Title: One Eye is Taken for an Eye

Rating: PG13

Genre: Angst, drama

Warnings: Angstttt, suicide attempt, canon death of major character, permanent injury

Summary: AU tag of sorts for No Rest for the Wicked. For the prompt - Dean says time is different in hell, but what if it's not? What if Dean really spent 40 years in hell before Cas put him back to 2007? Write what 40 years without Dean may have looked like for Sam.

May 2, 2008

Dean's torn body lies bloody and mangled on the ground. There is nothing but silence and the ticking of the clock on the wall. 12:05am.

And the sound of Sam's hitching sobs.

No, this is too soon. He didn't have enough time, he should have saved Dean. He had promised. He needed more time.

This couldn't be the end. This couldn't be the end.

And then Bobby is there, he pulls Sam to his feet and Sam wants to resist but he hasn't the energy or the presence of mind.

"We gotta burn him," Bobby is saying.

"No, no, no." He pushes Bobby off of him. "I'm gonna bring him back. He's coming back, he'll need his body."

And Bobby figured there ain't no spirit left to become restless and ain't no demon gonna be wanting to use what's left of Dean's body as a meat suit. So he lets it go, lets Sam have his way.

…

A demon comes along, says she can help him.

"What makes you so different from the others?" He sneers because no other demon has been willing to assist, few will even answer his calls.

"I don't do charity," she tells him. And he doesn't care what she'll ask in return, he just needs his brother back, safe.

Needs to be able to save Dean like Dean had saved him.

….

His powers burn red hot within him and he doesn't control them, they control him. Two years have gone by and Hell isn't any closer to opening up and spitting out his brother, the demon blood isn't helping any with that.

"I never promised you your brother back," the demon insists, "I promised you revenge."

It's okay, he thinks. His powers can't bring Dean any closer to him, but he can feel them pulling him closer to Hell, closer to Dean.

….

Five years without Dean and for the first time he begins to accept he's never going to get Dean back.

He's reckless, he picks fights with anything willing to take him on. He pushes and prods and refuses to pull his gun until too late. He takes on monsters without introductions and doesn't care if they can't be brought down with mere rock salt.

He's aiming for hell but some say he carries it inside of him.

Death refuses to come to him so five years and seventy-two days after Dean's death, Sam decides to do it himself.

Driver's seat of the Impala and he's got AC/DC turned up at full volume, the whole set-up is a bit maudlin and he's sure Dean would laugh at him but he's got Dean's amulet clutched in one hand and a gun shaking in the other. He doesn't know what's waiting for him but he doesn't care so long as Dean is.

He pulls the trigger, there's no pain, no flames, no hell. Just a blinding flash of light and when he comes to he's sprawled out in front of the Impala, cheek pressed to the cold asphalt.

….

Six years and Bobby finds him. He forgot he was supposed to be hiding and got careless.

"You bring electrical storms wherever you go, and demons always follow," Bobby tells him, "You weren't too hard to find."

Bobby tries to take him but Sam refuses to go. Throws the old man up against the wall to let him know he follows no one, but Bobby's got a spell and when Sam wakes up he's locked in Bobby's 'dungeon', in his chamber of torture.

Sam needs the demon blood like he used to think he needed Dean, it tears through him, rips out of his system and he hopes it will kill him as it goes.

….

The detox didn't kill him, but it left him blind and deaf instead. Ten years, Dean's been gone and Sam thinks breathing should be easier by now. Bobby helps him get around. Demons come to him in his dreams and make promises they say they can keep.

They say that if he lets them in, they will bring back his vision and his ears. He tells them that the only thing he wants is his brother. They say that's the one thing they can't give him.

They can fuck off, he lets them know.

….

Eighteen years goes by since Dean's death and it seems the demon world has gone quiet. Bobby says he still sees signs and omens pop up every now and again but it's nothing near like what it one time was.

Sam says that's a good thing but Bobby doesn't think so.

They're too quiet, he says, like they're waiting. Sam remembers what Ruby said about demons, how they're made and he wonders if when the demons return, if they'll bring Dean with them.

….

Twenty-three years. One day Sam wakes up and Bobby doesn't come. He makes his way through his now familiar route through the house and finds Bobby in a heap out on the back porch, he has no pulse.

Sam sits next to Bobby's body until he loses track of time. He finally digs through Bobby's pocket and find his cell phone, redials the last number called and doesn't care who answers.

….

He doesn't remember her, doesn't remember the name but she insists that he and his brother had saved her life once, back when she was just in highschool. Must have been twenty-five years ago, at the very earliest, and he guesses a person doesn't forget something like that.

She's been hunting ever since, she tells him, but when her husband died, she'd gotten mixed up with demons, had a demon ride around in her for nearly a year. Rode her so hard, the demon left her deaf and mute.

Tried to find Bobby and ask for help but when she found him, all she found was the old man's grave.

Sam asks how she found him and that's the answer she gives. At least that's what he thinks she's says, she knows sign language and he knows a little bit of sign language so he puts his hands around hers when she signs and he can make out every couple words.

They've known each other three months when she tells him she doesn't like the guy who's been helping him get around- tells him she could do it better.

So he lets her.

They're a horrible match but he marries her anyway. She's got her PTSD and he's got his and neither of them do much helping of the other but Sam thinks he's better like this than he was alone.

It's better with someone else to think about other than himself and how much he misses Dean, just like it was yesterday, all these years since.

….

Everything's been real quiet and then one day it isn't. Lightning touches down in thirty-three spots in the city and meteorologists don't know what to make of it.

Demons come and they give him back his eyes so he can watch them rip the skin off his wife's bones, they give him his ears so he can hear her scream.

A change is coming, they say. The first seal has been broken and it's only a matter of time before Lucifer is set free.

They take his son, Dean, who's only six years old. They say they've got plans for him and they're gonna make him ready.

"He got his mother's eyes," They say, "And his father's demon blood."

"Lucifer has no need for you any more," they say. The sound of bones snapping is the last thing he hears.

Forty Years

It's forty years since his brother's death when he wakes up next to a familiar brunette demon in his bed. It's been four months and two weeks since his brother died.

Four months and two weeks when there's a knock on his motel room door.