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zara_zeeTo be honest, I'm still processing the finale. I'm hoping that reading everyone's codas will help with that!
I'm excited about Rowena's storyline. Perplexed by the Darkness and the 'death' of Death. Cautiously optimistic that the boys appear to be together and on the same page and that S11 will see them as a united front and I thought Jared and Jensen were fantastic. Such intense performances from both of them, particularly Jared. It's really little wonder he was so exhausted and wrung out by season's end.
I have to say, I did roll my eyes a little when I saw Dean in the Tight Black Tee-shirt of Evil. And then I settled in to thoroughly enjoy watching Dean smash things up, wearing said tee-shirt.
So anyway, one of my goals for the year was to write a coda for each and every episode and I've done that!
It's been so much fun, not just writing mine, but also reading everyone else's. It has really enhanced my enjoyment of the show and I've loved my interactions with everyone! I'm sort of sad now that it's over.
I want to acknowledge all the peeps at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
spn_bunker who were so enthusiastic about codas and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kalliel for starting spn_x, to give us somewhere specific to squee about S10 and share our S10 works.
I've also been incredibly impressed by the amount of support the members of this fandom give to the Show (the outpouring of support for Jared was just...amazing and awesome and impressive), and to each other. And to other things too, like fandomaid. I didn't do that love meme thing, but I did want to say that I think you're all amazing, genuine, generous people and I feel very privileged to know you all, even if it's just a little.
Alrighty, enough sap. Here is my last S10 coda. Probably the last. Unless further inspiration hits.
--
Title: Today could be the worst day of your life
Author:zara_zee
Beta: Not beta’d
Genre(s): Episode coda
Rating: PG-13, Gen
Spoilers: Episode 10.23
Word Count: ~1,100
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing in the sand box.
Title from The Chronicles of Life and Death, by Good Charlotte.
Summary: In which Dean is a rock star, Sammy closes his eyes and Death ruminates on life and death and everything between.
--
1.
Your head’s a block of concrete being drilled by a jackhammer and a skunk died in your mouth while you were passed out on the floor. You lift your head, cheek pockmarked and gritty from the motel carpet, and you feel the whiskey seeping from your pores.
You feel like death warmed up and it occurs to you fleetingly, that you’re damn lucky you didn’t go out like Bon Scott. What a way to earn your second set of black eyes. Crowley would’ve never let you hear the end of it.
Your phone beeps and you stumble-stagger to your feet and lurch for the bed, then the phone.
You won’t be calling Sammy back any time soon. The mark sings whenever you get angry with your brother; it wants his blood. So you’re staying as far away as possible, because there ain’t no me if there ain’t no you is still as true as it ever was. You won’t survive his death. You won’t survive it, but thanks to the mark, something will; a monster with your face.
Still, the fat lady hasn’t sung yet. There’s a case to work, Rudy practically begged for your help, so you can go and slake the mark’s bloodlust on a bunch of vamps and keep on doing good just a little bit longer.
You’re good. You’re good.
You aren’t good. You’re barely even you. You can’t get the blood off your hands, can’t get clean, and the mark won’t stop laughing and laughing and laughing and when you look in the bathroom mirror you see Rudy’s bloodied face, then Cas’s bloodied face, and your voice, cruel and filled with cold rage, rings in your ears, telling Sammy over and over again that you wish it was him dead instead of Charlie.
You punch the mirror, rip the phone off the wall and then you completely trash the hotel room, because if you’re not going to be Bon Scott you may as well be John Bonham.
You’ve always been a killer, you know that, but the mark craves death. No. The mark craves murder. Killing evil is like eating tofu; nourishing but bland and boring. Killing an innocent is like the rarest and juiciest steak and the mark is screaming at you to go to Texas Roadhouse and order up big.
You won’t do it. You won’t. No more killing. No more death.
You stop. You incline your head. Death. Now there’s a thought.
2.
This isn’t Dean. Dean would never ask you to sacrifice yourself. All his life, your brother has done nothing but protect you.
He sold his soul once to bring you back from the dead. He couldn’t let you finish the trials. Then he had you possessed by an angel rather than let you die.
Letting you jump into Lucifer’s cage was the hardest thing your brother ever did; you saw how it gutted him, how it tore his soul in two. You know that the cavalier way he’s asking you to make the ultimate sacrifice now, has to be the mark talking. So you take a leaf out of Dean’s book and punch him, to make him see sense.
You’re no match for Dean and he’s barely even trying. You know you can’t win, but you can’t give up. You can’t give up on your brother.
It occurs to you, though, that maybe Dean finally gets it. That you truly are neurotically co-dependent, willing and able to burn the world and everyone in it for no better reason than each other. And that’s not good.
You stop fighting and you hold up a hand. Enough. You don’t want to unleash the Darkness on the world. And if Dean wants to take himself off the board, then you have to respect that, like he respected your decision to leap into the cage, with Lucifer wearing you like a prom dress.
You don’t have to like it, but at least you won’t have to live with it.
You tell your brother that he’s good. That the real him is good. But he has to be stopped. Before he hurts anyone else. No matter the cost.
Even if that cost is you, you don’t say, because you just saw your real brother flicker behind Dean’s eyes and you don’t want to make this any harder for whatever is left of him. You tell him you understand. You tell him to do it.
Your greatest hits list has changed a lot since Roy and Walt shot you both and you know that a memory avatar of Dean will be with you in your heaven. It won’t be quite as good as having the real man beside you, but if Dean’s going to be spending eternity on the dark side of the moon, it’s the best you’re going to get.
You’ve actually got the easy part in all this. You don’t envy Dean his never-ending loneliness and grief; his eventual descent into madness.
Dean tells you to close your eyes, but you don’t, because you don’t want to miss one single minute of looking at your brother. You hold out until you realize that you’re making it harder for him and then you drink in your brother’s face one final time, let your love for him show on your face without reservation, and then you close your eyes.
His image is burned into your retina and you’re more than okay with the fact that Dean is the last thing you will ever see.
You’ve got a better idea than most people about what comes next, but you’re still frightened, which you suppose is only natural.
You hear Death’s scythe slice through the air.
3.
In the beginning, there was Darkness.
And into the Darkness came Life. God. His Archangels. The Laws of Existence.
I rode in on Life’s coattails, because wherever there is Life, there is Death; Life’s equal and opposite; the other side of the same coin.
In the beginning, there was Darkness. And God drove it back. He said, let there be light, and there was light. He made the Heavens and the Earth, the plants and the animals.
God is a Creator, but he must still obey the Laws.
I am at the end of every journey, even God’s. I am inevitable. Some may take longer to reach me than others, but sooner or later everything that lives will meet me.
People rarely personify Life, because it is all around them, being. I am the absence of being and people conjure me in many forms.
Sometimes I am a skeleton with a scythe. Sometimes I am a man wearing a black-cowled robe; sometimes I wear a white one. Sometimes I am a beautiful winged youth, and yet other times I am a wizened old woman, carrying a rake or a broom. Sometimes I am a gaunt old man dressed in a black suit, with a craving for Mexican food and Chicago deep dish pizza.
No matter my avatar, I am always and forever, and one fact is indisputably true.
You can’t kill Death.
Not even if you’re Dean Winchester.
--
I have to say, I did roll my eyes a little when I saw Dean in the Tight Black Tee-shirt of Evil. And then I settled in to thoroughly enjoy watching Dean smash things up, wearing said tee-shirt.
So anyway, one of my goals for the year was to write a coda for each and every episode and I've done that!
It's been so much fun, not just writing mine, but also reading everyone else's. It has really enhanced my enjoyment of the show and I've loved my interactions with everyone! I'm sort of sad now that it's over.
I want to acknowledge all the peeps at
spn_bunker who were so enthusiastic about codas and kalliel for starting spn_x, to give us somewhere specific to squee about S10 and share our S10 works.I've also been incredibly impressed by the amount of support the members of this fandom give to the Show (the outpouring of support for Jared was just...amazing and awesome and impressive), and to each other. And to other things too, like fandomaid. I didn't do that love meme thing, but I did want to say that I think you're all amazing, genuine, generous people and I feel very privileged to know you all, even if it's just a little.
Alrighty, enough sap. Here is my last S10 coda. Probably the last. Unless further inspiration hits.
--
Title: Today could be the worst day of your life
Author:
zara_zeeBeta: Not beta’d
Genre(s): Episode coda
Rating: PG-13, Gen
Spoilers: Episode 10.23
Word Count: ~1,100
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing in the sand box.
Title from The Chronicles of Life and Death, by Good Charlotte.
Summary: In which Dean is a rock star, Sammy closes his eyes and Death ruminates on life and death and everything between.
--
1.
Your head’s a block of concrete being drilled by a jackhammer and a skunk died in your mouth while you were passed out on the floor. You lift your head, cheek pockmarked and gritty from the motel carpet, and you feel the whiskey seeping from your pores.
You feel like death warmed up and it occurs to you fleetingly, that you’re damn lucky you didn’t go out like Bon Scott. What a way to earn your second set of black eyes. Crowley would’ve never let you hear the end of it.
Your phone beeps and you stumble-stagger to your feet and lurch for the bed, then the phone.
You won’t be calling Sammy back any time soon. The mark sings whenever you get angry with your brother; it wants his blood. So you’re staying as far away as possible, because there ain’t no me if there ain’t no you is still as true as it ever was. You won’t survive his death. You won’t survive it, but thanks to the mark, something will; a monster with your face.
Still, the fat lady hasn’t sung yet. There’s a case to work, Rudy practically begged for your help, so you can go and slake the mark’s bloodlust on a bunch of vamps and keep on doing good just a little bit longer.
You’re good. You’re good.
You aren’t good. You’re barely even you. You can’t get the blood off your hands, can’t get clean, and the mark won’t stop laughing and laughing and laughing and when you look in the bathroom mirror you see Rudy’s bloodied face, then Cas’s bloodied face, and your voice, cruel and filled with cold rage, rings in your ears, telling Sammy over and over again that you wish it was him dead instead of Charlie.
You punch the mirror, rip the phone off the wall and then you completely trash the hotel room, because if you’re not going to be Bon Scott you may as well be John Bonham.
You’ve always been a killer, you know that, but the mark craves death. No. The mark craves murder. Killing evil is like eating tofu; nourishing but bland and boring. Killing an innocent is like the rarest and juiciest steak and the mark is screaming at you to go to Texas Roadhouse and order up big.
You won’t do it. You won’t. No more killing. No more death.
You stop. You incline your head. Death. Now there’s a thought.
2.
This isn’t Dean. Dean would never ask you to sacrifice yourself. All his life, your brother has done nothing but protect you.
He sold his soul once to bring you back from the dead. He couldn’t let you finish the trials. Then he had you possessed by an angel rather than let you die.
Letting you jump into Lucifer’s cage was the hardest thing your brother ever did; you saw how it gutted him, how it tore his soul in two. You know that the cavalier way he’s asking you to make the ultimate sacrifice now, has to be the mark talking. So you take a leaf out of Dean’s book and punch him, to make him see sense.
You’re no match for Dean and he’s barely even trying. You know you can’t win, but you can’t give up. You can’t give up on your brother.
It occurs to you, though, that maybe Dean finally gets it. That you truly are neurotically co-dependent, willing and able to burn the world and everyone in it for no better reason than each other. And that’s not good.
You stop fighting and you hold up a hand. Enough. You don’t want to unleash the Darkness on the world. And if Dean wants to take himself off the board, then you have to respect that, like he respected your decision to leap into the cage, with Lucifer wearing you like a prom dress.
You don’t have to like it, but at least you won’t have to live with it.
You tell your brother that he’s good. That the real him is good. But he has to be stopped. Before he hurts anyone else. No matter the cost.
Even if that cost is you, you don’t say, because you just saw your real brother flicker behind Dean’s eyes and you don’t want to make this any harder for whatever is left of him. You tell him you understand. You tell him to do it.
Your greatest hits list has changed a lot since Roy and Walt shot you both and you know that a memory avatar of Dean will be with you in your heaven. It won’t be quite as good as having the real man beside you, but if Dean’s going to be spending eternity on the dark side of the moon, it’s the best you’re going to get.
You’ve actually got the easy part in all this. You don’t envy Dean his never-ending loneliness and grief; his eventual descent into madness.
Dean tells you to close your eyes, but you don’t, because you don’t want to miss one single minute of looking at your brother. You hold out until you realize that you’re making it harder for him and then you drink in your brother’s face one final time, let your love for him show on your face without reservation, and then you close your eyes.
His image is burned into your retina and you’re more than okay with the fact that Dean is the last thing you will ever see.
You’ve got a better idea than most people about what comes next, but you’re still frightened, which you suppose is only natural.
You hear Death’s scythe slice through the air.
3.
In the beginning, there was Darkness.
And into the Darkness came Life. God. His Archangels. The Laws of Existence.
I rode in on Life’s coattails, because wherever there is Life, there is Death; Life’s equal and opposite; the other side of the same coin.
In the beginning, there was Darkness. And God drove it back. He said, let there be light, and there was light. He made the Heavens and the Earth, the plants and the animals.
God is a Creator, but he must still obey the Laws.
I am at the end of every journey, even God’s. I am inevitable. Some may take longer to reach me than others, but sooner or later everything that lives will meet me.
People rarely personify Life, because it is all around them, being. I am the absence of being and people conjure me in many forms.
Sometimes I am a skeleton with a scythe. Sometimes I am a man wearing a black-cowled robe; sometimes I wear a white one. Sometimes I am a beautiful winged youth, and yet other times I am a wizened old woman, carrying a rake or a broom. Sometimes I am a gaunt old man dressed in a black suit, with a craving for Mexican food and Chicago deep dish pizza.
No matter my avatar, I am always and forever, and one fact is indisputably true.
You can’t kill Death.
Not even if you’re Dean Winchester.
--
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