Author's Notes: For mimblexwimble, who requested that I "hurt the fuck out of Sam." I hope making him take an emotional beating and a hallucinatory physical one counts. All my love! and my sincerest apologies that I didn't make Sam bleed more, because I know how you like that. (As do I, as do I.)

They were in the convent, and then they were on a plane.

How, he wanted to ask, or why, but that somehow didn't seem relevant or important right now.

The words bubbled up behind Sam's teeth but they wouldn't make it out; his mouth wouldn't open and he didn't think he ever wanted to speak again. It was too much, this. He took everything, took Jess and his father and Dean but this was too much.

And then he looked across the aisle.

His own black eyes were staring back.

"Buckle your seatbelt, Sam," he said, starting to grin. "Things are about to start getting crazy. Well. Crazier."

It's not real, he thought desperately. It's not real, there's nothing there, this is just like in the panic room-

"Starting early this time, isn't it," said demon-Sam across the aisle, as though he'd heard Sam's thoughts. "You know why that is, don't you, Sammy? You've opened the barn door. Let the cat out of the bag." That grin widened, stretched to become hardly real, less than human. "Just try stuffing me back in now that I'm out. I'm in you now, Sam." The black swirled out of his eyes, leaving Sam looking at a perfect copy of himself. "Just relax. You're along for the ride."

The plane began its rattling, unsteady descent. Dean, he realized, was yelling in his ear. "Sam! Sam! Fuck, Sam, you cannot check out on me, absolutely not, do you hear me?"

It's starting, Sam wanted to say. Dean, it's starting. "I'm here. I'm…Dean…"

"Don't you fucking say it," Dean snarled, almost vicious. "Don't even – just don't bother, okay? Don't bother."

I'm done trying to save you.

Sam closed his eyes.

~.~

They ran to Chuck's house, who'd apparently told Dean where to find Sam, where Dean had left Castiel. Dean was silent the whole way there, his jaw tight.

"Aren't you going to tell him?" said a familiar voice, and he jumped, glanced into the back seat. Ruby was cleaning her nails with her knife and watching him with the expression he'd gotten so familiar with, the one that said you're really a dumb fuck, Sam. He took a sharp breath through his nose.

(Felt her die. Felt her, never had that happen before, what've you made yourself into, Sam, what have you done and all so-)

He forced his eyes forward. Ruby snickered. "Oh, Sam. For a smart boy, you're really dumb as a post sometimes."

I know, Sam thought. I believed you, didn't I? He swallowed hard and didn't say anything. She clambered forward and leaned in between him and Dean. He could smell her hair, and the faint underlying smell of something else, something not quite human.

"He's not going to kill you unless you ask," she whispered. "That's the game. He's going to make you ask for it. And he won't enjoy it, either. He'll look you in the eye and pull the trigger and still hate doing it, because that's Dean."

Sam shuddered and clamped his teeth down on the sound that wanted to escape. Dean glanced at him, sharply. "Sam?" he said, the edges of his voice hard. It wasn't quite concern.

Ruby laughed. "Don't you want to see what happens next? Don't you want to know what the end looks like?"

"Nothing," Sam said. "It's nothing. I'm fine."

~.~

Castiel was in chunks. The look in Dean's eyes surveying the room was bleak. "So I guess you didn't stop it," Chuck said.

"Guess not," said Dean, darkly, and didn't look at Sam. Chuck did, though, and looked like he was torn between sympathy and something else. Disgust, probably, Sam thought.

"Guess that's destiny for you," Chuck said, and Dean snarled, "Destiny's a bitch. And I'm not beat yet."

"He is, though," said a familiar voice, and Sam's head whipped around to see himself, probably around ten, swinging his legs off the side of a table. "Look at his eyes. Remember when we were little and you promised you'd take care of Dean like he took care of you? Do you remember that?"

Sam's jaw tightened. He tried not to twitch. Why are you here, he thought, none of the other symptoms have…

"Yeah, you've done a great job taking care of him," said his younger self. "Look at his eyes, Sam. What have you made us do? He's barely even thirty and he's old."

I tried, Sam started to say, and then choked it down. Don't respond to your hallucinations, Sam. I tried.

"Hey, Sam," Chuck said, and Sam jerked, surprised to be addressed by someone actually in the room. "Are you…uh, all right?"

"I think we can worry about Sam's issues later," Dean said, with something very close to venom. "For now…" Chuck was watching him, Sam thought. He wondered if his eyes were normal, and wasn't sure he dared to find a mirror to check.

"Nice job, asshole," said the young Sam sitting on the table. Sam didn't look at him, but he could see the metronome motion of his legs, swinging back and forth, back and forth.

~.~

He meant to tell Dean. Really, he did. But every time the words welled up in his throat Sam swallowed them back, because Dean didn't need that, didn't need more reasons to distrust him even if all of them were good ones. Dean needed him to be strong.

"Dean doesn't need you at all." It was his black eyed doppelganger again. "You know that, right? What else does this prove, if not that?" He tipped his head to the side, those beetle-black eyes shining. "You're the last thing he needs."

Bobby was on his way, they had a message that made no sense, and somewhere out there was Lucifer, setting up to end the world. Yeah, maybe Sam was the last thing Dean needed. But he was also one of the only things Dean had.

"Are you feeling any…you know," Dean said, finally, tone brusque and more wary and flat than concerned, though his expression… "Cause if you're going to start throwing yourself around the room I'd kind of like…"

Am I? Sam wondered. He didn't feel any of the withdrawal symptoms he'd come to know. Just the phantoms. Maybe they weren't even a product of the demon blood. Maybe he'd just cracked.

"No," he said, finally. "No, I feel…fine." The black-eyed Sam snickered, and Sam forced himself not to glance in his direction. "Dean, I-"

"Good," Dean said, harshly. "I'm going to go get some food. Don't start any more apocalypses while I'm gone."

He didn't slam the door. His back was tense and wary, but his shoulders were slumped, Sam noticed. Tired. I tried, Sam wanted to yell after him. I was just trying to pick up the slack since you were so-

But he swallowed that, too, and sat down on the edge of the bed to wait.

~.~

He woke up midway through the night to his mother stroking his hair, still wearing that bloodstained nightgown. Sam wondered why, distantly; maybe that was the only image he had of her. Looking up as a child and watching his mother bleed and die.

"Oh, Sam," she said in a whisper, as if she might wake up Dean in the other bed, Dean who probably wasn't even sleeping.

"Do you hate me now?" Sam whispered to her anyway, because he needed to know. Her hand on his forehead was warm. Mary Winchester smiled.

"No," she said. "No, Sam. I couldn't hate you. Not my baby. You tried so hard."

I always try, Sam thought. I always try, and I always fail. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes and tried not to sniff. No use crying over opened Cages.

"What am I going to do?" he whispered. Mary smiled gently at him.

"You'll figure it out. You always do."

That hurt worse. Even as it had in the panic room, the comfort hurt worse, but now more so because he wasn't insane, he knew it was just him and didn't that mean the part of him that had loved the power and the strength and the control was still there, soothing him back into-

"You're not my mom," he said, and heard his voice crack a little. Mary (she felt so real) smoothed his hair back again.

"No," she said kindly. "But I'm the closest thing you'll ever have."

~.~

Lose my number.

He'd pled research but ended up just walking, nowhere in particular. There'd be no point in trying to research when he couldn't focus, all he could think about the words circling in his head.

Done trying to save you.

Dean fell in step beside him. "What's the point of giving you a second chance, anyway?" he said. "You'd only waste it."

"Dean," Sam started to say, and stopped. This wasn't Dean. He needed to remember that. Though he wasn't sure it mattered. Neither of them was going to listen to him, even if he'd known what he was supposed to say.

"I should've just wasted you in that church. Or in the basement at Bobby's house, before we came to this. The end of the fucking world, Sammy." Dean snorted and shook his head. "You just couldn't listen to me, could you?"

"I'm sorry," Sam said, quietly, and not knowing why he bothered.

"I know you are," Dean said, and stuck a knife in Sam's kidneys. Sam felt it slice all the way down to his core, the pain as real as the warmth of Mary's hand. "And you're going to be a whole lot sorrier."

"Not real," Sam said, as Dean shoved him and he stumbled to his knees on the sidewalk. "It's not-"

"I'm sorry, Sam," Dean said, kneeling down, eyes full of genuine pain. "I really am. This isn't what I wanted. But I can't let you live. I can't let you drag me down."

Sam blinked, and he was sitting alone on his ass on the sidewalk, an ache in his lower back like a phantom but – he checked – no wound. Not even a scar. No blood.

Sam started to laugh.

It took him too long to realize that his phone was ringing. He picked it up, swallowing his laughter. "Where the hell are you?" Dean roared down the line. "I know where to go. Bobby's been stabbed."

~.~

"Get your head in the game, Sam," Dean snapped, while they were driving to the storage unit. "Focus. This is fucking Lucifer we're dealing with."

"I know," Sam said. As if he could forget.

"I don't want to grow up to be you," the younger Sam in the backseat said. Sorry about that, kid, Sam thought, bitterly wry.

"What's been up with you? You've been acting…"

"I kickstarted the end of the world, Dean," Sam said. "What do you expect?" He felt guilty a moment later, and nearly cringed. "—I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

"It's fine," Dean said flatly. "Never mind. Forget it."

"I'm going to kill you," the younger Sam in the backseat said, with conviction. "That way I won't grow up to be you and none of this will happen. It's your fault Dean hates us now. You get that, right?"

Sam rubbed the bridge of his nose.

My hallucinations want to kill me, Sam thought, and wanted to laugh again. This is your life, Sam Winchester. How's it look?

~.~

Dean was the Archangel Michael's vessel. Sam couldn't even be surprised.

He wasn't even particularly surprised when Zachariah took his lungs. Gasping on the floor for air that did absolutely nothing, it was John crouched in front of him, watching with dispassionate eyes. Sam didn't even bother to try asking him for help.

He didn't say anything. Those eyes were enough. Always had been. John, who could condemn with a look.

Even as the rest of the room wavered, his father stayed steady, the one clear thing left as everything else slipped out, and Sam wondered if this was better, maybe, if this was what he was supposed to do after all, maybe this was what Mary meant, maybe…

Castiel brought him back. For a moment, staring up at him, Sam didn't think he was real, but he seemed to be. Or at least, mostly.

"Sam," Castiel said, once the other angels were gone, watching him with his head cocked to the side. "The demon blood…"

"Gone," Sam said at once. "I don't – seems like it's gone." Dean was looking at him suspiciously, eyes narrowed. Was he thinking, Sam wondered, of his long absence? Wondering if…probably. Sam couldn't even blame him. Felt too tired to try to argue.

Dean wasn't wrong, after all. Not like Sam was. Dean had never been wrong the way Sam was.

Maybe it would wear off, he thought hopefully. Maybe this was just some…

(Some what? Murmured a voice at the back of his mind. You heard what Chuck said. You changed. You did this to yourself.)

"Sam," Dean said finally. "If something's going on, now'd be the time to say something." Don't lie to me, Dean's eyes pleaded, at the same time as they said I can't take anymore. Not from you.

He could handle this. What was a few hallucinations? What was a little pain?

"It's nothing, Dean," he said. His brothers' shoulders slumped, his head bowing.

"He doesn't believe you," said the young Sam, sitting on a locked chest. "I don't blame him. I wouldn't either."

~.~

"I don't know if I can trust you anymore," Dean said, quietly. His eyes were full of hurt. Sam swallowed hard. "I know you're sorry. Just…"

He turned away. His stride, to Sam, looked slow, faltering. Bobby behind him with his voice full of despair. Dean in front of him with the weight of everything on his shoulders. Screw destiny, I'm not beat yet.

The crunch and sudden pain took him by surprise. He blinked, met black-eyed Sam's eyes, and looked down. His own hand was buried in his chest, up to the wrist, fingers closed around his heart. He could feel it beat.

"No one will ever know," his doppelganger said. "I can take your place. No one will ever know. Who's watching you? Who cares?"

Sam knew the answer to that one. He wobbled, and black-eyed Sam caught him, hand around his throat. Still letting him breathe.

"Sorry, Sam," he said, and then frowned. "…no, not really."

Oh god, Sam thought.

"You let me in, Sam," his double said. "You have to pay the price for that."

He squeezed the heart in his hand until it burst, and-

He blinked. Dean was still walking away. He was still standing, swaying. His heart banged loudly against his rib cage. It's like a riddle, Sam. Real or not real? Who knows?

You have to pay the price. This was his to bear.

So be it.