HISTORY.
I.       II.        III.        IV.
HISTORY.
I.       II.        III.        IV.
ONE ,   THE  BOY  AND  DEATH
1839. Â abraham colin march was born the only child to scott and elle march on a very early and cold wednesday morning. he was mostly healthy, though he would catch a terrible fever in his first week of life. the world was a much scarier place then, and the doctor wasnât sure that he would make it to his second week. he would cry through the night, sleep only when his mother would hold and rock him carefully in her chair, singing to him as she tended his fever with cloth and whispered prayers. often times, scott was by her side through those long, terrible nights, caring for their newborn son when elle needed to rest. but elle was too terrified to sleep, terrified that they might lose him and she would be unable to help. their darling boy, the little angel blessed to them as a long awaited answer to a prayer theyâd spoken for years. she turned to her faith in those long days and nights, and she prayed for almost a week before the fever finally broke and her baby boy had overcome the illness. he would see the rest of his life without any major illnesses.
and throughout his earliest years, he would grow up working a farm with his parents. he learned to raise chickens, care for goats and barn cats, and how to grow various foods that they would sell in markets as their source of income. sometimes, on special occasions, they would sell cheese made from goats milk that his mother spent days making. it wasnât much, nobody ever had much those days, but it was everything they needed. everything abraham needed. his childhood was blissfully perfect and beautiful, filled with love and laughter and beauty. and his parents doted on him as often as they could, cherishing the gift they were given. he was a perfect little boy. shy sometimes, ambitious others. he was everything to them.
1848. Â abraham is eight (8) years old. and only a month before his ninth birthday, elle suddenly becomes incredibly sick with a mysterious illness. like him as a child, she woke one morning with a fever that never broke, and it made her weaker by the day. doctors advised each person within the house remove themselves, just to be safe. in the wake of smallpox epidemics and various unknown fevers, it was the best for precaution. but scott, ever the loyal husband, refused to let his wife suffer alone. someone had to care for her, she was too ill to do it for herself. and thus, scott asked his brother, will, to watch abraham until his wifeâs condition improved and the doctors were certain that it was safe for him to return home.
but improvement never came. abraham stayed at his uncleâs house for almost two weeks before elle quietly passed away from the illness. and nothing was more devastating than a boy losing his mother. it was the first knife in the back, and there was nobody to blame. but still yet, he found at least one entity to be responsible. he blamed god. he blamed that in which he couldnât see for the death of his mother. for not sparing her despite her devout faith, despite how often she told him to pray when he wished something for others. and he did, he prayed day and night. every night. he pleaded for her life to be spared and he received no answer in return. it was then, at eight years old, that abraham learned that god wasnât listening.
elle march was gone from him, from his father, from a world that seemed to know it and grieved a loss too. as when he, his father, and his uncle had finally begun to lay her to rest on a dark january morning, the world froze. ice broke trees that night, froze the ground solid, and snow covered the fields for miles. it buried the dried lavender sprig that abraham had pulled from her bible and placed over her grave. it was the last time he would see her headstone for seven months.
EARLY  AUGUST,   1848.  and seven months was far too soon. abraham had grieved the loss of his mother with his father, both of them in a silent state for weeks after laying her to rest. there were nights where he cried himself to sleep missing her, when he went to his father for comfort and the two of them sat together, looking at a picture of her, of their family together. now missing its heart.Â
and in that time, his father had grown increasingly sick with a similar fever. it never broke, made him weaker by the day. and for the first week, abraham had watched as his fathers health rapidly deteriorated. scott did his best to keep himself going most days, but some were harder than others and abraham did his best to take care of him.Â
the days were long, but the nights seemed longer as his father couldnât seem to rest. sometime on day three, his father became incoherent with his fever and his lack of rest and began talking to what scott had imagined to be the ghost of his wife. abraham tried telling him that his mother was gone, that he was only hallucinating and he needed to try and rest, but scott persisted. and it only started to get worse from there. he was losing touch with reality, only getting minimal rest due to his fever. abraham tried his best for him, the best a nine year old boy can do for his ill father, until he is sent back to his uncleâs home to stay once more, after scott reached a moment of clarity. abraham tried to beg his father to let him be there for him, to not send him away again, but scott insisted. he promised that he would be cared for by the neighbors who offered to help, that abraham could come back to him once he had recovered properly.
with protest, abraham obeyed. but his stay quickly became permanent. similar to his mother, two weeks after the fever came, scott march would pass away in his sleep. only three days after he had sent abraham to stay with his uncle. the second knife had dug itself into his back.
abraham never got to say goodbye to either of his parents except for at their grave. at nine (9) years old, on AUGUST 9TH, 1848, he was orphaned and left to his uncleâs care. will took him in and cared for him as his own son. will would never marry or have children of his own, instead he would dedicate much of his life and attention to looking after his nephew.
but living with his uncle meant moving, leaving the only home heâd ever known. the memories, the chickens, the trees that he hoped that he would help his mother harvest come late spring after they had blossomed. he had to leave it all behind, taking with him only what he could carry in a bag. his mothers bible had been among those things, though he would never open or read from it. not even now.
will moved abraham to the carolinas with him, where he would live a somewhat similar lifestyle. similar but not the same. will was more of a businessman than a farmer, the opposite to his brother. but in downtime, when he wasnât busy with work, in the few weeks he spent with abraham trying to comfort and grieve with him, will learned from his nephew how to plant apple trees. for a start, they planted two in the spring. one for elle and one for scott. it would take a couple years before they would see it bear fruit, but it was well worth it. it gave abraham something familiar, something to hope for. Â in a way, it gave them both everything.
unknowingly, 1848 would become the best and worst year of his life. he would find himself in the midst of what he believed to be his greatest grief, no relief in sight. but in the first few months of his living with will, abraham would meet dean for the first time. he was young and beautiful. when abraham saw him for the first time, he was awestruck. the need to know and understand everything about him was insurmountable, as if a piece of him had been missing all along, long before his loss, and dean was the perfect fit. clarity was found in him. it became easier to breathe, to exist when in the presence of dean. and certainly they saw a lot of each other, being such good neighbors. abraham would often go to him and offer to help with his chores for the day, or simply to keep him company and watch his good natured heart at work with the horses he tended in the pasture or in their pens. it was like seeing in color for the first time, when he was with dean everything made sense. everything was perfect.
it took them a long time to come forward and admit their feelings. truthfully, it took a long time for abraham to realize that everything he was feeling when it had come to dean was love and longing. desire. the way his heart quickened when deans hands brushed over his, even for a fraction of a second, or the way his cheeks would flush when dean talked to him. how close theyâd become: inseparable. every single day, every hour they could possibly spend together, even if that time was spent lounging in the shade under the apple trees after they had grown tall and strong, bearing perfect fruit, they would be together. and finally, one day, just before dusk, with the first of many stars beginning to dot the horizon skies, they kissed. and they didnât stop.Â
TWO ,   WAR
1861. Â abraham is now twenty-two (22) years old, a young man, and war is brewing. a long predicted feud between enemies, and it was all the talk in town. battles and soldiers and already grieving mothers and wives for men not yet dead but already ghosts, it was all he heard about for months. and soon abraham was among one of those dead men walking, yet to be grieved and longed for at home. in due time.
SPRING  OF  1861,   he falls into the trap of what he believed to be duty. will attempted to stop him. he argued, forebad, and pleaded with him to listen when told him that it was never their business to get involved, that he should never fight another mans war. it became a heated argument one night when abraham came home, determined to see his decision through, and told will that he had enlisted. will told him that he shouldnât have ever gotten involved, that he was a young man making a very stupid decision, to really think about what he was getting himself into. eventually abraham, in the midst of the argument, told him: âyouâre not my father.â which was met with a long pause, silence and a brewing of many emotions all at once. and instead of backing down, will simply said, âno, iâm not. your father is dead. and it was his dying wish that i took care of you, and i canât do that when youâre fighting a war!â but it was too late. it was done. he was introduced to the idea of fighting for something, and he felt it was honorable. he fell into this hubris idea of what he thought it would be like, this falsely romantic idea of glory in war. and will had to watch as his only nephew walked away into danger.
he tells dean, as well. but dean held no intention of stopping him. not like will did. they talked about it for hours one night, and abraham promised him that he would be back, that he didnât expect to be away for too long. he promised that when he did come home, heâd come straight to him. they would find a home together, find somewhere to be at peace. he promised that he would marry him, all he had to do was wait.
1861 Â - Â 1865. Â during the war, he would write letters home when he was able. in them, he often spoke of how he knew this was the right decision for him, that it fit him well. at least for the first couple of months, then letters seemed to shift. abraham seemed to have a different weight to him throughout the letters, soon talking about coming home and how much he missed the farm, growing the apples in the orchard and how much he missed picking them in the fall. most importantly, he would write to dean about how much he missed him. how when he was too afraid to sleep at night, he would think about his arms around him, soothing him to sleep. or when he grew too homesick, he would look at the photograph that he brought with him, the one that they took together before abraham left home. or sometimes, when he needed something more, he would look at the many drawings dean sent him with his letters. all of which were tucked away in his pack, pressed within a book to keep them safe.Â
within each letter back home, he would always tell them both that he was still safe, that he never got a scratch throughout what battles he was in. he considered himself luckier than most. sometimes he wrote about when he lost someone he considered a friend, and how careful he had started to become of making new ones. how weary of people he started to be.Â
the longing of home had never been greater than when there was a long pause of letters back from dean. abraham wrote to him almost daily, thought that maybe it was getting harder for them to send mail to loved ones. maybe they were simply sitting in a large pile somewhere, waiting to be sent. but that wasnât it at all. it was much worse. after a long time of waiting for something back, anything from dean, he got only one letter. from mary. she told him that dean had begun to get very sick, and he was losing energy and ability to write more and more every day, but that he often talked about him. she told him that dean missed him terribly, and that they both hope that the war would come to an end so that they could be together again. before its too late.
for a long time after receiving that letter, abraham considered leaving post. running and abandoning the war altogether. dean had always been his first priority. dean always came first. now that he was sick âŚÂ and the doctors donât know what it was, why it was making him worse, or how to help him, just like how it had gone with his parents, abraham stuck hundreds of miles away from in a place where he could do very little but continue to send him support and love and letters. the consideration stayed with him for almost a week, and very nearly acted with impulse at least once, packing all of his things to go before a different thought changed his mind. running would make him a criminal, people would see him as a coward. he wouldnât know a day of peace if he went back home before his duties were sought through to their end. he didnât want to bring that home to dean. that shame, the fear that abraham would be taken away and brought before a judge if people found out that he ran. he wouldnât give dean that life. when he went home, he wanted dean to have peace. he wanted a name that dean would be honored to take when they married. so he stayed. he fought. and he continued to write letters to him, and some to mary privately. in those letters to mary, all he would ask from her is to keep him updated on deans condition. what doctors say, if anything helps him. how long they estimate he might have left.
THREE ,   SOL  ORIRI  VOBISCUM
1865. Â finally the war was over. abraham was twenty-six (26) years old and finally, after four long years tangled in a messy, ungodly war, allowed to go home. he would finally get to be with dean. but he wouldnât go back the same. the young man he was before he left was no longer a part of him. by all accounts that young man died on the very first battlefield when he laid eyes on the horror human beings could do to one another. the brutality, the fear, the torture. the bloodshed. he would return with dark circles under his eyes, having aged nearly a century behind them, and horrific images replaying in his memories. abraham came back a completely different person. a tortured man. and some part of him wondered, for many months before and even during traveling home, if anybody would recognize him when he got back. if dean would.
the first person he came home to is his uncle. will welcomed him home with open arms and an embrace, telling him countless times how grateful he is that he came home safely. abraham merely smiled at him, hugged him back, gave an efforted âme too,â and moved on to clean up after a long journey made. as his next visit was the most important. dean.
he knew what he was walking into when he went to see him next. or, at the very least, part of what he would be. he knew that deans illness was only getting worse, that he wouldnât be the same as when he left. but it was a completely different thing altogether when he saw him for the first time in four years. mary told him he would be out with the horses, and that was precisely where he found him. blanket over his shoulders, smaller than what he remembered, paler, feeding one of the horses tiny sugar cubes from his hands.
and when they reunited, when abraham stepped forward and announced his presence⌠it was as if the world ceased spinning for just that moment when they locked eyes and they fell into each other without a moments hesitation. finally abraham felt truly home, once again with dean. abraham stayed with him all that night, holding him as close as he could get him, kissing him nonstop from nightful until the early rise of dawn. now he could give him everything he promised. he came back to him, now it was time to give him a home. a ring. take care of him for every moment he had left.
and on top of that: readjust to normal life. there were nights he couldnât sleep, days where he couldnât bring himself to speak more than two words to dean. and even more that he couldnât seem to fight the demons that stayed with him, when all would go quiet and he was left alone to his thoughts. it came out of him in different ways. sadness, anger, defeat. but mostly silence. he didnât like talking about certain things, didnât like talking about his nightmares, or his inability to close his eyes and rest because he kept seeing their faces, their blood, hearing them scream and cry for help or mercy or to a god that didnât listen.
the process of healing was a slow one but abraham found things to keep him busy, to keep his mind and his body occupied when it became too much. when he just needed to be away, to find somewhere to place his emotions. he started fixing things. a leaky roof one rainy spring morning for mary, their horse pen fence in the blistering heat after it had broken after a bad storm. the front door to willâs home when the hinges broke and left it hanging to one side. small things at first. things to keep his mind busy in his spare time, when he isnât looking after and taking care of dean.
1868. Â a year after abrahamâs return, will becomes increasingly sick. it took weeks to convince him to see a doctor, talk to someone that could give him something for his pain and illness. reluctantly, will agreed and came back with bad news. it was an aggressive form of cancer, one they were uncertain about. which meant he would only progressively get worse until his body simply gave out. there was no treatment. doctors told him to rest, find some peace in the rest of his life, and begin putting his affairs together if he hadnât done so already. he wouldnât have long at that stage, it was too late to attempt to save him. not even a âmiracle elixirâ could offer him a chance.
between caring for dean, abraham would also care for will as his body would grow sicker. soon will would realize the toll it was taking on abraham, the restless nights he spent caring for both of them, the very little time to rest even during the day. he stayed on top of medicines for dean, appointments, cooking and cleaning. between coughs and groans. it was running his nephew into the ground. and a month after his diagnosis, will would admit himself to a special hospital to care for the terminally ill. he couldnât continue to let abraham run tirelessly around him, couldnât let him continue to care for him when he had different problems to care for first. his âhusbandâ came first. at least at the hospital, there could be some relief from abrahams shoulders, and willâs too. at least there he could find some comfort in knowing that he wasnât the only one dying, as will still held out hope that dean could make a full life for himself. that dean and abraham could be happy.
a few short months after admission, william march died on a friday evening in his sleep. the sun set on his final day. abraham had been there in those final moments, listened to him take his final breath. the third knife wedged into his spine. willâs death broke him in unimaginable ways. the last of his family was gone, and he was the only one left. will was buried the next day, in a plot next to his brother. william, scott, and elle march were all together someplace, and abraham didnât know whether that place would be heaven or somewhere between.
he would go home shattered that night with the last of willâs possessions packed away in a crate that the hospital had given him. it was placed at the door when he came into the home and would not move for weeks. the first few days were the hardest. he couldnât get out of bed, didnât even want to really. couldnât bring himself to do his routine things, not even for dean. he would spend so much time crying until there were no tears left for him to cry anymore, and then he was just staring at the wall. at dean. trying for everything it was worth to manage his grief.
it would take four days. four days and then he had to force himself out of bed. he couldnât afford to lay there and rot. dean depended on him, and there was still too much work to be done. there were documents to sign, places to be, and too many things that abraham had to take care of that he couldnât do if he had let himself stay there and rot another day.
one of those things, to abraham and deans surprise, had been that in the months leading up to willâs death, somehow he had hidden the fact that he drafted a last will and testament, and even hired a lawyer to care and see it through. a few days after the funeral, it was presented to them. it was written to both of them.
will stated that he wished for his home, the cabin and the land, to be left to his nephew on the day of his passing. everything on the land and everything to do with it from then and into the future was abrahamâs to decide. along with his wealth, his business, and the orchard that had long blossomed into a healthy grove of trees. and all of the wealths were to be shared with abrahamâs partner, dean.
they now had a home. a home that was theirs and so much more.
the first few months were a little rough. the cabin had fallen into some disarray since willâs condition had deteriorated over the years and there hadnât been as much care tended to the home as much as the people within it. there were leaks in the roof, small but noticeable when it rained. and the fence lining the property was all but completely rotted away. abraham would dedicate most of his time fixing each issue that arose between caring for dean, taking almost three months for both bigger projects.
but then he started doing more. as a distraction from his loss, from who else he was soon to lose. during what would be the last year of deans life, on a spring morning, after some neglect in earlier years and from the other renovations done in previous months, the small porch just before the front door had begun to fall apart. a few of the boards broke from underneath abraham and he spent the rest of that very day tearing it out. the next week he had bought supplies for a much larger porch and, as a surprise gift for dean, a little extra to build him a porch swing.
it would take him only a week to complete the whole thing. a porch that wrapped completely around the house, the porch swing, down to its tiniest details.
1867. Â and the universe wasnât quite done throwing its punches at him yet. dean continued to get worse, as they all expected would become of him sooner or later, despite some sense of a false hope. he grew weaker, sicker, and was beginning to rapidly decline just after the turn of a new year, in the cold month of february. it had been two years since abrahams return, two years married to dean, and it takes only one night to lose him. it was morning when he passed, and had just begun to snow. the first snow of the new year. the agony of that loss nearly broke abraham to the smallest he could be, dust to the wind, and if it hadnât been for mary, maybe he might have. become dust.
dean was buried a few days after his passing. abraham paid for every expense, and nothing was to be spared. everything was beautiful, just as dean was. was, he would never get used to that. not ever.Â
he arranged for his favorite flowers to be set in the pocket of his nice suit, to be placed over his gravestone by loved ones. to have a special message engraved, something sentimental and only they would understand. sol oriri vobiscum, may the sun rise with you.
FOUR ,   UMBRA  MORTEM
abraham, now completely alone, succumbs to his grief and attempts to fill the empty chasms with alcohol. drowning his pain, anger, resentment, the hollowness â in anything he could get his hands on. he drinks himself to sleep, then spends his waking hours stuck in a chair facing the window to see deans grave and drinks some more. he couldn't handle it. the silence, the grief, the stillness of everything. being reminded of dean everywhere he looked.
abraham did all he could to distract from the loss. everything. he took up projects around the house, attempted to tend to the orchard that had seen far better days, abrahams neglect beginning to show from the past year of not giving it the attention it needed, reflecting the grief abraham felt. but it was not enough. nothing was ever enough.Â
eventually, he could hardly stand to be in the cabin alone anymore. he decided, suddenly, that he couldn't stay where it was too quiet. he turned to something that he knew how to do. something he knew he was good at, that would keep him away from his loud grief. he became a gunman for hire. he put his skills to use, taking justice to horrible people that escaped it the first time, and often with a hefty price.
three months had passed. and one night, after getting far too drunk at a rowdy bar, abraham may have said a few distasteful things to the wrong group of people. he may have said nothing at all. he truly doesnât remember. but he does remember standing from his seat, barely, stumbling forward with some kind of intention, which spurred on a fight. abraham was beaten, though he managed to get a few lousy swings in, and then there was a knife in his chest. he felt it dig in deep, between his ribs and puncturing his heart, the sharp tip digging itself in further when the other twisted then yanked it out of him. it left him breathless, unable to utter a word as blood rushed from his open wound, spilling into his hands and onto the floor. he wasnât afraid⌠he wasnât angry⌠he was ready.
abraham march died alone on a summer evening, in a pool of his own blood, on AUGUST 8TH, 1867. he was 28.
but death didnât keep him long. not as long as heâd hoped. death was only darkness, cold and never ending pitch darkness that he felt suspended in for hours. never reaching a foretold paradise like his mother told him about, where she said that she would be before she died; where his father was supposed to be with her, where dean was supposed to be. they werenât there. he was alone, even in death.
until he woke up. the fight should have killed him, part of him hoped that it had. heâd been through enough pain for one lifetime, he didnât want to face it anymore. there was a sweet release in death and at least, with some hope, he could be reunited with dean if he had bled out on a dusty floor. if he tried to stay, if he looked harder for him in suspended nothingness. if he believed. but by some unwanted miracle, he woke up hours later, alone and in the dirt, blood soaked through his clothes. he had been dumped after the fight in the middle of nowhere, outside of town. when he looked for the wound, abraham found that his body had started to stitch itself back together. there was still blood coming from the wound, but it was slow and very little. it was starting to form an ugly scar. he was going to be able to walk away, defying death.
abraham march died and lived again. he has discovered his immortality. and with his body still trying to heal, he was weak. exhausted. and couldnât manage to bring himself up from the ground. when he tried, he only crashed back down into the dirt. then darkness took him again. he didnât die, he realized, but instead his body needed time to heal without interruption and he blacked out.
when he came to again, he was in a much different place. he was in a home not his, bandages wrapped around his chest. his blood soaked clothes were gone from him. when he woke, dean was there. but... not his dean, at least not the one he buried. this dean was different. different and somehow all the same.
they were drawn together, this newest incarnation of dean finding him not by happenstance. instead, he described it like a tug. a need to be where abraham was, to find him again and take care of him, nurse him back to health. though there was very little nursing and more watching over him as abraham healed on his own, something dean described as a miracle.
it would take some time before abaraham realized that he was looking at a new incarnation. that somehow, for some reason, dean had come back to him but with no knowledge of his previous life and no knowledge of abraham himself. instead, he would have him fall in love with him all over again. like no time had passed, like almost nothing had changed. for that while, it was just them and this impossible miracle shared between them.
not even death could keep them apart. at least not for very long.
1884. Â abraham march would be a gunman for hire for almost twenty years before he grew tired of it, tired of the blood and the weight it put on his shoulders. twenty years of killing before he finally wanted nothing more than a peace he felt he now no longer deserved.
abraham march retired his gun for multiple decades and became a farmer like his father was. but instead of growing multiple crops, he chose to focus solely on growing apples. he tended the orchard and grew it from a dozen trees, to three dozen. and currently, whenever he isn't working with dean, he sells to a market during picking seasons. he traded his life of blood for something slower, calmer, with hopes to find redemption in settling down and creating an aura of tranquility over himself and his land.
abraham tries to live a peaceful life far outside the supernatural world. he doesnât want much to do with things going on within it or anywhere near most supernatural creatures. he stays purposefully oblivious as not to draw attention to himself, but sometimes-- sometimes that doesnât work.
FIVE ,   IMMORTAL DOG
1884 Â - Â CURRENT. Â SOON.