TWO:
You Aim For Heaven And You Wind Up In Hell
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The black smoke filled the chamber. Both boys' arms flew to their heads, keeping the strange, swirling danger from their eyes.
They stepped back and Sam reached blindly for his brother.
Whether he's gone nuts on bloodlust or not, he's still your brother, his mind screamed at him. His hand found material before something brought him to a halt.
Dean's hand on his shoulder. Pulling. To safety.
Sam couldn't help grinning in relief: He's still Dean.
Sam gratefully went with him, following him instinctively. They found themselves in the corner of the crypt, backed up against the wall, the billowing mass of Hellish cloud buffeting them.
Something clicked in Sam's mind. It was hard to say what, exactly. But something made him stand straighter, taller, larger than life. He turned to Dean, could see him without the need of his eyes.
"I know what I'm here for," he said clearly.
Hands waved at the black air. "Sammy? Where are you?" came his brother's worried voice.
"I'm right here, Dean," Sam informed him with a knowing grin. "Where I've always been." He laid a hand on his elder brother's shoulder, not surprised in the least to find that while he could see beyond the cloud, Dean could not. "You did it - you brought him down. Now it's my turn," Sam smiled gratefully.
"Sam? No!" Dean commanded.
Or thought he did.
Sam simply cleared his mind, taking all his worldly troubles and shoving them right to the back. He took a deep breath.
He raised a hand. One, single hand.
He concentrated. He let his eyes slip closed. He felt the black cloud regrouping and aiming for him, knew it was closing dangerously fast.
He couldn't stop grinning.
You wanted a special child, one who could kill Lilith, he heard himself broadcast, unsure of whom he could reach, but I bet you never realised exactly what that would mean.
The evil swathe of rolling blackness descended upon him. And still he was grinning.
Dean hacked in a breath, one hand pressed to his pained front. A wave of weakness, of agony, passed through him at the touch, but he ignored it. He waved at the Stygian mist, realising it was already dissipating.
"You did it!" he coughed, turning to his brother. "You killed Lucifer!"
The crypt was abruptly clear. Suddenly there was no smoke, no demonic cloud, no evidence of Lucifer save the rapidly cooling creature in various degrees of bloody vivisection on the floor. Dean turned to his baby brother.
His triumphant grin died. He felt the blood drain from his face.
"Sam?" he whispered.
Sam stood tall, his frame proud and strong, his grin broad.
And his eyes bright, sparkling yellow.
"Dean," he allowed, in the same old pleased, oddly child-like voice. "I got him. He's trapped." He twitched slightly, jerking to his right. "I got him."
Dean stared. He refused to take a step back. "Lucifer's… in there? With you?" he dared.
"He's trapped. We gotta keep him trapped," he said urgently. "But I can't hold him for long."
Dean grabbed his brother's upper arms, staring at his eyes in horror. "Sammy…"
"Yeah, Dean," he nodded slowly. "It's really me. It was the only way. He can't harm me, but I can never let him go. He wanted Azazel to find him a special child. That was me. Looks like it cuts both ways."
Dean's fingers gripped Sam ever more tightly. "This ain't how it was supposed to go, Sam," he managed.
In that second, Sam realised a great deal.
He knew his brother was not the soul-destroying monster he thought he had been in Hell. He knew Dean would always be trying to save his baby brother's soul, no matter what it took. He knew he was doomed; Lucifer was within him, the only prison from which even a fallen angel could never break free. And he knew Dean knew it too.
"We're supposed to kill the evil bastard!" Dean pleaded, his sudden innocence heart-breaking to behold. "We're supposed to win! We're supposed to get our lives back!" He paused, and his voice broke just slightly as it swept over him in pained confusion, with fear for his brother. "What are you doing?"
"Killing the evil bastard. Winning. Getting our lives back," Sam whispered.
"Not like this, Sam! Not like this!"
Sam opened his mouth, but he couldn't answer. Something was fighting him for control, something demanded to be heard. So he let it speak.
Anger, hatred, vitriol - he let it all roll over him.
Dean, I can do this, he heard himself hope, over and over. The angry voice in his head rang clearly, loudly, painfully, dangerously close to taking over. But then Sam detected a new sound. Tiny whispers, tiny assurances the likes of which no evil could ever break:
"Everything's gonna be ok. I got you, Sammy. Everything's gonna be ok."
So Sam let the voice try to bargain. He let it try to persuade. He let it try to plead. And finally, he let it beg.
He knew himself to be stronger than this fallen angel had ever been: going against his nature to follow Ruby's advice had taught him that much. He knew the pair of Winchesters to be more than anything Lucifer could throw at them. And Sam Winchester was nothing if not a fastidious, pedantic law student to the point of mental breakdown. He could hammer out an offer, a plea-bargain, a deal the likes of which this sorry collection of confused, jumbled ambition wrestling with his mind could never hope to break.
And so Sam set about making it happen. He set about wrapping up the universe's most water-tight, bindingly ruthless piece of bargaining he had ever dared wish for in his life.
No, he realised, not my life. Everyone's lives. You want the apocalypse? You can kiss my ass.
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Dean gripped his brother's arms, holding him upright. Sam's eyes had sunk closed, his frame much less sure of itself. Dean swallowed his fear and walked him backwards to the wall, pushing him against it gently and using it to keep them both vertical.
"Sammy, c'mon!" he urged. "Don't let the bastard do this to you!"
He let his eyes range over his baby brother's face, remembering another time, another place, another baby Sam. The moment, the sliver of Time, the night of the fire in his tiny brother's nursery flashed across his brain: he saw the door to the nursery, saw his father handing Sam over to him, ordering him outside. He hadn't understood why he had had to be the one to carry him, but he understood now.
He kept a tight hold on the youngest Winchester, hoping he could feel his grip on him.
"Everything's gonna be ok. I got you, Sammy. Everything's gonna be ok," he growled. "Just don't let him win!" He watched Sam's eye twitch and jumped on the idea of taking it as a good sign. "Everything's gonna be ok. I got you, Sammy. Everything's gonna be ok," he repeated, more loudly. He felt the muscles in Sam's arms pulse just for a second. "Everything's gonna be ok. I got you, Sammy. Everything's gonna be ok!"
Sam's head tilted slightly, then suddenly his eyes opened. Dean felt himself jump, just as he realised there was sweat pouring down his own back, and something else sticky and warm down his front.
"Sam!" he crowed triumphantly, grabbing his brother's face and steadying it. "You're ok! Right? Right?" He watched his brother's eyes swirl back and forth between green-brown and yellow.
"Kinda," Sam allowed, smiling broadly. "I just made a deal with the devil."
Dean's face fell. Sam put his hands up and aimed for Dean's arms. He could feel the muscles tight and knew what it meant.
"It's ok, Dean," he soothed quickly. "He was begging me."
"Deals? More deals?" Dean demanded, anguished. Sam was taken by surprise. "What did he want, Sam? Whose soul this time? Or were there not enough to go round?"
Sam felt Dean's hands leave his face and had a moment to wonder if Dean had stumbled or he had.
"No - I got his. I got his," Sam grinned. "We win! You killed him, I got him to sell his immortal soul! We win!"
Dean just stared. "I don't get it!"
"He knew he was beat. He's promised me - made a deal that he will never try to escape - from in here," he added, tapping his head pointedly. "I agreed. He's never allowed to escape, can never even attempt to escape, can never welch on this deal. He can cause all the crap he wants, but he can ever escape me."
Dean stared, his eyes darting from one of Sam's to the other. "Do you realise what you've done?" he whispered in horror. "To yourself? Sammy - I never wanted this for you--"
"Well maybe I did," Sam interrupted. "Maybe I wanted my whole, screwed up life to mean something. Maybe I wanted a chance to make someone bend to us for a goddamn change!"
Dean held him up by his arms, nodding slowly. "Ok, alright, ok, you did good," he allowed, but his voice was far too controlled, far too soothing. "So how do we get him out?"
The sweat on his back was rolling down too easily, soaking into the waist of his jeans, Dean realised. He tutted, confused as to how an empty circle could be causing so much heat. He began to turn around.
"Son of a--"
He stopped short as the plain truth of the matter was hammered home.
No longer the corner of a crypt, the room had succumbed to more than just a fist-fight between humans and a recently escaped fallen angel. The gateway to Hell, allowed to fester and boil, had melted and attacked the very edge of reality itself. Crags and blocks of the ground fell away, tumbling down into the heart of the Pit.
Dean grasped Sam's arms and hauled him clear of the steadily widening circle. The walls began to quake and rumble even as they stumbled to the rear of the crypt, heading for the door through which they had come.
Early morning light streamed in through the beautifully stained windows. Until they shattered and splintered, the rock walls and wooden mounts bending and giving under unearthly machinations.
"What the hell?" Dean called over the noise of destruction.
"Maybe it wasn't so water-tight," Sam allowed.
"Whut?" Dean demanded, shaking his brother slightly. "Whut's that supposed to mean?"
"I said he could try whatever he wanted - as long as he didn't try and escape me," he explained.
"And?"
"And… well, maybe I forgot an addendum about not letting the manhole to Hell keep spreading until it engulfed the place."
"Dumbass!" Dean accused. He pulled Sam's head down by his jacket as the wall collapsed, ducking them both away from the site and into the passageway beyond. When they straightened, it was in empty air that smelt of cool morning breeze. "Any more bright ideas, Quatermass?"
"Like?"
"This place is falling apart quicker than stage 28 at Universal," Dean observed. "We need to find a way to end him and get you free of him for good."
Sam failed to argue, following his brother beyond the trembling, falling walls and out into the sunshine. They looked around, watching the last of the crypt walls quiver and give out. The stone piled down, creating a mountain of dust which they were surprised to see clear so quickly.
Until they realised they were now in a very windy, open space. The ground shook slightly, the keen crumbling edge of Hellish fire starting to creep toward them, biting more and more out of what now appeared to be a cliff bordering on either a volcano or a straight drop into Hell.
"Whut the--. How did we get here?" Dean gasped.
"We haven't moved," Sam called into the buffeting wind. "The convent was down there!" He pointed into the steadily widening pit.
"Oops!" Dean allowed. "We might have screwed up here, Sammy!"
"If he defaults, if he welches, I win!" Sam grinned.
"Whut!"
"If he welches - I win!" Sam repeated. "It's built-in! I knew he couldn't resist fighting his way out - I knew he'd lie and try to destroy us both - I've got him! And he'll never realise what he's just done! He'll never know that it was him - he's imprisoned himself for eternity!"
Dean stared at his kid brother, the yellow eyes alight with cunning and brilliance.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Dean demanded, but it came out more admiring than damning. Sam simply shook his head, waving him off.
"We've won! He's lost - he lost the moment Azazel came onto the scene! That's what's going to destroy him!"
Dean looked at him - just looked. He felt exhaustion catching up with him in a big way, making him sway slightly. He looked around at the scene of impending fire and death.
"So whut do we do now? How do we stop that hole spreading? Any ideas?" he called over the wind, his arms out in resignation.
"Actually?" Sam chuckled, "I've got one idea left. And it's a real doozy."
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Hope it does the job! Next chapter coming Sunday 12th July. :)