Chapter 2: In the Beginning...
Summary: ...There was SAM.
The church shook around them, pieces of rock and plaster falling from the ceiling. Cracks webbed through the pillars as the Grace of Lucifer poured out of the opening to the cage, shaking the building at he screeched in victory. Freedom.
Sam and Dean stumbled around, fists full of each other's shirts as they fought to stay upright. The other was pressed against their ears in a futile attempt to block the noise. Their eyes scrunched up against the light, the burn of unfiltered Grace in their retinas.
Sam was certain that Dean was yelling his name, but he couldn't hear it over the ringing of Lucifer's voice, a voice he could hear. He could hear the words, the screaming of wicked glee, of unending rage, of overwhelming relief.
Freedom. Freedom. He chanted it over and over, louder and louder until Sam was sure his brain would melt out of his head through his ears.
And just when Sam was sure it was the end, that this monumental blunder of his would finally cash in his one way train ticket to Hell, something shifted.
It was the strangest feeling, like someone running warm fingers along his insides, or that feeling you get when you drink cool water after a hot day and you swear the cold water is rolling down your ribs like a waterfall. The feeling filled him up, from his toes, to the very tips of his fingers. He could feel it behind his eyes and along the edges of his ears and slithering up along his back.
Sam felt everything, all the things around and in him. He could feel each individual atom in the air, the blades of grass outside, the movement of the Earth under his feet and the pull of gravity that carried it around the Sun. Information crashing into his brain, jumbled up and disorienting.
Lucifer's voice became clearer and clearer, the Grace becoming less painful to him. He was rushed with the strangest feeling of familiarity among the chaos of it all, like coming across a smell that brought you back to that one day in third grade when your childhood crush hugged you and their scent surrounded you.
Everything happened in the span of a second, the feeling suspended in the infinite space between the ticks of the clock.
And it freaked him the fuck out.
Next thing he knows, the warmth within him reaches out and pulls.
And, to the world around them, Sam and Dean disappeared from the church.
It was a gradual thing. It happened so slowly, creeping up at him from behind that he never took notice of it. Like someone steadily applying pressure on someone's whole body, they adjusted, adapted, and only noticed when one thing set off a chain reaction that linked all the symptoms together like a red thread on a bulletin board.
Both Dean and Sam agreed not to think too hard on how they got into that plane after Lucifer was freed. They chalked it up to angels and then firmly put it in one of those 'if we don't acknowledge it, it will go away' categories.
Going to Chuck's house next was an experience. When Sam came face to face with him, things got… trippy. He really didn't have the words for it.
His heart hammering in his body, a burn of anger and anxiety pulled at his chest, like hands pushing out against his ribs, reaching for the prophet.
Chuck had gotten a glazed look in his eyes at this, staring off at a point over Sam's shoulder like he was seeing a whole other thing. A soft, sad smile crossed his face, like a sick man at peace on his deathbed. But the look left his face just as quickly before he refocused on the two brothers.
He explained what had happened after Castiel had shoved Dean through time and space to the church in Ilchester. Cas had died, smote by Raphael. 'Exploded like a waterbloon of chunky soup' was how he put it, and it was a visual Sam could had easily lived without.
The burn in his chest was pressing harder and harder by the second, he fought against it, trying to calm down. It was distracting, and Dean was beginning to notice all was not ok with his brother.
The angels showing up was a welcome distraction. Or, it would have been., had the burn not started reaching for them, too. Sam spent the whole time breathing deep, shoving down his anger and panic into the deepest part of him he could. Slowly, the burn receded until it was just a soft, barely-there feeling in his chest.
After that, he forgot about it for a awhile. Between trying to talk to Dean about what happened and getting rebuffed, then Becky.
Less said about that, the better.
Yikes.
But then the message from Chuck, the Michael's sword, and then him confessing to Bobby and the… conversation after.
God, that had hurt. Bobby's words ripping into body like hooks and yanking away, taking flesh and bone with it. And it hurt worse, because Bobby had every right to say those things, to tell Sam to get out of his life and never come back. He had every right.
So Sam walked, out of the hotel and to the nearby church, desperate for a moment to gather himself. He made it to the church, but didn't go in, sitting down on the front steps and forcing himself to breathe deeply and evenly. A storm raged in his head and everything hurt. He felt raw, like every layer of skin had been peeled back and his innards bared to the elements. Every gust of wind, every laugh from kids playing in the street, the birds, the cars and trees. It hurt. Because he knew that there was every chance that it would all not be here soon, that everything would die and it was his fault.
It took him awhile to see it, to separate his own feelings from what was being… projected? He didn't have the word for it. But it was there, a feeling of wrong, gross, twisted and nasty. It had mixed so well with what he was already feeling that he hadn't noticed it until he had forcibly calms himself down and realized it wasn't him. And instantly feels like an idiot.
He had been in the presence of demons for a long time now, he knew the feeling of them. His psychic powers allowed him to feel their presence for months now and he had been the fool to let one slip under his nose at the worst moment.
As Sam booked it back to the hotel, he tried to pinpoint the moment his demon alarms began blaring and he couldn't. His mind was just too jumbled up to think right. Now all he could think of was that there were demons about and Lucifer was out and he controlled demons so what if the demons were there on his orders and oh shit oh shit oh shit!
He made it back just in time to see Bobby on the floor and get slammed in the face by a phone.
Fucking Meg.
She kicked him in the nuts and taunted him about his demon powers. He got beat up some more and then, after Dean ganked the other demon, she fled. Oozing out of her meat suit like a genie in a bottle. They stared for a second at the dead body before there was a rush of movement.
Bobby. Fuck, Bobby.
They got him to the ER, but they couldn't stay no matter how much they wanted to. They had to get to the sword before the demons. So they get there, the demons are dead, but the angels are there.
Dean is the Michael Sword. The true vessel of Michael.
Zacharia taunts Dean, plays on his empathy for humanity's survival, digs his fingers into Dean's weak points to make him consent to be the vessel. But Dean says no to Zacharia, so the angel points a finger to Sam and mimes shooting.
Sam could feel the power -the Grace- in an instant, pressing against his shins and pushing, snapping at the bones. But… nothing gives.
Sam is angry. Angry at Zacharia for what he was doing. Coercing consent wasn't consent. It was a violation, one that Sam found himself disgusted and enraged by. It was renegade to the foundation of angelic principals. Without consent, they were as good as demons.
How dare he.
The burn within Sam slithers down his legs, filling flesh and bone and batting away Zachariah's Grace like a human would an annoying nat.
The angel frowns at him and tries again, with the same results.
"What's wrong, Feathers? Can't get it up?" Dean snipps with a feral grin. "You know they have pills for tha-" He was cut off as Zachariah turned his Grace on him and brought him to his knees, coughing up globs of blood. He surged towards Sam, his hand gripped tightly around Sam's neck, pinning him to the wall of the storage unit.
"What have you done, Sammy?" Zachariah spat, a strange, sickly glint in his eye. He then grinned, lightly patting his cheek with the hand that wasn't choking him, like he was indulging a child. "An abomination like you," he tutted, "your soul is so disgusting not even my Grace is willing touch it."
And, well damn, if that didn't hit an open wound and pour the salt in.
He squeezed out a few garbled words from his compressed larynx. But the words "go fuck yourself" didn't need to be perfectly articulated to get the message across.
Before Asshole-With-Wings could say anything, there was a bright flash of light, and the hand disappeared from his throat. Sam blinked away the dark spots from his vision and looked down to see Dean holding his hand against the angel banishing symbol. The symbol which he, apparently, drew with the blood he had been coughing up.
Sam yanked Dean to his feet before hauling him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. He booked it out of the storage locker, closing it up hastily behind him and vowing to come back to deal with the dead bodies.
He sat Dean down against the Impala and checked him over for what Zachariah had done. Dean grumbled and groaned, batting away Sam's hands and muttering something along the line of 'mother hen.'
He finds nothing, so he hauls Dean to the nearest ER and tells them that his brother just started coughing up blood. They take him back, and Sam stands in the hall, watching as the gurney pushes through the doors, taking Dean out of view.
A nurse ushers him into the waiting room and he stays there until a doctor comes and finds him.
"Mr Price? Brother to Dean Price?" the doctor asks and Sam nods. The doctor tells him that Dean's got an Esophageal rupture and needs surgery pronto. He goes along, filling out the information needed, the (fake) social and card numbers, etc. Dean is rushed into surgery and Sam is left waiting for even longer. Anxiety turns in his stomach, burning in his chest and constricting around his lungs. His breath comes out in short, painful pants and he has a headache that would rival the day after his worst benders.
His body shudders and he tries to himself to calm down once again, that overwhelmed feeling creeping back into his gut.
He just wants Dean to be fixed, to be happy. He made the biggest blunder, he had chosen a demon over his own brother and freed the Devil from his cage. And his actions already had disastrous consequences. Cas was dead, Bobby was stabbed and Dean was lying in surgery, getting his fuckin throat stitched back together because some wigged dick decided to rip it open because Dean was being cheeky.
He wouldn't have been there if Sam hadn't released Lucifer…
God, what had he done? He just wanted to fix everything so bad; he wanted Dean to be fixed, he wanted Bobby healthy and whole again, he wanted Castiel back, he wanted he wanted he wanted-
The doctor came back not long later, looking rumpled and more than a little disbelieving. They told him that Dean was fine, wrong diagnosis. Only a roughed up throat, they said.
So Dean was released with only some painkillers and throat lozenges, told to take it easy and let his throat heal up before he started yodeling or anything. Dean put on his best smile for the nurses and the two walked out of the building.
Later that night, doctors would be absolutely baffled when they found that all their patience in the ER and the rest of the hospital were miraculously healthy and healed of any and all ailments.
They got back to Bobby quickly, Dean gunning the gas and not saying a word. They got back just in time for the doc to give the verdict.
Bobby would walk again.
After a considerable amount of physical therapy and medication, of course. He would still be destined for the wheelchair for a few months until the damage was fixed.
Bobby stopped him as he was walking out, letting Sam know that it was the demon that cast him out, not Bobby himself. He would never abandon Sam. It soothed a small bit of the ache in Sam's chest, and damn near brought him to tears. But he gave Bobby a thankful smile, even as his eyes grew a bit damp. Bobby gripped a bit more before booting them out of the room. The brothers headed to the impala.
"You know, I was thinking maybe we could go after the Colt." Sam started, but Dean was quick to cut him back, his voice rough an hoarse, like sandpaper on a rusty surface. He told Sam that he was humoring Bobby, that he had little to no hope left even though he'd keep fighting.
The fact that Dean's eyes were wet really hit him. He had made his brother cry. Even if the tears hadn't fallen, they were still there.
The burn, the burn was back.
"What can I do?" he whispered, his throat tight and his chest aching.
"Honestly?" Dean replied, "nothing."
The last nail in the coffin was when Dean told him that he didn't trust him anymore.
And damn, if that didn't hurt like a sonovabitch.
The words stabbed out and hit along the hairline fractures inside him, shattering and splintering him to pieces. He understood where Dean was coming from, he really did. Sam fucked up, majorly. He tossed his brother aside like trash and went out on his own like he could face down the world and come out on top.
Reckless...Selfish... Arrogant...
It whispered past his ears in Bobby's voice, echoing the demon that had been in his body.
God he had fucked up.
He had hurt Dean, the one he had sought vengeance for, the one he had fought and defended. The first one he had thought about when that first bit of demon blood crossed his lips and the last one he thought about when he stood over Lilith's empty shell. He'd do anything, give anything, for him. And he had Let. Him. Down.
And in such a disastrous way.
Sam could feel the burn flare brighter as Dean walked away and got into the Impala without another word.