# # #
Ten Years Ago
The teacher's face was strange, because it was so familiar. Mr. Abernathy's teeth were grinding together and his eyes were hard, but his words were soft and gentle. "What happened?" he asked. "You have to tell me. I can help you if you tell me."
The temptation was greater than Sam could ever have imagined. He looked down at the bruises on his arm, clearly a handprint. It had been a ghost—just some old woman who had lost her marbles long before she had even died. There's a long, jagged cut on his upper arm too, clumsily stitched by Dean in the back of the Impala. If his shirt rode up any more Mr. Abernathy would see it too.
"Sam you can talk to me," Mr. Abernathy said. And he looked as if he was the one trapped in a ightmare. He was desperate for Sam to say something, to let him be the hero. It's so hard for Sam to be quiet, he likes Mr. Abernathy. He's the best teacher Sam has ever had, and Sam has had a lot of teachers.
But that came with a price. Good teachers followed up when John didn't come to parent-teacher conferences, they noticed when Sam limped, when he missed class, when he had hand shaped bruises and inexplicable cuts. Most of all, they didn't shrug off the lies, they asked questions, they caught Sam in lies and excuses.
And Mr. Abernathy really cared.
Sam had been at this school longer than any other so far, and he loved Mr. Abernathy's class. He laughed with his whole face, made history fun. He let the kids hang out in the classroom during lunch to watch boring documentaries. He's got a daughter Sam's age, and lately she's been trying to hang out with him after school. Sam knew it's because her father asked her to, because he thinks Sam needed friends.
And Sam had thought he had been so careful, shielding her advances, making excuses not to see movies with her and her friends, he hadn't realized he had fallen into Mr. Abernathy's trap until it was far too late.
Let your guard down once…
"I really want to help you. Whatever your dad said, whatever he threatened you with, if you just talk to me now, you won't ever have to see him again. He can't hurt you anymore if you just talk to me."
Sam closed his eyes as if that could force his mouth closed as well. Oh, the temptation. A normal life just a few horrible words away. But Adam came to his mind. And Dean. They couldn't stay together if he spoke now. They'd hate him forever for breaking the family apart. The reasons were so simple, and he tried to make the solution just as simple. His emotions were chaotic, but he forced them away, and made himself numb. Winchesters don't cry. Winchesters fight.
"Let go of me," he said, trying to keep his face still, and his voice even, but he could feel his chin start to tremble.
"Sam, you're a good kid. You need help—"
"Let go of me," Sam said again and his voice came out low and angry. Mr. Abernathy let go immediately, as surprised by Sam's outburst as Sam was. The Winchester quickly pulled his sleeve down again. He had thoughtlessly rolled it up to clean the blackboard.
"Sam—"
"You don't know anything," Sam said, picking up his bag. His hands had started shaking.
"Sam." Sam doesn't know why he stopped. His hand was still on the doorknob. He waited. "Sam, I have to report this."
"Don't," Sam said.
"I have to. It's—"
"I'll say it was you," Sam said quickly.
The words soured in his mouth, and Mr. Abernathy looked hurt. The silence between them was shallow. There was a rushing sound in his head. When the silence became too much, he felt he had to say it again. "You tell anyone, I'll say it was you. I'll say my dad saw the bruise and you were afraid he'd report it if you didn't. They'll believe me."
He knew it didn't make sense. He knew and still he forced himself to open the door, to walk through it, and to close it again. He was so weak.
It's lunchtime. Sam used the phone in the nurse's office to call Dean. Only a few quiet words later and they were in the Impala, picking Adam up from the nearby elementary school. Their little brother is furious. He was always good at making friends, and they had really settled here.
"Can't Sam just change schools?" he whines at Dean, because he know that speaking like that with John is liable to get him menial chores for a week.
"I'm sorry, buddy," Sam says, even though he still feels like there's gravel in his stomach and the world is spinning under his feet. "We all gotta go before someone else gets suspicious."
"I really liked it here," Adam says, and Sam wishes he could just tell his youngest brother to shut the hell up. His eyes are burning and he already feels guilty enough. Dean had been going steady with a cheerleader—one that liked to read. She was nice too. She actually liked to talk with Sam and Adam, would happily spend a night watching TV with them instead of going to a party.
Dean hadn't loved her at first. She didn't seem to care about that, but lately Sam had seen his older brother eyeing jewelry in the mall. Necklaces and bracelets. Stupid things she could probably buy instantly with the pocket money she made in a week. For Dean, it was months of money he had saved up from odd-jobs and pawn-shops.
Sam had really messed everything up this time.
Just the fact that Dean wasn't answering Adam's complaints is enough to show his displeasure at the coming mad dash across state lines. "Maybe we should wait until tonight," Sam says. "Maybe you and Abby could stay in touch, if she knows that—"
"Nah," Dean says it easily, but Sam can see his fingers are bone white against the wheel. "It's about time we hit the road anyway."
John has already packed by the time they arrive back at the hotel. He's livid, frustrated, but he doesn't shout. He lets Adam and Dean put everything in the car while he takes Sam to the office.
They stop outside the doors and John puts a heavy, hand on Sam's shoulder. "I know you know how much time I've put into this hunt," he says, his voice low and even.
"Yes," Sam says. He helped set up John's cover.
"So I need to know that we did something here that made it all worth it."
Sam stays quiet. He's not sure what to expect. But John prompts him with a hand shake on his shoulder. "So?" his father prompts him.
Sam looks up into his father's hard eyes. He finds unexpected gentleness there, and it kind of makes him want to cry. "What did you learn?" John asks.
"I'll be more careful," Sam says. "I'll never let it happen again, I promise."
"You can't trust anyone," John says slowly, impressing every word. "You can't let your guard down. Never get too comfortable with civilians. They will never understand."
His fingers are clenched on Sam's shoulder, just above the long, winding gash that had only just started to heal. Sam wonders if John has forgotten about the cut, or if the pain is part of the lesson.
It's so hard to tell these days.
# # #
NOW
Sam wanted to call for help, but everyone was well sedated. He had been so thorough. The gun was on the night stand, only a foot away, but the distance might as well have been miles.
"I won't let you hurt them," he said, his voice wavering. There's nothing he could really do about it either way.
Sam, the blue thing said. There was no inflection in his tone. He could have been angry, sad, or happy. He was all at once and none at the same time. It was hard to see its face for some reason. Even with light from every angle, Sam only saw the impression of features through thick shadows. There's a slight variation in the shades of black that tells him it has a nose. Lips. A forehead.
Sam swallowed thickly, if he could somehow distract it, he could reach for the gun. But then he couldn't be sure a bullet would put this thing down.
I know how cold you are, it said, and how alone you have been. I understand Sam. I am the only one who can.
"You're… it. You're the thing that brought Adam and Dean."
They were going to lose the war.
"You mean the apocalypse?"
I wanted to save them, and their world. Without two Winchesters, the board remains in stalemate.
"You mean," Sam swallowed, his tongue thick anddry in his throat. "Lucifer will win?"
It shook its massive head. Even if Michael kills Lucifer, the world will be enslaved as surely as if the demons inherited the earth.
"What do you want from us?"
I want you to come with me.
"Where?" Sam asked, then realized he should probably ask the more obvious question. "What are you?"
It said nothing, just held out a hand. The fingers outstretched in invitation. Sam swallowed, looking back up to the strangely blurred features. He couldn't read any emotion through the darkness, couldn't even see the things shoulders rise and fall with breath. Any time it stopped moving, it froze completely, like a statue.
Come with me, and I will explain… everything.
A blue hand appeared on his shoulder and its touch numbed everything. The world around him seemed to drop away. All fear, trepidation, the eternal weight in his chest. None of it seemed to matter anymore. In place of the chaotic emotion, he felt something,.. better. Peace. Acceptance.
He touched the blue man's fingers, and after a little jolt of static electricity, he felt only coldness. It started to seep up his arm. He might have felt panic for a moment, but the peace came again, flattening everything else. He didn't know how else to describe it, and he didn't much care anymore.
Once, he had felt hollow. He could remember that dimly as the figure helped him to his feet. His eyes drifted over Dean's face, his older brother's chest wasn't moving. Looking around, he realized that no one else seemed to be breathing anymore either. Adam was so still, a lump. A corpse under the covers.
A twinge of something hot flickered in his chest. Rage? Fear? Grief? It was squashed in an instant. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered, and it felt amazing.
I am so sorry, the figure said. It sounded unbearably sad.
"What is this?" Sam breathed, but his thoughts were muddled. Shouldn't he be screaming? Why? For the first time in his life he felt free, and light.
It's time.
###
They appeared in the echo of a gunshot. The noise and force still echoed around the white bathroom walls. The blue man let go of Sam, and he stumbled a little to regain his footing. The peace that had come with its touch was gone, and in its place there was a whirl of confusion and sickness that rolled in his stomach.
And as he turned away, because he felt the need to vomit, he saw his corpse there in the bathtub. The same bathtub he had stepped out what seems like years ago, though he knew it was only yesterday he stepped into the porcelain coffin.
"Sam!" his father called through the door. Sam flinched away from the noise, but the blue creature stood at his back, blocking his retreat.
They won't see us, it said in its dead, monotonic tone. Or hear us. This has all already happened, it is just an echo.
The door was locked, Sam could still remember the click of it against his fingers when he had closed it for the last time. It rattled against the frame as John shook the doorknob.
Its so strange to see his body there. Bloody and pale and dead. It wasn't like he imagined. He didn't look free, or happy. He looked as empty and as damaged as he felt.
"SAM!"
"Don't come in!" Sam shouted back, his voice cracking. The panic was real and hot, clenching his lungs in talons.
They cannot hear you, it repeated dully.
Sam swung around, he could feel his heart in his chest. After the peace he had felt a few moments before, this was too much. "I don't want to see this," he said quickly, desperately. "Take me back. Take me back now."
It said nothing. Through the rolling shadows, Sam couldn't tell where it was looking, much less what it was thinking.
The door unhinged under his father's foot and Dean stepped into the bathroom a pace behind John, gun at the ready, scanning the room for whatever Sam had been shooting at—
The world lost air. Sam saw Dean's face, and it was like watching a train wreck. It all happened so slowly.
Dean buckled. His knees hit the ground solidly, with an audible crack. Sam winced, taking an involuntary step forward. Dean just looked through him, blind to everything. Adam was behind John, forgotten.
"Sam?" the youngest Winchester asked, as if he was expecting an answer. Sam tried to block his view too, but it was useless. He wasn't there. He had done this.
"I don't want to see this," he whispered, and seemingly in reply Adam began to scream.
"Sam! Samsamsamsamsamsamsam," over and over again. Sam covered his ears, but he couldn't block the sound. Finally, John turned, his face was bone white, his hands trembling even as he sheathed his gun and pulled Adam to his chest. He was grabbing at Dean's shoulder, scrabbling at the cotton fabric, but there didn't seem to be enough strength in his fingers to catch the fabric.
In the end, he had to leave, had to get Adam away, and Sam was grateful. The door swung closed behind him, and it was just Dean, his face frozen in an expression Sam had never seen on his older brother before.
It was disbelief, sort of. But worse. Failure, and regret and a deep hurt that Sam knew intimately. He had carried that same kind of pain himself, but it was different. His had been a sickness, an unseen tumor growing inside, rearranging him slowly and insidiously.
What he had done to Dean… it wasn't a growth. It was a wound, something ragged and uneven, chaotic and immediate. Messy and bloody.
"I don't want to see this," he said again, but he was no longer talking to the creature that had brought him here.
Dean crawled on his knees to the dead Sam in the tub, his hands were shaking as he reached out. He didn't seem to know that he was saying Sam's name, the same endless loop as Adam, but his was soft and tentative. He wasn't demanding. The noises were hopeful, as if he still believed that Sam was going to look up.
He patted the dead Sam's face softly, like he was trying to wake him up. There were still trickles of blood racing down the wall, pooling on the ledge between bathtub and wall.
"Stop," Sam said, his voice ragged. "Please."
You must see this.
"I wouldn't hurt them," he said as Dean's hands fluttered over Sam's body as If looking for a different wound. One he could maybe heal. "I'd rather die."
I know.
"Sam?" Den whispered, louder this time, as if he were waking up from a stupor. Sam backed away. He was going to throw up. He was going to die. He was going to stop breathing. Anything. Literally anything to get away from this.
Sam?" Dean said again. "Sam, don't—"
His voice cut away suddenly, choked back. Sam closed his eyes, but he wouldn't be able to see anything else for a long while.
The door opened again and John was back. Adam was not in his arms anymore, and this time he lifted Dean bodily from the ground. Sam had never felt more gratitude towards his father than he did in that moment. "It's too late Dean," John said. "Come on. We have to pack up the guns, we have to call the police. Dean, get up, Adam needs us."
"It's Sam. Dad, we have to…" Dean said, sounding years younger than he was. He pointed at Sam, as if John couldn't see.
"There's nothing we can do, Dean. We have to move."
The creature took his arm again, and the anesthetic touch washed over everything again, erasing the pain and the guilt. Sam watched his father bodily drag Dean from the bathroom, closing Sam's body away in the glaring bathroom light, glaring and horrifying. Sam welcomed the emptiness again if this is what death felt like, he couldn't wait.
###
When they reappeared, it was dark and heavily wooded. The air was spiced with smoke, enough to make Sam choke. He pushed himself away from his kidnapper, breaking the contact first. It wasn't right to feel that empty, that free. It wasn't right.
This is what I am trying to stop, it said. I am not the monster here.
And looking up, Sam could see the smoldering remains of a pyre. It had burnt so hot that the ash was white and feathery in the center—dust holding the shape of wood. It was a hunter's funeral, and he knew without doubt that this was where he had burned. The stench of roasting flesh still saturated the air.
He bent over and retched into the grass. "Why are you doing this?" he croaked at last, when his stomach had settled and his nose could no longer distinguish the scent in the air.
You are… different, Sam. There are certain things in this world, in all worlds, that cannot be changed. There are moments that must happen, trials that must be faced. There is an order.
"I don't understand, please. I don't want to do this anymore, please… just…"
Just what? He didn't know what he wanted, only that he wanted it so badly that his chest was trying to crumple in on itself. Did he want to go back to the hotel room and the loaded gun? Did he want to go all the way back, to that moment in the bathtub, when everything had seemed so perfect for an instant, his finger tightening on the trigger.
But he could no longer think about that blinding ecstasy without the image of Dean kneeling on the tiles, broken and bewildered.
Everything was ruined, torn down around him. He had only wanted his freedom. He had only wanted to stop hurting, but the torture went on and on. It would never stop. Not even death could cure him.
He didn't even realize he was making a sound until it was filling his ears, a low, hysterical hum swallowed quickly by the surrounding forest.
You are apart, Sam, the creature said, but the fate you chose was wrong. I have wasted so much time hating you, but it's time to change it. To change everything.
