He glared down at the wounds upon his pale arms, his palms, upon his stomach, his legs, upon his face. Starry points of lights swirled his flesh, gathering where the runes bled and burned.
It was happening. The demons were getting stronger, attacking more were people and forming armies. Sam could feel his control slipping more and more, and his abilities were amplifying by the day-if that was even possible.
It was happening. The end was nigh; the increasing frequency of the runes, and the fact that they bled and sent him down to his knees in pain all the more now, proclaimed it. It screamed it to the world, like one big movie light shining down at him. Everyone knew now that he- Sam Winchester, the Devil's vessel-that he was to blame.
'I know you can feel them, Sammy,' the monster breathed, his appearance taking the form of his brother once again. 'Tap into your power, and see what you're truly made of! You'll be the most powerful human in the world, Sammy! You will rule them all; you are their master. You and me; think of how much fun we'll have.'
You and me. Forever.
"Gahh!" Sam's eyes snapped open and he lunged up in bed; his head banging the board and he became a mess of sweaty limbs and sheets on the floor.
In the next bed over, his brother grunted in his sleep. "S'my...?" But his green eyes remained closed.
Ignoring Dean's call, Sam felt his stomach lurch once more, and crawled to the toilet in their small hotel room, watching as the last of his long-ago-eaten dinner reveled itself again. He wished he hadn't let Dean drag him to the late-night diner; this was all the more harder with Dean and Bobby and Cas all worrying themselves sick over him. It was easier to pretend nothing was wrong, when he had a few hours to himself without being smothered. He'd like to have one peaceful, Benadryl-induced sleep without visions of hell dancing around him.
Sam forced himself up from the toilet on shaky hands and knees, and dared to challenge the mirror. His reflection in the mirror caught his sight, and his doubleganger's eyes glowed bright red, with a hollow smile to match. He torn his gaze away with a grimace, shuddering into a ball in the corner as he lay his bare, bleeding body onto the cool, white tiles.
One the other side of the door, his brother called his name once more. Alert this time, with concern threatening to drown him. He didn't deserve it.
It was too hot. His flesh was burning.
"Sam?"
Damn it. The runes on his hands snaked along his writs and up his arms where they burned themselves into the skin like iron. They spelled a destiny ruled by blood and powered by darkness. Sam bit the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming in pain.
"Y-yeah, Dean?"
A pause. Like the elder man was testing him.
"You okay?"
Sam swallowed back tears and hoped that his voice didn't give him away. "F-fine. Just a stomach bug. That diner sucked."
(Lucifer laughed, wagging a long, grimy finger at him as if he were a disobeying child. Dean said nothing about it, because he couldn't see him, and Sam thanked God for that.)
The next night, it happens again. Only this time, Lucifer's locked him in a bone cage and has swallowed the key. He offers his body up as a way to get the key, but even a creature as broken as Sam still has his pride.
He wakes up in a sweaty mess, holding his legs to his chest like a child, and evening his breathing to the beat of his heart. Because he still has a heart.
Because he is human.
Luckily, Dean is on a late night pie/meat/beer/sex run or whatever the hell his brother does in the middle of the night when he isn't asleep. Sam is thankful for that. Thankful Dean isn't here to see the crimson runes, the Devil's marks on his porcelain skin that are bleeding through his shirt. Dean would have a heart attack. He'd freak and never let Sam out of his sight, and Sam is this close to running away again for everyone's safety.
He makes his way to the bathroom once more.
With a shudder and a shake of weak, wobbly legs, Sam raised himself from the floor, leaving dark, sticky crimson smears on the white tiles behind him.
Bracing his hands on the rim of the marble counter, ( he shivered as his unbearably hot hands met the icy surface) he looked at his face in the mirror once more.
Smudges like contusions existed under the wild, too large eyes that were sunken deep into ashen, gaunt face that seemed to be becoming more fleshless and angular. Though he did not welcome it, it smelt divine, the viscous blood trickling down the middle of his face. Maybe if he was still bleeding, maybe that meant there was still some of his humanity left.
It dawned on him then, the real reason Dean went out tonight. He couldn't blame anyone for not wanting to be around him.
But his reflection faded away when he was blinded by a haze of tears. Yes, maybe tears were a good thing. Maybe-
Dean's words rang in his head as remembered sitting on the roof of an apartment a few weeks ago, looking down at the busy street below, and taking in the cool air. It had been a desperate night in his desperate life, and thinking about how far the drop down below was, was not going to help anything. Dean had come out of nowhere, and Sam had had to pinch himself to make sure it wasn't a vision.
Tears are a good thing, Sammy' His brother had whispered as he looked his in the eyes, 'tears mean you still care. I know it sounds cheesy, but tears mean it still hurts and that hurt means its real and that you're okay.'
Sam had looked at him without emotion. "But I'm not okay." he mumbled.
Dean's face pinched. "I know. But this,"- and he gripped Sam's hand in a life grip, repeating the same words from before, "means it's real, okay? I'm real, this-" he spread his other arm out wide to the city nigh sky around them, "is real. Not a vision. You gotta start there and build up from that."
But now, in the bathroom, the message was clear. This was real. It was written in blood, his skin the bleached parchment on which it was contained. Even his body was changing to suit the dark purposes for which he was destined.
He looked up again, just as the walls around him started to shift and drip with blood. No, no, no, please, no not again! The ground on which he stood on was now brimstone, and fire erupted all around him. In front of him sat the Devil himself, sitting on a throne, with all smiling demons standing around in a circle.
Please, join with me. We are two halves. Same coin, different sides.
Not real, he whispered to himself, as he pinched his palm hard enough to form a bruise, not real not real not-
not okay not okay not okay-
...
.
"Dean!"
.
...
When he wakes up, he's sprawled out in the middle of the hall, half way between their bedroom and the bathroom, with Dean shaking him insistently.
Dean is worried.
Sam isn't sure what scares him more.
...
Sam clung to his humanity, or what little of it he had left. He clung tight, even when he could feel it slipping away. When you hold sand in your hand, the tighter you close your palm the more sand escapes. No matter how close he was to losing that battle, he would fight to the last.
The light flickered away from his latest vision, just like the last night...and the night before, and the night before that. Sam drew back to reality with a gasp, crashing to his knees on the stained tiles. The runes seared. He sank his face within his arms and tangled his fingers in his mop of hair, before remembering that his hands had not been spared either. His cheeks were now smeared with red, his hair sticky in the front and sides. He flinched, the coppery smell rising in his nostrils. The smell was eerily similar to Lucifer's lair, and he would not allow his mind to go back to those memories.
He fingered the ends of his now ragged, unkept hair. It needed cutting again; it had grown while he was in the grips of a vision, just like time. He could be dragged into a vision that would seem like five seconds, and he would come out of it, and hours would be lost. And the other way around. It exhausted him.
He had terrified his Cas, Dean and Bobby, by falling to the floor thrashing and screaming, seemingly swimming through a torrent of blood, or fuel-smelling coppery water.
"Sam?!" They screamed, shaking the boy's shoulder, Dean trying to get his raving brother to awaken from his terrible hallucination.
"What t'hell is happenin' to him, Cas?" He had heard Bobby exclaim.
He remembered the angel's voice like iron in his mouth. "Lucifer is happening to him. He's breaking down Sam's walls."
Now, in the bathroom once again, his hands shook and he took up the small scissors in his blooded hands. He began to cut his unruly hair, that was now nearly to his shoulders. Snip, snip, snip, with each snip he denied his destiny, denied the voices. His body trembled with exhaustion as he watched the tuffs of oily, black hairs fall to the floor. All the while he heard his horrible voice whispering in his ear, 'it's written all over your face, Sammy,' The Symbols gushed blood on his temple.
In time you will learn to accept it. It is who you are!
SHUT UP!" he bellowed, and the mirror shattered in pieces to the floor. "GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD!"
Thumping down the hall was heard instantly, fallowed by banging on the door, and Dean and Cas and Bobby's voices.
"Sam!" Dean's voice was insanely frantic, "Sammy, please open up! I'm begging you, please..."
He struggled to ignore the voices and banging. He shut his eyes tight enough to see black dots. The shelves and sink shook in an unholy roar.
The scissor dropped the floor, the two halves breaking apart. He yelped and raised a bloody hand to his face, painting it a darker scarlet.
There was nothing he could do to keep the voices from howling within his ears.
Sammy...Sammy...Come with me, Sam.
"Sam?!"
As he stripped out of his ruined clothes, he turned the water to the most freezing temperature in the shower, allowing it to wash away all the blood from his skin. He sank against the wall, allowing the tiles to dig into shoulder blades. He gritted his teeth, and made a promise to himself that if he wouldn't fight it, he'd end himself. There was no other way.
He would try to stop this, he would.
"Sam, answer me, damn it!"
He closed his eyes and let the icy water numb his mind to oblivion.
Thank you for reading. :) Please review; it means so much to me.