The pain was unbearable.
He had experienced worse, of course, at the hands of Lucifer. He was no stranger to torture, and Lucifer had been much more creative than this British Bitch. Still, it hurt like hell and now he was having hallucinations in the form of a highlight reel of his greatest failures.
He didn't need anyone to tell him it was his fault that these people were dead, Sam was already well aware of his shortcomings and the names and faces of those who were gone directly due to his actions, decisions and sheer existence.
Mary, who tried to protect her boy from his destiny and burned on the ceiling. Jess, who fell in love with the wrong boy, a pawn in Azazel's plans to unleash hell on earth. Kevin, who had been doomed from the start, who he had abandoned during the hellish year where he thought Dean was gone for good. Dean...his brother who had suffered time and time again because of Sam. He'd gone to hell for Sam and Sam repaid him by being too blinded by grief to see Ruby's manipulations for what they were, by saying awful things and betraying Dean's confidence and trust over and over until Dean lost faith in him. His brother, who he would destroy anyone to protect, and who was gone. Gone because Sam released Amara and set the world on a fast track to destruction. Again.
He looked in the mirror, Dean's voice filling his head and telling him he should die. That he was a freak and it was his fault that these people had suffered horrible fates. He knew this was a hallucination, the pain wasn't so intense that he actually believed these visions were transforming before his very eyes, but that didn't make the words and blame any less real. He was poison, and now he was alone. No one was going to save him this time; Dean was dead, Cas blown to God-knows-where. He had been here before; once he had pledged his loyalty to a demon who helped him start the apocalypse, another time he had driven aimlessly in a deep depression until he hit a dog and once again made all of the wrong decisions. He wasn't going to do that again. He couldn't do that again.
Sam knew several things as gospel truth in his life: One, anything that can go wrong will go wrong if there's a Winchester around. Two, Dean would kill anyone who laid a finger on him. Three, he and Dean needed each other to survive. How easy would it be to smash this mirror and end this once and for all? Maybe he'd even end up where Dean was blasted to.
"It's your fault."
He was well aware.
"It's your fault."
He could do nothing to fix it.
"It's your fault."
He couldn't live without Dean.
"It's your fault."
But he had the utmost faith that Dean would come back. Dean always came back. And he wasn't going to be the person who screwed up, again, in his big brother's absence.
He raised his fist, punching the mirror and grabbing a shard of glass. He had seen the cameras, he knew someone was watching. He raised the shard to his throat, squeezing tightly and gasping as his skin opened with a sickening pop. How ironic, here he was hallucinating and now he was reopening his hand in the same spot as he had years back, when it was Lucifer in his mind and Dean had reminded him that he was stone number one. He supposed some things never changed. It was time to make his escape. Dean would be anxious if he pull himself out of oblivion, returned home, and Sam was missing. Driven by faith in his brother, in the universe to bring his brother back to him, Sam dropped to the ground, waiting for that bitch to come check on him so he could get the hell out of this prison. It was his fault, people had died because of him, but he couldn't change the past-all he could do was not make the same mistake again.
