Don't Dream It's Over - Chapter 2 – Renaissance
So here's the deal: I posted Don't Dream It's Over as a one-shot, complete. But as sometimes occurs, the story wasn't quite done telling itself. So there are now four more chapters. I hope everyone who read Don't Dream… will take note of the continuation and take another look. I was gonna just post this as a new story, but I figured most people wouldn't go back and read the first one, and the story would lack context.
I promise there won't big a big time lag between chapters. Reviews are champagne and chocolate.
This chapter picks up about two weeks after the events of "Don't Dream It's Over"
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Sam thought he would never stop crying but eventually, he did. But by then it was as if every tender feeling, every kind thought or generous impulse he had ever possessed had flowed out of him on that river of tears. Sam thought, hell, maybe he's dealing with Dr. Fucking Phil's "stages of grief", but all out of order. Because he'd skipped right over denial – Shit, no point in that was there? Not when he had seen, heard, lived it happening. Denial just wasn't an option here. Bargaining? – Been there, done that. No takers. But the ANGER - now that feels right. He can feel it rearing inside him like a hydra, threading through every vein, permeating every cell, replacing all that he had been with a black poisonous nothingness.
He needs nothing and no one. (Well - of course that's not quite true, he thinks. He is missing the other half of his soul, after all.) And he needs to kill things. But – hey – that makes him just another amputee soldier in the Army of Darkness, no?
Sam's anger informs and infuses his every thought, act, breath, word. With each heartbeat he feels it grow stronger, feeding itself on itself while it consumes every unnecessary part of the person who was Sam Winchester. Nothing now remains of that worthless and ineffectual cowardwho let his brother die – and good riddance to him. Sam will forge of his vestiges a weapon that will end the one who wrought this maelstrom of grief and damnation – the bitch Lilith.
It began this way: When he finally was able to think about that night without immediately wanting to tear out his eyes, he replayed every second in his head – letting it pass across his vision like he was watching someone's old home movie, (although he did have to just fast forward past the tearing and ripping portion.) But he slowed the reel down after that, examining each frame minutely beginning with when Lilith tried to blast him into oblivion. He could tell from her face when the smoke from her demon nuke had cleared that she'd fully expected to see nothing more than a greasy blot on the wall where he'd been; when Sam had actually stood and walked toward her holding Ruby's knife she'd been stunned. At the time he'd been too crazed for it to register, but as he reflected now he realized he had seen something else in Lilith's eyes just before she had thrown back her head and jetted herself out of Ruby's borrowed body. He had seen fear.
This knowledge forms the last component of Sam's transformation. His anger, honed to keenness, is now wedded inextricably to Purpose. He will destroy Lilith, but before he does he will find a way to make her free Dean and bring him back.
Sam realized there were things he would need to fulfill his Purpose. Money. Equipment - like a new computer. Better weapons. Those he would build himself; and he would continue to hunt – anything and everything but especially DEMONS.
The next few weeks pass swiftly. Sam scours newsfeeds, weather reports and the loose net of hunter communications to track demons and werecreatures. With each succeeding day, his senses sharpen. He is all predator now, dormant and remote except when hunting. He barely sleeps, but it is enough. He hunts day and night.
He is aware of subtle but profound changes that have been occurring inside him since that night. He understands that these changes had already begun months before Dean…. left, but Dean had been a buffer between Sam and danger, and that included the dangerous parts of Sam. Now there is nothing standing between Sam and his darkness, and that's just fine with him.
Perhaps whatever Lilith zapped him with had something to do with the acceleration of these changes, because a few weeks after that night of madness and loss Sam had sought out a mid-level demon at a crossroads outside of Bent Fork, Idaho seeking, on the pretense of cutting a deal for Dean's return, to catch some whiff of Lilith. The demon, radiating fear, had refused to deal and had attacked Sam instead. Sam had killed him without laying so much as a finger on him - without exorcism, without the Colt or Ruby's knife or a Devil's trap. As the demon rushed him, moving almost too fast to be seen, he merely extended his arm, closed his fist, and the creature dropped as if poleaxed, imploding messily. Sam was mildly surprised at the ease of this; the power was simply there and he used it. What was more surprising was that immediately the life force quitted its former receptacle - the black smoke roiling and congealing on the ground - a faint greenish scintillation separated itself from the remains, coruscated around Sam, and was absorbed into him almost instantly. At the moment of this occurrence, Sam understood that this was life energy – that which can be neither created nor destroyed, only transformed. It is neither evil nor good - it is now HIS energy, and like a nuclear reactor produces as much power as its users require, the demon energy feeds Sam's growing power.
He explores this power, testing its limits and his, and the purposes to which it can be turned. Two weeks and twenty dead demons later he finds he can move at that same speed that makes demons appear to teleport. He can blow them out of a host and back to Hell or kill them outright with minimal effort. He can sense demon presence, sniffing it out among the millions of psychic spoor trails produced by sentient beings. He can immobilize them mentally and physically with a thought, pinning them like bugs on a board. He can even possess them after a fashion – see through their eyes, control their limbs – make them do things.
He deals with the implications of his new powers the same way he deals with everything else: methodically, dispassionately, with singularity of purpose. How will it get him closer to Lilith. How can he use it to make her bring Dean back.
Of less interest are the philosophical and moral aspects of his new situation. Specifically: Exactly what kind of freak does this make him? What will he be by the end of this evolution? Seems like it's always been the same questions; same no-answers.
Besides, there are more immediate concerns. He is running out of money. He will get some…