Double-update day!
I just realized that I wrote this kinda using the S7 storyline but I always think of this Sam as having the puppy-dog personality of S1-2. Odd, right?
Sam struggled against the ropes he was bound with, testing their strength. "I'm not a shifter or a demon or any kind of monster, Dean!" he shouted hoarsely, coughing as blood found its way into his airways from his rubbed-raw throat. "DEAN!"
"What do you want?" Dean's voice was cold as he stepped out of the shadows of the dimly lit cabin. He strode up to where Sam was tied to the wooden pillar with the precise calculation of a predator. Sam shivered and instinctively shied away from the wickedly sharp knife in his brother's practiced hand.
"Dean, you're making a big mistake. I'm COMPLETELY NORMAL. You don't have to do this," he pleaded. "Dean, please!"
"Shut up," Dean snarled, whipping the knife across Sam's face, opening up a hair-thin slash along his right cheek. Sam hated that brief glimmer of satisfaction that his wince brought to Dean's eyes. "You have no right to say you're Sammy."
"And what if I give myself the right?" Sam asked quietly, raising his eyes to meet Dean's. He ignored the rivulets of blood that traced their way down his face. "That was Ruby's knife, and it was probably dipped in holy water too. I should be screaming by now."
Dean's eyes, which had previously been hard and unyielding, betrayed a flicker of self-doubt. They shuttered again within nanoseconds. "You could be a Leviathan," he accused.
Sam raised his eyebrows skeptically. "Do you really believe that? Am I bleeding black goo?"
"No."
"So? What's the verdict, captain?" Sam's voice switched into a different tone as something inside of him just clicked into place. It was almost like there was a faint echo of a different voice just after Sam's, and it was scornful. "You know I'm me."
Dean cocked his head to the side fractionally, seeming to be in an internal struggle with himself. Then he shook his head and brought the knife in his hand down in a massive arc to land in Sam's thigh. Sam howled in agony, trying to dislodge the blade from his leg, but to no avail. The thing in Sam's mind roared for Dean's blood, swearing revenge. Sam quelled it with reason. This was Dean. He was just trying to find out what had happened to his brother. Dean leaned in close to Sam's ear and Sam shuddered as his brother's words rang through his ears. "I know you're not my Sammy. You can't be him. Wanna know why?"
"Why?" Sam spat bloody saliva into Dean's face.
The older hunter leaned closer to Sam's ear and whispered, "Because I saw you after the fight with Dick, where the leader of the damn Leviathans dropped dead, courtesy of you! You had wings and claws and scales. You were a monster, brother." The last word was tossed scornfully in his direction like an old paper bag.
"I…I can't explain that, Dean!" Sam roared back at Dean, staring furiously into his brother's hard green eyes. "I'm trying to figure out how I killed Dick just as much as you are! One second, I was Sam, and the next, there was something else that I was, but it was still me! I. Don't. KNOW!"
"Like I'll believe you," Dean snarled. He hefted the silver blade again, yanking it from Sam's thigh with a slight twist. He ignored Sam's agonized pleas and raised the knife, bringing it to rest just above the hair-thin slash on Sam's cheek. "How about we stop lying now?" Ruby's knife cut deeper now, leaving a bloody trail in its wake as its impossibly sharp tip forged its way through flesh and veins across the length of Sam's cheek and down past his mouth, leaving its path to end at Sam's chin. Crimson flowed from both wounds now, and Sam's mind was still in overdrive, trying to fix that gaping hole where a perfectly healthy thigh should be. "I'll be back later," Dean spat, "and you'd better be telling the truth by then." He strode from the room and disappeared into the shadows that spilled from the sides of the cabin and exited from some unseen door, slamming it behind himself.
Sam was alone. He was bleeding and he was desperate and he wanted Dean back.
Please, he pleaded to that force in his mind, that creature that he could not explain. Just help me show him that I'm still Sam!
There was silence in Sam's mind for one minute, two minutes, three—
Hello, Sam.
"What are you?" Sam gasped out to the empty room.
I'm you. Or a part of you, I suppose. You could call me an…extension of yourself.
Sam's mind reeled, trying to process this. "What's your name?" he breathed. "What are you to me?"
I'm Lucifer.
Instantly, thousands upon thousands upon millions of memories of torture and fear and pain and every agonizing piece of fear in the world rushed through Sam's mind, culminating to form the image of a single fallen angel. It was him. This thing was the angel that dominated Sam's nightmares, and now he was here to stay?
Not that one. I'm older than my angelic counterpart.
"What?" Sam choked out past the fear. "But you're Lucifer. You're evil."
Wrong. I'm Lucifer, true. But I'm not the Morning Star. I'm before his time.
"So what are you?"
A dragon. Or you. Both, really. There's quite the fine line between those two terms.
"Dragon? A dragon? That-that can't be true! I'm not a dragon!"
You're not. I am. We just share the spaces in between. This Lucifer's voice was smooth, but had a rough undertone to it, almost like the growl in Castiel's voice. I'm sorry that I put you in this situation.
Sam closed his eyes, shaking his head as he stared down at his bloody leg. "Just leave me alone," he murmured.
There was a stabbing feeling of misery and hurt from this Lucifer. The consciousness that was the dragon withdrew, but then that smooth-rough voice called through his head again, soft as a whisper.
You can call me anytime, Sam.
When Sam regained consciousness, it was dark out and the shadows in the corners had extended to bleed through the whole room. That was when he felt it.
Lucifer prodded gently at Sam's anguished mind, allowing himself entry into the mind that he shared with the hunter. I can heal it, Sam, he whispered in that powerful-yet-comforting voice of his. That stab wound from Dean.
Sam pried his eyes open, glancing down at the gaping gash where Ruby's knife had been. Every once in a while, his heart would give a lurching beat and a trickle of fresh blood would ooze from the wound. "How?" he asked the supposed dragon. "You're not an angel."
I know, the mind replied amusedly. I'm older. He scooted farther forward in Sam's mind, and Sam closed his eyes to find himself on the top of that familiar icy mountain.
The mountain from his dream!
Sam looked down at himself wildly, checking for the body he'd had then, looking for the scales, the claws; the wings. But there was only human flesh.
"You will not see yourself like that until you're healed." The dragon's voice resounded behind him, not in his mind. Sam whirled to see a massive ebony dragon towering above him, its golden eyes wide and quizzical. "Hello, Sam," it purred, nearly like a cat as it rubbed its snout against the hunter's body, nearly knocking him over. After all, the muzzle was five times as long as Sam was tall.
"Lucifer," Sam whispered in awe.
The black dragon's chuckle almost sounded like thunder. "Call me Luc."
"You're the reason I was able to kill Dick Roman?" Sam asked in shock, reaching out a hand to touch the dark, sleek snout. "You're in me?"
Luc hummed in agreement. "Welcome to the astral projection of Old Earth. This is where the souls of all of the old dragons roam. You'll see them from time to time."
"Old dragons? Old Earth?" Sam asked confusedly. "What are you talking about?"
"He never really explained, did he?" Lucifer asked sadly, shaking his massive head in disappointment. "Well, suffice to say that there was once another version of Earth, and the old inhabitants were dragons. When God came around, he made a new Earth over the old one and created his own superior race: angels. He forced us into dormancy, promising us immortal lives as soon as our souls were born into those of humans. He allowed us to live in a spiritual version of Old Earth, which is where we stand now. So, once again, welcome to the dream land where our souls lie in wait for rebirth." The black dragon nodded to himself. "Yes, Sam, this is amazing indeed. I saw that you enjoyed my form, both in your dream and in reality."
Sam shifted his feet nervously. "Dean's freaked out. He's been interrogating me." Suddenly, a twinge of pain shot through his leg, and Sam looked down to see the stab wound glistening red and brown against his jeans. He looked up at Luc with a pleading frown. "Can you help me?"
"Of course, Sam," the dragon purred, bringing his nose to touch Sam's thigh. The touch spread warmth through his veins and made Sam feel like he was caught in an electrical current with energy just waiting to be harnessed. The feeling of his flesh knitting together was almost unbearably itchy, but then all that was left was the heat. "There," Lucifer growled in satisfaction, bringing his nose away.
Sam rubbed at a spot on the reptile's snout, grinning boyishly when Luc purred and thumped his tail against the ground. "Thanks," he told his newfound second identity.
"Sam, I'm here for you," Lucifer assured his much smaller charge. He suddenly stretched his limbs and lay down on his chest, tucking his legs underneath himself like a cat. "Come stay warm with me, Sam," he beckoned the hunter. "It's too cold up here for a human like you."
With his leg feeling pleasantly warm and whole, Sam crawled over to Luc's smoky black belly, pressing himself against the warmth of the massive stomach. Purring in satisfaction, Luc stretched out one of his enormous, tent-like wings of steel. The bladelike feathers nestled against Sam's cheek, but they did not cut him. The edges were so fine that they felt like hairs instead of steel wires. Underneath Luc's wing, the air was significantly warmer than the biting wind of the mountaintop. "Thanks, Luc," Sam murmured sleepily before drifting off into oblivion.
A resounding roar echoed around the mountain peaks, waking man and dragon alike. Sam and Luc looked up with confused, groggy eyes. Sam gasped at what he saw.
An emerald green dragon was soaring between the peaks, letting loose rippling sheets of gold-green flames that melted the ice of the high-up summits. The sun shone through the wings of the creature and painted the landscape underneath green.
"Who is that?" Sam asked Luc breathlessly, getting to his feet and standing under the shadow of Luc's body.
"That is Michael," Luc replied. "The biggest, oldest, and most powerful of all the dragons. He is the one who turned my scales black, after a great battle that has been recorded by God's own hand." The dragon's voice was laced with a faint tone of resentment for lost battles. "But he's my brother, so I've forgiven him."
Sam looked up at his dragon's great, glittering golden eye. "Is he inside a human? I mean, is this another human's dream too?"
"Let's go see," Luc rumbled good-naturedly, but Sam could detect a hint of apprehension in the dragon's voice. "Get on my back."
"Where?" Sam looked helplessly at the glittering mass of scales, wings, and spikes
The dragon sighed. "Right between where my wings begin, there's a dip in my back. Get up there, hold on to the spike in front of you, and rest your feet on the bulge of scales where my wings begin." He waited while the hunter nimbly clambered up before standing, rising to his usual magnificent height. "Let's go!" he roared, and he reared on his hind legs with a bellow, loosing a pillar of golden flame.
Michael, the jade reptile that soared higher above, returned the roar and dove, spiraling towards Sam and Lucifer with his wings tucked to his sides. As Lucifer took off with a windstorm of wingbeats, Sam could see that a human rode on the back of the other dragon.
"Go closer," he yelled to Lucifer over the deafening wind. The air snatched his words away, but the mind link between Luc and Sam seemed to allow the dragon to hear him. Luc obliged the human's request and turned to the left, angling towards Michael. As the two dragons drew closer, Sam could see just how different the two were.
Where Lucifer was lithe and graceful, Michael was all muscle and brute power. Where Lucifer's wings were feathers of black steel, Michael's were soft, translucent membranes. Where Michael's scales were forest green, Lucifer's were smoky obsidian.
And where Sam sat on Lucifer, Dean sat on Michael.
The brothers' eyes met in shock.
Lucifer let out a warning bellow before wheeling in a circle and diving, spiraling down and away, farther and farther from the shock, from the fact that the other dragon was Sam's own brother.
He was falling, falling-
Sam's eyes flew open and he coughed out a hoarse breath, panting from the vivid dream.
A gun clicked.
Sam looked up to see the barrel of the Colt aimed at his forehead.
"So," Dean said conversationally, pulling the hammer back, "Care to explain?"