A/N: So this is my first attempt at a story and serves as my creative outlet over lockdown. Hope you guys like it.
Chapter One
Two and a half years ago
There were many things Sam hated about his life - a sentiment not unusual among most seventeen year olds - but right now what he couldn't help but hate the most was that he hadn't had a chance to buy a better coat - or boots - before heading out for this dreadful hunt.
The cold November rain soaked his hair and trickled icy tendrils down his collar which slowly spun a frigid web around his torso. He hunched his shoulders, pulling the inadequate coat around him to give the rain as little room for entrance as possible and hugged his arms about himself to quell the worst of his shivers. His chattering teeth, he had no doubt, were annoying his mother but since the absolute need for silence had died with the wendigo about three hours ago, Mary chose not to say anything in lieu of putting all her energies into making it through the storm.
The fading light an hour later saw the pair stumble into the tent they had erected the previous day. They were both exhausted from the four hours of hiking each way, the hunt and the effort of keeping warm in the bitter weather. The tension between them was another frigid addition to the discomfort of the wind and the rain and no words were passed between them as they went methodically about readying themselves for sleep.
Once inside the tent Mary kicked off her boots and coat before quickly crawling into her makeshift sleeping bag, probably more accurately described as a small nest of thin blankets. She seemed to suffer little to no serious ill-effects from their hunt, Sam thought a little resentfully, she had means to buy clothes of at least serviceable if not good quality, she wasn't the one sporting a nasty burn amongst the other scrapes and bruises which Sam had come to think of as occupational hazards in hunting and she hadn't been staying up late the last few nights trying to fit research for this hunt around regular homework and his mother's brutal training schedule.
With a mostly silent grimace Sam pulled off his sopping boots and socks to tend to his swollen and blistered feet; after pulling on dry socks he divested himself of the garment currently making a poor imitation of a coat and, rolling up his sleeve, saw to the burn on his elbow. Hissing as he smeared this and one of his more serious grazes with antiseptic, he confirmed that none of his cuts would need stitches and then lay down in his own small nest of blankets and fell asleep almost instantly despite the frozen, lumpy ground his blankets were doing little to soften, and the throbbing of his elbow.
A growling sound penetrated Sam's consciousness and dragged him sharply from asleep into alertness without seeming to pass through any intermediate stages of awakening. Opening his eyes, Sam noted that there was no light outside and - judging by the furious strength of the protesting of his body - dawn was still a while off. He wanted to groan aloud at the unfairness. Another monster in the area? With only a few hours' sleep? Sam silenced his breathing and waited for another growl in order to pinpoint the location of his latest trial.
He heard it emanating from a little way off, up hill from the tent and nudged his mother awake. "Something's out there," he murmured while quietly pulling on hi s coat and boots. He slid a knife into position at the small of his back and picked up his shotgun as he crept out of the tent, his mother following suit shortly behind him. He racked his brains for something that would likely be on the prowl in these woods in this season but with only a rumbling growl for a clue, could come up with no solid theories. The growling became louder and became accompanied by the sound of the creature's paws hitting the floor, the pace exponentially increasing as it began to stalk them.
Sam, still unable to see the creature in the dark, fired blindly in it's direction. He hoped if the beast was natural, the sound of the shot would scare it off even if he didn't manage to hit it with the rock salt that was loaded into his firearm; and if the creature was supernatural Sam figured there was an even chance the thing would be vulnerable to the salt.
There was no change in the velocity of the thing and Sam shot again into the dark. This time, he gained a whimper in return but from the brevity of the noise and the continued pacing, even if it had slowed a little, made obvious to Sam that the salt would in fact do little real harm.
Next to him Mary fired towards the creature with similar effect - or lack thereof. The rain continued to fall and Sam - who felt like he had neither been properly dry, thoroughly warm nor even at all well rested in the last two days, and whose feet were an agony of swelling, sores and re-aggravated blisters and who failed to catalogue any part of his body that wasn't sporting some kind of ache or injury - saw with rapidly rising horror the rain hitting an invisible barrier hovering above four impressions of huge, fresh pawprints in the soft mud and promptly fled.
As he ran a called out, "Hell hound!" Over his shoulder and heard his mom flee as well as he leapt into the cover of some nearby bushes.
Mary had taken off in the opposite direction and as Sam ran he wondered why would a hellhound show up in the middle of the night by their tent when, to his knowledge, neither him or his mom had made a deal... Although he would only have been seven a decade ago and there was every possibility his mother could have made a deal with him being left unawares.
But what deal could she have made?
His mother had rarely smiled - never in Sam's direct presence, not genuinely - and overall seemed like she wasn't particularly happy with her life. Whatever the deal was, it seemed like kind of a crappy deal to Sam. Nevertheless he turned and headed in the direction he could hear his mother as she was pursued by the hellhound.
A scream had Sam pulling on every reserve he had; he blocked out his exhaustion, his pains and aches and clumsily crashed to his mother's aid. His earlier resentment had dried up and all he could think about was the times he had been filled with gratitude that she had spared his life when most other hunters would have written him off as a monster and killed him outright, in fact a couple of hunters had attempted to do just that upon discovering his secret. If it hadn't been for his mom he would've been hunted down like a savage beast.
He felt large paws bear him to the wet ground, the immense weight behind them prevented any escape and any breathing until the weight behind the paws eased just enough to allow that bodily function. The hound's claws pressed slowly into his flesh as a warning against any struggling.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't Sammy Campbell." Mary's voice sounded deeper than usual with intonations of hellish power coming through.
Sam looked up, squinting through the rain, into his mother's eyes which now spotted sickly, mottled yellow irises. "What do you want?" He demanded with a voice that showed no trace of the cold dread and anger he felt inside.
"Honestly? I came because I'm disappointed in you. You're barely showing any potential evil and getting you to join the dark side is getting to be more and more vexing." She grinned sarcastically at the reference, "I had high hopes for you Sammy, you have been my favourite practically since I fed you my blood; knew you would be a tough nut to crack but once I did... There would've been no stopping us."
"Screw you," Sam cursed defiantly.
The demon chuckled through his mom's mouth and replied, "After all I've done for you? You should be grateful, but you spurn all my temptations, you just accept every disappointment and with every mistake you just work harder then ever. It's disgusting. Why can't you hate? You should be railing against the world, not trying to save it! Rescuing people who would hate you if they knew, by putting down one monster at a time? What a waste. All the others either got with the programme or ended up getting out of the system if you know what I mean..."
Sam was at a loss for words, he was completely nonplussed but tried to grasp his knife without alerting the demon to his plan. He barely noticed the weight of the hellhound gradually lessening as he listened to the bizarre rant Azazel was stealing his mom's voice to deliver; sentiments being expressed that were totally opposite to what usually graced those lips but with the same underlying tone of disappointment.
"Oh well, it's a shame but I guess I'll just have to kill you."
At this the hellhound raked it's claws down Sam's chest, not deep but long, and coiled to pounce on it's prey again. Sam used the reprieve from the pressure to pull out his knife from under him and thrust the blade double handedly into the hound's belly. As the hilt met flesh he carved downwards and gagged as demonic blood and guts spilled over him. He hurriedly cast the carcass aside with a strength that came purely from adrenaline.
"You're a pain in my ass Sammy." The demon hissed as it advanced on the teenager scrambling clumsily to his feet and brandishing his knife. "You think you can win against me with that? That knife may kill the more pathetic of my ranks but to kill something like me you're going to need a weapon that packs a whole lot more punch! I'm the king of bell Sammy! I fell with Lucifer!"
The last sentence was yelled at Sam's retreating back. At least, the demon thought, he could have a little fun with this before he got back to business.
Sam seemed to cascade through a forest that was coming alive around him. The wind forcibly pushed him off course and the trees tripped him with their roots and clawed at him with thorned branches. He struggled down the mountain on rubber legs as barbed bushes shredded his clothes and exposed his skin on his way back to the tent. His mother's gun was his aim. He knew she had acquired it as a precaution, specifically for use on him should he turn evil.
Luckily the demon hadn't guessed his plan.
Sam at last stumbled into the tent and fumbled his way through the flap, uncaring of the mud and other more disgusting substances he was getting inside. As quickly as he could manage, he grabbed the colt, briefly checking to make sure it was loaded, and emerged with it already raised and pointed at the demon.
"Maybe the knife won't work on you but this gun can kill practically anything. Get out of my mom."
The demon hesitated, it was true the gun would kill it, but would the kid fire if it meant killing his mother too? The demon smirked, there was no scenario where the demon lost, so he lunged for his target.
Sam stared at the unearthly eyes of his predator, the chief architect of all his life's misery set into his mother's face but with no trace of his mother within them. He watched as it lunged for him.
He pulled the trigger.
Mary's body hit the ground still crackling with the power of the colt. The black smoke of the demon wound swiftly away into the approaching dawn.
Sam's knees hit the floor as he stared at his mom's body, comprehending slowly and to catastrophic effect that she was dead and the demon fled... And it was all his fault.
He should have let the demon kill him.
Sam himself couldn't tell if he was shedding any tears but he must have done, he thought, because his insides were being twisted up and wrung out and his world was burning and how could anyone be expected to contain that apocalypse within themselves?
He had crawled over to the body and wept until he fell asleep against trunk of a sycamore only partially protected against the rain.
Sam awoke in the afternoon stiff and encased in a sheath of pain and muck which cracked and stabbed at every movement. Nothing less than what a killer like him deserved. The rain had cleared but everything was still soaked and as Sam looked hollowly across the valley he saw dark clouds in the distance which foretold the return of the deluge.
He looked down at the body in his arms, could this really still be called his mom? And could he really still call himself anyone's son? His mind went blank. What could he possibly do now? He had just killed his own mother.
He laid the body out as respectfully as he could and shifted back a little, he stared into the bleakness propped up against the tree until sleep overtook him again.
Sam woke up as the dawn's pink light reached his tear stained and mud tracked face with a very slight improvement to his clarity of mind if not his physical condition. He was still aching and sore and covered in revolting filth which had not quite been washed away by the rain, his muscles had seized up and his hunger was clawing him inside out and despite his long periods of unconsciousness, his body still called for more sleep, but Sam had a job to do. He eased himself out from his hunched position and ate a plain breakfast quietly; it wouldn't help his situation if he collapsed.
With trembling limbs Sam set about digging a shallow grave, it was the best he could muster under the circumstances: the wood for miles was soaked and wholly unsuitable for a pyre and his exhaustion prevented him from digging anything deeper. Sam cursed himself for not being able to give his mom a proper hunter's funeral.
He left the site with nothing more than a pile of rocks and a bunch of wild flowers to mark the grave, although he had shed so many tears over it that he was sure the accumulation of salt would prevent anything from growing there. He hiked mostly numb over the next day and a half back to civilisation but well aware of the turmoil of emotions bubbling steadily closer to the surface.
By the time Sam had made it back to his mom's car the emotional blockade had eroded and he shed even more bodily fluids and trembled enormously as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He attempted to dial twice before his fingers finally succeeded in finding the right numbers and held the phone to his ear.
"Bobby?" He stammered tentatively as the line was picked up on the other end, "I need your help."