Summary: As Sam's Wall breaks down, things from behind it trickle out into the real world.
Challenger: rokhal on Livejournal's Community Sharp Teeth
Rating: Pg-13
Spoiler: Set after there's a wall, but before Crowley is finished.
Behind the Wall
It smells like brimstone and the chains are burning your skin. The walls here are made of flesh, and jutting bone, and teeth. When you're not screaming you hear the walls laughing. But between Michael and Lucifer, you're always screaming. Today they're letting you hang from the ceiling. Lucifer likes to crawl and slither in his original form up and down the wall. As much as Lucifer hates you, he hates Michael more, and keeps to his side of the cage as much as possible. Today he's enjoying clawing at your feet, seeing how much he can take away while still keeping you suspended.
As least Lucifer stays in one shape. You can never tell with Michael. Today he is a great golden falcon, and he's taking pleasure in pecking at your brains. It's funny how cool and slimy it feels to watch your brain curl and unfurl and slip and slide and drip before your eyes.
You don't know the day, you barely remember what it feels like to be in one piece, and your forgetting about anything before this. But you do know your losing your mind one peck at a time.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Sam sat bolt upright and stared at the wall. The patterned black spirals weren't moving, and they certainly weren't breathing. Sam took a moment to look around the room and double check. Dean knew what it was like to return from Hell so he just waited for Sam.
That's what hell did, he supposed. It broke down the connection between reality. But with Sam, it was even harder now because his wall was so fragile. Dean turned his focus back on to his laptop. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw the wall shimmer and change. For a brief instant, it looked like meat.
Before Dean could question it further, there was a crash. He turned back to Sam. "What's wrong?"
Sam stared at the broken porcelain figurine on the floor. "Nothing, just an accident." The shattered remnants of the falcon figurine looked up mockingly from the floor.
Sam clenched his fist and breathed deeply. The walls were breaking inside himself, he could feel it. Little things around him were changing, but he attributed it solely to his mind. Nothing more. He would not go back.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
The walls are laughing. Wet and putrid and it smells awful. The vibrations agitate everyone in the cage. You try and sit with your back against the wall, trying not to further anger the other inhabitants. But that was your mistake, sitting to close.
Michael is a phoenix today, red hot anger seething from him. He's throwing his body against the walls that will never break. To Lucifer the presence of both you and Michael is an intrusion on his personal cage. Perhaps that's what his Hell is. Having people in your own world, no privacy, just wrath, anger, jealousy, and a growing gluttony for silence. Some days Lucifer kills them both for two hours of quiet. Michael sometimes does the same, but he likes an audience.
You shudder and can't speak. They didn't want you too, so they ripped out your tongue today. That's fine, your voice was hoarse anyway. As you lean closer to the wall, you feel the meat sucking you in. You forgot. You pull away, cursing silently. As you scramble away from the walls you scrape your nails against the floor. You wonder if you can dig your way out.
That's when you feel a sharp pain. Your nail has broken off. Your finger bleeds. And as you watch, one by one, your nails break. Your coming undone.
It's all inevitable, you suppose. We all break anyway.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o
"Sam, I think I got something on Crowley." Dean said looking up. "There's a wendigo alpha up north, if we move quickly."
Sam broke his contact with the wall and turned towards Dean. He thought he was seeing something in the pattern. Or at least smelling something festering. "How far?" he asked. How much farther can I out run my own mind? he wondered sullenly.
Dean looked down at the map. "A day's car ride."
"Let's go."
"Not before breakfast!" Dean gasped. "Besides, I got take a shower first."
Sam sighed and stood up. He placed his hand on the table to push himself up. With a small snap his fingernail snaps off. Sam looked down on it despondently. The pain he felt was real, but he said to himself, it was only a delusion. He watched the blood spread out on the table.
"Fuck!" Dean jumped up. "I'll go get the first aid kit. Get a towel, Sam!"
"You're seeing this too?" It was the only thing Sam could think to say.
Dean grabbed a fallen t-shirt and threw it to Sam. "Yes!"
One by one, his nails pop off with a snap and crunch. Dean looked down at the nails , horrified, and back at Sam. "Sam, snap out of it!" Cursing, Dean grabbed his duffle and began throwing things out.
Sam watched his brother. He wondered if he was still sleeping. The walls started shaking, barely audible. Sam knew the sound of laughter though, and he thought it was really quite funny how things happened. This wasn't supposed to happen here, not here above ground. But then again, no one had been able to put Humpty Dumpty back together so why would he be any different?
"Sam!" Dean yelled again, from somewhere far away, "focus!"
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Sometimes they aren't animals. Not on the outside at least. On the inside, they were always feral. But they disguised it. Michael was thin today, stretched out over olive skin on a bony frame. He pops your eyeball in between his fingers. "Such a shame you have only two."
You raise your head towards the sound of his voice. Beside you, you can hear Lucifer chewing on something round. Today Lucifer looks frozen, but you can't see the details nor bring yourself to care. You can't see the pale ice of skin, but you can feel the cold radiating. It burns like dry ice.
"I want him to see this," Lucifer says.
"Why should I listen to you?" Michael shoots back.
"Because."
Michael sighs and snaps his fingers. You feel your eyes growing back in your socket. They could have just appeared there, but instead they grow. Swelling, reattaching, tendrils connecting. It hurts as much as it did when they were removed. Vision blurs and then refocuses. You vomit and wish you were blind again. Dean is nailed against the wall, his body weight sagging against the nails in his wrists.
"Wh-wh-what?" you cough. A trickle of blood spills down your lips.
"Haven't you wondered how Dean is doing without you?" Lucifer whispers in your ear. You get frostbite on the skin were he breaths.
Michael laughs to himself. "Take a look."
It hurts so bad just to move an inch but you look.
Dean looks back at him. "Why did you drag me here?"
Sam shakes his head, and rises to his feet. "I didn't…"
"Why?" Dean asks again. His jaw falls slack.
You want to touch his arm. You want to take him out of the wall.
But as you get closer you see his skin is sagging. It's not sweat dripping down Dean's skin. It's the thick goo that covers his muscles. Those tired bags of his eyes fall, and underneath there's bright red muscle. It starts slow but grows. His brother is being used to feed the wall, melting. His skeletal smile is terrifying, because you know it's a scream.
"Why?" your brother cries before disappearing. It's the same question that's been plaguing you.
A flush of anger hits you like you haven't felt in years. You lash out at Michael, throwing yourself at him, fists ready. Michael catches you by the wrists, just like the time before and breaks them. "No," Michael whispers, "we're not done with you yet." Where his breath touches you, the skin burns.
"Why?" you ask.
"Because you said yes."
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
"Why is this happening?" Dean asked again as he began to work on Sam's other hand. "Sam, you need to focus. Is it that witch we killed two days ago? Were you cursed?"
Sam felt the strings keeping his wall up falter. Brick by brick it was falling down. Michael had warned that he wasn't done. Could it be that what lived behind the wall was growing stronger?
"I don't know," Sam lied.
Dean looked up him. His face was a map of concern and fright. Something was wrong, Sam was definitely lying. He felt a trickle of sweat run down his cheek. He wiped it away without looking at it. "Sam, be honest. Is it Hell?"
Sam was gazing away again. "Is this the wall?" Dean asked.
He felt another trickle of sweat roll down his cheek and wiped it away. Sam turned to look at him. "Did you see that snake up there?"
Dean shook his head. "I think you need a hospital."
To Dean's surprise, Sam only laughed at the idea. Dean began to breathe a little harder. He didn't know what to do, and the heat in the room was only adding to his frustration. His face was dripping with sweat. He wiped his hand across his face. It felt sticky.
This time he looked at his hand. His skin was stuck to it. And on his arm, more of his skin was falling away. The tendons were starting to show. At first, all Dean could think of was how best to pull them away. Alistair's training kicked in like a habit. He knew anatomy better than anyone. And that meant he knew exactly how long he could last without skin. He didn't have much time. They had to get out.
Sam's face looked like one of Dean's victims. There were scars opening across his face, Sam's hair was rapidly growing. The shaggy locks were singed, knotted. Sam wasn't even noticing. Dean followed Sam's eyes upward. He watched fascinated as bone and teeth started appearing on the motel wall. It was turning into flesh before them.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Michael hung upside, his claws digging into the ceiling. He unfolds his bat wings and stretches. "Sam, oh, Sam."
Lucifer as large as anaconda, wrapped himself around your torso. Constricting, breaking your ribs. His scales are festering, the red rubies are breaking and corroded. "Are you bored?"
You shut your eyes and try to remember something else.
"This will never end."
"No," Lucifer hisses, "even if you think you can escape we will always be at the back of your mind."
"Always," Michael agrees.
"No wall, no cage, no pandora's box can hold us."
Michael shrieks and dives, going to rip the snake's heart out. You lose your throat in the battle, but you were already speechless.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Sam knew it would happen. He just didn't know when. But he knows that soon enough, the cage will encompass him. He wondered again, like he's been wondering since he returned- When will God just let me die?
His knees broke and he fell to the floor. It looked like he was praying.
fin