In The Darkness
A/N: That last episode . . . *Shudders* Holy Terror was . . . terrifying. This used to be a small, 100 word drabble. Then I became bored, and the little story became longer and longer. I wrote this the night I watched Holy Terror, and I decided to turn it into a character examination of Sam Winchester. I always get so mad at the crap he gets put through because yeah, he screws up, but the efforts he went through to get there and the things he goes through after are horrible. Dean never trusts him, often seems to borderline hate him, and I just wanted to go through the reasons on why Sam did what he did. Hope you enjoy!
Video that inspired this: Supernatural: Eventually the Birds must Land by SecretlytoDream.
Spoilers for most of the seasons! Mostly season 4 to 9!
Warning: Mild language
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural—otherwise I'd have it running for ever . . . and ever . . . and ever . . .
It all made sense now.
Sam looked from where he was trapped inside his mind—so reminiscent from his time possessed by Lucifer—and he cursed himself for not seeing it sooner. The blank spots, the tiredness, the coldness. It all made sense.
Well, he thought bitterly, like it's going to help me now.
There wasn't much Sam could do. It had been a week since the angel inside of him—Gadreel, was it?—had taken full control. It's not like Gadreel had to do much—Sam was unaware of the presence and tired and broken enough that Gadreel hadn't really had to do anything other than nudge him aside and send him to sleep.
Sam didn't think Gadreel was evil, per se, but he was making the wrong choices for the right reasons. Sam laughed bitterly to himself. Gadreel was very similar to him in that way, wasn't he?
Sam put up with a lot of crap from Dean. He did. There is such a long list of things that Sam could say 'yeah, I messed up,' and it would be true. And it wasn't like he messed up a lot . . . it just happened to be that when he messed up, the world tended to almost end. Like when he drank Ruby's blood and ended up letting Lucifer free. Or when he was a soulless dick bag and brought Dean back into hunting and then failed to stop Cas from becoming God. Or when he went insane and almost made the famous Winchester brothers turn into the Winchester brother.
But he was always trying.
Yeah, piss poor excuse, right? He tries. Usually he fails. He can easily count his failures. It's not like he can forget he was the one who started the apocalypse.
In the darkness of sleep, Sam has little else to do but reflect on his life. It's all one big lie. The lie that he could be normal and have a chance at a normal human life. He never could have had that life with Jess. Or Amelia.
Those were good times. Not necessarily happy times; but good times.
But Sam never could dwell on good times. Not with Dean and Cas and their friends and acquaintances (and Lucifer) reminding him of everything he had failed to do and everyone he had failed to save.
He supposed his 'slippery slope' happened with Ruby; he was trying to get revenge for Dean's death and force Lilith to bring him back before killing her. Yeah, he suspected Ruby was evil—she was a demon, give him some credit; he wasn't stupid—but she was the only one who understood (or pretended to understand) the pain he was in and the grief that was driving him mad and was the only one willing to help. So he let her guide him. He was so tired by that point in time. He wanted a normal life. He wanted to marry, settle down, and have a quiet life away from the mess and uncertainty.
The issue of Ruby hadn't really been one of great importance while Dean was alive and they had first met the blonde haired demon, but then he had to watch Dean get brutally murdered in front of him. He was a mess—he had no idea what to do or how to cope. He could go have his normal life, but Dean would be suffering in Hell because of him and how could he just let that go and live that apple pie life with that hanging over him? Then Ruby had come—she gave him a chance, a purpose again. Revenge. A motivation Sam was oh so familiar with.
So maybe the first few drops of demon blood went down willingly. But soon it was a need—he couldn't stop. He tried, but he caved in each goddamned time because he couldn't stop. The burning need was so strong and Sam was so weak that each time he tried to stop it was like Ruby was pulling out his lungs and stomach and heart all at once and Sam couldn't stop her. When Dean came back, Sam really tried to stop and move on and away and lasted a few days, but by then Ruby's whispered words of revenge had sliced into his brain and the addiction to her blood made it so hard to think.
He was supposed to be the smart one, right? The one with the clear head and the one who made an attempt at clean living. He wasn't the one who guzzled down alcohol like it was water or who ate every greasy heart-attack inducing piece of junk food that came his way. But he couldn't stop drinking the damn blood. When the door to the Panic Room opened, Sam left. It was like Ruby had the leash and Sam was collared, and what could he do? He knew that Ruby had hidden plans for him, but she was so clever—hiding everything from him until he was in so deep in that he didn't care what so did as long as she gave him what he needed. Dean was right. Hell, they were all right. He was a freak, a monster. But how could he stop? He wasn't strong enough.
He just wanted everything to be over.
But, of course, nothing was easy and he started the apocalypse.
All in a day's work, right?
He supposed God must have it out for the two of them. Dean started everything and Sam ended everything. They were both at fault. But Sam . . . if Sam could've just seen things clearer, just told himself to be happy with Dean's return, just said no . . .
Sam was told by Lucifer himself that he was Lucifer's vessel. Lucifer wanted to ride inside Sam like Meg had done, make Sam be the one to destroy the world and Sam . . . Sam started understanding the evil inside of him. The evil that he had sensed when he was younger and which had choked him and strangled him and left him with nowhere to run but towards Lucifer because that's what all of the Heaven and Hell wanted and there was no escaping it.
Where could he run? Where could he go? How could he escape something that was decided for him at the beginning of time?
But Sam wasn't gonna let that happen because he already failed Dean so much and he wasn't going to do it again.
But there was more.
When Sam fell into the Cage, he made Dean promise to have that apple pie life Dean had always wanted for him. When they were younger, Dean was always so happy to hunt. He was eager to learn everything he could (no matter how much he teased Sam about being the nerd); how to kill the monsters and save the innocent.
But Dean was slowly losing his faith and his hope in everything and everyone, even Sam—and it broke Sam.
He remembered how he reacted when Dean went to Hell. He couldn't have Dean go down that path. He, Sam, was already screwed. He did some pretty unforgivable things. He was doomed from the start—six months into life and he had everything taken away. He lost his chance for a normal life, for a mother and for a dad who actually cared more about him than the demon. Hell, he hadn't even had his humanity. He could never be pure. Not the way Dean was. He couldn't see Dean go down the messed up path Sam had. He couldn't.
When he woke up in Bobby's panic room a year and a half later, Dean lied to him.
He was protecting Sam, he knew. Was there ever a time Dean wasn't trying to protect him? Something had happened when he was downstairs. Sam gathered from the fact that he didn't remember had something to do with it. Dean had remembered Hell. So that was probably why Dean was lying. Sam would've done the same.
That was pretty much how it was going to be, wasn't it? They were always going to lie about something to the other. They used to be fairly close when they were younger, and the first year—the year they were looking for their dad—that went okay. But then Dean lied to Sam about John's final words, and that snowballed.
But Sam went along with it, because he trusted Dean, no matter how many times they had screwed each other over. In the motel room after Dean left to talk to the dragon expert, Sam reflected that the Winchesters would let the world burn for each other. They'd grab the lighter fluid, match, and strike the spark if need be. But they would never be truthful to each other. It just wasn't them.
Then he learned some of the horrors he had committed when soulless.
He had dragged Dean away from the life he had wanted—needed—and proceeded to not only let him be turned into a vampire but to also spilt he and Lisa up.
If there was ever a need for an example of how evil he was, it was that year.
Watch out for Sam Winchester, the monster who'll destroy your life without trying. Stay away from Sam Winchester, the monster who pretends to be human but with a blackness encasing his soul. If you see Sam Winchester, run away as fast as you can.
When Cas took down his walls, Sam was trapped in his own mind. He didn't remember who he was, at first, and that terrified him. But memories leaked in as he traced the motel room and saw the Impala and he remembered his name—Sam. The bartender who had tagged along with him was nice enough, and Sam was grateful for the company. When he saw himself (himself!) try to kill him, he started freaking out and started driving.
His soulless self was a dick.
Seriously, Dean had put up with this guy? I mean, "It's nothing personal"? Oh yes, there's nothing personal about killing myself . . . everything's fine! Nothing to see here! Let me blow my other self's brain out!
Sam didn't find it particularly fun to shot his dick self (though it was a little satisfying . . . this version of him had hurt Dean, had hurt Bobby, had hurt so many people . . .) but the Hell self . . . That broken version terrified Sam and he didn't want to admit to himself just how tempted he was to go find Jess or the bartender. He could get lost in his head, find the good memories and shove the bad ones so deep that he could forget . . .
Dean.
His brother was out there and needed him. Sam was a screw up. Dean (most likely because how could he not) hated him but he needed Sam's help because it was just him and Bobby and even if Dean didn't want him two people against all of Heaven, Hell, and Cas (and Cas broke him. He was Sam's friend he had been there for Sam and Sam had been there for him and why would he do this—but then again, why would Sam drink demon blood? Cas was desperate Sam could respect that) and Bobby was old and Dean was tired.
So he killed his Hell self and awoke.
Frankly, the fact that he had to kill his soulless and Hell-tortured selves to escaped only went to show how truly messed he was.
Everything was on fire and burning and Sam was screaming and thrashing and it was all one long track of painhelpburningpainnopain . . . and Sam read the note Dean had left him because Dean needed Sam and that's what Sam concentrated on and he stumbled outside and there was a car that could work and Sam drove and found the Impala and . . . screwed everything up. He wasn't in time to save the poor people who would die in the next few days. He wasn't in time to stop Cas. He just . . . he was too slow. A liability.
Why did Dean put up with him?
When Sam was insane, he did his best to protect Dean from it. It wasn't Dean's fault. It was the best of a bad situation, and it was Sam's burden to bear. After all, wasn't he the one who messed up the most? And if not the most (because Dean did tie in close) the most spectacularly? Maybe this was his punishment. This was his fate.
Sam would take it all if it meant Dean would live.
But Dean died. Sam isn't quite sure anyone knew what he was going through that year that Dean went to Purgatory and Sam dropped off the face of the planet.
Dean had had a year off, too, hadn't he? With Lisa and Ben, in that ordinary and safe life. Funny how Dean achieved it when Sam never had—not for lack of trying on Sam's part, though.
But it wasn't even that. All his life, Sam had never been alone. He and Dean had basically been together their entire life, and their little family had grown. There was Bobby, and Cas, and Kevin. Even when he was insane, they were there for him.
Bobby, the closest thing he had to a father.
Kevin, a kid who was put in an impossible situation and expected to do so much.
Castiel, the angel of fell for them after only knowing them a few months and risked so much for them.
And Dean, his brother, who he'd do anything for.
Then, just weeks after he was no longer insane—an insanity that had almost killed him—Bobby was gone, then Dean and Cas, then Kevin. All within three hours of each other.
Sam almost went insane again, and then there would be no one to help him.
He wasn't sure how Cas had taken it away. Yes, he said he shifted it, but the memories were still there. The pain, the fear, the mantra of runhidebegrunfightcowerhiderunrunrunrunrunrun . . . that was still there. Sam could still go insane. He was on the edge, with the natural fear and adrenaline that came with the job pushing him to the brink. Dean couldn't understand because Dean had never been to the edge.
(The closest he may have come was in Hell when he got off the rack, but Dean was the Righteous Man, and his big brother and even those souls Dean tortured were in Hell. Most of them were probably there for a very good reason.)
But there Sam was, on the edge.
"You are well and truly on your own." Crowley had said, and Sam ran. He pounded through the hallways, not caring if anyone heard because they were Leviathan and maybe they could end this life of his that he never wanted and could never escape from and maybe he'd find some peace or maybe just go to Hell and get the punishment he deserved and it would all be over.
But there was no one in the factory and Sam almost laughed (almost cried) because Crowley and his demons were taking care of it all. Sam burst out the doors and headed for the Impala. It was lodged in the large sign out the front, and there was a bomb lying on the hood. Sam approached it wearily and saw it wasn't active. There was a note from Crowley, telling him to blow up the building and the warehouses.
My pleasure, Sam thought and did just that, coaxing the Chevy alive to get as far away from the bomb as he could.
The trees flashed by and Sam heard the boom! a mile away and fought the hysteria bubbling in his throat and pulled off to the side of the road. He leaned back and felt his forehead crease in grief and fought back the rising blackness of insanity.
He had just lost every single person he had ever cared about.
So he could see two paths. Get out of this life, get out and take time to clear his head and breathe and make sure his switch didn't flip again or risk going insane again to get Dean back from where ever the hell he had ended up.
Had Dean even landed somewhere where he could reach?
Sam wasn't even sure where Dean and Cas had gone. Maybe Purgatory, but who knew? How could he even find out? Kevin, the only one who could read the tablets, was gone. Sam was sure Crowley would have taken the kid somewhere where Sam could never find him. No demons would tell him. Who could he turn to? Where could he go? The Roadhouse, Bobby's . . . they were all gone.
Kevin was another issue. Crowley could've taken the kid anywhere. There was an entire world out there, complete with Hell, and if Sam was in charge he would have made damn sure that the Prophet of the Lord was somewhere where the Winchesters couldn't reach. Or maybe that was just him.
He saw a flicker in the corner of his eye and Lucifer smirked at him and Sam blinked and started panicking and thinking no no not again nonononononononono . . .and he stepped on the gas pedal and got the hell out of there.
He could find Kevin, but how could he, a man on the brink of insanity, find Dean and Cas? And how could he be there to protect Kevin? He . . . he was useless. And evil, unclean, un-pure, and surely someone like a Prophet would be better off without him around? He'd only get the boy killed. It wasn't like he didn't have plenty of evidence saying 'if you get left with Sam Winchester, you'll be dead or wanting to die within a year!' What use was he to Kevin? At least with Crowley Kevin would live.
So Sam left.
He hadn't been Sam in a long time. Years, in fact. Ever since he had started drinking demon blood Sam had ceased to be . . . Sam. That year he was a junkie. The next, a soldier. The next, soulless. Then an amnesiac, then insane. There was no time to breathe. Dean had gotten a year off after they were soldiers. A year to breathe, to mourn, to move on. But Sam hadn't gotten any rest for years. There was no break for him since Jess's death. No time for him to clear his head. The Yellow-eyed demon was just the start. Where did he get off? Where did he get to have that life he always wanted?
When Amelia told him that her husband was still alive, Sam bitterly thought 'never'. He would never, ever get that life he wanted. Something would always, without fail, bring him back.
He had been so happy with her, though. A happiness he hadn't even managed with Jess because with Jess he still had to pretend but Amelia was screwed up and broken too and they could be messed up together. Amelia didn't know what Sam has done, but he never told her. Sam didn't know what Amelia had done, and she didn't tell him. They were happy focusing on the now and on the fact that they were together with unsatisfactory jobs and messed up lives and grief beyond words and they were happy.
(Sam thinks of happy and he thinks of singing off-tune in the Impala with Dean or sharing beers on the hood in the middle of nowhere or back to back fighting to save innocent people and making a difference in the world.)
But this life . . . this normal and unimportant life . . . Sam has wanted this. He's always wanted this. He never, ever wanted to be a hunter. He wanted to meet a nice girl and have hot dogs on spaghetti and run into the snow with a dog he never really meant to get as it chased a ball. That simplicity, that comfortableness . . . why would anyone ever want to leave it? Sam didn't understand. Why would anyone ever want to leave such a wonderful life?
Sam wonders if Dean ever felt this way when he took a year off.
But he packs and leaves because Amelia's husband is still alive and on his way home from a war Sam can't be bothered to care about, not after what he's been through and it's the right thing to do. It's not what he wants, but what he wants has never, ever been relevant. Not to their dad, not to Dean, not to anyone. Hell, not even to himself if he's honest.
When he reached the cabin, the only place he could think of, Dean was there.
Sam didn't want to explain why he took that year off. He wasn't sure Dean would get it. Dean would probably consider it a 'chick-flick moment'. There were times Sam hated the phrase. Besides, how could he explain he felt it was good to be 'better safe than sorry'? Be safe, get out, go away than sorry and dirty himself yet again. Dean wouldn't get it because he didn't understand what Sam is thinking. He's never felt himself slide away from reality, Lucifer laughing in his ear and all their friends and people they've save parading around his face and telling him how worthless he is, how much he disgusts them, how glad they are to be dead.
Mom, dad, Bobby, Ellen, Jo, Rufus, Ash, Pamela, Andy, Cas, Anna, Kevin, Dean . . . they all looked at him in disgust and hatred and how could Sam deal with that?
How could Dean ever know?
He told Dean he wasn't hunting anymore, and he saw the look of betrayal and bitterness (so familiar) rising up and push the happiness away and Dean was Dean again, looking at him the way that Sam had become used to within the last few years.
Sam always wanted to be the normal one, yet he was the one who was the farthest from normal.
Dean showed him some of his old phones, Kevin's hysterical messages there if Sam had just listened and all Sam could think about was 'I failed him again' and he wanted to run away because how could he deal with everything? He could never do anything right, never, and so why try? Why bother?
But he followed Dean in the heavy silence because that's what he does.
He had to make things up to Kevin, but how could he? How could he apologize and explain the hopelessness and fear and self-loathing that was always present inside of him? They found Kevin, and Sam watched Dean readjust himself into society while directing the loathing and bitterness that Sam was used to at Sam (and Sam shouldn't be used to that, he shouldn't and when did they get so broken?) and Sam wanted to scream at Dean and curse him and ask why he couldn't have one thing, just one thing go right in his life?
Because he didn't get that luxury.
What was it Bobby had said? He wasn't a person. He was a hunter, and he could never, ever get away from that.
Right.
Sam had to be a hunter. Vacation was over, and now he had to deal with that one year of selfishness had brought him.
He'd do it right this time. He'd probably never do right in Dean's gaze, but if Dean wanted him gone he would've told him to go a while ago. So Sam would make it up even if (hopefully if) it killed him.
When Dean said he had some personal stuff to deal with, Sam almost laughed because Dean got to have personal stuff to deal with but Sam couldn't? Dean got to berate him for taking some time off—the first time he really actually took time off in nearly a decade, but then decides he gets to hightail it out of there to deal with personal stuff? Since when did Dean have personal stuff since Lisa and Ben?
The blackness welled up and Sam quickly backed off of that thought.
I'm not a person. He repeated to himself. Yes, if he focused on that, he'd get the job done easier. He wasn't a person; he was a tool, an object. Just focus on that and you'll get through because you're not a person, you're here for the people who can't protect themselves and who die and that is why you are not a person.
Sam could deal with that.
He found out that Dean was friends with a vampire. A monster. The word echoed in Sam's ears whenever Benny was around.
Lilith's laughing voice echoed in his ear; "You turned yourself into a freak. A monster. And now you're not gonna bite? I'm sorry, but that is honestly adorable."
Sam looked at Dean who shook his head. Protecting a vampire.
"If I didn't know you, I'd want to hunt you!" Dean's voice told him over and over again.
Sam gritted his teeth and shook Benny's hand.
Okay, so maybe at one point in time Sam might've lightened up of Benny. But the last time Sam trusted a monster, he had ended up becoming a blood junkie. What if Dean had cracked in his time in Purgatory? What if Benny was using him?
Sam couldn't let Dean go down that path. He'd been there, done that, had the scars to prove it. Sam knew. He couldn't let Dean trust Benny. It could only ever end badly.
He drug Dean away from Benny, doing his best to make him cut ties with the newly resurrected Vampire because he couldn't let Dean make the same mistakes that Sam had made. He knew Dean had done what he had to do in Purgatory, but Dean was out and Benny was still alive. Sam would kill him himself if Benny hurt Dean.
It wasn't like Dean had thought twice about ganking Amy; even after all she had done for Sam. The two of them had done worse then what Amy had done for less—her child's life had been on the line. Sam and Dean had barely had that, if anything for some of the kills they had made. Sam had done even worse than that when he was soulless. He had kind of wished Dean had iced him when he was soulless. It would've spared Dean a lot of grief. It would have spared a lot of people a lot of grief, and Sam himself would've been happy to burn in Hell if it meant everything was over and done with.
Then there were the trials. Never, in all his life had Sam felt so clean.
It shouldn't have been possible, right? He was Sam Winchester. The ex-demon blood junkie. The soulless freak that had dragged his brother back into the life that had broken them in the first place. The insane brother who saw Lucifer. There was no way these trials could be purifying him. But yet . . . they were.
The blackness that surrounded and infected his heart was receding and leaving him and left nothing but Sam Winchester. Sam was amazed that there was anything of him at all. He was so used to the evil in him that he had no control over, no choice over, that the fact that he even existed without it . . .
Sam would finish these trials if it killed him.
"You finish these trials, you're dead, Sam."
"So?"
Confession—Sam had lied when he said he saw a light at the end. What light could there be for someone like him? But here Dean was, telling him to let go.
"You want to know what I confessed in there? What my greatest sin was? It was how many times I had let you down."
It's not like Dean wasn't aware Sam had let him down. Dean was the one who brought all of his failures up time and time again. Dean's suggestions for confessions rang in his ears. "Ruby, killing Lilith, letting Lucifer out, losing your soul, not looking for me when I went to Purgatory." Yeah, those were all good suggestions.
They were, weren't they? They were all of Sam's greatest failures in his life. No matter what excuses he made, no matter how much he explained his reasoning behind it all, they were his biggest failures.
(Although, how he should apologize for being soulless was beyond him. It wasn't like it was his choice—Cas had done that. Yeah, it was him, but it's not like he could have stopped it. There's a reason he needed a 'Jiminy Cricket'.)
But it was like an equation in his mind. Ruby, Lilith, Lucifer, Losing his soul, Purgatory . . . they all spelled one thing out for him.
Failing Dean.
And so he didn't see a light. He had never seen the light in his life. What light was there to see? This life, this disease of a life . . . there was no escaping it.
Dean was speaking, trying to convince Sam that he needed him.
But did he? Dean knew so much more than him. He was the best hunter in the world, he was smart, efficient, and pure . . . clean. Why did he need Sam? What was the point in having a brother like Sam around? Sam messed everything up. No matter how hard he tried; no matter what sacrifices he made, everything came crashing down around him.
He was so tired of it.
Tired of the rotten evilness infecting him, tired of the look of betrayal that hung around Dean's eyes whenever he looked at Sam because Sam could never get things right. So tired of the blood on his hands that would never wash away. The blood of the people he couldn't save, the friends he'd let down, the family he had lost.
"What happens when you've decided I can't be trusted again? I mean, who are you gonna turn to next time instead of me? Another angel, another –another vampire? Do you have any idea what it feels like to watch your brother—"
Dean trusted a monster over him. Said a lot, didn't it? But Dean's reply, cutting off what Sam was about to say (hate you, look at you in disgust, consider you a monster . . .) with words that shocked him.
"Hold on, hold on! You seriously think that? Because none of it –none of it—is true. Listen, man, I know we've had our disagreements, okay? Hell, I know I've said some junk that set you back on your heels. But, Sammy . . . come on. I killed Benny to save you. I'm willing to let this bastard and all the sons of bitches that killed mom walk because of you. Don't you dare think that there is anything, past or present that I would put in front of you! It has never been like that, ever! I need you to see that. I'm begging you."
That, above all, made Sam stop. It was the most honest they had been with each other in . . . well, ever.
So he stopped.
The angels fell. Crowley was locked up in their basement. Cas was missing. Kevin was cracked. And Sam started missing chunks of time.
And Dean was lying.
Here we go again, was all Sam could think when he started noticing Dean lying to him. At least there was one time they were honest to each other. A chance for Dean to see just how broken Sam was—just how broken Sam had always been, and Sam could see that Dean needed him. Not because he was an asset, not because he was useful, but because they were family.
Sam never really understood what it meant to be a family.
Now he knew why Dean had been lying. There was an angel inside of him. His words from a few weeks earlier echoed in his mind as he floated in the darkness.
"Honestly I feel better than I have in a long time. I mean, I realize it's crazy out there, and we have trouble coming for us, but I look around and I see friends, and family. I am happy with my life, for the first time in . . . forever. I am, I really am. It's just, things are . . . things are good."
It's funny that the first time Sam was happy with his life was when Dean was lying about him tricking an angel into Sam.
Sam was now in the darkness, and he didn't know where he was. He wasn't in charge, and he didn't have the strength to say 'no.' He didn't know what happened to Dean or Kevin. He didn't know what would happen to him. He was evil, with an angel inside of him. He had no idea how that would mash out. Maybe, finally, he would die and stay dead and it would all be over. That would be nice. He was just so tired . . .
Sam didn't know where he was. He didn't know where Dean or Cas or Kevin were.
He was alone in the darkness.
He didn't know what to do.
Dean . . .