Thank you Shadowhuntingdauntlessdemigod for beta'ing and VegasGranny and Ncsupnatfan for pre-reading.
Chapter Twenty
Mary set down her coffee with a shaking hand and stared at her youngest son as he finished his tale of Ruby's death and Clark's heartbreak then took a deep breath. She had no words, she was in shock, but she could see Sam needed something, some end to his tale, and she tried to oblige.
"Are you okay, honey?"
Sam sighed softly. "I'm not the one that lost everything."
"No," Bobby agreed, "But you saw it happen."
Sam massaged his red and swollen knuckles. "It was rough."
"And it was really Jim?" Dean asked. "He wasn't possessed or a shapeshifter or something?"
"It was him," Sam said. "I didn't even need to check to know until the very end. When I was waiting for the ambulance, I checked, I wanted to see what he was feeling. He was black—hurting and ruthless. He was sick and twisted, but it was him. He's been living a double life all this time, maybe a triple life. He had the face he showed us and his church, the good man, as well as the dangerous hunter that had lived through Mount Hammond and was able to train me, and he was the junkie."
"And she was really there twenty years?" Dean asked.
Mary could tell he didn't want to believe it. He had always liked Jim, thought of him as a good man. He'd trusted him—they all had—to take care of Sam when he was in pain. That trust had been misplaced; they'd delivered him to a monster.
Mary thanked God that Sam hadn't been hurt by him. She could tell from Sam's knuckles that it had become a fight, though Sam hadn't said it, but she could see no other sign of injury.
"Yeah, twenty years," Sam said. "He grabbed the demon a couple years after she took Ruby and attacked Clark."
Dean blew out a heavy breath. "That poor woman. And poor Clark."
"He's in a world of pain," Sam said heavily.
"How's Jim doing now?" Bobby asked. "Physically, I mean."
Sam shrugged. "I left him at the hospital when Mae arrived. He was heading into surgery. He's got a ruptured spleen, but they were seeing more blood than they could account for so there's probably something else going on."
Mary gave him an assessing look. She wondered if those other injuries had come from him or Clark. He'd said Clark had attacked him, but he obviously had landed at least one blow. She didn't' want to think of her gentle son doing something like that to a person, but she could understand the emotion behind it.
"I just hope he makes it through long enough to really suffer," Sam finished.
Bobby flinched and Mary knew he was thinking along the same lines as her: this didn't sound like the Sam they'd always known.
"You want him to suffer?" Dean asked cautiously.
Sam nodded and fixed his eyes on his hands where they were fisted on the tabletop. "If he does, he's going to go through withdrawal from the blood. He said it was bad after Mount Hammond, but that was after just weeks on the blood. It's been years. It's going to have a tight hold on him and coming off is going to be brutal."
"Do you think he'll die?" Dean asked, his tone measured but eyes betraying the shock he was feeling.
Sam's voice was a growl. "I hope not. I want him alive long enough for The Demon to find him."
Mary stared at her son, seeing the difference her eyes hadn't wanted to recognize before. This wasn't just his anger talking. He had considered this. He was different. There was a hardness in him that had never been there before. Losing Jessica twice hadn't managed to do this to him.
Hearing the truth of her deal and lies, finding his place in The Demon's plans, not even embracing his power over demons: it had been Clark's pain that had changed him from the man she'd known to this.
He was still her son, she could see that, but he was not the same man that she had sent to Jim's a matter of weeks ago.
Everything he had seen and done, loved and lost, had cumulated into this change, and she hated it.
"Where's Clark?" Bobby asked, and Mary could tell from his tone that he was just as disconcerted as her and wanted to move them away from Sam's obvious hatred for Jim.
Sam sighed, softened, became himself as she had known him again. "He's gone to bury Ruby. He said there was a place they used to like. He's coming back though. He's going to help with Brady and The Demon. After Jim is dead anyway. He's agreed to let Azazel do it for him."
"What if we find The Demon first?" Dean asked. "We're not holding off so he can kill Jim. We're killing him."
Sam considered for a moment and then shrugged. "I guess we have to just hope The Demon is faster than us. And if he isn't, I'm sure someone else will do it."
"Not you!" Dean said, his voice fierce.
Sam looked at him a moment, his expression unreadable, and then shook his head. "No, not me. I'm not going to be a murderer for him. I'm sure some other demon will find him. When Azazel knows Jim is out there, he's going to hunt him and send the others out to do it, too. He'll want revenge for what Jim did."
"But we're not waiting," Dean said, seeming to need Sam to say it himself. "Right?"
"No, we're not waiting," Sam said.
"Good, because this is your safety," Dean said. "Revenge for Clark and Ruby isn't worth risking that."
Sam shook his head. "I don't think we'll need to wait. If Ruby knows where she was kept, and she might, they'll know where to start looking. Jim will be in the hospital a while." He huffed a laugh. "He might even be stupid enough to go back to the church after. He was stupid enough to think I'd understand what he did. He thought I'd get it because I was cursed, too."
"You're not cursed, Sam!" Mary said vehemently.
Sam waved away her words and said, "Mae said she'd keep me informed of how Jim's doing since she thinks I care, but I don't need to go back to Blue Earth. I exorcised the demon we were practicing on before I left and dropped the meatsuit off at the hospital. I never need to go back there. I've got Jim's car, but if he does want it again, he can come get it."
"He'll not come here. He'll hide," Bobby said.
Sam nodded. "He'd be smarter to."
"What about you?" Dean asked, his brow furrowed. "Do you want to hide? Because you can. We've got the Colt now and you've mastered your powers. We can keep you safe here until we find that yellow-eyed bastard and it's time to kill him."
Sam looked at him incredulously. "Hide? I've spent all this time mastering my powers, changing myself so I'd be safe and able to help stop The Demon. I'm not wasting that. When Clark is ready, I'll go with him to do what we need to do in the meantime. Brady needs to be found and saved. I'm not cowering and hiding now. I'm going to be ready."
Dean frowned and Mary gave him a small smile, knowing his unease as she felt it herself. She reached across the table and patted Sam's hand.
"We'll all come when Clark's ready," she said. "We'll find Brady together."
Sam shook his head. "I don't think you can. Clark won't want it."
"Since when does he get to decide what we do?" Dean growled.
Sam ignored him. "I'll go with Clark and you can focus on The Demon. When it's time, we'll fight together, but until then, it needs to just be the two of us."
Dean's wide eyes fixed on his brother and his mouth moved wordlessly. Sam looked away from him and pulled his hand out from under Mary's. "I'm going to shower. I can still smell that damn cellar on me. I'll get some sleep, too."
He got to his feet and strode from the room with their eyes following him. Only when they could hear his footsteps on the creaking floorboards on the second floor did Bobby speak.
"I didn't think I'd live to see that. I didn't want to."
"He's not abandoning us for Clark," Dean said, his face red with anger. "No way."
"He's not abandoning us," Mary said. "He's doing what he needs to do. And that's not what Bobby meant, was it?"
Bobby shook his head. "No, I mean I didn't want to see Sam as a hunter. It should never have been his fate. He was supposed to have a different life."
"You think Sam's a hunter?" Dean asked.
Mary answered for Bobby as she was sure their thoughts were in sync as she had seen it, too. "He is, Dean. He's making a hunter's choices. He's taking care of the victim. In this, Clark is the victim, and what he needs is Sam, not all of us."
She sighed. She was worried about her youngest son and what would happen to him with Clark, whether he'd be dragged into the darker side of hunting that Clark inhabited, but she also knew she couldn't stop it. Sam was a hunter now and she had to let him find his own place in that world.
It hurt her though. She didn't feel that she had a choice at the time, she was trying to help her son, but now she thought she might have made a mistake letting Clark have such an influential part in their lives.
Sam was in the bedroom, tying his laces, when he felt the slightest disturbance and looked up to see Clark standing by the door. He wasn't really there, it was his astral form, but Sam was just as relieved to see him as he would have been had Clark knocked on the door.
Apart from a few text messages saying he was working on something and would be in touch, he hadn't heard from Clark since he'd driven away from Jim's with the body of the woman he loved on the backseat.
Sam examined him carefully, wanting to find some gauge on how Clark was doing from his appearance, but he looked neutral. Sam wished he was really there so he could read his aura.
"It's rude to stare, Sam," Clark said.
Sam smiled slightly, relieved to see the version of Clark he was dealing with was familiar, and said, "Sorry. But you're so pretty."
Clark laughed. "I am, and my pretty self has found something you're looking for. Come with me."
Sam relaxed and felt himself withdrawing from his body and standing beside it in the bedroom. Clark was a more physical shape here, in the astral plane, and Sam saw he looked better than he'd expected. It was only his eyes that betrayed the pain he was in. His face was the same as it usually was when he was in a good mood.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"Come find me," Clark said and then disappeared.
Sam fixed Clark in his mind and felt himself being pulled towards him. He rushed over a landscape that moved so fast it blurred into greens and browns and then he was in a small kitchen that looked old and neglected. There were no pieces of furniture or utensils, but the stove and fridge were still there. The most striking feature of the room was the devil's trap painted into the floor and man sitting bound to a chair in the middle of it. Sam was at his back, but he knew before he moved around to face him, that it was Brady.
"How did you find him?" he asked.
Clark grinned. "Did you forget what I can do? I sniffed him out. I saw his face when I had that vision of you being pulled out of the fire. I just had to match the face to the demon. It took a while, obviously, but luckily he didn't stray far from home."
The demon couldn't see them as neither of them had settled themselves on the physical plane, but he seemed to sense something as he was looking around the room curiously, black eyes narrowed.
"Where is he?" Sam asked.
"California. San Jose. He was lurking in a dive bar."
"Sounds about right," Sam said scathingly. "Okay, I'm on my way."
"Good. I'll keep him on ice."
"Don't hurt him," Sam said.
"I haven't and I won't, but I figured you might want to. If he was the shapeshifters' facilitator and was mouthing off about The Demon's plans, he might know some stuff that can help us." He gave Sam an appraising look. "Worth spilling a little holy water on your friend to find out what he knows?"
The idea of hurting Brady, even though he would technically be unharmed, was not a pleasant one. But Clark was right: he might know something that could help them.
"I'll do it," he said. "I'll fly to you so I'll be faster."
"I'll text you the address," Clark said.
Sam thanked him and allowed himself to be pulled back into his body. He was still alone in the bedroom, and he finished tying his laces and then stuffed a few changes of clothes into a bag and grabbed his wallet and ID from the dresser.
When he got downstairs, Bobby and Mary were washing dishes and Dean was sitting on the couch with a heavy book on his lap with what Sam thought was the Rituale Romanum on the open pages. They all turned to look at him as he came in, and Mary's eyebrows rose as she saw the bag in his hand.
"Are you going away?" she asked.
"Clark came," he said. "He's found Brady in California. I'm going to meet him."
Mary looked worried but she didn't speak. Dean was the one that spoke up, as Sam had expected, and he sounded strained. "And you still don't want us coming?"
"No," Sam said. "We can handle it together. I'm going to get a flight so I can get there faster, but I'll ride back with Clark. I'll be gone four days tops."
He didn't think it would take that long to get the information they needed from the demon, not with Clark's expertise, though he knew he couldn't mention that part of the plan to them as they were already anxious about him going to a demon without them. If they knew he was going to join Clark in interrogating it, they would insist on coming.
"Okay then," Bobby said, giving Dean a pointed look when Dean opened his mouth to answer. "I'll give you a ride to the airport."
Pleased that he was going to be able to go without further fuss, Sam thanked him and crossed the room to kiss his mother goodbye. She smiled at him as he stepped back and said, "Call us when you get there."
"I will," Sam said. "It'll be fine."
He followed Bobby to the door and then turned back as Dean said his name. "Yeah?"
Dean seemed to be struggling with something, but when he spoke, his tone was even. "Be careful."
Sam nodded. "I always am."
The airport was close enough to the address Clark had given him to get a cab to, and Sam asked to be dropped a couple of blocks away in case there was fallout from what they were doing. He didn't want to be remembered.
He made his way back to the right street and saw Clark's truck parked outside a house set away from the sidewalk. It had a for sale sign on the untended lawn, and Sam figured it had been empty a while.
He went to the door and knocked, waiting only a moment before Clark opened it and said, "I actually felt you coming. Those are some pretty mixed up emotions you're putting out, Sam."
Sam nodded. "This is a big moment."
"It is," Clark agreed. "Let's get it done. You want your friend back. I warn you though, he's chatty."
Sam had expected it, and he was braced for the demon's reaction when he dropped his bag down by the door and walked into the kitchen.
The demon wore Brady's face, had his familiar smile, but the eyes were wrong, even though they were the blue Sam knew now.
"Sam!" he said joyfully. "I hoped I'd get to see you. We've got a lot to talk about."
Sam walked around until he was facing him. He crossed his arms over his chest and asked, "How long have you had been in him?"
The demon grinned. "Wow… it's been a while. Mid-sophomore year actually. You remember that don't you, Sammy? The drugs, the drinking, the girls… All the things you tried to save your friend from. That was all me."
Sam had guessed as much and wasn't surprised that the demon would trash Brady's life the way he did, but he worried about the damage that might have been done to Brady in that time with the chemicals he'd pumped into his body. Even if the demon hadn't intentionally trashed his body, the drugs might have.
Sam wanted his friend to be okay, he needed him to be, but he knew he had to prepare himself for the worst. Neither he nor Clark had done that with Ruby, and that had been a tragedy.
"Okay," Clark said. "Now Sam's here, we can get to work. We've got a few questions for you."
"I'm sure you have," the demon said. "And I've got a lot to say. I know I'm not making it out of this one a free man, no matter what I say, so I figure you need a little honesty. You need to ask yourself though, Sam, if you're ready for it."
"Nothing you can say will hurt me," Sam said.
The demon raised an eyebrow. "Really? I doubt that. The Sam I knew was pretty sensitive, and when you hear about what I did to Jessica, you're going to be shocked."
"What did you do to her?" Sam asked.
Clark placed a hand on his arm and said, "Don't engage, Sam. That's not why we're here. We're getting what we need to know. Don't play into its hands."
Sam nodded. "Yeah. I know."
The demon smiled gleefully. "But I have so much to say. Sam needs to know I was the one that—"
He cut off as Clark jerked up his hand and his mouth snapped shut.
"We need him talking if we're going to find out what he knows," Sam said.
Clark stared at him a moment and then nodded. "Fine, but don't engage. Get the water. I've filled the sink and blessed it, and I've got the tools on the counter."
Sam saw a tin cup, turkey baster, and three boxes of salt beside the full sink and a rosary. He filled the cup with water and carried it to Clark who took it and held it over the demon's head.
"Where's Azazel?" he asked.
The demon's mouth opened, and he stretched his jaw before saying gleefully. "I killed Jess! She roasted on the ceiling thanks to me. And she was so surprised when I—" Clark snapped his jaw shut again with a nudge of telekinesis.
Sam had frozen with horror, his lungs locked and not even his heart seeming to beat, but he didn't allow his shock to make its place on his face.
He just nodded at Clark and said, "Let him talk. I can handle it."
He couldn't handle it, but he could hide it. If the demon was telling the truth, if he had killed Jessica, it was actually to their advantage. It was even closer in The Demon's plans if he had been given an important task like that. Though the thought was horrible to Sam. Jessica would have been scared no matter who had killed her in that awful way, but if it had been Brady, their friend, she would have suffered even more.
Sam had to force it down and work though. This was more important than shielding himself from pain.
Clark tipped the water over the demon's head and asked, "Where is Azazel?"
The demon howled with pain as the water smoked and sizzled but as it dripped down his face, he started to laugh. "And then we brought her back to you," he said. "As a shapeshifter, sure, but you didn't know that, did you, Sam? You actually thought you'd got some version of her back. The things she said about you. You disgusted her, always pawing at her and telling her how much you loved her. I wonder if the real Jessica felt the same way."
Sam clenched his jaw, fighting the urge to punch the demon as he knew that would hurt his friend, too. He took the proffered cup from Clark and filled it with more water then carried it back to him.
"Where's Azazel?" Clark asked, bringing the cup close to the demon's face and dripping it down his cheeks.
"And Mom and Dean," the demon said when its sounds of pain had faded. "They hated being stuck as Winchesters. They said your family was ridiculous. Everyone so worried about poor psychic Sammy, watching him change into a freak of nature because he had to. And the real Mary, the things she thought about you and her deal. She wished she'd not made it. Ten years with your father weren't worth being saddled with you and Dean for the rest of her life. Our shifter got it all out of her head."
"It's not true, Sam," Clark said, filling the cup again and picking up the turkey baster.
"I know," Sam said.
He did know. His mother loved him and Dean more than anything. Things had been rough for them since the fire, Sam had put them through a lot and it had been hard with everything else that happened, but that didn't detract from the love they all felt for each other.
Clark filled the turkey baster and squirted it into the demon's eye. The cries of pain were harrowing, and Sam had to remind himself that it wasn't Brady that made them, it was just the demon, to cope.
"Where's Azazel?" Clark asked.
"Wyoming!" the demon howled.
Sam and Clark exchanged a glance and Clark quickly filled the baster again. As the demon panted, he held it close to the corner of his right eye and said, "Where in Wyoming?"
"Don't do it, please," the demon begged. "I'll tell you. Don't do that again."
Clark squirted the water and grinned as the demon screamed. "Fingers slipped," he said. "What were you saying?"
"It's a place called Fossil Butte," the demon said. "There's a cemetery there it likes to go to. It says it feels safe there. It's his stronghold. That's where you'll find him. Now, Sam, kill me. I know you can. Jim could and he was teaching you."
Sam sucked in a quick breath and his heart began to race. How could he have not seen it before?
He thought he was offering Jim up to Azazel when Clark exorcised Ruby, but Azazel should already have known. As soon as Mary and Dean had found out about Jim's story, the information would have started its journey to the shapeshifters' minds. The Demon would have known for months… So why hadn't it come sooner?
"What's wrong?" Clark asked.
"The shapeshifters," Sam breathed and then raised his voice to speak to the demon. "Why hasn't Azazel killed Jim yet? He's known for months through the shapeshifters, so why hasn't' he come? Did you tell him?"
Clark made a sound of shock and then his face became stony and he looked away.
The demon chanced a nervous glance at the turkey baster that Clark was refilling and said, "I told him. He didn't want to act yet." He licked his lips. "Jim was bait. It wasn't time for you yet, and when you had the Colt, he knew he needed to be even more careful. He is going to use Jim to draw you out and make you cooperate."
Sam nodded. That worked in their favor. Whenever the call came from Jim, when he needed help, they would know that it was time for them to take the Colt to The Demon and end it.
Though he had no idea, his connection to Mary and Dean lost, Azazel had just given them the greatest advantage they could have asked for.
"I've told you everything," the demon said. "Now you have to kill me."
Sam snorted. "I'm not killing you."
"You have to! Your friend is already dead. You know how many drugs I took with this body, He's dead as soon as I smoke out. Kill me and I won't come back for you when I get free."
"You'd be stupid to come back for me," Sam said mildly. "I will kill you if you do. And I don't believe Brady is dead. I have more faith in my friend than that. I'm exorcising you so you can go back to Hell and tell your boss what you did. I'm pretty sure he'll make you pay for what you told me."
"No! Please! I'm begging you, Sam. Don't do this!"
Sam narrowed his eyes and sought the true form of the demon within Brady's body. He didn't need to use Latin for this. It was better for him not to even. He had trained with demons with Jim, but he had only ever done one full exorcism on one with his powers and that had been the same demon he'd trained with. This would serve as more training.
He gripped the core of the demon and brought it up to the demon's mouth. Instead of holding it there and letting it slide down again, Sam pulled it right out, the smoke spilling from Brady's mouth and sinking to the floor.
When the last of it left him, when the demon was gone, Brady opened his eyes and then vomited down his front.
Sam rushed at him and said, "Get him out of these ropes, Clark."
Clark used a knife from his pocket and cut the ropes away as Sam supported Brady's head. He was conscious, but barely, and Sam was sure what he was seeing was an overdose in action.
When the last of the ropes were gone, Sam hefted Brady's arm over his shoulder and said, "Help me, Clark. We've got to get him to a hospital."
Clark took his other side and they carried him outside to the truck. Sam leaned him up against the side as Clark opened the door and then they eased him in and Sam slid in beside him, supporting Brady as he fought his way to consciousness.
"Sam," he said weakly. "What's happening?"
"You're going to be fine," Sam said. "We're getting you to the hospital."
Clark got in and started the engine. "We're not far away," he said. "I passed the hospital on my way here." He glanced at Brady as he gunned the engine and reversed them off the drive. "Hang on, man."
"The smoke," Brady rasped. "Is it gone?"
"Yes," Sam said. "It's all over now."
"Good," Brady said, and then became heavier on Sam's side as his breaths began to labor.
Clark snapped his fingers in front of Brady's face and said, "Head's up. You can make it out of this if you're strong. We're taking you to hospital and they're going to get that poison out of you. It's going to suck, but you can handle that, right?"
Brady nodded and whispered. "Yeah."
"Good," Clark said. "And when that's over, you're going to have a problem. It's been a long time since the smoke came and you're going to want to tell people about what happened. If you do that, you're going to end up on some new drugs that won't be nearly so much fun, and you'll be booked into a padded room hotel. Tell them you don't remember anything. You hit your head. Wipe it right back to before the smoke came and make that your story. It's the only way. Try anything else, and it's going to end badly. Got me?"
Brady nodded.
Clark steered them around a hard corner and said, "You'll be okay as long as you do that."
Sam gripped Brady's hand. "You're going to be fine, man."
"Of course he is," Clark said. "He's strong, aren't you, Brady?"
Brady nodded slightly, his breaths still labored, and Sam adjusted him so he could breathe easier. As he did it, he looked at Clark. The man he'd first met would never have given a victim a cover story and encouraged him like this. He'd once beaten a meatsuit so bad when exorcising that he'd been locked up. He was different now. Losing Ruby, not getting his revenge had changed him as Sam knew it would. But it wasn't the dark change Sam had feared. He was a better man for his pain.
Brady seemed to fall into a haze, though his eyes were still open, and Clark gave him a quick look before pulling onto a highway and speeding the truck.
"Wyoming, Sam. You think it was telling the truth?"
Sam nodded. "I think so."
"Not Wyoming," Brady breathed.
"What?" Sam said, shifting so he could get a good look at Brady. "What about Wyoming?"
"The smoke won't go there," he said. "I heard it sometimes when it was talking to the others. They don't go to Wyoming."
"Why not?" Clark asked.
"They can't. There's something there that they want, but they can't get it. It's a cemetery, a door I think, but it's a trap."
"A trap for us?" Sam asked.
Brady shook his head. "No, a trap for the smoke. I think…" He trailed off as his head tilted down and his eyes fell closed.
Sam lifted his chin to keep his airway open and said, "Drive fast, Clark."
Clark obeyed by his foot slamming down on the gas as steering them around an SUV.
Sam was confused and worried, but most of all he was scared for his friend who was waning beside him and wanted him to get to a hospital.
When he was taken care of, they would find out what he meant by a trap.
So… Brady is free from the demon, and they know Wyoming is a trap. There is one chapter left now, and it's the one I put the most work into. Brace yourselves for the end.
Until next time…
Clowns or Midgets xxx