"Castiel," Toni repeats, only whispering it. "Sam, that's—"
A soft click announces the opening of a door Sam hadn't noticed before. He rolls his head on the pillow towards it, tenses to see a woman in a white coat enter. Her face is vaguely familiar, perhaps one of the people who put him through the medical tests before.
Her eyes are solid white.
Sam throws himself back, twisting away, wrenching his arms against the cuffs, but there's no give.
"Ms. Bevell, you shouldn't be—" Lilith starts to say, and then, "No—Mr. Winchester, stop that—"
Her voice is a mocking parody of concern, but her smile is all savage pleasure. Restrained as he is, Sam can't escape her hands on his arm, and he can't push her back, his power staying dormant though he strains until his head is throbbing. As she adjusts the IV taped to his vein, Sam futilely tries to squirm away from those pale blank eyes, shaking his head. "No—get back—you're dead—get your hands off me! You're dead, I killed you—!"
"Sam," Toni says, on the other side of the bed now, grabbing his other arm, "you have to calm down; she's just trying to help—"
"Dead or not, did you think I would stay away from this?" the demon gloats. "My one chance to get revenge?"
"Revenge? It was what you wanted—you wanted me to kill you!"
"Hardly," the white-eyed demon snarls, sudden wrath distorting the triumph, "but that's not what this is about. No, I'm here for someone else. My favorite pupil—my last real student, before you offed me; my legacy. And sure, he'd strayed from the path now and again, but he was doing so well on the Mark—oh, that was beautiful to behold! Only you had to go and ruin the fun."
Sam freezes, staring into those hideous white eyes. Not Lilith. Alistair.
"Such a shame," Alistair says, shaking his host's head with a condescending cluck of the tongue. He plants a hand on Sam's chest, shoves him down into the bed, fingernails digging in. "What a waste of pure homicidal potential. Dean Winchester could've been the greatest monster to ever walk among you sniveling humans, but you couldn't have that. Instead...instead you go and get him killed!"
He twists his palm, tearing flesh, drawing blood, and Sam shudders, choking on the pain and shock. "I—I didn't," he moans, "I didn't kill him—"
"No?" Alistair leans in, hot breath on Sam's face, as his fingers jab deeper into his chest. "You made him the key that unlocked the Darkness. Did you really think, did you ever actually believe, that Dean wouldn't do what he had to, to put right your sin?"
On the other side from the demon, Toni is repeating his name, saying things that Sam can't make out, over Alistair's sneer. "All those decades we spent together in Hell—longer than you ever knew him for—I knew everything that made that boy tick, every button in him that could be pushed. What he'd do, why he'd do it. When the time came, he didn't even hesitate, did he, Sam? I bet he held his head high and walked right to his oblivion, without so much as reminding you whose fault it really was...
"But don't worry, Sammy," and Alistair takes Sam's chin in his bloody hand, presses small fingers under his jaw, against the carotid. "Now's our chance to set the facts straight. Make sure you understand. Dean's gone, but you're still here. Right here, with me."
Releasing Sam's chin, the demon takes out a syringe, injects clear liquid into the IV port. "No—don't—!" Sam protests. He yanks at his wrist, trying to scrape the needle loose with the edge of the cuff, but Toni clamps her hand over it, holding it in place.
Sam stares at her desperately, already feeling the numbing lassitude spreading through his limbs. "No—no, it's a demon—look at his eyes!"
Alistair, white eyes blinked back to ordinary brown, looks from Sam to the woman of Letters. Shakes his head and says, satirically solemn, "This is near the limit; he's dangerously close to an overdose as it is. The adrenaline, along with the demonic factors in his blood, are counteracting every sedative far too quickly—but the strain on his heart...otherrwizze...izzz..."
The rapid-fire words slow, stretch like taffy into droning, incomprehensible sounds. Though the light overhead doesn't dim, Sam's vision darkens, until all he can see are Alistair's eyes, empty white, staring down at him with gratified, gleeful cruelty. "Maybe you're not long for this world," the demon says, his true voice unaffected, ringing in Sam's ears, "but not to worry; we're all waiting for you in the next one. But then, why wait..."
x x x
Time was already difficult to track, with no watch to tell him how long he sleeps for. It becomes impossible when Sam can't be sure whether he's asleep or awake, can barely tell where the nightmares end and nightmarish reality begins.
He dozes off, and Meg is there, in her first host, walking with him along the side of the road, telling him about the fun they could have had.
He wakes up and there's Brady, sitting at the foot of his bed, asking Sam why hadn't he noticed, why hadn't he smelled the sulfur, how could he have looked into his friend's eyes day after day and never seen the demon looking back? "You could have saved me," Brady says, "if you'd been drinking this stuff then."
Sarah Blake can't speak, her mouth dripping blood until he can't look at her anymore. Madison snarls at him, eyes werewolf bright. Then she's gone, too, lost in shadows. The light above him was bright when Sam last remembers it, but it's off now.
The dim glow from the small corner fixture is barely enough illumination to pick out the features of the figure by his bed. Dark hair, light trench coat.
Sam blinks and squints, disbelief warring with hope. "Cas?" His voice is only a croak, his throat bone-dry, tongue leathery and too large in his mouth.
Blue eyes fix on him with that once-disconcerting intensity. "Sam," Castiel says back.
"Cas! " Sam gasps, studying his friend, seeing no signs of injury. "Oh, God—you're not hurt, you're all right."
"Yes," Cas says. "And you are not."
"Could be better," Sam admits. He's feverish, muscles aching, head throbbing; but he feels giddy enough to laugh. It's been so long since he saw a familiar face; he almost can't take the sheer relief, the joy of not being alone.
"No," Cas says, his expression not changing, "You could not be."
Sam frowns in confusion.
"You could not be better than what you are," Cas says. He looks as he did when Sam last saw him, when Toni's spell banished him, in his newer trench coat with the striped tie; but his voice is grim, forbidding—the cold resolve of the angel of the Lord Sam met all those years ago. "You have never been and will never be anything more than an abomination."
Sam exhales. Lets his head fall back on the pillow, relaxes his arms in the cuffs. "And you're not Cas; you're just in my head."
"Oh?" Cas leans over him and smiles, broadly and more alarming than his most intense stare. "You sure about that? I'll give you a hint; you're fifty percent correct. I'm not Castiel. Again."
He's hallucinating, tripping on the demon blood. It's just a figment. He knows this, and yet Sam can't stop his breath from catching in his throat, can't stop his shoulders from going rigid as stone.
Though his clenched jaw he grates, "Surprised it took you so long to show up, Lucifer. Guess you're not my worst nightmare after all."
"Oh, no, Sam, I'm not a nightmare," Lucifer says, grinning with Cas's mouth. "No hallucination this time; I'm here for real. Your new girlfriend, that lady of Letters, she tried phoning home, and got me instead. Recently back in action," and he looks down at himself, strokes one sleeve of his coat. "I admit, this vessel's grown on me. It can be so much more expressive than that stick-in-the-mud little brother of mine ever was with it."
Sam shakes his head. "Cas wouldn't say yes to you, not with the Darkness gone—he wouldn't do it."
"You think?" Lucifer cocks his head, puts a thoughtful finger to his lips. "Not even if he was really, really desperate? Say, oh, if he'd just lost a friend, the only real friend he had left in the whole world. Just imagine, if he'd happened to get himself banished, and by the time he made it back he couldn't find his good buddy anywhere. And there was no one he could go to for help, what with that whole last remaining friend thing; no one he could turn to, except..."
"No," Sam says, "no, he wouldn't, Cas would never—not again—"
"And you'd never drink demon blood again...but we know how that turned out, don't we, Sam?"
"You're lying," Sam gasps, "you're not real—you're not—" thrashing his head against the pillow in desperate negation, fighting to see through this illusion—-has to be an illusion, a vision. Lucifer had been in the bunker before, in Sam's room—but Dean had been there, and Chuck, and the world was in danger and Sam hadn't had time to be afraid. And before that Cas had been there, fighting back the archangel; and before that, Dean was coming to save him.
And before that, Lucifer had only been in his head, and Cas had saved Sam from that madness, too. But now Lucifer is standing over him, grinning with Cas's mouth, and Sam can only hope that he's insane again, that it's only he who's broken, not anything that really matters. You wouldn't, Cas, not for me, you couldn't do this—
The corner of his cheek catches in his clenched teeth, and Sam bites down until he tastes iron. The spurt of pain is not the bright, stabbing surge of real injury, but it's clean and sharp and brings the room around him briefly into focus. Lucifer before him remains clear—but too clear, against the shadowy backdrop. The malevolence in those blue eyes, the sharp white teeth in his smirk—it shouldn't be possible to make out those details, not in this dimly lit room.
Sam lets go a breath that shudders like a sob, collapsing back against the mattress.
"Aww, why'd you have to go and spoil it?" Lucifer complains. "I'm disappointed in you, Sam. Last time you were so willing to do your penance—threw yourself in the Cage with me without hesitation.
"Now, though, you've been drinking the blood again, but pretending you won't have to pay for it. Don't you want this, Sam? Don't you need me to balance the scales, make sure you get the justice you deserve? That's what you really want, isn't it—what you need. These Men of Letters, you won't take their punishment or their mercy; they haven't proved themselves worthy to pass judgment on you. But I know you, Sam, better than them. Better than almost anybody."
"You don't. You don't know me—I said no to you before; you couldn't break me."
"But that was the Lucifer out there," Lucifer says, singsong, pitching Cas's voice high and fey. "Me...like you said, I'm in here," and he taps his finger against Sam's forehead, just off-center, his touch the searing cold of dry ice. "Watching the parade go by, your ghosts coming out to play. Shame you can't salt and burn your memories, isn't it, Sam?"
"No," Sam says, shaking his head. "I wouldn't—I wouldn't forget anything, anyone—"
"Oh, wouldn't you?" Lucifer puts his elbows on the bed beside Sam's pillow, props his chin on his knuckles. "All these haunts from your past, but there's something missing, isn't there. Someone missing. But he's sure to come sooner or later—you can't hide and you can't forget, not forever. And his judgment, you'll have to take. You always have."
I'm done trying to save you. You're a monster. A vampire.
But the memory stays only a memory, in Sam's thoughts, not in his ears, even imagined.
He closes his eyes. When he opens them again, Lucifer is gone, as if he were never there at all. Sam is alone.
He lies back on the bed, feeling saltwater sting his eyes and wind its way down his cheeks, but with his hands bound he can't wipe it away. "Please," he whispers to the empty room, but his voice is cracked, almost too hoarse to be heard, even if anyone were listening.
Toni Bevell comes back, only it's not really her, because though she's alive, Sam's pretty sure he's fallen asleep again. Then Toni is Linda Tran, who is also still alive, but probably not here with the Men of Letters, probably not asking him why her son is gone, why even his spirit was taken from her.
Sometimes Sam can hear his heart pounding like a jackhammer, so loud in his ears he can barely hear his own hallucinations. Other times he can't tell if it's still beating at all. His head throbs until the agony makes him heave up drips of bile from his empty stomach; he sweats until the mattress under him is soaked for all he's shivering so hard his teeth chatter.
He can feel the Darkness crawling through his veins, the corruption of it, though he knows that's gone for good. Even in his delirium, he's sure of that. Amara's gone.
So is Gadreel, though that doesn't stop him from appearing before Sam. "Perhaps I should not have saved you," the angel says. "Perhaps if I had not, the Mark would not have been passed on, and the Darkness would never have been released, and no sacrifice would have been required to stop it."
Sam falls asleep again, or something like it; his eyes must be closed, because he can't even see the corner lamp. Just blackness.
Blackness, and a voice. "How did this happen, Sammy? We came so far, but now you're just back here again."
Sam strains to see, to peel back his eyelids and peer through the darkness. By the dryness of his eyes, they're open, but he still sees nothing. Maybe he's gone blind.
"This is what you always were, wasn't it. A bloodsucking freak I had to pretend was my brother."
"No," Sam says, shutting his eyes. "Dean never said that."
"Are you sure? I told you that voicemail wasn't me, but did you ever totally believe me? How many other times did I lie to you?"
Orange-red pulses behind his eyelids. "I know when you're lying. You weren't lying, not about that."
His brother's voice warps, harshens to sneering contempt. "What about when I told you how you destroyed my life? Got my mom killed, forced Dad into this life, and he dragged me along—was I lying then, that it was all your fault?"
Sam almost smiles, because this at least is Dean, if not the brother he loves. "You were a demon when you said that."
"And you think that means it wasn't true?"
"Demons don't care about what's a lie, what's the truth; they just want to hurt."
"Is that so? Then let's see, how can I hurt you now? How about this, Sammy?"
"—Sammy?"
The red against his eyelids intensifies, as fingers touch his cheek, brush back his hair. A cool, soft hand presses briefly to his forehead, falls back to his shoulder to give him a gentle shake. "Sam, can you hear me?"
It's his mother's voice. Sam pries open his eyes. The darkness is pierced by a wavering beam of light, blinding in his eyes, if not as scorching as Aloysius's soulfire. He winces in that glare.
"Sorry," his mother says, and the beam abruptly drops away, flashlight angled down to glitter on the metal needle of the IV, as she plucks it from his wrist. Her shadowed, pale face turns toward his. "How do you feel? Can you get up?"
"No," Sam says, shaking his head, "they've got me strapped to the bed," except when he tugs at his arms to demonstrate, they float up, unrestrained.
So this is a dream, then. He looks around, wondering. "Where's Dad?" John's been in his dreams more often than his mom.
Mary's hand, wrapped around his wrist with her fingers pressed over his pulse point, goes still. Then she says quietly, "He's not here, Sammy. It's just me. Mary—your mother."
"I know," Sam says. As if he wouldn't recognize his own delusions. Her hand comes up again, hovers above his straggly bearded cheek; then her arm loops around his shoulders, helps prop him upright.
"Mom? Is he up yet?" Dean wanders in through the door. In the stripe of illumination from her flashlight, he's either too old or younger than he should be—tall enough to be wearing their father's leather jacket, but small enough that it hangs off him, shoulders not yet broad enough to fill it. "Come on, Sammy, we're going to miss the fireworks."
"Fireworks?" Sam asks, confused. He can't remember what holiday it's supposed to be. It's not warm enough to be the Fourth, but New Year's is usually chillier. Unless they're somewhere down South this year.
"Sure," his mother says, "yes, fireworks—let's go see them, okay, Sam?"
"Okay," Sam says, because his mother is asking, and because Dean is waiting, grinning, his cocksure brother, teeth white in the flashlight's beam. Sam slides his feet onto the floor. The tiles are slick and freezing against his bare soles, and his legs are rubbery. He'd have fallen if his mother didn't push herself under his arm, wrapping her arm around his waist.
The flashlight in her hand jiggles and bobs, its beam swooping across the dark room, sparkling light as it catches on glass and metal and polished tile. Unless that's the fireworks already going off.
"Come on, Sam," his mother says, taking a step, pulling him with her.
"Come on, Sammy," his brother echoes. The flashlight's beam swipes across him, casting his face in stark illumination—lips smirking, eyes solid black. He's holding the First Blade, not openly threatening, almost casual except for the whitening of his knuckles around its wrapped handle. "You're going to miss all the fun."
Dean raises the blade over Mary, whose head is down as she struggles to help Sam. She's not expecting this attack; she doesn't know what Dean became.
"Look out!" Sam shouts, pushes her away as the blade comes down. His mother staggers back, dropping the flashlight. It goes out. Off-balanced by the darkness and the shove, Sam catches himself on the bed, drags himself back upright. He's in no condition to fight, but he can't let this happen, can't let Dean do this. "Dean," he says, stretching out his hand, reaching blindly into the dark. "Where are you?"
"Where else would I be?" Dean snaps his fingers and the lights come back on—red lights, turning his pale skin bloody, though his eyes stay pitch black. There's a wailing, pulsing noise, or maybe that's the throbbing in Sam's head. "I'm here for you, Sammy," and it's like before, in the bunker. Except Dean is only a kid in a too-large jacket, and he's got the First Blade instead of a hammer, and their mother is beside Sam, calling his name, pulling at his arm.
Dean smirks at her. The red lighting makes it look like he has a mouthful of blood, though Sam is the only one who drinks that. "For you, and for Mommy dearest," Dean says, twirling the First Blade around in his hand. "Or would you like to do the honors again, Sammy?" He stops the blade, holds it out to Sam, handle-first. "Brother bonding time. I can hold her, and you can run her through. Like with Ruby. Or our first werewolf hunt together, remember that?"
"Sam," his mother says, her red-lit face drawn with fear as she looks up at Sam, her hands wrapped around his arm, not even glancing toward Dean. "Sammy, please—"
Sam sees when Dean decides to move. The black eyes are unreadable, but he sees the setting of Dean's jaw behind the smirk, the instant before he flips the blade around and lunges, all one smooth motion.
Sam acts faster, breaking free of his mother's hold to spin around towards her, putting his back between her and the First Blade as he grabs her arms, tries to pull her out of danger—
He's not sure what happens next. Her hands gripping back, struggling—then the room, the red light, all of it spins, flips upside down. Something slams hard into his back, his head, not the burning point of a knife's stab but a blunt impact. Pain explodes across his already bruised skull, brighter than any fireworks.
He's dreaming he's in the Impala, driving down a road so rough that every pothole bounces him off the seat, smacks his chin against the steering wheel, until he's bruised and sore. The radio is on, blasting static; as the car rattles he tries to adjust it, spinning the knob, but he can't get any station clearly. It's set to AM anyway, nothing coming through but talk, snatches of nonsense.
"—the hell happened?"
"—and I just reacted; I didn't—how could I, to my own—"
"—okay, it's okay, but we gotta get out of—"
"—was confused, but I thought he recognized me—"
"—got him, Cas, but we need you here, now—"
A coolness brushes his brow, like a draft, or a fall of rain. Is the window down? Sam tries to turn to check, but his head is held immobile, gripped in powerful fingers. The cool flows from that tight clasp, soothing his aching skull, quelling the raging fever, if doing nothing to quench the thirst smoldering beneath it.
His eyes reel open. The blurry shape above him reluctantly slides into focus. It's Lucifer, in Castiel's vessel, peering down at him with Cas's blue eyes, turned murky brown by the red lighting.
When he speaks, he's pretending to be Cas, voice scraping even lower and rougher than usual. "Sam? Sam, can you hear me?"
"No," Sam says wearily. With the fever broken, he finds he's too exhausted to move, even to flinch away; his fear is distant, abstract, not provoking any adrenaline surge. Either Lucifer is only in his head, and therefore a harmless torment; or else he's real and he'll do what he wants to Sam.
"If you can't hear me, then what question are you saying no to?" Lucifer asks, in Cas's voice.
Except if Lucifer is real, then he's in Cas. Sam struggles to sit up, to grab one of the hands cradling his head, wrapping his fingers around Cas's wrist. "Get—get out of him," he says, staring into the wide eyes. "Leave him 'lone—"
Lucifer frowns. "What are you talking about, Sam?" and he's figured out how to imitate Cas's testy confusion, almost exactly, the angelic exasperation so accurate that it hurts, deep enough to penetrate the layers of fatigue Sam's buried under.
The bump on his head is no longer aching, even when he knocks it back against the floor. So he bites his cheek—the original laceration is healed over, but he clamps down until he tastes blood.
But the vision of Castiel doesn't waver or alter; Lucifer stays solid. Real, and Sam tries to shake his head, twisting against the archangel's secure grip. "No—no, Cas, how, how could you..."
"Sam?" Lucifer says, frown deepening as he puts his finger to the corner of Sam's mouth, to the drop of blood welling there from his cheek. He cups Sam's face, fingers pressing in; there's a tingle and then even that small clarifying wound is gone. Lucifer always was jealous of pain he didn't inflict himself. "Why?" The angel looks down at the drop of blood on his fingertips, rubs them together with his brow furrowing, then raises his stained fingers to his mouth. "This is..."
"Sam? Sammy, you back with us?"
Even as tired as he is, Sam's breath catches at that voice. He tries to turn toward it, rolling his eyes over, but his peripheral vision is blocked by Lucifer.
Then Dean comes around him, crouching on Sam's other side, across from the devil but not even looking at him. Allies, then; except Dean's eyes staring at Sam aren't black now, and he's not smirking, mouth instead set in a grim line.
"Cristo," Sam mutters, watching closely.
Dean flinches, though oddly his eyes stay clear. But then, a hallucination's under no obligation to obey the usual occult principles. The line of Dean's mouth warps, then curls up, though that tentative smile is still a far cry from demonic arrogance. He drops a hand to Sam's shoulder, clasps hard. "Just me in here, Sammy, and I'll give you any proof you want, soon as we're out of here."
Lucifer's imitation of Cas was already too much, but this—Sam can't breathe, his laboring lungs not pulling in enough air; he's suffocating, drowning on dry land.
"Hey—hey, Sammy, it's okay!" Dean's got both hands on him now, moving from shoulder to chest, cupping his cheek to cradling his head, anxiously seeking any injury to treat, any hurt to soothe. "We're hidden for now, safe; Ma—uh, a friend is keeping watch, so soon as we get you back on your feet—Cas, can you finish healing him up?"
"No," Lucifer says, with all of Cas's gravitas, somber tone practiced and polished until it's almost not surprising Dean doesn't notice the deception. "I've already healed him."
"So why does he look like crap on toast—c'mon, you got to have a little more juice—"
"It's not my power that's the issue," Lucifer says. "I've healed him as much as can be repaired. Besides, the greater damage isn't physical."
"Damage?" Dean blanches. "Like, the Trials? Is that—what'd they—"
"No, Dean," and Lucifer shakes his head solemnly, but Sam knows his serious demeanor must be camouflaging glee, that he can say this, that he can ruin this.
"Please," Sam tries to say, knowing it's useless and yet he can't stop himself, "don't—"
"It's demon blood," Lucifer says, dropping Cas's voice mockingly low. "Traces as strong as I've ever felt in him—as much as when he took in Lucifer, or more, though not now..."
There's a moment that Dean's face is just blank, uncomprehending—that Sam hopes perhaps he can't hear, can't understand; since Lucifer is real, while his brother is...
Then Dean's expression twists, the red light casting the deepened lines into a mask of rage, eyes darkening to nearly demon-black.
"Dean," Sam gasps, even knowing it's useless, that it's too late, "please—this—"
Dean's head jerks down, dark eyes glaring. His hand on Sam's shoulder squeezes tight enough to hurt and still Sam can feel it trembling with rage. Though Dean's voice is shockingly calm, as he asks, "Is he right, Sam? You drank the blood, and now you're jonesing?"
"I d-don't," and Sam has to swallow around his too-dry tongue, force his cracked lips to shape the words, "I don't—want to—but—"
The fury, the contempt, the disappointment—whatever Sam dreaded, this is worse than any of it: Dean drawing a breath, releasing it, and his expression flattens as he does. So there's no feeling left at all when he looks down at Sam, like Sam is nothing, not even worth hunting.
Dean rises from his crouch, pulls his pistol. "Please," Sam says, struggling to stand with him, at least to sit up. His teeth are chattering despite the sweat breaking across his brow, as he levers the sluggish hulk of his body off the floor on shaking arms. "I—I'm sorry, Dean, I—"
"Cas," Dean says, not even looking at Sam. "Whatever you can do, and then we'll call in—"
Lucifer nods, obedience veiling the scorn that must be there, and raises his hand. Sam tries to bat it away, tries to shove himself back, but even an ordinary human could easily overpower him now; he has no chance against the archangel. Lucifer's fingers touch his forehead—not as cold as they should be, only soothing cool. It washes over Sam, for all he tries to fight it. Tries to keep his eyes open, watching his brother, even though Dean has turned away and won't look back again, not at what Sam has become; but it could be his last chance—
His eyes slide shut in spite of himself, his body and mind both folding down into a sleep deeper than any drug could bring, deeper than any dream or even nightmare can follow.
tbc...
Yes, continued; the story is most definitely not over...hope you're up for more!
