"Memory."
Mystic25
Summary: Tag to "Southern Comfort" What was left unsaid.
Rating: T for language and imagery.
A/N: I'll say this right now, I'm not a fan of Amelia, I at best tolerate her. I am not bashing her, but she is only here to serve as a backdrop.
A/N #2: Sorry it's taken so long to get some SPN fics up, I've been in a Vampire Diaries and Percy Jackson mood lately, but I don't forget my roots:)
xxxxXxxx
"Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real."
"Cormac McCarthy"
All the Pretty Horses
xxxxXxxx
There is blood on his hands that isn't his.
At least he doesn't think so.
He can't really remember.
And that's saying a lot given what he's been required to remember in his lifetime.
Methodical things, systematic workings of how to kill all manner of monsters, and demons and hell spawn.
He does remember its dark.
And the hilt he was holding is wood, and the blade was 10 inches and long and rusted and diseased.
He's held this weapon, and wished to fuck he knew where his gun was, because he hadn't fought with a blade since he was 15. Those jabs with the demon slaying knife didn't count, that was all about avoidance, and slashing at the right moment.
A gun was easier, point, aim and shoot. Knives required closeness, precision.
He couldn't get close enough, because he was too busy running.
He didn't think he was weak either, to run.
The breath was just too hot, hot like molten fire hot, and the darkness was like a monster pulling at him.
Fear was an irrational response –
Unless it was Satan you were running from.
And the running distance varied from the forest the size of the Appalachians to a nine foot by nine foot tempered iron cell, and he never knew when it would change.
Pressed against the Cage wall, he's flat against the bars, holding the blade up like a cocked gun. He can't help it, he's rustier than the blade at knife fighting, and holding a gun was too much like unconscious instinct.
He looked left, there is fire licking at the walls of the Cage, ending the blackness with a 'woosh' of million degree heat. He turned to the right and there is a pile of human bones that looked like they had been spit out whole from some monster, coated in a red, sticky looking visceral slime.
"Sam.."
The hot breath is by his right ear. He whipped his head in the direction of the noise, but, there is nothing, only fire.
His breathing was a series of gasps. He turned slowly, moved from right to left. The trees were back, a thick dense forest of birch and fir that smelled like dry decay and blood.
"Wanna go for a walk Sammy?"
The voice is right in front of him, and stayed when Sam turned.
Lucifer stood there dressed in casual plaid, in casual human, but with a red tinge in his pupils and a scythe of rust in his hand. "Oh come on, you never want to take me anywhere.." He twirled the scythe like a baton one handed, it sliced through the air with a 'whomp' 'whomp'
"Fine, we'll stay in" Lucifer pouted like a bratty child, and waved his hand and the forest blurred away, and the iron bars came back. The pile of skeletons had grown larger in their absence, the bones were now almost up to Sam's knees.
Chunks of flesh hung off the skeleton at the top of the pile, hair still visible on the skull. It was a fresh kill, Sam Hunter instinct can't help but calculate that, and it repulsed him.
Lucifer looked at him with a shrug of his shoulders "What? Nobody seems to take the 'I'll sell my soul to the Devil' line seriously now a days." He eyed the bones with a sick smile, "Hope that extra juice in his snake was worth it. He couldn't even keep it up after I tore it off."
He approached Sam, human shoes hitting ancient hell earth, they crunched bones to dust that fell off the pile.
Sam backed up like a caged animal. His shoes had disappeared a long time ago. When he ran through the forest he would have them, but they were an illusion, they always disappeared once he was back inside the Cage. His feet were now more bloody infected cuts that flesh and they wailed in agony when he stepped on a sharp rib bone.
Lucifer made a face of displeasure. "Sam.."
Sam raised the knife point at Lucifer's neck. "Stay away from me!-"
"C'mon, don't be like that", Lucifer was now pressed right up against Sam, like someone would do to someone else when it was agreed upon.
"I said get back!-"
"I was just bored, He didn't mean anything to me-"
Sam plunged the knife into the gray t-shirt. It was like cutting into butter, there was no resistance, nothing to hit, no internal organs, no blood.
Lucifer shimmered away, the knife fell to the blood red earth of the Cage with a heavy clatter.
Sam looked around wildly-
A hand wrenched his matted hair back "I'll always have your heart Sammy." Lucifer pulled back and dug the scythe deep into Sam's chest pulling out his still beating heart. "Promise."
Sam fell hard to the ground clutching at the gaping jagged hole in his chest, gasping on blood choking his mouth.
Lucifer plucked Sam's heart off the blade of his scythe. "So, can you stop being so high maintenance?-" He tossed the heart like it was a ball, and it landed with a plop in his hand.
Sam writhed on the ground, long legs drawn up to his body, the pain was unimaginable. The kind of pain that was supposed to precede death. But he didn't die, the agony kept on. He heard his heart beating in Lucifer's hand.
"Cause I'm so over it," Lucifer bent down and shoved Sam's heart back into his chest, drawing back a clawed bloody hand, as Sam screamed.
"Man up kid," Lucifer smacked Sam's arm with his bloody hand. "This is just the warm up," he stood back up and wiped his hands on a white rag that had materialized. "Of course I said that about 90 years ago, but you know I kind of have that whole 'Devil May Care' cynicism persona."
The pain in Sam's chest felt just as gruesome as the act that had caused it. His eyes couldn't open past the pain, the smell of his hot blood was overpowering.
"I like you Sam."
Sam eyes opened into slits, he hazily saw Lucifer cleaning his blood out of his nails with the blade of a 2 inch dagger
"You're still alive," Lucifer pointed dagger at him. "You're not dying every time I rip you heart out , or tear your flesh off, or liquefy your internal organs. I have some powers in the Cage Sam, but it is so HARD to bring someone back in this Lock Box, and it takes away from Fun Time."
Lucifer walked to where Sam was lying, his brown boots caked in dried and new blood."You're my trophy bitch."
Sam managed to pull himself up on one arm. The wound in his chest was gone, but the pain still lingered, heavy and aching. "I'm not anything to you!" his words were through gritted teeth.
Lucifer looked down at him in a cynical sad expression. "After 120 years that becomes sort of an old line Sam." The devil drew closer, kneeling down, he placed a palm to Sam's chest, and it burned like hot lava. "You're mine, in. every. single. way."
The fiery pain on his chest wasn't nearly as intense as having his heart ripped still beating from his body, but it wasn't as intense the way comparing it to a broken compound fracture wasn't as intense.
Sam screamed.
"That's good Sam, nice and agonizing, but your flail is a little pathetic, too much 'get away from me you bad man,' and not enough ' get the fuck off me Satan."
Lucifer smiled, Sam knew it would be a long time before he could look at someone smiling again.
The Devil drew back his hand and obsidian black 6 inch claws emerged from the fingers. He plunged them into Sam's chest, all the way down to the fingertips.
Sam's scream this time echoed and resonated, and he struggled to yank the hand out of his flesh.
"Better." Lucifer said.
Sam shot up into a gray light and a ticking of an old analog alarm clock. Under soft sheets, a store bought comforter, a warmth next to him. A dog sleeping near his feet.
"Baby? What's wrong?"
There's a woman next to him. Amelia, it's Amelia.
Brown eyes, bare shoulders, familiar smile.
"I'm fine," Sam told her around trying to catch his breath "It's just a bad dream."
She looked at him in concern, obviously not believing him. "Was it about Dean?"
"No, it's, just-" Sam can't tell her, how can he tell her? How the fuck would he start? "It's not about Dean."
"Baby it's okay, it's just a dream," Her hand was warm on his face, her touch soft.
He closed his eyes, allowing the comfort.
"It's never about Dean anymore anyway-"
Sam's eyes opened at the words that came from Amelia's mouth.
She was leaning her side, propped up on one elbow. Her other hand still stroked his face. "You left him to rot in Purgatory Sam so you could be with me remember? You didn't even try to look for him." A six inch serrated hunting knife was in her hand and she impaled him in the chest.
Sam gasped, choking, eyes widening in shock. He recoiled from the blade, one hand tried to pull it out. But it was in too deep, he felt it pulsing with the beat of his heart.
A tongue clucked beside him on the bed. Amelia melted into Lucifer, lying beside him, hands behind his head, ankles crossed. "I wonder how Dean would feel if he knew that his darling little Sammy left him for the local trash while he's running for his life in Hell's Basement." Lucifer shook his head, like he can't believe it himself. "Maybe that's why even after Castiel fixed us we're getting nostalgic all of a sudden? Because we feel bad?"
He leaned over Sam on the bed "Probably feel as bad as this does." Lucifer grasped the hilt of a knife that materialized in his hand and torqued the blade in a full circle, severing each vein and artery of Sam's heart individually.
Sam arched off the bed and screamed.
Lucifer shook his head again. "Cheater cheater, Pumpkin eater."
xxxxXxxxx
Sam shot out of the bed so fast this time that he was on his feet in front of it. He clawed at his chest in the dark, he felt his heart beat explosively, no knife wound, no blood, no nothing.
The clock this time was digital, old, with a free desk mini calendar perched on top of it. The clock says its half past six in the morning.
He's alone, the other bed is empty, covers rumpled.
He is sopping with sweat, so saturated it actually dripped off his nose. He wiped at it with the back of his hand.
He walked to the bathroom and squinted when he flipped on the naked bulbs. He splashed water on his face. He took the toothbrush out of his shaving kit and brushed his teeth, slowly, carefully. He cupped water into his hands and rinsed the toothpaste from his mouth. He threw up in the sink. When he finished, he spat and brushed his teeth and rinsed his mouth out again.
He turned off the bathroom light and walked back out again.
He threw on the first pair of clean jeans can find in his bag, adds a black shirt, takes his jacket off the chair and left the room.
He walked in the gray early morning to the twenty four hour connivance store 400 yards from the hotel. He bought a 14 ounce cup of coffee and a three ounce bottle of Wild Turkey.
He took them back to the room. When he stepped inside, the light is on under the bathroom door and he heard the sink running.
He shed his jacket and dropped into one of the chairs around the two seater table and sipped more whiskey than coffee.
After about five minutes the bathroom door opened. Dean stepped out, and stopped when he saw him.
"Man I called you three times, where'd you go?" Dean demanded.
"Where'd you?" Sam countered back, swallowing another hit of Wild Turkey.
"I went to grab breakfast at that Diner across the street," Dean swiped a greasy looking brown bag off his bed and pitched on the table, where it opened and the smell of homes fries and bacon spilled out.
Dean eyed the bottle of Wild Turkey in Sam's hand. "I see you're getting your vitamins."
Sam didn't answer, just sipped.
"Any reason the bathroom smells like hork?"
"I have no idea," Sam sipped again.
"You know what, " Dean snatched the Whiskey bottle from Sam. "Enough with the crap, Sam! I get it man, I burned you-"
"Burned me?" Sam sounded like he'd choked rotten meat. "Dean you tried to kill me, you told me that Benny the Vampire was a better brother then I'd ever been!-"
"I was possessed, I didn't mean it Sam!" Dean snapped back.
"The spirit didn't make you say anything that you didn't already feel, Dean, you meant it!" Sam retorted, both of them knowing that the killing part of the possession wasn't the part that they were arguing about. Killing had an end, Dean's words would burn much longer.
"So what if I did Sam?" Dean words drew silence into the room like a blasted gunshot. "Does it mean it's not true? You shacked up with some girl and left me in Purgatory, and I'm not supposed to find a better brother in someone else?"
Sam was out of the chair in a second and shot a punch at Dean's jaw.
Dean ducked, and grabbed Sam's arm and pinned it behind his back.
Sam broke free and landed a cut on Dean's jaw. He drew back again, but Dean stopped his fist, and grabbed his bicep with his other hand and flung him into the wall. Sam crashed through the partition, just like the day before, landing in a heap on the ground. Only there was no excuse of ghost possession, or haunted pennies.
There was just Sam on the floor panting, and Dean above him doing the same.
The clots that had formed in Sam's nose from yesterday broke free and blood poured from it.
Dean was bleeding from a split lip, and a rivulet of blood ran down his mouth. "That's enough man! Look you wanna fight me over this? You do it when one of us isn't drunk or possessed by a confederate soldier, alright?" He spat the blood from his mouth, and walked over to where Sam was and extended his arm out to him.
Sam stared at it, like he didn't know what to do, but he finally grabbed Dean's hand and let him pull him to his feet.
Sam righted the chair he'd been sitting at and dropped back into it. He leaned over and cupped a palm to his bloody nose to catch the red drops.
Dean dropped a stack brown napkins from the breakfast bag on Sam's leg.
Sam sat up. "Thanks." He took one of the napkins and wiped the blood off his palm and replaced its place on his face with the napkin.
Dean took the Wild Turkey bottle off the table and sat on the end of his unmade bed. He took a long pull from the liquor bottle.
"Hell."
Sam's voice made Dean look up from the bottle.
"That smell. I had a nightmare about the Cage," Sam looked around the bloody napkin held up to his face at Dean.
Dean stared at him. "I thought Cas's whammy got rid of that-"
"It did, for a while," Sam told him. "But they aren't just about Lucifer anymore, the dreams. They're more detailed and technicolred now, like a bad HD movie" he dry laughed.
"How long?" Dean demanded.
"Bout a month after you ganked Dick," Sam answered quickly like it would make what he said less less by doing so.
Dean stared at him harder, like he'd just grown an extra set of testicles-on his head. "Why would you hide something like that from me?"
"Would you have listened if I told you?"
"I'm your brother Sam-"
"Apparently not the good one," Sam retorted.
"Damnit Sam!-" Dean made a growl in his throat, and beat the bed, which wasn't a sound at all So he hurled the Wild Turkey bottle into the wall instead where it shattered nosily and left a blotted amber stain on the paint. He swiped at his face, then looked back up at Sam.
"Benny is a better brother right now to me man, I'm sorry, that's just how it is! But your still my brother Sam. That doesn't change, just because we do. So when you have shit like this happening, I wanna know about it!" Dean reached for the whiskey bottle before he remembered he shattered it and instead stood up and snatched the cold bacon breakfast sandwich out of the bag on the table and started eating it as a way to distract himself.
He swallowed a mouthful and threw the extra one at Sam.
/"So how long have you and Sam been Mates?"
Dean rolled his eyes in the darkness of the empty cargo cars at the railroad yard. The night was cloudless and the starts were bright. Dean turned to the Vampire dressed in a lot of leather, even the cabbie hat on his head was made of leather."Dude,you gotta stop calling us mates, it sounds freakin' creepy, we're brothers."
"Dean I'm older than you're great, great, grandfather," Benny's breath blew a cloud into the dark air. And I've seen more brothers then any of them have had birthdays, you and Sam are something else."
Dean didn't say anything for a long moment. "Maybe once man," he took a pull from his flask. "But I'm not even sure if it's there anymore."
Benny laughed and dry in the air. "Brother if that were true, you wouldn't be trying so hard to turn it off so you wouldn't have to feel it now."/
"How long did it take you?" Sam ditched the bloody napkin on the table and unwrapped his sandwich. "To stop dreaming about Hell?"
Dean looked over at him, and swallowed his sandwich."I haven't. I just added Purgatory to it." This time it was Dean who laughed dryly.
Dean took another bite of his sandwich before throwing it in the wastebasket beside the nightstand in-between their two beds.
Sam watched him the entire time, not eating the food he'd just unwrapped. He watched Dean dropped into the empty chair across from him.
The silence was heavy and it screamed.
"Dean-" Sam tried to break that silence, but he couldn't, and it lapped over them again like warm ocean waves, and they sat there for hours, not saying a word.
xxxxXxxx
Mama, put my guns in the ground
I can't shoot them anymore.
That long black cloud is comin' down
I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door.Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door.
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door.
xxxxXxxxx
End.
Lyrics are from "Knocking on Heaven's Door." by Bob Dylan.
This will be one of two scenarios I have played out for "Southern Comfort". The second one will come later, when it's completed.
R/R please.
peace
mystic