A/N: Just a small coda to ep 12.03. Warnings include references to rape, panic attacks and mental illness. There is a companion fic to this from the PoV of Dean, named, unbelievably enough, as "my only sunshine". You can find it on my author page.
Thank you to my amazing bb, remy_areyousrs/Naila for the beta and my other amazing bb, SPNxBookworm/Sanj for her motivation.
you are my sunshine
Mom smells like supermarket detergent and gunpowder. It's not the Mom smell that Dean had told him about. It's not vanilla and lavender and pie but it's love. Her arms around him, her hand in his hair, her soft breathing, willing him to calm down—it's more love than he's ever felt and he thinks he might explode because—this can't be real, can it?
All this—all the love and love and love—it's not them, it's never been for him and Dean. Their lives were about pulling yourself together and powering through and hanging in there, but there was no weakness, not a moment to be soft or to feel, and Sam knows without question that this really can't be his life. So he holds on. Continues to hold on because he doesn't know if Toni threw him another illusion; if this is real or not, but he likes it, and he will take it for whatever it is.
He doesn't let it all get to him until after he leaves her room. His breaths quicken, walls closing in and his thumb goes to the old scar on his hand from years ago—from the past they'd endured. Sam doesn't know—he doesn't know for sure, and after Toni gets her information—what then? Will he be back in his world of pain? No Dean, no family, nothing to go on with?
He immediately removes his thumb from the scar. He has Mom back. He has Dean back. Cas is alive and all right, too. Sam can take this one and live in it forever.
So when Mom leaves a week later, Sam doesn't think much of it. He could already see the cracks in Toni's perfect illusion for him, even if it was too real, but it's true. If his mom were real, if his mom were suddenly brought back alive after all this time, he knows this is exactly how she would struggle. He knew it had to fall apart. He knew he must wake up for Toni to get her answers.
Mary walks away, and then Dean leaves for his room and Sam waits and waits and waits but the nightmare doesn't cease.
It takes another jab at his old scar, and then another and then a few more for him to realise the truth. That Toni left and Mom is gone and Dean won't talk and this is all… this is all real.
It all crashes down on him like thunder, like a bolt of lightning, and when it does, he is on his knees and he doesn't think he can ever stand back up.
~o~
Sam thinks he heard Dean's door open and shut but he can't be sure of it. He's standing in front of the sink in his room, gazing into the mirror, thumbing his old scar. He doesn't know how he got here or how long it's been. He was on his knees just a minute ago, it seemed but now he's in his room and—
He calms himself. Sometimes these days, he can't keep track of time. It happened when he was possessed but he's not—hasn't been possessed or he'd… he'd know, and God… is this even real?
He wishes Cas hadn't healed the new cut in his hand. He'd needed it, he still needs it, and to do it again, he has no courage to, to—
Coward, says a voice in his head. You would rather live in illusions and lies, than do what it takes to learn the truth.
He grits his teeth. The voice sounds like Lucifer's. Then Toni's. He doesn't know who it is because they merge; their tones, and Sam has to back off from the sink as his head throbs, his ears ringing from the voices, until he's sinking to the floor, back against his bed. He folds his knees and presses his face into them, breaths ragged and heart racing.
You're a coward, Toni tells him.
Lucifer laughs. I agree.
I agree. Coward.
No, No.
You can't face the truth, Toni tells him, you threaten me, and act like you have power over me. But you don't, Sam. You're weak. You're not even yourself. There is no part of you which is yours anymore.
His breath hitches, and he can't seem to catch it. He grips his hair tighter. Not real, she's not real…
Her voice whispers in his ear. Tell me, Sam. What bit of you is yours, and yours alone? Your desires? Ruby's. Your life? Dean's. Your body? Gadreel's. Your soul? Lucifer's.
Your mind? And suddenly, she is standing before him, smiling. Mine.
His stomach does a backflip. His breaths are laboured and his lungs aren't working. He screws his eyes shut, buries his face into his knees but everything is spinning and he can't think or move or scream or… or…
"Sammy?"
He flinches. Again like when Mom shut the door on him, on them, because dreamdreamdream but he can't—he doesn't think he has to courage to look, or even the strength. But he can hear Dean rushing to him, smell the leather and gunpowder (though Dean's not worn leather in years) and then hands on him, brushing back his hair, on his shoulders and he thinks he's going to die, going to die—
"Hey. Hey, hey, come on, buddy, deep breaths."
A calloused hand grabs Sam's wrist and he tries to take it back, scrambling, but then it is resting against soft flannel, and he hears the heavy thump of someone sitting beside him.
"I'm right here," Dean whispers in his ear.
It doesn't make sense. Sam's with Toni. He knows it. He knows it. She just spoke to him—
—but Dean's heartbeat is steady under his palm and Dean is here, calm, and not… not like he was a while ago—
"We're gonna be okay," Dean murmurs. Sam feels sick. He grinds his forehead against his knees, doesn't look up.
"We're gonna be all right," Dean repeats. "Mom—you knew. You knew before I did. You got it, what she was thinking, what she felt, and…" He stops there, and Sam can hear him swallow.
He takes a deep breath. It's easier this time.
He slowly raises his head to a blurry world. Cas is kneeling before him, Dean to Sam's other side and when Sam turns, his brother smiles sadly, sliding an arm around him. "Hey."
Sam returns the smile, two tears sliding down his cheeks.
Dean's face drops. "Sammy—"
"'M okay," Sam whispers, voice hoarse, as he ducks to wipe his face. "We've had worse, right?"
Dean doesn't reply to that. But then, Dean is all—Dean has never been anyone else's. Not when he didn't want it that way. Sam… Toni is right. His desires, life, body, mind and soul are all…
He swallows down the bile that rises his throat and shoves the thought away. He just needs to rest. Like Dean always said, it will be better in the morning. And maybe tomorrow, Sam will wake up not belonging to someone else.
Maybe.
Was there anything ever wrong in hoping for it?
~o~
Dean switches off the lights when Sam's calmed down and helps him lay down before sitting on the other side of the bed. Cas lets them be alone for a bit and even though Sam can't entirely breathe again, he tries to, and he tries hard. Eventually, Dean leaves for something, apparently convinced that Sam is asleep and Sam grabs his phone as soon as his brother is gone, switching to Google, fingers shaking as he begins to type.
Rap—
He stops there. No. This. This isn't… this is not it. He's not… Sam's not a victim and he—and—
He hears Dean coming back and grips his phone tight, shutting his eyes and pretending once more that he is asleep. That he is getting rest like Dean wants him to. That he'll be fine.
Dean, on the other hand, sighs at him and pries the phone away, putting down the water for Sam and making sure the blankets are tucked.
When he hears Dean exit the room again, for the rest of the night he is sure, he fumbles back for his phone. When he opens Google this time, though, he doesn't have the courage to look it up again. That sentence. Or that word.
You're mine, Toni whispers in his ear and Sam screws his eyes shut and lets himself drift away to sleep, hoping he never has to wake up again, especially with all the monsters that visit him in the darkness, in his sleep.
However when Dean pulls him into a hug at breakfast the next morning, Sam buries himself into his brother's shoulder, thinking, maybe all of this will get better after all.
The End
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