What lies within us
A sequel to No Burden is He to Bear
"You can't help him, Sam. You have but one purpose to fulfill just like your brother has his own. It's just not on the same paths."
"Shut up! Leave me and my brother alone!" Sam yelled to no one in the room.
"Can't do that. I need you, Sam. You're destined to be my vessel."
Dean heard those words and anger rose inside of him, breaking through the pain.
"You're NOT getting Sam. DO YOU HEAR ME?" Dean yelled.
"You don't get to have a say," Lucifer taunted.
"Don't count on it, you bastard!" Dean said.
Dean then groaned as the pain radiated from his head through to his entire body, sending what felt like shards of icy glass into him.
"Stop it! Stop hurting him."
"All you have to do is say yes, Sam and I'll stop."
"No, no, Sam, don't listen to him, you got me?" Dean grunted out.
Sam watched Dean's suffering, remembered what he had said about being a screw up, about how Dean should leave him and he felt himself wanting to give up. Dean saw the emotions cross Sam's face and knowing his little brother as well as he did, he knew that Sam was faltering, considering Lucifer's seductive offer.
"Sam, listen to me, don't do this. Not for me. No more being a martyr, remember? I meant that then and I mean it now. No matter what, we do this on our own terms. Don't. Do. This. Please," Dean emphasized through his pain.
Sam listened and breaking through his withdrawal, he realized that if he was going to truly make amends, he had to listen to the one person he should have listened to all along. If he didn't now, he would be putting the last nail in the coffin of his relationship with Dean.
"Go to Hell," Sam said to Lucifer even with a part of him still telling him to give in.
Dean breathed a sigh then collapsed into unconsciousness. It was then that Castiel appeared. He placed each hand on each of their chests. A momentary searing pain hit Sam in the chest and even Dean jerked up from unconsciousness. Lucifer's control had been broken, both his voice and his hold on Dean.
"About time," Dean teased as he rubbed his chest. "What the Hell did you do?"
"I gave you both enochian sigils. That should keep any angel from finding you even Lucifer."
"Fan-tastic," Dean said as he lost consciousness again.
oooo
Sam's withdrawal symptoms began to ease and with Cas's help, they laid Dean onto the nearby couch.
"Are you all right?" Cas asked, noticing Sam's tired expression.
"Yeh, yeh, I'm fine. The worst of it is over, I think."
Sam looked over at Cas and took in a deep breath.
"Is it true, Cas? Am I Lucifer's vessel?"
Cas hesitated.
"Yes, I'm afraid so."
Sam was crestfallen. It was bad enough that he had released Lucifer, but to be his vessel to destroy the word. It was just too much.
"Oh God…"
"Sam, understand, Lucifer cannot take you without your consent so as long as you –"
"Yeh, right, like I have a perfect track record for doing the right thing," Sam scoffed.
"This isn't something you can just ignore or run away from. Lucifer will seek you out, will try to convince you that it's for the best, but you cannot believe him. Once you do, you'll be lost and the battle will be in motion."
"Battle? What do you mean, battle?"
"Yeh, Cas, what DO you mean?" Dean said, waking from his unconsciousness.
Cas hesitated again fearful of what telling Dean and Sam about the true nature of their destinies would do to them, especially Sam. He was already in a fragile mental state between the withdrawal from the demon blood and Lucifer's revelation, but he knew that Dean had to know and it was that belief that had made the decision for him.
"It is said that the Apocalypse would be Lucifer and his brother Michael battling for supremacy for humanity. They have fought once before and Michael defeated Lucifer. Once again, we face a Hell on earth where Lucifer may reign over humanity –"
"And Michael will have to defeat Lucifer again," Sam said softly.
"Yes. Both must take vessels to do battle."
Sam gave Castiel a puzzled expression.
"If I'm Lucifer's –"
"You're NOT, Sam," Dean insisted, his body still not quite healed from Lucifer's torture.
"But if I am, who's Michael's vessel?"
Cas turned towards Dean.
"What? Me? No, no way," Dean vehemently denied."
"I'm afraid it's what the prophecy –"
"To Hell with the prophecy!" Dean yelled. "Wait! Why didn't Lucifer take Sam then and there?"
"As I told Sam, he needs to give Lucifer consent to become his vessel. Unlike demons, we cannot inhabit a body without the willingness of the host."
"Problem solved then because there is NO WAY in Hell that we are going to give consent," Dean insisted with conviction.
Sam looked over and wished he could absorb Dean's conviction and certainty. He wasn't so sure it would be as simple as that.
oooo
Dean had remembered his conviction about not surrendering to become vessels. He still believed it was the right thing to do, but the conviction, it was fading and fading fast. Tired didn't even begin to cover how he felt. Famine was right, he did feel defeated, but he knew in his heart, even in the dark empty soul that Famine had supposedly seen that giving into being vessels was wrong. He couldn't explain it, it was a feeling in his gut and if their dad had taught them anything, it was to trust your gut because it was usually right. In Dean's case, his gut may have misguided him to make choices that other people might rethink, but not him. Every choice he had made even if it had led to something that didn't work out for him he didn't regret and would do all over again.
His only worries were about the people around him. Cas, who had given up his angelic standing, if not his faith, to follow them into a battle that could easily end him as it could the rest of them, Bobby, who had already sacrificed his ability to walk by fighting the demon that had possessed him to keep him from killing Dean, and of course, Sam.
Dean knew that Sam continued to blame himself for everything that was happening. For Sam, learning that he could be Lucifer's vessel had been devastating. It wasn't bad enough that for the first couple of years after they had started hunting together to find their dad, Sam had carried the knowledge that he was "different" when the visions had begun then he had learned that he had been anointed by the yellow-eyed demon by drinking its blood as a baby, only to then find out that maybe everything that had happened before was preparing him to become Lucifer's vessel, that maybe Ruby had been right, that it had to be him all along. It was all crashing down on Sam and Dean worried that Sam was breaking under the strain. It hurt Dean to see Sam so conflicted. Buoying up his spirits with the conviction of free will wasn't helping either. If anything, with everything that had already happened, it made Sam doubt even more that he had free will at all.
Dean learning that he could be Michael's vessel was no big deal for him. Saying no to being Michael's "sword" in the battle was a piece of cake. Possession by anything, demon or angel, was just not an option for him. Dean knew that giving up the ability to think for himself, to control his actions, to suppress his instincts was just not going to happen. When Zacariah sent him to the future to teach him a lesson, he had learned something that had only confirmed that he was doing the right thing. Watching himself sacrifice his friends so that he could single-mindedly kill Lucifer, it felt as wrong as anything that had happened so far. It would be doing everything that isn't who he is. It would be going against everything their father had taught him. Seeing Sam as Lucifer had been painful, more for hearing and seeing Sam in a way that went against everything he was than anything else, but he knew in his heart that illusion had been wrong. He and Sam would not be brought to that moment. He knew it. He just did. Even after watching Sam destroy Famine, his eyes wild from drinking demon blood, in the end, Dean knew that Sam was still Sammy, a scary, powerful Sammy, sure, but deep down still Sam. He saw it in Sam's wild eyes. He saw it in Sam's troubled soul. Maybe Sam didn't think so, but Dean knew that Sam had been in control the entire time because if he hadn't been, he would have taken everyone out. He hadn't. He had just zeroed in on Famine and his men and that was it. It gave him hope even if at the same time it scared him, not of Sam, but of what Lucifer would do to seduce Sam to make him question the man he was when it was crystal clear to Dean.
Dean heard the whoosh of Cas's presence. He had become so honed into the sound.
"Is Sam okay?" Dean asked.
"Yes, I think the worst is over. He's fallen asleep. Bobby is watching him now."
Dean just nodded.
"How are you?" Cas asked.
"I don't know," Dean said tiredly.
"Is there something I can do?"
Dean smiled at Cas's kind offer.
"You already are."
"I don't understand."
"You've already done enough, Cas, sacrificed enough. Being here, it's enough."
Dean leaned against one of Bobby's junker cars and took in a breath.
"Famine, he was right, you know. I am going through the motions, but only because I don't have any freakin' idea of what to do next."
"I, too, am at a loss."
"We need help, Cas. As much as I'd like to believe we can handle all this on our own, we can't."
Dean looked up.
"Where is He, Cas?"
"I wish I knew."
"And yet you still believe?"
"Yes, for all you see around you to the contrary, I still believe our Father is out there."
"What is He waiting for?"
"For the right time. I think that like in every war, there is that pivotal moment when the time will be right to enter into the battle. Right now, all is in chaos. "
"I hope you're right."
"My belief also extends to you, Dean."
"Me? Why me? Seems to me I've only screwed things up thus far."
"Is that all you see? That you've made mistakes?"
"Well, yeh, I wouldn't call what we've done so far successes."
"Maybe not, but there will always be lost battles. Still, wars have been won and lost by the kind of commander who leads his men. I've seen you command, Dean and it has always been with humanity's best interest at the core. Only good can come from putting it first above all else even yourself. Since becoming human, since inhabiting Jimmy's body for as long as I have, I have realized the importance of what being human really means. I have you to thank for that."
Dean smiled.
"I wouldn't be thanking me too much, after all, it was being human that got you scarfing raw beef."
"Yes, well, Jimmy's weaknesses did have disadvantages, but oddly, there was also joy in the discovery, at least at first."
Dean couldn't help but smile, but it fell a little.
"That's usually what I would be doing, eating, drinking, sexing, all to excess and yet I didn't feel a thing. I didn't want anything. Famine said it was because I was dead inside and that nothing could fill me up. Maybe he was right about that."
"No, I don't believe that. Even though you meant it as a jibe, I believe it was your strength of character that kept you from succumbing to Famine's influence. You no longer need those things to fulfill you. You knew that to give in would mean more than just succumbing to an inner hunger, it would have been surrendering control to the darkness. You had control. It's what a good commander possesses. A leader shoulders the burden when his soldiers falter, he becomes impenetrable to any attempts at turning him into a lesser man for the greater good."
Dean listened and let Cas's encouragement wash over him because truth be told, he needed it.
"Thanks, Cas."
FIN. Another sequel might on the way. Thanks for reading. It's always appreciated.