Four

They're gone.

"Cas! Dean!"

He doesn't even know how the fuck he's managed to get into his wheelchair but it takes a long time. He navigates through the mess and, fuck, he can't even do much in the position that he's in. The wheels wobble and stumble over obstacles, threatening to overturn again but Sam doesn't care anymore. He needs to find them. He can't do this alone. They can't be gone.

Just after an explosion, though? That can't be right. They have to be around somewhere.

Or…

If they're dead, oh God, if they're dead…

Sam stops and shuts his eyes. No, he's not going to think of that. They've been gone ten fucking minutes. Why would they be dead already? No, he's going to find them and they're all going to kick Abas's ass and go back home.

That sounds like a great plan.

He moves, one step (turn of his wheels?) at a time, collecting the books that have fallen. Trying to collect the debris. Maybe he'll find something here. Maybe this stuff will be of some use, will be evidence for him to locate their whereabouts. At least he hopes so.

He knows in another life he wouldn't even stop for a few moments to think, but as of now he still can't walk, still can't do shit. So he resorts to searching the apartment thoroughly, even though he knows they're not here.

It doesn't take him long to confirm that. He takes his phone, tries Dean's number. He knows it is futile, and yet, his heart sinks when Dean doesn't answer. He waits for the voicemail to pick up but then he has to cancel. He doesn't have Cas's number. He realises he forgot to take it. Dammit.

Fuck. Fuck.

Where else could they be?

Sam leaves the apartment, wheeling himself down the ramp, and his heart gets stuck in his throat when he thinks of how Dean made it for him. In this world and every world, Dean's done too much for him and right now Sam can't fucking locate his brother, as if that's a fucking difficult task, and how pathetic is that.

He's just locked the door and checked the salt lines when he sees Ellen coming over from the hallway. He blinks at her, seeing fire as he hears a blast, and his breath catches. She smiles at him.

He just nods and starts to wheel himself away but she calls after him.

"Sam?"

He doesn't look back. He doesn't want her to be dead but he knows she is. He wishes he could pluck her out of this world and take her back to his. He wishes he could tell her. But he can't and he feels selfish but he can't revisit his grief. Not again.

"Sam?"

He briefly pauses at the door, takes in Ellen's voice, and wheels himself out.

~o~

People are concerned for Sam all along the way to the library. He doesn't know how he does it but his hands are bleeding and he's pushing the wheels relentlessly, shaking. He needs to get there. All the summoning ingredients are gone. The paper Cas had written on is destroyed. He can remember most things but he needs to find them (he could have remembered—in his old world, he could have—but Abas has fucked them all over and Sam's gonna fucking kill him now).

He can't slacken, he can't slacken, can't slacken, can't slacken…

His hands are slippery with sticky blood and—

"Are you all right?"

He doesn't care. He stops outside of the library, looks at the ramp, grateful, and wheels himself in.

Sam goes to the bathroom, first thing, and washes his hands and face. He feels sick, anxiety, fear and helplessness roiling in his stomach as he tears off paper napkins and wipes himself. He looks at the cuts on his hands from wheeling here. They sting, some still bubbling with blood, but they're all worth it if he can just do what he's here for. So he tears off more paper napkins for them so that he won't stain the books, and gets to reading.

He can thankfully remember the books that Cas had referred to. He tries to not smear blood on the pages, fingers stinging. He still can't read but he looks at the pictures, head spinning a little bit, until he gets to the page they'd been on.

The words are jumbled just like before. Illegible. He squints at them but they don't make sense so he copies whatever letters are in there. He will sit to sort them out later on. He just needs the basics. Sure, his head is pounding, his body is on fire, and he thinks this will fucking kill him, but he remembers Dean in the hospital. He just doesn't care anymore. He reads, tries not to pass out or puke, reads more, rinse, repeat. Keeps doing it until it's a medical emergency.

It thankfully doesn't resort to that, though. He can unscramble some immediately if he just lets the pain do its thing. The process is excruciating, painful, horrible, never again.

Good game, Abas, you kept me back because I'm a cripple, but I'll be the one to destroy you.

Somewhere in the back of his mind there is a loud laugh.

~o~

"Sam, just say yes, and we can end all this pain."

Sam looks up from deciphering the incantation he needs to use on Abas, only to see Lucifer. The devil, right in front of him like all the other times, and Sam doesn't know whether he should leave or stay.

"You know I won't hurt you," Lucifer tells him, folding his arms. "And yes, I said Detroit, but just think. This would be so much easier."

Sam clenches his jaw, looks down at his text. The devil can't harm him. He's alone. Lucifer can't possibly harm Dean or Cas…

"I know where they are," Lucifer continues. "If you think I can't reach them—"

Sam's head snaps up. "You stay away from them. Leave them alone."

"I don't intend to harm them," says Lucifer. "I think you'll remember. I told you, that I would never lie, or trick you into saying yes."

"And you call this not tricking me?" Sam asks.

"That is Abas's way of dealing with it. It was not my suggestion. He wanted to have some fun."

Sam grins. "And you stole the opportunity. You still lied. You're no better than the monsters we kill. No better than the scum we put to death."

"I think your brother might say something like that to me at some point," says Lucifer, leaning back as he narrows his eyes. "But I could be wrong. Let's see. Time will tell."

He's gone before Sam can blink and then there is a voice—the speakers, he realises, and the library seems to be closing for the day. Sam looks down at his scrambled, messy list and tucks it into his pocket as he prepares to get back home just the way he got here. He doesn't mind the pain, though. It's all worth it if he can get Dean and Cas back.

That's all he needs right now.

~o~

He sees Ellen again when he's getting into the apartment. It is breezy outside and he knows it's the beginnings of a thunderstorm. He tried to rush away, to avoid her again (she's dead), but he ends up scraping a side of the wheel against the wall and before he knows it, his entire world is toppling and—

"Sam."

He is aching and sore and nauseated. His head pounds. All the parts of his body that can feel are screaming bloody murder. He just needs to sleep a while more. He'll go back to practice in a while. But just a few more moments. A break, some time away…

"Sam, sweetie." A hand strokes his hair. The voice is familiar. He leans into the touch.

A sigh. The hand strokes his hair once again. He thinks of Jess. He needs to meet her tonight and…

A drop of something hot and sticky on his forehead. He opens his eyes and Jess is on the ceiling—

"NO!"

Sam opens his eyes, this time for real, only to see Ellen sitting beside him. He's on the cold, hard floor, in profound, horrible fucking pain and he doesn't know what to do with himself. His heart is racing, but now his breaths pick up too.

"Ellen!"

"You fell," she says soothingly. "I think your wheelchair's broken. I tried to call Dean but he won't answer."

Sam licks his lips. "He's... he's still… at work. Probably busy." He wants her to go away.

"I'll try the garage then," Ellen tells him, reaching for her phone, but Sam raises his hand to stop her.

"N-No!"

"Sam, you're hurt and you need help," she says, her voice ever so familiar and kind, and Sam has to shake his head.

"I'll be all right," he whispers. "Just need meds and sleep."

"Sweetie—"

"'M okay, Ellen," he insists, and there is a lump in his throat now. I c-can do it. Please?"

She looks into his eyes and seems to understand. "You want me to leave?"

He turns away and finds himself nodding. And before he knows it, she's helping him drag himself into the apartment completely before she plants a kiss on his head and leaves. He watches her go and the door shut behind her, hearing the blasts again and again as his eyes burn. When he feels a salty tear make its track down his cheek he doesn't stop himself for just a couple of seconds. Then he gets back to work like nothing happened at all.

~o~

It takes him time to decipher everything completely and even then he is not sure. He unscrambles them, writing with sore hands, hoping it is all correct. His headache is worse than ever now, sickening; throbbing and pulsating through his skull and he's had to drag himself twice now to throw up into a vase their mom gifted them (she is gone too, in their real world, and Sam doesn't even know why he wants to go back there. He could just see Jess again, and Ellen and Mom, maybe, maybe…)

God, no, he can't go down that road right now.

He's tired. He just needs rest. He thinks passing out for a bit when Ellen had found him did him good, even though it's made him shaky now.

There are extra ingredients in his room. He has to drag himself, crawl, and he wishes his legs moved even a little. By the time he's moved himself to his room and come back, he is red faced and frustrated, angry with everything but he pulls himself together and makes the sigil with all the other stuff he's managed to bring.

It is a metaphorical pain in his ass to fix the salt lines (since his real ass can't feel). He thinks Dean would laugh. Dean's allowed to laugh at shit like this. Sam smiles at that, and makes a small break in the salt line at the place that's closest to him, just so he can fix it quickly again when Abas is in.

Having to crush another human finger is kinda disgusting but he does it anyway. He takes a deep breath once he's done, holds Cas's angel blade in one hand, and pulls out the paper he's written the incantation on. Cas had missed a word, he realises, probably from all the haste, but he's double and triple checked this, at least to the best of his abilities.

He stares at the paper, looks at it intently one more time, and starts reciting.

~o~

The lightning, the rolling of thunder isn't surprising to Sam. Supernatural creatures can be dramatic bastards sometimes, he remembers vaguely, and Abas's arrival is nothing different from all that bullshit. Sam finishes the chant, then restarts, hair flying to his face as his room cools down by several degrees. The words are like a mother tongue to him, though, rolling off him eloquently, and he keeps chanting, feeling the urgency, sensing Abas's disturbance, keeping at it, until—

There is a crash and a burst of pain at the back of his head and the hilt of the blade slides out of his hand, the dull clang of it barely registering over the roaring in Sam's mind. He bites back a yelp and blinks up to see a man, tall with a hardened face, middle aged, and his eyes switch to black briefly as he closes in on Sam.

Sam tries to drag himself to the break in the salt line so he can trap the demon, but a sharp burst of electricity courses through his fingers as he flinches back.

"Oh no you don't, you scum," Abas hisses, flicking his wrist, and Sam struggles, his entire body locked.

He narrows his eyes at Abas. "Where are Dean and Cas?"

"That's for me to know," the demon tells him. "And I'll return them just like I bought them."

"If I say yes to Lucifer?" Sam snarls. "To what, exactly?"

"You know everything, Sam." Abas shrugs. "Don't even pretend you don't know what I'm saying. Now I'll call my father, and—"

"He hates you," says Sam. "You and your kind, he's not your father."

"Shut up!" Abas flicks his wrist again and pain shoots through Sam. He bites his lips, drawing blood, breathing when the pain lets go and trying to move, only to be held back by Abas again.

"You listen to me," the demon says, towering over Sam, cornering him, "you're going to say yes, and you're going to do it now."

"No."

"You won't?"

"No."

Sam feels himself jerk at that, then a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach when he's airborne, landing on the floor face first shortly after, chin dragging against rough salt. He can see his flask of holy water from here, not too far, just within reach and—

A boot connects with his healing shoulder. This time he screams, loud and horrified and he knows he can't take it anymore. Bile rushes up his throat but he swallows it down, breathing through the pain because he's had worse. He's had worse.

His eyes are watering now and he watches Abas bend over him. He can't let this happen. He can't lose like this. It's too soon to give up. Sam's other hand grabs a bit of the salt underneath him and throws it at the demon, who hisses and backs off. Sam seizes the opportunity to grab the holy water and throw it at Abas.

The smoke rising from Abas's face makes him growl, a feral, angry growl, and Sam's reaching for Cas's blade but before he can do anything, he feels a kick to his upper back.

His breath catches in his throat and his fingers curl in pain. Another kick and Sam can't move, his abused body too weak, but he tries, and then there is a third kick.

His vision blurs but Abas is kicking him repeatedly, and Sam tries to blink away the blackness, tries to stop the inevitable as he moves, just a little, and just a little more.

The kick to his face does it. The blackness crowds his eyes quicker than he can think and his lungs refuse to cooperate, head spinning as his breaths come out harsh and shallow. He feels himself drop completely, feels the world slow down and spin and he doesn't know what is going on anymore.

All he hears before he passes out, is an extremely familiar voice whispering about in his head.

"You know what to do, Sam."