AN: just a one-shot written in the wake of Swan Song. Covers from when Sam/lucifer fell to the final scene. May be more if people like it. Title from the song 'one day I slowly floated away' by Eisley.
Disclaimer: Do not own.
We foresee the mercy (that's been shown my young limbs)
1-
It isn't the fire, because that's only pain really, the agonizing stretch of over stimulated nerves, and after enough time it cannot fixate him anymore. Pain is, only a sensation in the end.
But there a history here, which capitulates, consumes him. Drives him ever closer to that thin line between understanding and belief.
He knows his stomach's not really ripped open (blood weeping down his thighs), no more than the grainy texture of ceiling plaster is real (digging into his back).
He knows it's not real (but there is fire everywhere and he keeps waiting to die.)
They were beautiful, the woman who bore this fate. Their hair shone like sunlight, curled back, and they had loved him.
This is what hell truly is, not the burning. It always has been.
2-
The cage was made for one, for ONE only.
There are four of them here, crammed together. A jumble of seared flesh and crushed wings, pressed into god-forged bars. No longer entirely physical, but not quite specters either.
Adam mouths screams into his shoulder; spat up English, Latin and blood, tearing what's left of Sam's humanity with sharp teeth.
Sam rips clawed fingers over his back, the closest he can manage to comfort now, because this is his brother after all.
Around them, through them, across them, Michael and Lucifer wage a war which will never be done.
3-
Jess holds up a cookie for inspection and he eats it right out of her hand, moving his chocolate-coated mouth up to her giggling one…
Dad leans over the engine of the Impala, his hands greasy and callous lined. He twists some wire or other, reaches over for a tool, glancing up at Sam on the way. Sam smiles back and dips his head back down to his workbook. Sometimes, there is such peace between them…
1992 and the world is lit up in a thousand burning colors, his brother grinning at him through the smoke, noise and joy. Sam chatters out a thank-you wrapped up in warm leather arms …
There are so many things Dean never got to see, so many ways that Sam remembers the love.
This isn't heaven. He can still taste the sulfur, the tang of ash and brimstone. And the agony is everywhere, even curve in his brothers grin.
It isn't heaven. Sam is closing in; twisting himself up so deep he'll never come out.
Dean beats out a drum solo on the steering wheel and Jess whispers nonsense in his ear.
It's close enough.
4-
He doesn't know when it begins, creeping in like an unseen shadow. It's not exactly something he was watching out for and more, he's surprised he can even understand it, this gabbled truth so alien from human thought.
He thinks maybe they're too close, seeping into each other in ways they should not and try as he might, Sam cannot help knowing that-
Lucifer used to smile, smile the way angels weren't allowed to, back BEFORE. A mouth-less grin of light and adulation, HIM infused into every part of it. It made Micheal angry (jealous, breathless, longing).
Then –Lucifer choose to stand. He distorted; imploding inwards like a dying star. He tore at the GLORY, the great heavenly pillars and THE WORD, till his lips cracked apart, wings quivered and he couldn't be anymore. Micheal reached for him (because he hadn't wanted this). Desperate, inadequate fingers catching on Lucifer's' sacrament- he couldn't save him and he fell such a long way.
And- They speak of His Word and the need for Lucifer to kneel and why he could not, but this is the truth. This is why they can never stop; not for the horsemen or the horn or the time of weeping. This is why they touch and chase, burn and bless, why they carve the world open.
The Want. The Want of that which has always been wanted for;
Paradise.
5-
He learns Adam, his mind reaching out like those angels in his memories, into the lost boy beside him.
Adam is the fire now, all rage and hate and burning, in their tiny cage in the bottom of the pit.
Sam tries to catch him, like Michael did (does) Lucifer, but Adam shrieks away. Sam is too bright for him now.
Sam doesn't know why it happened this way. Everything got tangled on the way down (such a long way), mixed back to front. And he thinks maybe, more than just compression, they have bits of each other swapped.
He tries again and Adam releases a wordless, mindless howl. Somewhere inside it is a whisper-thin plea.
Adam is concaving, like Lucifer did. Perhaps from memories so dark even Sam's not seen them.
They are mirroring an ancient decent, a fall and catch and destruction which is played around them, even now. But Sam knows how that ends, and Adam isn't a demon, not yet. He doesn't want to be.
Sam is something closer (higher), but the cage is small and he can still love in a way they could not. Still thinks like a human, whom deliver the mercy like others would the curse.
He whispers a benediction, twists, and Adam flickers out like a light, like an exploded star.
Michael and Lucifer sigh as one; uncomprehending and envious.
6-
Sam maps out the Enochian on the God-forged shafts, more their captors than any steel.
There is a familiar story played out here under his fingers; one he remembers in his own mind and has rewritten in his actions.
The rise (and Fall) of pride, jealousy;
The sharp scratch of abhorrence and desperation.
The Want, in everything.
There is nothing in it to hold him, he realizes after an eternity. This is a cage for one. For ONE only, created from Lucifer himself.
Michael need stay no more than Sam, but there is a prison of his own kind here; in division and needing someone too much. (Sam understands so much better now, why Angels are not allowed to love.)
He slips, white vapor, through the bindings. Thinks of Dean, all the never-will-bes, and begins his assent.
7-
Castiel looks- like water running over stone / a sorrowed tune/ the smear of oil over guns and a million other things incomprehensible to a human. Sam can see Dean here, in the movement of light and particles. Hears the slap of his own voice reflected back at him.
Angels like men, are shaped by their experience. For them, it is more physical.
Castiel tilts his head (the crimson flush of autumn leaves and blood where Lucifer killed him), "You should not be here." he tells Sam.
Sam, shrugs (the anger of a thirty miles and an acceptance letter/ the whisper of god in the devil, even now), "I should not be." he replies.
They are on Earth. Castiel is huge, so much bigger than Sam the human could understand. Yet, he does not think that it is only because he has changed, Castiel too, it seems, is more than he was.
Why an Archangel is down here though he does not know, or dare to ask just yet.
The air tastes like June, 2010. He's been gone a month and a milliena, because time moves differently in Hell and it gets worse the further down you go.
Castiel nods and to Sam's discomfort he can feel the other's presence inside himself. It is soft, the whisper of a shared grief, unimaginable loss in a single act. The Want is always theirs, and only now that he is no longer human can Sam truly understand what Castiel sacrificed for them.
Paradise has never been so far away.
8-
The fence is not white, even if it is picket, and Sam is unspeakably glad. It would be too hard; to see a white fence and warm house. To see the way Dean is living his life loving a new family.
Castiel had not wanted him to come and Sam understands. Dean was always his favorite, but his brother is happier here than with either of them.
So Sam is outside, shorting out a street light. Standing blank faced in the dark, the shadow of wings on his back.
He is an impossible thing, only the vague impression of what he once was. The memory of humanity a flicker in his core. Earth is bigger than the cage and so is Sam now; he cannot love anymore, not the way Man does. He no longer has a crossroads with his brother before him.
Dean thinks he is in Hell still and Sam is not allowed to change this perception. Not allowed, to show Dean his unlikely salvation.
He can only stand here, momentarily, in the dark outside the house and let himself remember, what it was to be human.
Remember too, Lucifer who shone too brightly and Fell, when Michael could not bear to catch him. Not the way Sam caught Adam.
A long time ago, Gabriel told him, that it had to end. The endless sacrifice of brother for brother for brother. He could not understand then, how he ever could, just let Dean go. Now the hum of Wanting (and Burning) in every part of Sam, it is clearer.
Castiel whispers a query over his conscious and Sam flickers away.
_fin_
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