Where My Demons Hide

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. Obviously.

A/N: So I was watching Lucifer Rising again the other night and it hit me like ton of bricks that Sam never did find out Dean didn't leave him that particular voicemail he heard. My muse, of course, picked right up on that and ran with it, and this is the result. It's not my normal fare—it's first person present-tense—but I think it works, for the mindset in which Sam is operating during this period of time.

Takes place between 9x23, Do You Believe In Miracles, and 10x3, Soul Survivor.

Don't forget to leave a review and let me know what you think!

My name is Sam Winchester. My brother is Dean, and he is gone.

It's not the first time.

The thought brings a despairing smile to my face, and I knock back another gulp of whiskey. I stopped using the glass hours ago, and the amber liquid sloshes down my chin as I pull the bottle back unsteadily. I lick my lips and swipe at my face, wrinkling my nose at the smell of alcohol.

I've never really been a fan of it, hunter's helper. Especially not straight-up cheap whiskey.

But Dean was. It reminds me of him and soothes the ache of his absence all at once.

Sammy let me go.

So I drink it. I drink it until I can't keep my eyes open, until I'm too dizzy to walk a straight line, until all I can register is a vague sense of sorrow beneath my whiskey-soaked haze. Then I crash face-first on the leather sofa and let blackness descend.

I welcome it.

My name is Sam Winchester. My brother is Dean, and I am going to get him back.

I will not fail him again.

My hands are sticky with blood as I slam the door to this week's stolen junker, parked haphazardly in the bunker's garage. The sound echoes through the massive space, making me jump. If Dean were here, he'd laugh at me, make fun, scoff. I can practically hear him growl good-naturedly.

"Whatsa matter, Sammy? We startled by loud noises now?"

But he's not here. And if he were, his Baby would be too, and everything would be right again—and I wouldn't jump at the sound of a door slamming. Because the sound of a door slamming would mean Dean was right beside me, where he belongs.

I use my shirt to twist the door handle so I don't have to clean blood off it later, stomp down the stairs and into the kitchen, slap the faucet handle to turn on the water. It's too quiet in here, too dark and deathly silent, too solitary. I get stuck in my head without him here to talk to, tease, hell, even fight with.

I don't bother trying to stem the flow of tears as I wash the crimson from my hands, the blood of some poor bastard possessed by the demon I'd been trying to get answers from. It wasn't his fault, the guy probably had a family, maybe a brother of his own who would be mourning his death once the police found his body.

But that's not why I let the tears come. I hadn't cared about the demon's host. To be honest, I still don't; not enough to regret what I've done.

Tears come because I can't stand to be without him, because losing him is like losing half of myself.

I cry because it fucking hurts.

My name is Sam Winchester. My brother is Dean, and he is back.

Finally.

And only now does it hit me, with echoes of the demon's poisonous words in my head, what exactly I became in the process of getting him back. My stomach churns with the knowledge of it, the full and complete perspective of what I've done hitting me like a freight train now that fear for Dean, of Dean, is assuaged.

Torture. Blood. Complete focus on a single goal to the exclusion of everything else, including my own morals.

It's all a bit too familiar, makes my head pound with remembered agony.

I promised not to do this again, become this again. I swore.

And then, between the Cage and Dick Roman and Metatron and angels falling and Gadreel and the Mark of Cain and everything that's happened since…

I forgot.

I thought someday I might forget; that's why I saved it. I know exactly where it is—always know exactly where it is if I need it—and pull the old shoe box off the topmost shelf of my tiny closet. It houses lots of old odds and ends, things I refuse to give up despite their apparent lack of value; a stained zippo, scraps of paper, a small velvet jewelry box in which rests the engagement ring I never got to give—

And an old cellphone.

I've never needed it before; Dean and I have stretched the bounds of morality plenty of times—even broken them a few, but only under duress. It's a conversation I'll have to have with my brother soon, I know, I can see it in his eyes. He blames himself for everything that happened over the last four months, but he was a demon—not himself—when all that happened.

I, on the other hand, have been wholly me the entire time.

I have no excuse.

He finds me, holding the Blackberry, just staring at the voicemail icon in the corner of the screen. In all these years, I've never heard it again, never erased or saved it or done anything that would remove the little notification saying I had a message from Dean. During the worst of the withdrawals, and anytime afterward that I was tempted to relapse—and there's been temptation, as disgusting as the addiction seems now—I would pull the Blackberry out, stare at the icon.

It was always enough.

But I fear I'm more of a monster now than I was then—and this time, I don't even have the excuse of being manipulated by both Heaven and Hell at once. No addiction, no Ruby, no "I was young and confused and hurting."

This time, it was all me.

"Hey, Sammy?" Dean's voice cuts through my ruminations, and I whip the phone out of sight, hoping he doesn't recognize it—doubting he would anyway. It was my phone, not his.

"Yeah?"

"I'm gonna run out. There's no food, and I'm pretty hungry."

I nod, but he doesn't move. It's clear he's not ready to leave the bunker.

"Do you want me to go?" I ask. I don't much feel like driving into town, but he's in worse physical shape than I, and probably worse emotional shape too, so I'll do it if he wants me to. Dean surprises me, shakes his head and shuffles over to my bed, sits down.

"I'm sorry," he says it bluntly, without his usual mask of snark and machismo.

"For what?" I ask, but it's a stupid question. I know what for, and I'm not ready for this conversation yet. I can't do it, can't tell him it's not his fault when I'm still busy drawing the parallels between us and haven't had a chance to put my own self back on the straight and narrow.

"All of it," he says. My control slips a notch, and suddenly all I want is for him to leave. Or to leave him. Not forever, just for a minute. Just until I can lock down the victorious rage that got me my brother back.

Just until I can shove down the monster I really am.

"I know it must've been hell for you, the last four months." Dean is still freakin' talking, and I'm not going to be able to keep this up much longer. I stand, making for the door, but his words stop me in my tracks.

"Please don't go."

I turn back. He's hunched on the bed, his shoulders rounded. He looks smaller than he really is, and I can't stand it.

"What?"

He refuses to meet my eyes. "I don't, uh…I can't…be alone. Right now."

God, I need to take care of this, the monster is roaring in my ears—joy at having him back, and a sense of justification that makes my stomach clench.

I got him back, I'd do it all again, I'd happily torture every one of those sons of bitches and even lead Lester straight to that crossroads demon, I'd do it again.

"What you got there, Sammy?"

He's trying to make conversation, he has no idea why I have a death grip on a prehistoric Blackberry. I can't tell him, the guilt is already killing him.

"Nothing."

"Sam."

"Nothing, Dean. Just an old phone."

His head tilts in a manner that brings to mind old study sessions, a cocky high-school Dean who wasn't ashamed to ask his younger brother for help if he didn't get something.

"Hey Brainiac, care to help your idiot brother translate a word problem?"

"You're not an idiot, Dean."

"One of our old ones? Did someone call you with a case?"

I shake my head. "Naw, this one's not active anymore."

"But you still have it, and from the looks of it, keep it charged up."

"I need it," slips out before I can think of a cover story. Dean stands, steps closer. I step back, unwilling to let him too close—not this time, not here and now, not this—and he stops, holds his hands up in a placating gesture. But his gaze is sharp. Not in an angry way, but in that way that makes me sure he can read my mind sometimes.

"What's wrong, Sam?"

Everything.

Nothing.

"Me," is what I say.

"Jesus, Sammy," is what Dean says when I tell him, at least partially, what I'm dealing with. "I knew about Lester, but….not all of that."

I nod. "I had to get you back," I choke, but it's a lame excuse and I know it. Dean doesn't even hesitate, just nods and squeezes my shoulder impulsively.

"How many lines have I crossed trying to save you, little brother? I'm the last one to judge."

I shake my head. "No Dean, it's not the same for me."

"It is," he insists. "And you got me back. Hell, man, you saved me. You always manage to make it right, Sam, you do; I've never lost faith in you, and I never will."

Part of me wants to stop and just revel in the fact that Dean is outright saying things like that—it's rare enough to warrant it—but he's strengthening the monster, and I need to shove it down.

"That's a lie!" I shout, standing again, taking a few steps away, putting distance between us. "You have lost faith in me. Not that I blame you, you were right to. But it has happened."

Dean blinks, looking for all the world like I just punched him in the gut. I curse myself for letting him get this far, for not lying to him well enough he wouldn't suspect anything.

The thought makes me snort. Since when have I ever been able to lie to Dean?

"What are you talking about?" he asks.

I sigh. "I know we don't talk about it, but there's no need to pretend it didn't happen."

"…what?"

I throw my hands up. "Demon blood, Dean! Ruby? Lilith? Starting the apocalypse? Being a blood-sucking freak? Sound familiar?"

Dean's face registers the old pain, and he winces visibly. "Sam, in that hotel room, I was angry—"

"Not the hotel room," I sigh. Could he have truly forgotten leaving such venom on a recording for me to hear? "After."

"After?"

"The voicemail, Dean. The voicemail."

He looks completely lost. "The one where I apologized?"

That's my first inkling that maybe something's not right. Did his time as a Knight of Hell screw with his memory?

"Dean, you didn't apologize. You called me a blood-sucking freak and told me you were done trying to save me. You gave up. On me. As I said, I deserved it—"

"Whoa whoa, little brother, hang on!" Dean is standing now too, shaking and pale. "I never, ever said any of that. The angels had me in that god damned room, and I called you to say I was sorry, that I wasn't Dad, that we were family regardless."

My brain is stuck. I rack my own memory, just to be sure.

St. Mary's Convent. 2 Miles. Headlights of an ugly car. Cindy McClellan screaming in the trunk. "Give me a damn minute, Ruby!" Pushing the button, putting the phone to my ear in the far-fetched hope I would hear something, anything that would give me another option than what I was about to do.

"Listen to me, you bloodsucking freak. Dad always said I'd either have to save you or kill you. Well, I'm giving you fair warning. I'm done trying to save you. You're a monster, Sam—a vampire. You're not you anymore. And there's no going back."

I've only heard it once—saved the phone and the voicemail, but never actually accessed it again, the threat of it, the echoes of it always enough to keep me from ever becoming a monster again.

Until now.

"No, that's not…that's not what I heard," I answer, more faintly than I'd like to. Dean is rubbing his face, pacing.

"My god," he positively moans, and my head stops spinning. There's something in his tone, in his body language. I know him better than anyone—he just realized something.

Something big.

"What?"

He stops, looks at me. "When I was in the…the fancy room. I demanded to see you, I didn't want to just leave it at a voicemail, Sammy, I wanted to apologize to your face. I wanted us to go tackle that demon bitch together—and I was even willing to let Ruby come along—so I told Cas to take me to you. He refused, and Zachariah showed up while I was trying to escape. He told me—" Dean's nostrils flare and his voice breaks; agony remembered, I know the feeling. "That they had a 'role' for you to play, that you might 'need a little nudging', but they'd make sure you played it."

My knees are shaking as pieces start falling into place.

Dean never said….?

"They screwed with my apology." Now he sounds pissed. He gestures to the death grip I still have on the Blackberry. "Is that the….is that what's on that phone? After all these years, Sam?"

I nod vaguely.

"God."

We stand there in silence for a few minutes, trying to absorb, before Dean starts forward, covering the distance between us in two strides, reaching for the phone. I pull back.

"Did they screw with the voicemail itself, or just what you heard?" he asks, and his eyes are wide, searching. It's important to him.

"I—I don't know," I answer.

"You haven't—?"

"Not since that night."

"Give it to me." He holds out his hand. I shake my head, clutching the Blackberry.

"I need it," I say again. Dean clenches his jaw so hard veins stand out in his neck.

"Why?"

"To keep me from becoming that again."

"Sammy." There's so much pain in his voice I feel my legs shake again. "Sammy, you never were that. You were never a monster; never have been, never will be. You don't need to hear hateful things I never even said. Give it to me, please."

I don't want to, I need it; but my hand moves almost without my permission, reaching for him. He snatches the phone and presses the button, holding it to his ear. I wait, shaking.

It's extraordinary, how his face changes from horrified to relieved. He presses a button and holds the phone out.

"Here, listen to this."

I do.

"Hey, it's me. Um...look, I'll just get right to it. I'm still pissed, and I owe you a serious beat down. But I shouldn't have said what I said. You know, I'm not Dad. We're brothers. We're family. And, uh...no matter how bad it gets, that doesn't change. Sammy, I'm sor—"

The voicemail cuts out then, and I'm sure my eyes are going to fall out of my head, they're so wide. Dean works the Blackberry out of my hand, tosses it on the bed, and wraps his arms around me. I hold him tightly enough I know it hurts him, but I can't ease up; I'm shaking and relieved and sorry—God, I'm so sorry—

"I got you back," I choke into his shoulder. "I got you back but I had to be a monster to do it."

"Sammy," is all he says. He doesn't try to justify my actions—for which I'm grateful—he just holds me and says my name, doesn't let me go.

He never has.