Title: On Without End
Author: Still Waters
Fandom: Supernatural
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.
Summary: Sam knew it was bound to happen. And while the timing was especially cruel, the lack of pain when it all came crashing down was downright terrifying. Spoilers for 7x10.
Notes: This story is set at the end of 7x10 (Death's Door). I blame ash48 over on LJ for commenting on "And Rage Is Mingled With His Grief" and making me think about S7 Sam having a complete breakdown from everything he's been through. I couldn't stop thinking about it, and this piece is what came, nearly fully formed on the edge of sleep one night. There is more "hurt" than "comfort" here, but damned if those boys' love for one another still didn't somehow manage to shine through this painful, potential reality that demanded to be put into words. I hope I did the characters and emotions justice. Thank you for reading and thank you to those I am unable to personally respond to via private message. I truly appreciate your support.
Sam knew pain.
Physically, he had been shot, stabbed, strangled, crushed, and beaten by emotion-driven human rationalization, demon-strengthened hands, and angelic flicks of the wrist. He'd had enough concussions to baffle neurologists as to his continued breathing, let alone coherence, and had his soul crammed back into his chest by Death himself.
Psychologically, he had been possessed, drugged, addicted, plagued by visions, responsible for the Apocalypse, and destined to be Lucifer's true vessel. He'd lost Dean countless times both physically and emotionally, lost his soul, and lost his mind.
And then there was the Cage, defying all categorization. Endless years of just him and the creative malice of Hell personified. Where the word 'pain' was as inadequate as 'hope' was foolish.
But Sam survived; held it together against all odds with Winchester stubbornness, his own deep-seated strength, and the need to be there for Dean, for the brother who still meant the world to him, the one he wouldn't leave to suffer out there alone. He readied himself to catch Dean when the inevitable fall came, pushed closer to a dangerous horizon as, one by one, what little family Dean had left betrayed, broke, and bled right in front of his eyes.
The impending collapse of the most solid support in one's life was a powerful motivator. Sam managed it all with sheer force of will, Dean's warehouse words, and pain; held onto the safety bar and his damaged hand and pushed through. And it was okay because, in his mess of a life, pain was something real, familiar; as steady a constant as Dean, the brother that was worth it all.
The brother currently falling apart right next to him.
Sam had tried to be strong for the both of them, to prepare Dean for the likely death of another father even as he couldn't bear the thought himself, but Dean had lost too much and the levee was about to, quite explosively, break. So Sam stayed close, a steady presence leaning against hospital walls in a vain attempt to support an increasingly unsteady mind. Continued to hide the escalating need to work his scarred hand, and waited. Hoped. Maybe even prayed.
But even as life was occasionally kind, giving them one last, fond insult from Bobby's lips, it was, once again, irrepressibly cruel. Bobby coded, the shrill mechanical scream signaling the end of more than just the man with the bullet in his head.
Suddenly it was all too soon, all too much.
Sam had felt physical pain when Cas destroyed the wall and his mind finally shattered. He was pretty sure Dean had felt it too. They had always had a sort of empathetic bond, a natural draw to the other when he was hurting, strengthened through a lifetime of brotherhood and sharing the same space. So Sam heard the cracks expanding in the shocked form holding back tears at his side; felt the final slide into a long overdue fragmentation and collapse.
This was it – the reason Sam had been holding on; to be there for Dean as the final charges blew.
This moment.
Now.
But he couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Couldn't even send a silent 'I'm right here' to his breaking brother.
Because suddenly he wasn't there. With Dean. With Bobby.
With any of it.
The world muted, colors desaturating. The images of Bobby's paling skin and the desperate, tearful denial on Dean's face disappeared, leaving only Lucifer leaning casually against the doorframe, tongue sliding across his teeth in patient expectation. The scream of the monitors and the controlled chaos of clipped code protocol faded into a single word; two syllables in a breathy sing-song voice icy with silky malice; a sighed nickname that had once only been permitted – outwardly tolerated and inwardly cherished – through Dean's rough timbre.
"Sammy."
Sam had managed to overpower Lucifer, lock him back in the Cage, and short-circuit his hallucinatory presence with well-placed discomfort. But he had never been able to stop him from defiling, by his very use of it, the nickname that was Dean's sole privilege. The one Sam had never allowed anyone else to use. But none of it mattered now, because this time he couldn't stop anything – not Lucifer, not the dimming of the world – nothing. Couldn't get to his hand, to the pain.
To the only chance he had.
The roof over his head had been on lockdown since the Leviathans had stolen their faces. The wall holding his mind back from total immolation was gone. And now his foundation – both Dean and Bobby – was disintegrating in one cruel sequence of events. The patches Sam had desperately been employing - the spackle and caulking of constant work and pain and stubborn strength born of love for his brother - were all suddenly rendered useless; insignificant in the ferocity of the oncoming storm. His tightly controlled, and easily destabilized, pieced-together psyche was now completely out in the open, unprotected and vulnerable, surrounded by the ruins of his life's shelter; left to the mercy of merciless winds, the jagged shards of his mind scattered to an endless void, fragments skittering beyond all sight, reach, and hope.
He didn't remember going stiff. Didn't remember the seizure, or hitting the floor, or if there were any faces or voices beyond the one in his waking nightmares. But even as part of Sam knew this was bound to happen - this inevitable, irreversible breakdown - he wasn't ready.
There was denim under his head – a chill and pulse that wasn't Dean.
Dean.
Sam's last thought was a desperate, primal plea. "Not now. Please, not to Dean, not now!"
But Dean was gone.
All of it was - the desperation, raw need, grief, and mental apology to the brother cruelly left to suffer alone. It was all gone, ashes crumbling to dust with the death throes of Cage-stripped neurons.
Because Sam was gone.
Surprisingly, it wasn't Hell's oversaturated colors or the choked echoes of his own screams that greeted him to the nightmarish realization of his living death.
Just darkness and silence.
Silence even from Lucifer.
But Sam found no comfort there.
Because the silence soon rippled with an intake of malicious breath; a sound seared into every shard of his fractured mind.
There was nothing to reach for in the darkness. With the absence of sight, there was also a cruel absence of pain.
And without the pain….
…..Sam was terrified.