said that he couldn’t remember.

As if.

(Meet my personal pet peeve: I don't think Dean ever forgets. Anything. He just doesn't like to talk about the painful memories, and pretends to act like he's forgotten until it becomes vital to dig up that memories. Meet "Home" and "Something Wicked". I think it took me at least five episodes into season two until I actually believed that Dean couldn't remember his out of body experience.

So this bit in here is really just me giving Dean another hurtful memory he never talked about.)


No memory had been burnt so clear and vivid into his mind like that particular one. The images flickered up like the flames they conjured up along with the biting scent of fire and the feel of ash closing his throat up. With a baby in his arms he ran down the staircase, little Sammy crying bitterly and maybe he already knew more back then than Dean had. Maybe he’d been crying for the mother they’d just lost, and for the things they were about to lose.

Dean looks at the scar and his body dissolves and his mind floats in the air and the past reaches out its fingers and pulls Dean back through space and time to that moment, no matter how badly he wants to stay. It squeezes him into that fragile body of a four-year old with little hands and short legs that can’t run as fast as they want to.

(The last bit here is supposed to be nightmare-ish, and I think that as if the night back then hadn't been bad enough, over the years it really got worse in Dean's memory as he kept replaying it in his head. And keeping asking those questions, "What if I hadn't been fast enough?" Or, regarding the following paragraph, "What if I'd let Sammy fall?" That was a ton of responsibilty to burden a four-year old with.)

Sammy weighs heavy in his arms, his fingers entangled into Sam’s baby blanket but Sam’s slipping through his hands and Dean knows he’ll drop Sam if he doesn’t hold on tighter. Stumbling down the stairs the fire is coming after him, flames and sparks putting out their feelers. A wall of heat rises and surrounds them, growing higher and higher.

(I just wanted to paint a very vivid picture of the flames and the fire here.)

There’s a nail-head sticking out of the wall, just about Dean’s height, where Mum said she’d hang up a photo of Sammy so Dean could always see it. “We’ll hang it up tomorrow,” Mum had said and Dean remembers even 24 years later how she’d smiled at him when Dad had driven the nail into the wall. (Here, have Dean's last or second last memory of the happy Winchester family before he lost everything. I needed a way for Dean to get a scar that night and I don't know, but I found the idea to use something that was actually supposed to remind them of family and happiness against Dean quite thrilling. It is pretty much Winchesterian life in a nut shell.) He can’t remember why the photo wasn’t there that night, maybe Dad had wanted to hang it up later.

What Dean does remember is stumbling and falling against it, tearing up the skin of his arm. Remembers the pain flashing up his arm and the blood dripping on the floor. Remembers ignoring it and running downstairs with Sammy in his arms and Dad somewhere in the house. (Because Dean's always, even at four, put Sam's well-being over his own.)

He closes his eyes and Dean’s there again, and it never gets less frightening or painful, the smoke never less sharp, the fire never less torrid. Sam getting heaver and heavier in his arms.

No one noticed Dean’s cut until the next morning when Dad looked at his pajamas and saw the red stain at the sleeve. By then the blood had already clotted up, but Dad had put a band-aid on it anyway and asked Dean whether it hurt. Dean shook his head despite the fact that it did hurt and he wanted to cry for Mommy.

For some reason he knew Mom wouldn’t come if he cried this time. So he didn’t. (This is actually a hint towards Dean's temporary muteness after Mary's death.)

The cut healed but Dean kept the scar as a souvenir, and he treasures it like the photos Jenny had given them and the memories of their summers at Pastor Jim’s and Caleb’s. (Because really, scars and memories are all that Dean's got to treasure. He's pretty fucked up that way, I guess, hanging on desperately to every bit of family he can get.)

It’s the way their journey began and it’s the way their journey will end. (Confession to make...I hadn't planned to turn this into something post AHBL, actually. But then that sentence popped into my head and it just made sense and that was that...)

The index finger of his right hand runs the scar down idly, almost like a visitor who got lost and now tries to find his way home. (Watch me trying to more or less subtlyhint at Dean, the homeless soul.) The healing process set in a long time ago, patched skin and flesh together again, yet the pain’s never been more sharp and piercing than now.

Dean surfaces from the memory again, the crackle and Sammy’s upset screams still ringing in his ears, filling up the empty hut. He almost doesn't want to open his eyes; he would rather dive back into the memory, because for the first time reality is far worse than his memory. (And it is. When he was four, Mary died but he still had Sam and John. Now, he's got nothing.) His index fingers still runs up and down the scar on his arm.

Dean opens his eyes.

Sam’s lying on the bed in his bloody clothes, seemingly in peaceful slumber. With skin pale, almost grey he looks like a Greek stature, unmoving and no longer part of this world.

Dean stares at Sam for hours, scratching the damn scar (I actually had a friend who did that when she was upset), sometimes lost in memory, sometimes forced to face Sam on the bed with no heartbeat and cold to Dean’s touch.

This is not the way their journey ends, Dean thinks.

It’s time to get another scar.(This is really my version of "We've got work to do."

The scars or The Scar really stands for all the sacrifices Dean's made for Sam all his life, and he kept the scars as souvenirs. It begins when he's four, getting that first tiny scar on his skin, and the first big scar in his heart. And Dean will keep on making sacrifices, he will give everything that he can, and he will keep receiving scars in return.

In the end, I guess, this is really a story about Dean, and how he's willing to get hurt and give everything up for Sam, without second thoughts.)

---