AN: After Dean's death and his resurrection at the behest of the First Blade and Cain's Mark, he returns with Crowley to Hell. Sam kills himself and finds himself in the Garden, where he meets his ancestor, Cain, who explains to Sam just what Dean becoming a Knight of Hell could mean and offers Sam another, more powerful, weapon and a return to life if he decides to kill Dean.
The First Gun
Sam Winchester sat on the bed where his beloved older brother had lain just seconds before. As soon as he'd realized Crowley's presence before the summoning finished, he'd rushed to Dean's side, only to find out it was too late.
Far too late. Crowley had grinned his wicked grin and said "You're too late, Moose," in a soft, terrifying voice.
Dean...oh God...Dean. His brother was standing again, but his eyes...damn those obsidian eyes. After everything they had done. After all they had saved, they were being punished. Dean was beyond salvation.
The Mark of Cain and the First Blade had turned him into a being like Cain himself. A Knight of Hell. It wouldn't be long before Dean even tried to challenge Crowley for Hell's leadership.
Sure, Crowley might be able to hold Dean's loyalty for a bit, but as he had learned from Cain and Abaddon, a Knight's loyalty was to themselves and only themselves. Dean had simply stared at Sam, for a long, long time before he and Crowley vanished in a wave of scarlet and black smoke.
Sam covered his face in his hands. He had no one. Castiel was trying to fix Heaven, Bobby was dead, everyone was dead. Gone. Sam Winchester was alone. He stood up and opened the door.
He grabbed a small pistol from the Impala as he walked toward middle of a nearby field, feeling nothing but anguish, loss, and hatred. Hatred for Dean, for Crowley, for Cain, because he gave him the Blade and Mark in the first place, and of course for God, who had simply done nothing, again.
Sam sank to his knees and put the pistol to his head. "Fuck you, God. Fuck you, Dean. Goodbye, Cas. Maybe we'll see each other again, some day."
Sam pulled the trigger.
The first thing the former hunter heard was a soft clapping. Death stood near him, his arms held out in applause.
"Good work, my friend. Good work. I told you before that I don't judge, but you...if I WERE the one to judge a soul, I would find none better than yours." Death smiled, a true smile. It looked odd on the grim man's face.
"Is it over, finally? Can I just go on, to Heaven, at long last? Dean will be there, so will mom and dad." Sam pleaded.
Death nodded. "I can send you up, but I don't know what Heaven you will end up in. You're always breaking so many rules, Sam Winchester." Death sighed heavily.
"Knowing you, I have no doubt that we will meet again. However...I will make sure that no one can resurrect you without your consent. It's the least I can do. Send the Big Guy my regards."
Death saluted Sam with his scythe and a white light shone through the grey landscape he'd been standing on with Death.
Everything went white. Death vanished. For some time, all he saw was brilliant white light. He tried to close his eyes, but the light penetrated his very soul. For some reason, all the hate, fear, anguish...everything that had brought him to this point was gone. He felt...happy. For the first time in his life, truly happy.
Sam went limp and simply gave into the light and the feelings. A soft night sky appeared in his vision, unrecognizable constellations marked the sky's velvet darkness. Peace. He was at peace here. He felt soft, almost pillow-like grass beneath him.
"Is this my Heaven?" Sam muttered aloud, "Where are mom and dad, where is Dean?"
The hunter forced himself to sit up. He looked around the area. It looked like a massive forest with beautiful fruiting trees lining the edge of the clearing he lay in, flowers he'd never seen before dotted the landscape and the bushes.
"Wh-where am I?" He asked no one in particular.
"The true Garden. Heaven's Garden, the Garden of Eden, whatever you want to believe it is." A soft, smooth voice answered. Joshua. Sam almost snarled in anger. This was some sort of in-between place, not his final heaven.
"I know, I understand. You wanted to move on. You just wanted it to be over. Sometimes, we all do, even God himself. There are times when God won't allow someone to move on, because they still have work to do." Joshua smiled gently at Sam. Those soft dark eyes seemed to see into his very soul.
"Work? I am FUCKING DONE with work! You tell God that! Death himself sent me here. He made it so no one could resurrect me without my permission, which I will never, ever give! I'm done! I'm done! I have nothing left down there, nothing left to give!" Sam screamed, tears rolling down his face.
"You can give Dean Heaven." A harsher voice, more apt to talking than Joshua's soft, hoarse voice.
Sam glanced at the speaker. Anger, like nothing he'd felt before, engulfed him. Cain. He hurled himself at the former Knight of Hell and rammed him to the ground, punching him until, even in Heaven, his fist was bloody and torn. Sam looked down at Cain. His face was already healed, he was simply staring at Sam with those brilliant blue eyes, so much like Castiel's, yet without a certain dullness.
"Beat me all you like. I more than deserve it, for what I did, for what a monster I was, until I became the one who hunts monsters, evil. I more than deserve it for what I did to Dean. But I saw myself in him, Sam. I always had. Every time Dean would speak, move, draw a weapon...I saw myself. He was my descendant, but he was more than that. I am so sorry Sam. So impossibly sorry."
Cain was shocked when Sam stood up, leaving the tormented First Murderer lying there. Cain closed his eyes. I was right, then. No matter who or how I apologize, my soul is not fit for Heaven. Seeing this, my old home, my old friend Joshua...it was just a one time thing, eh, God? Cain sighed and tilted his head back, looking up at the velvet stars and the trees he'd once known and loved over a hundred thousand years ago.
Sam squeezed his eyes shut, tears streaming from them. He turned to face Cain, who appeared to have shaved a lot since their last meeting, and looked oddly familiar. "I forgive you. For everything. You did something I couldn't. You saved your brother." Sam whispered. He sank to his knees beside Cain.
Joshua gently touched Cain's shoulder. The ancient hunter, so unaccustomed to being startled, jerked and went for the Blade that wasn't there. Joshua nodded his head once. "You know what to do, my friend." Joshua smiled and stepped back.
Cain shook his head. He'd sworn never to use this weapon. Ever. After the First Blade had became what it was, Lucifer demanded more. So Cain made more. He used the rest of the bones, the sinew, the heart, of the ass to make this weapon.
A weapon that turned out to be so powerful even Lucifer would have bowed in Cain's presence, had Cain ever had the courage to use it. Not even when Abaddon had possessed Colette in the old west did his thoughts ever stray to the worse weapon made in the history of human and demonkind.
It was a gun unlike any other gun. Cain loved guns, true guns. He would have traded his left leg for the gun of Samuel Colt, but this was one gun Cain would have tossed in the deepest parts of space, only after it had been nuked, put in a permanently salted and iron-locked box, and guarded by an archangel for eternity.
"Joshua, you know I can't-" he began.
"Let me talk to him, Josh." It was a soft, familiar voice, but only a voice he'd heard in his dreams, the voice that told him to never give up, that warned him against killing himself that first time. The voice that still managed to speak to him, unheard even by Lucifer and Abaddon.
Sam was also staring. "Chuck? I knew you were dead, but-" He stammered.
Chuck held up a hand. "Never dead, but always dying, just like the universe, just like all of you. Time passes, and so do we. I will make sure he passes too, in the end. Death. He deserves peace as much as the rest of us do."
Cain couldn't manage to form a sentence. Here was proof of Heaven, of God, made manifest. The human-looking man in front of him with the bluest eyes he'd ever seen, soft brown hair, an equally soft, well trimmed beard, and an expression of utmost love and compassion. Cain felt tears and let them flow as he knelt before the Man he knew as God.
"Now, now, my sweet son, my only direct living grandson. And Sam, one of your line, Cain. One of the line of the First."
Sam was shaking his head in shock. "What is going on here? Chuck, what are you talking about? Are you an angel? Are you Adam from the garden?" Sam's eyes widened. "Are...are you...God?"
Sam stared at him in astonishment, because at that moment, he knew, absolutely, that he was in the presence of God, the Lord. Sam fell to his knees, almost without thinking about it. All the anger he'd felt toward God had vanished almost instantly when he stood in His presence.
"Death...Death says hi." Sam whispered, not daring to look up.
"Death always tells that to the new souls he personally sends here. You tell Death I say stop sending messages through passing souls. If he wants to talk to me, he needs to come up here himself. And tell him I wouldn't say no to a good game of chess." Chuck was smiling and joking. After all the horrors he'd unleashed on the world, this was still a joke for him.
Cain was the first to say something. "Stop it. Stop it, damn You. You...you started ALL of this. You made this shithole. You let Lucifer turn me into a monster. You let my brother die. It's your fault, all of it." For the first time in history, Cain drew the gun he'd sworn never to touch. He leveled it at God, felt the heat, sweat, sucking warmth of the living gun in his hands, ignored the repulsion he felt.
God smiled. "Do it. I won't say I don't deserve it. The only explanation I can give is free will. People choose good with free will. They also choose evil. They can be selfless or selfish, but in the end, all will know me and see me."
God smiled a mischievous smile. "I have already chosen a replacement, should you pull the trigger. I think Castiel would do well in my position. Better than me. Death is always ready to reap me. He knows how tired I get. How much hate I have to deal with. Do it, Cain. Pull the trigger. Murder God."
Cain's hand was shaking so hard he likely wouldn't have been able to make the shot had he wanted to. With so much energy that he knew he'd be hurting for days, he put the gun back into the home-made holster and breathed a deep sigh, before sinking to his knees.
God held out a hand offering friendship to Sam. To Sam's own shock, he took it. "What does Cain offer me, Lord? How can he give me anything that could save Dean?"
"Listen to him, Sam Winchester. I'm so sorry I can't save you both. At least not now. In the end, you will all be with me, but listen to Cain. If you judge the cause to be true and righteous, take up the gun. If you choose not to do so, you will move on to your Heaven and you will never see Earth again." Chuck, God, whatever, touched Sam's head and pulled him forward, kissing the top of his head, and then vanishing.
"What is it you offer, Cain? Another First Blade, so I can at least have a chance when I fight my brother?" Sam said bitterly.
Cain shook his head, his eyes were puffy with tears and struggle. "I offer you the same choice Lucifer gave me, only I offer it with knowledge. You will not become a demon unless it is your choice. I offer the Speaking Gun." Cain pushed back his jacket, revealing the wet, slimy-looking, gun-shaped object he'd held at God's head moments before.
"What...what is a speaking gun? I've never heard of such a thing." Sam was confused.
"Not a speaking gun. THE Speaking Gun. I made the First Blade from the ass's jawbone. I made the First Gun with the ass's sinew, muscles, blood, bones, and heart. The First Blade is as nothing to the First Gun." Cain said in a whisper. The Gun was obviously something he didn't like to speak of, not even with God's permission.
Sam couldn't take his eyes off the living Gun. It was almost as if it were drawing him in, spreading throughout the Garden like a plague. He glanced over at Joshua, who stood smiling serenely, unaffected by the Gun's presence.
"What is it, Cain? What does it do?" He found himself barely able to form a whisper.
"It commits the greatest act of evil in the history of the world." Cain closed his eyes, gripped the Gun's hilt, tears trailing his face. "I've never used. I've never been that desperate, not even when my wife was killed before me. You...your desperation is something I've never felt, not even when I gutted my own brother with the Blade."
"Perhaps you can truly use the Gun. Or perhaps you can overcome it's will and become the great hero you were always meant to be. My great-great, many times great, grandson." Cain lurched forward and embraced Sam for a long time.
Then, without any sign of struggle or weakness, Cain gripped the gun, pulled it easily out of it's place in his belt, and held it out to Sam, handle first. Before Sam could take it, however, Cain had a few last words.
"Sam. If you choose to take this gun, and return to life to save your brother...I must warn you. Some cures are worse than the disease." Cain left go of the weapon and searched Sam's face for any emotions he felt upon touching it.
Only confusion touched the Winchester hunter's face. "Cain...what do I do with it? How can I save Dean with this?"
Cain sighed miserably and whispered, "The same way I saved Abel. Kill Dean before he becomes too monstrous to redeem. You said you'd give anything to save him. Did you mean that? Would you give up your very soul to save your brother?" Cain looked near tears, but vanished before he could say more.
Sam held the First Gun, the Speaking Gun, up. "Joshua, what does it do?"
The angel bowed his head. "The worse thing a weapon can do. It speaks the word of God, but backwards, totally erasing anyone it is used upon. Cain never used it because of this. Erasing the Creator's work is an even greater sin than murder."
Sam closed his eyes, shaking his head. "I have to use it, even if I am damned to spend eternity with Crowley. I will do whatever it takes to save Dean. This I vow."
Joshua nodded. There was a brilliant flash of light, he caught a glimpse of a very sad Chuck, and he woke up in the middle of the field where he'd ended his own life. He felt his head. It was whole, undamaged.
Dean would be saved. No matter what. Even if Sam had to go to Hell. It didn't matter, as long as the older brother who'd looked after him for so long was in paradise.
R/R, please.
