Chapter Eight
"Boys…who is Azazel?"
Dean gave a grim smile. "You should know. You've been chasing him for over two decades."
"You mean?"
"Yeah, Azazel is the demon that killed mom."
John froze.
"W-what?"
Sam placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "The YED that killed mom, his name is Azazel. He's a Prince of Hell, and one of Hell's Elite. Hence why tracking and killing him is so hard."
"How did you-"
"We were hunting him too." He paused at his father's glare. "He killed Jess."
"Jess? The girl you were going to marry?"
Sam stared at him. "How-"
John looked away, embarrassed. "Jim told me. He gave me updates on how you were doing the whole time you were at school."
Dean snickered as did Adam and Sam smiled.
"Knew there had to be a reason he kept asking if I'd heard from you."
The Winchester patriarch sighed in relief, but frowned, unused to his son being so…docile. Sam was bull-headed, stubborn at the best of times and he guarded his privacy fiercely. He'd been sure the boy would argue with him.
"You're not mad?"
The taller man shook his head.
"We should go. Before he leaves again." He replied cutting off the line of conversation.
"Boys-"
Dean glared at him.
"We're helping."
"What about Adam? How are you gonna train him if-"
"It'll be bonding experience for all of us." Sam interrupted and he growled, well aware that his sons weren't about to let him win this argument.
He turned to his youngest with a stern glare. "Fine, but you do everything we tell you to do or you're done, got it?"
The teen grinned, moss green eyes lighting up as he nodded. "Got it."
He sighed, feeling every one of his fifty-two years as he turned to head out to his truck.
He could only pray this wouldn't come back to bite him in the ass. He snorted inwardly.
Who was he kidding? Of course, it would.
Pale ice blue eyes narrowed dangerously as they stared into the vast abyss before them, their owner's tattered black wings shifting behind him ponderously.
A massive flare of power, not unlike that of his brothers had shaken his cage what felt like moments ago, familiar yet unfamiliar all at once. It had felt like grace, his own to be exact, but more potent, more powerful than he'd ever felt as it brushed against his then flinched back fearfully.
He'd tried to reach for it, but his cage had stopped him, and by then it had been too far for him to touch anyways. Still, it baffled him because it was his, he knew his grace better than he knew anything else, including the cursed walls of the cage that had been his home for the past few millennia, and yet…
It was different.
The grace in him, was icy, to the point of burning, and thick but not nearly as potent as this unknown…imitation. The other was even colder than his own, but younger and fearful, and wrapped within it, he could feel a bright soul torn and shredded in ways he'd never seen. Worse, he recognized the soul as much as he recognized the grace protecting it.
Samuel Winchester.
His vessel.
Something had changed since he'd last peered in on his vessel, something terrible and as much as he wanted to ignore the pang he felt in his chest, he couldn't. He could only think of one reason for the boy's soul to be so worn, only one reason his grace was so deeply wound around the boy.
Time Travel.
A wicked smile stretched its way across pale lips and deep in the bowels of Hell, a dark laugh sounded. A hauntingly beautiful voice started to sing, and every demon that heard it shivered in fear.
Their master was pleased.
That wasn't necessarily a good thing.
And so I ask forgiveness
In a world that wasn't mine
And the souls I'd taken
The lives that were lost
They cried for my repentance
But it was all for naught
Because my world was long gone
My world was long gone
Sam bolted awake, Lucifer's haunting melody still ringing in his mind, the words on the tip of his tongue.
Beneath his skin, he could feel the fallen archangel's grace surging and roiling, so cold yet boiling his blood and he gasped. Running on instincts that both were and weren't his, he locked it down, still shuddering from the brief caress of his (not his- Lucifer's) grace against this Lucifer's the familiar burn of the Cage's walls having been what had alerted him to the fact that Lucifer's grace, the Lucifer from his time was inside of him and probably had been since he left the cage.
It was stronger and colder than he remembered from his time in the Cage, and, most importantly he couldn't feel the connection it had to the Lucifer from his time, instead, he could feel it twined intimately in the scars on his soul and around it, both strengthening his connection to this Lucifer and protecting him from it.
He wanted to scream.
Wanted to panic…but he couldn't.
Instinct and trauma warred for dominance in his mind and whined in panic, reaching blindly for the one thing that made sense to his deteriorating sanity.
Dean.
Dean.
Dean.
Strong arms, weaker than he remembered but no less safe, wrapped around him and he whimpered, clinging to them with as much strength as he could muster forcing his eyes open to meet hardened moss green ones.
"I'm here, Sammy. Sh, I'm here."
The words of the song came back to him and he was singing in enochian before he could stop himself.
And so I ask forgiveness
In a world that wasn't mine
And the souls I'd taken
The lives that were lost
They cried for my repentance
But it was all for naught
Because my world was long gone
My world was long gone
He took it all
He took my world
He took it all
My life, my name
It was long gone
So long gone…
Dean's grip on him tightened and he curled further into his elder brother's arms, feeling the grace within him wrap around the bright soul of the man beside him.
He was okay.
Their father's arms joined Dean's as did Adam's and he could feel their confusion, realizing with startling clarity that Adam hadn't ever heard him sing in the cage. Only Lucifer knew of that particular talent and he liked to keep it to himself, possessive of any aspect of Sam only he saw.
The archangel had never sung in front of Adam either, though he had a habit of singing when they were alone, the sound soothing even as he flayed the skin from Sam's bones or ripped him apart in any way he chose.
It was something of a secret between then and even know he could hear Lucifer singing along both in his head and from the apparition in front of him.
He leaned heavily into his brother's solid frame, hazel green eyes sliding shut.
"He knows I am Lost"He sang softly, voice nearly inaudible.
My world is long gone
So very long gone
TBC…