A/N: So, I have reached an all new level of dark-dark-dark. I don't even think angst is the right word. This is...pretty screwed up.
But something about Sam's face in the first couple episodes of this season...
Every time I thought about what happened when Sam came back with food for Dean, this is the image I got in my head.
A broken Sam, lost now that he had finally won.
I won't say this is complete, but I'm not sure I will add more, either. Enough interest and I'll probably try to round it out to at least a three shot, eventually.
It also depends on where the series goes. I'm just terrified that once again the writers are going to criminally underwrite Sam's character this season, and we won't see any of this fall out.
It actually might be enough to make me stop watching.
Anyway, reviews are love. I figured at least some of you must be of the same mind when it comes to how Sam is dealing with events internally.
As Always,
EverReader
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Trigger Warning: Yes. Let's just go with an emphatic YES. Suicidal thoughts, depression, violence. Yeah.
Spoilers: Go watch the show. Then come read this if season ten is freaking you out like this Sam-girl is freaking out.
"All The Truth There Is In Me"
There was a clock ticking inside of Sam Winchester's head.
He couldn't pinpoint the exact moment it started ticking.
Perhaps it was when Dean died in Sam's arms, his blood on Metatron's knife, but metaphorically on Sam's hands.
Perhaps it was when Gadreel used his body to kill Kevin, both the blood and blame being quite a bit more literal that time.
Or perhaps it had been there longer.
Perhaps it had always been there, prior to the moment he learned of his demon blood heritage, before he watched Jess burn on the ceiling.
Perhaps it had been his constant companion his entire life, through every hunt, every conversation, every breath.
Perhaps it had haunted and hunted him even as he stalked the monsters, even as he became one.
He really couldn't say.
But he could tell you the moment he finally understood what the distant echo in his head meant, the metronome in the shadows of his mind, marking a counter beat to his heart.
He had finally cured Dean.
And to do it, he had done things.
Horrible, terrible things.
Dark things.
For perhaps the first time in his life, Sam had willingly, knowlingly done something he had truly considered dark.
It might sound crazy to anyone who knew his story.
He was Sam Winchester, after all. The boy king. The abomination.
The boy born to break the world.
But the horrible, terrible truth was, he had never before chosen to be dark.
He wasn't making excuses for his prior actions. He had enjoyed the power, the absence of fear the demon blood had afforded him.
But he had started down that path with the intentions of saving people, and the truth of the matter was, even though no one ever spoke of it, he had.
Sam had saved people.
Men, women, kids. Every exorcism he had performed using demon blood had saved someone, or at least much more often than a regular exorcism.
It certainly had a higher survival rate than that damn demon blade.
Had that made up for everyone who had died when Sam had freed Lucifer?
No.
Hell no.
Sam had no doubt there was, and would always be a special corner in hell for him.
But the god's honest truth of the matter was, he'd been convinced to start on the demon's blood because he'd wanted his curse to be used for something good.
And even the Angel's had convinced Sam and Dean that Lilith needed to die.
Sam had trusted the demons, and had been betrayed.
But Dean had trusted the angels and been betrayed also.
Sam had been willing to do whatever it took to stop the destruction he had inadvertently started, and he had.
And he never forgave himself. Not ever.
It haunted him in a quiet way, seeping into his identity, taking on the shape of the features he saw in the mirror every day.
But he managed, mostly because, at the end of the day, no matter how wrong it had all gone, he had known he hadn't meant for it to happen.
But this was different.
Now he was truly different.
His search for Dean had been desperate and frantic, and he'd gone to places in himself that were darker than even Lucifer had ever discovered, because this time, Sam had done it eyes wide open.
He hadn't needed a kiss with a crossroads demon to tell him that he was truly damned for what he had done over the past five months.
Because this time, there was no addiction.
No blood. No confusion, or false information. No Ruby lurking in the shadows to egg Sam on.
Sam had made every horrible, terrible decision on his own. Clear headed, hard- hearted.
And the truth was, he'd do it again.
He would willingly become this monster again, because the reality was...monsters got results.
Sometimes, the monsters won.
It wasn't a bitter victory. He'd gotten exactly what he'd wanted.
Dean was just down the hall, eating a bag full cholesterol Sam had brought back for him.
Human, breathing, eating. Tired and sweaty and disoriented and guilty-feeling, no doubt.
But human.
Sam had excused himself for the night, claiming fatigue, unable to even meet his own brother's eyes, as memories of Dean playing 'Here's Johnny!' through the bunker's halls echoed through his mind, overshadowed only by the ticking that was growing steadily louder by the moment.
But Dean was back. Human, or nearly completely.
The mark was still there, and that was a problem.
A huge problem.
But to Sam, it wasn't half as painful as the possibility that he might never be able to look his brother in the eye again without hearing the demonic timber of Dean's voice, the glee and the hate, and the jubilant honesty as his lips spilled truths more painful than any lies could ever be.
Because, yeah. Demons lied.
But they didn't have to with someone like Sam.
The truth was just as damning.
That was the price of saving Dean, of becoming the monster in order to win.
He got his brother back, and lost him at the same time.
Dean's humanity could be restored, which the right spell, the right ingredients, the right ritual.
Sam's had been the tender he'd used to buy those very things.
He closed the door to his room, bottle of whiskey clutched in his good hand as he slid down the door, too tired to actually drink, too tired to get up, too tired to move.
He had been so tired for so long. Since Gadreel, since Bobby, since Jess.
He was so, so tired, and he was tired of being tired.
Dean's words echoed in his head, over and over again, but more than that, they broke something inside of Sam.
Just one more crack spider-webbing across something far too fragile already.
But as tiny as this crack might look, it was the one that felt like Sam's soul was spilling out of.
Whatever was left of it, anyway.
He felt numb, like he had steadily been bleeding out for hours, the way he had when the vampires had nearly drained him to death, or the ghouls who had killed Adam.
Like he was lost in the snow on the mountain side, the night dark around him, absent of stars.
He was so tired.
Tired of fighting and hoping and bleeding and dying. Tired of the futility of it, the pointlessness.
Another evil always arose, a new enemy emerged.
Henry had once told him that wherever they went, Winchesters represented hope.
But Sam didn't think there was a single part of his fractured soul left that even remembered what hope felt like.
He'd willingly given up his morals, his standards, every line in the sand he'd ever drawn, just to save his brother.
He still thought it was worth it.
But there was a painful, devastating difference between something was the priceless, and something that was free.
The return of Dean's humanity was priceless.
It hadn't been free.
Sam had thought the price was his soul, his self-respect, the moral fiber of his character, and he had been okay with that.
He'd been willing to hate himself every moment for the rest of his existence if it meant he brought Dean back.
That he got Dean back.
He hadn't understood the true price.
The true price wasn't knowing what he had done, it was hearing it said in Dean's voice, it was the terrible, soul numbing fear he'd felt as Dean had stalked him down the hallway, as he tried to take a hammer to his head.
It was knowing for absolute certainty that if he removed that knife from Dean's throat, Dean would kill him and call it a good day's work.
It was hearing the dark, dank truth of his soul denounced in his brother's voice, the same voice that echoed in Sam's head every time he faltered, every time he flagged.
"Get up, Sam!"
"Keep going, Sammy!"
"I'm proud of us."
But now, the voice that had pushed Sam when he had absolutely nothing left to give had no more comforting lies.
It spoke only devastating, cutting truth with the precision of a scapel.
Every deep dark fear Sam had ever had, every shameful memory, everything that he had ever pushed down and buried in order to keep moving had been unearthed and exposed to the cold, cruel light of day.
All the truth of Sam Winchester, from the lips of the only person Sam had ever hoped might have forgiven him.
Demons don't bother lying when the truth is more painful.
Sam had saved Dean, and lost his big brother, and he didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to breathe in a world without Dean there, without their brotherhood, their camaraderie.
He felt off-kilter, like he was drunk without taking a single drink. Like the air was slow-acting poison and he was drowning in it.
He was the monster, and the monster had won.
He had the crazy urge to take the gun from under his pillow and shove it in his mouth and get on with it already.
But even that was too much effort.
Sam was broken, a fractured, wounded thing that was shaped like the man with the heart of a monster, and now that Dean had given voice to it, Sam knew he could never un-hear it.
So he sat there, in the still darkness of his room.
Not moving, not drinking, not crying.
Just...waiting, and listening to the clock in his mind marking the minutes, and the hours.
He finally understood what it was.
It was a countdown.
This was what borrowed time sounded like.
And he still would have done it all anyway.
That was the truth of Sam Winchester.