AN: Hey, all. I am seriously so sorry about the wait for this chapter, but considering the subject matter, the story as a whole has been taking quite a toll on me. Not to mention, the past few weeks have really been screwing with me in general. All motivation just completely gone, lack of sleep, a lot of personal things I don't need to get into right here, but rest assured I am still going to finish this story. Y'all deserve that much from me, so I more than eagerly present you with the fourth chapter. I hope you enjoy, and I really am sorry about how long it's taken me to post it.
It had only been three days, but Sam could hardly blink without Lucifer screaming at him just to ensure that he stayed conscious. He was constantly jumping at every single sound, real or imaginary, and he'd freak out even more so at anyone touching him unexpectedly. He'd nearly decked Dean in the face when he'd tapped his shoulder once.
But did he tell Dean about any of that? Of course not. Hurting himself was something that had put his life in immediate danger, Sam could see that now. But what would Dean be able to do about the mental pain? Nothing, so Sam saw no reason to tell him about it.
Not like he could now anyway, considering that Dean was currently sleeping. It was nearly ten though, so Dean would be waking up any minute. But that new day marked yet another sleepless night. He was at four now. That number haunted him, because as of that day, it meant, it he was lucky, he had at most- one week left to live. But when had Sam ever been lucky?
Dean's groan snapped Sam out of his miserable thoughts. He got up to the motel's little kitchen before Dean was fully conscious and poured him a cup of coffee from the pot he had made about an hour prior. He didn't want it to look like he'd been up all night again, so Sam warmed up the coffee so it would seem fresh.
"Morning." Sam called once he saw Dean sitting up and rubbing his eyes. Dean gratefully took the mug from Sam's hands when he held it out to him, and had a greedy sip.
"How'd you sleep?" Dean asked.
"Like a baby." Sam replied in earnest, because despite the connotative definition of the phrase, infants, in fact, do not sleep well, or very often. "You?"
"Awesome. These are some real nice beds." Dean said as he patted the mattress.
"While you were sleeping in I managed to find a hunt." Research was about all that Sam did now. It was the only way he could keep himself occupied and distracted from Lucifer.
"How close?" Dean asked.
"Couple towns over. Looks pretty shifter-y. People tortured almost to death by their loved ones who claimed that they were out of town. Seems pretty open and shut."
"You feeling up to it? I know you mentioned that Lucifer's still around."
"And I'm gonna stay that way." Lucifer chimed in as he continued to throw and catch a bouncy-ball off the walls, the inconsistent thudding having been what had kept Sam awake at night this time. Annoyance was certainly preferable to Lucifer's other methods of keeping him up though…
"I'm alright, Dean, I've got a handle on him. I know what's real right now, I can take a simple hunt just fine."
"Alright, I trust you, Sammy." Dean smiled at his brother. Kid really seemed like he was doing okay. Of course, Dean was completely unaware that Sam's alertness was solely due to the relentless numbers of red-eye coffees he had downed the past few days. Sam was probably more caffeine than person at this point.
"Let's pack our stuff and head out." Sam instructed.
"Sounds good to me." Dean said, and he gathered up all his gear and clothes, as did Sam. "Let's roll."
The stench of the sewers felt hauntingly familiar to Sam. Anything that remotely reminded him of human indecency subconsciously had him reaching for his scars, but he managed to stop himself before he fell back into his old habits. That didn't mean he didn't want to or miss hurting himself, but at least he was able to acknowledge how wrong he had been.
"Hey, Sammy. I thought of a loophole." Lucifer whispered from behind Sam. "What if you let yourself get captured by the shifter? Then when it tortures you it won't be your fault that you get hurt."
What really sucked was knowing that since Lucifer was only a product of his imagination, that meant that Sam was really the one thinking that.
A hand rested on Sam's shoulder, but the brief panic quickly faded when Sam realised that it was Dean's. His brother pointed at the fork in the tunnel ways, and Sam figured he wanted to split up. Dean trusted him on his own. He was strong enough to handle this. But just as Dean started directing Sam where to go-
"THE ITSY-BITSY SPIDER CRAWLED UP THE WATER SPOUT!" Lucifer started scream singing again, making Sam jump, but more importantly, making him miss Dean's instructions.
"What?" Sam whispered at his brother.
"I said I'll take-"
"DOWN CAME THE RAIN AND WASHED THE SPIDER OUT!"
Sam closed his eyes and squeezed his hand into a tight fist. He hated this so damn much, and he felt more than helpless.
"Sam." Dean said gently, gaining his attention. Dean had a pretty good idea of what was happening, so instead of trying to use words, he pointed at himself, and then at the left path, then he pointed at Sam, followed by the right path. "You got it?"
Sam nodded. He was grateful that Dean had found a way around his current bout of crazy, but it didn't make him feel like any less like a child that still couldn't be trusted to walk on his own. Still, he heeded his brother's directions and headed down his designated path. He was just about to be impressed with how far he'd gotten, but then Lucifer started to continue his song, apparently having the same thought.
"Of course he had the same thought, he's in your head, Sam." He told himself as the song resumed.
"OUT CAME THE SUN AND DRIED UP ALL THE RAIN!"
Sam involuntarily twitched one hand towards the other, but then he quickly stopped himself. He took a moment to pause his steps and close his eyes. He inhaled a long, deep breath through his nose, held it for a moment, and then slowly let it out through his mouth. He repeated the process several times until he felt like he had a better hold on his sanity.
Along with hunting research, he'd also looked up methods on calming himself down and coming back to reality when he got like this. Another suggestion involved fiddling with a rubber band, but he didn't trust himself not to snap it against his wrist if things got bad. Supposedly that's what smokers attempting to quit did whenever they had a craving, but Sam had sworn that he was not going to use pain of any kind to cope anymore.
"Behind you!" Lucifer suddenly shouted. Sam whipped his head around, gun at the ready, only to be caught off guard once more as Lucifer burst out laughing.
"I can't believe you fell for that!" Lucifer was even slapping his knee as he cackled with manic glee. "Why would I of all people warn you that you were about to get attacked by a monster? I can't wait to watch all that crazy either push you over the edge or get you killed." He winked.
Sam felt his nostrils flare in irritation. Lucifer really wasn't making this easy for him. Not that Sam even remotely expected any different, but it was still annoying as hell.
"Sammy, there's-!" Dean's voice came down the tunnel, only to be suddenly cut off by muffled shouting. The shifter must have gotten Dean! Sam hurried back to find his brother. He briefly froze at the horrifying image of Dean already tied up and gagged on the floor with the shifter mirroring his brother's face wielding a knife over him. Dean made eye contact with Sam, and they were wide with worry, and he tried to yell out what seemed like a warning.
Sam didn't understand. How could that shifter have possibly gotten Dean tied up so quickly? Unless-
Without even finishing the thought, Sam whirled around and fired his gun at what he knew would be a second shapeshifter, also mimicking Dean. It quickly dodged out of the bullet's way, and managed to tackle Sam to the ground. It grappled for the gun in Sam's hand, and Sam grabbed its arm with his free hand, which then promptly began to slip away, causing Sam to lose his grip. The shifter's shed flesh fell to the ground with a wet splat, and Sam felt his stomach tighten in unease. He nearly lost the battle of not throwing up when he felt a rain of teeth falling onto his face. He suddenly jerked up his hips, which then flung the shifter off of him, and he hurried to the other one, which had started carving into his brother.
Sam yanked what he knew to be Dean's hunting knife from its hand, and it glared at him with eyes so cold, and uncaring, and not-Dean. Sam swung the blade in an arc towards its chest, but it had apparently downloaded Dean's sparring memories because it quickly caught his wrist, and they each started fighting for the upper hand.
"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy." The shifter chided. "With all that crazy in your head how can you be so sure that any of this is real? How do you know that the real Dean isn't somewhere else, being tortured, bleeding, dying?"
Sam's upper lip twitched. "I don't." With that, Sam pulled his hand free, and plunged the knife into the shifter's heart. "But I've got a pretty good idea."
"You sure about that?"
Sam's gut clenched at that voice. If they had Dean's memories, then they would know about himself and Lucifer, so of course would be cruel enough to use that against him. He turned around, flinching just the slightest when he saw not one, but two Lucifer's smiling at him.
"Wow, and I thought I was a creative torturer, but this guy," The shifter whistled, presumably impressed with Lucifer's memories, no doubt of the Cage. "This guy taught you the damn definition of pain."
"I sure did." Said the real Lucifer. No, not real, neither of them were real, dammit! Well, the shifter was real, but it wasn't really Lucifer. Neither was the other one, but-… Crap. Sam felt his head start fuzzing with confusion, which certainly wasn't helped by the missing five nights of sleep. He knew what he was supposed to do. He just had to run up and kill the fake- shifter Lucifer, and he'd be fine. Okay, not fine. He'd still have real- no, hallucination Lucifer, and- Oh, God, this was so- too confusing! He grabbed his now pounding head, and felt his breaths quickening, as well as becoming more and more shallow.
"Can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe, can't-"
"S'm!" A voice broke though Sam's thoughts.
Dean. The one who was always there for Sam, the only constant in Sam's screwed up life, his stone number one. Dean had helped him overcome Lucifer once before, he could for damn sure be the reason Sam did it again.
Snapping back to himself in that instant, Sam charged the shapeshifter, and thrust the blade through its heart. He watched its eyes go wide with shock and pain, and then once Sam ripped the blade free it quickly collapsed to the ground. He stood a little taller as he looked down at that mockery of his worst nightmare's dead body. He then moved over to Dean and cut him loose.
"Sammy, are you okay?" Dean asked the second he'd gotten his gag off.
"That felt good." Sam said with a hint of a smile. "What about you, you're the one that got hurt."
"Nothing a few stitches and a couple of beers won't fix. You sure it didn't get you at all?"
"All good this time. Well-" Sam looked at the hallucination Lucifer now holding an impromptu funeral for his counterpart. "Physically."
Dean nodded in understanding. "Sounds like you could use a couple of beers too."
"God, yes." Sam thought. Maybe if he got drunk enough he'd actually pass out and get some damn rest.
"Using alcohol to cope. What else is new?" Lucifer scoffed. "Try whatever you like, but we both know you're not going anywhere that I won't be able to follow."
Sam closed his eyes. Just a few more hours, and then he'd be asleep.
He hoped…
AN: I put a lot of emphasis Sam's breathing in this chapter, because when in the midst of, or to prevent, panic attacks, the breathing is the best thing anyone can focus on in order to calm down. There are plenty of other tips, including little tricks with rubber bands, but I figure that Sam has too much pride to do much about his mental health unless it gets really bad again. And let me tell you, in the next chapter, it gets really bad again. I do have a little bit of it written out already, so here's a-
Sneak Peek: "He had continued to dink in hopes of blacking out, but all the countless beers had done for him was further blur the lines of reality."
I'm hoping for next chapter to be the last, but considering how this story has decided to lengthen itself once before, it may end up happening again. I'm hoping not to be as long with the update as I was this time, so I will do my best to prevent that from happening. Thank you all for being patient and understanding about it, and I hope you will continue to enjoy this story. If you are, please let me know in a review, and I will see y'all again soon.