Someone is screaming when Sam wakes. He lies there, trying and failing to open his eyes. His head hurts, like someone drilled a nail through his skull. Gathering his thoughts is like gathering a cloud of smoke in his hands. He wants to drift back to wherever he was, back to the dark. Someone is screaming.
He peels his eyes open and it's just as dark as when they were closed. His senses kickstart one by one. His mouth is desert-dry, his skin is tight with cold. His ears start to work again and the screaming isn't screaming. A storm rages above, fearsome and destructive.
"Jesus." That's Dean. His voice sounds like it's coming from the end of a tunnel, closer and closer, like and oncoming train Sam can't move out of the way of.
"Sam," Dean says. "Are you okay?"
"You hit me," Sam replies. It comes back to him in pieces, he arranges the puzzle in his mind starting with the edges.
"I'm sorry," Dean says. His voice is small under the raging wind above them. "I just – I had to stop you."
Sam sits up. He feels like he's doing somersaults simply by sitting still. His stomach twists. If he throws up, he's doing it on Dean. Wherever Dean is. Sam squints in the dark.
"Where are you? Where are we?"
"I'm right next to you. I turned the lamp off, didn't want to make you feel worse than you probably already do," Dean says, matter-of-fact. "Sorry about hitting you, by the way."
When Dean says sorry, what he really means is I'd do it again.
"We're in the basement," Dean adds. "I figured we'd be safer down here."
Sam lowers himself back down and closes his eyes. He's never been so tired. "I didn't even know there was a basement here," he says. "There's a lot I didn't know."
He hears Dean sigh. "I was keeping all that from you because I was scared, alright?" Dean says. Overhead, something cracks like a whip. A tree snapping, perhaps. Dean carries on like he didn't hear it, "Everything Bobby said, it scared me, man. I knew it had something to do with you and I just wanted to keep you far away from that."
"That wasn't your choice to make," Sam snaps, and promptly winces, head pounding. "Look, Dean. I get it. I get that you're scared of losing me, but you're acting crazy, don't you see?"
Dean huffs a laugh. "I'm crazy? Jesus, Sam. I'm not the one shooting at shadows."
Sam opens his eyes and turns his head in the direction of Dean's voice. "You still don't fucking believe me," he mutters. He raises his voice above the rushing waves of the storm. "Dean, you realise you're keeping me captive, right?"
"Fuck, Sam. That's not what this is. I'm keeping you safe."
"You wouldn't let me leave," Sam says. "You kept the phones away from me. You kept Bobby's messages from me. When I tried to leave, you knocked me out."
Dean is quiet for a moment, and in this unbearable dark, Sam could believe he'd vanished, or was simply never there to begin with. "I lost Mom," Dean says, and Sam startles. "I lost Dad. I'm not losing you, too."
Sam rolls away, cot creaking under his weight. "Maybe you already have."
Sam doesn't mean to fall asleep. The sun rises between blinks, from lying cold in the dark beneath a raging storm to thin lines of morning light coming through the floorboards. He must have been more tired than he thought, or maybe it's the hit to the head that had him falling so easily into unconsciousness.
The wind is still wild, but the roaring tsunami of last night has whittled down to gentle moans. Dean is asleep, propped up against the wooden stairs, gun on his lap. Sam doesn't want to know what the gun was for. Bullets wouldn't stop a storm.
He moves so slow he holds his breath. The cot creaks, but Dean doesn't wake. He breathes in deep at the foot of the steps. They look old, likely to kick up a fuss under feet as heavy as Sam's. He tests his weight on the bottom step and is relieved to find it unbothered. He keeps going to the next one, and the next. The fourth rouses under his weight and groans. He freezes.
Dean stirs beneath him, coughs.
"Sam?" he says to the empty cot.
Sam scrambles to the top of the stairs and shoves at the trap door. He hears Dean clamber to his feet below, hears the creak of the fourth step as he follows. Sam bursts through the door and into the sun-soaked cabin. Everything is awash with dawn light, golden and red. The lock on the front door gave way in the night, a mess of twigs and dead leaves carpet the hardwood.
The leaves crunch under his feet as he runs out the door. He doesn't stop at the treeline, where his creature has been waiting; he keeps going. Dean cries out to him from behind, his voice never drifting further away. Dean's fast but Sam is faster, he lets his long legs carry him through the forest.
He doesn't know where he's going. Each step looks the same as the one before. Each tree is a replica of the last. He doesn't have time to think of direction, all he can do is run and run and run.
"Sam, stop!" Dean's voice is breathless, distant.
Sam's heart pounds fast enough to ache, his whole chest is on fire. He hasn't felt this good in a long time. It surges through him, from his middle to his extremities. There's a tree broken from its roots, waiting to fall. Sam focuses all of his anger and fear and pain on that tree. As he runs by, he stretches his hand, pushes at air like he's pushing through water.
He hears it fall to the ground with a crack. He risks a peek over his shoulder and watches Dean stumble over the fallen trunk to the ground. He picks himself back up, jeans torn and bloody at the knees.
"Sam, look out!"
His legs, cramped and aching, are willing to obey and Sam skids through crisp orange leaves to his knees, right where the ground ceases to exist. There's a sloped drop about fifteen feet deep, straight to a rocky crag below.
His fingers curl and grip at tree roots as he pants, trying to catch his breath.
"Sam," Dean says, voice approaching. "Sammy, stop. I'm sorry for lying to you, and for punching you. Let's just go back to the cabin. We can leave now. We can pack up and go. Wherever you want."
Sam sucks in a painful gulp of air and wipes forehead sweat on the back of his hand. His mouth is full of saliva and he spits a mouthful over the edge. Dean takes a step closer and Sam's palm comes up, sending Dean skidding back as if hit by last night's storm.
"Dean," he says, words forcing themselves out between wheezing breaths. "I'll go with you, okay? But once we get out of here, I think I'll go my own way. Just for a little while."
He looks up at Dean's face, red-cheeked and wind-swept. His brows are drawn at the middle, lips pinched together.
"What if something happens?" he asks. "You heard what Bobby said. People like you are turning up dead."
"I'll go to Bobby, then," Sam offers. "Somewhere safe. I just need time… away from you."
Dean swallows thickly and Sam thinks maybe he'll march over and tackle Sam, drag him back to the cabin and stuff him in the basement again. Instead, he nods.
"I'm sorry. Fuck, Sam. I'm so sorry. I just panicked."
"I know," Sam says softly, rising to his feet. He holds out his hands like Dean is a startled dog, and Dean gives a tiny smile. Behind Dean, coming closer and closer, Sam sees it. Fear hollows out his chest and time seems to slow as it approaches. Sam sees it this time. He can see its face.
"Oh, God," he hears himself say. He stumbles, backwards, and the world tilts upside-down. The last thing he sees before he falls over the edge is Dean's face, seconds before panic kicks in, and just behind him, something all too familiar.
Waking up in strange, dark places is becoming too common. The moon is a bright thumbprint in the sky, its light catches the stream in silver, the water laps at Sam's feet. He sits up. It's dark but the moon and stars fill the sky like lanterns. Sam can see the silhouettes of trees.
He stands, unsteady on the rocky ground. He catches himself on hard stone, a wall of dirt and tree roots that stretches up into the dark. He remembers standing up there with Dean, but it feels so long ago it might have been a dream.
He fell, Sam remembers that surely. At least, he remembers the falling part, just the beginning as the sky went from above to below.
His head aches, sharp right behind his left eye, every bone in his body complains about some ache or another.
"Dean?" he calls out and upwards. There's no answer but that of an owl, and his own voice bouncing off the cliff wall and back to him. He tries again and again, but Dean doesn't reply.
Maybe his powers protected him. And maybe. Maybe Dean is gone, taken by that thing. He remembers that, briefly. It's shape as it grew nearer, its face like a shadow over Dean's shoulder.
Sam begins to walk, over rocky ground in the pitch black. One leg threatens to buckle with each step, but he keeps going. The cliff slopes down to the stream and Sam hoists himself up by the branch of a tree. He wishes he had a flashlight or his phone, anything that might light his path.
Walking through the woods this late at night is barely different from walking blindfolded. Each slight rustle sends his heart racing, has him ducking down and searching the dark for that yellow eye. Sam turns his eyes upwards and finds the moon and stars, just to be sure they're still there, that there's more out here than only darkness. He feels for a tree trunk and levers himself to his feet. He walks on.
The cabin windows illuminate in the distance like pinpricks in a lampshade. Sam hurries, legs eating up the ground at an uneven pace. The bright yellow windows get bigger and bigger in the dark. He lets out a shaky breath, one his fear had kept encased within him, and he stumbles up the porch steps. The door is jammed shut. Sam frowns and yanks at the handle. No matter how hard he pushes, it won't budge.
He calls for Dean and gets no answer. The lock was blown off twice, by both Sam and the wind. Sam smacks the door, and kicks it for good measure, but still he gets no reply.
He sidesteps to the window.
The first thing he sees is his brother. Dean is coiled tight, perched on one of the kitchen chairs by empty fireplace. His hands are clenched, white-knuckled and propped under his chin. He stares into an empty corner of the room, his equally empty expression bathed in weak lamplight.
Sam taps the window, but Dean doesn't so much as twitch. His face is hard as stone, his jaw clenched and trembling.
Then, Sam sees what Dean is deliberately not looking at. Stretched out on the couch, too-long legs hanging over the edge, is himself. It takes a moment to recognise his own face; he's whiter than white, grey around the edges. One eye is dipped closed, the other is missing altogether. A thick twig protrudes from his left socket and another sticks out of his belly.
His mind goes to an unexpected place at the sight, the same place it goes when he investigates corpses at morgues. Pure curiosity and morbid fascination. Sam thinks maybe he should be panicking more, but he's beyond that.
"It's okay," a soft voice says. Sam turns and finds a young woman, alight even in the dark. She smiles at him and holds out her hand. Sam knows exactly what she is. "It's time to go, now," she says.
Sam lifts his hand, feels it drawn to her like a moth to a flame. She radiates calm, Sam feels each of his aches and pains fade away.
"I can make all of this go away," another voice says inside. Sam turns away from the reaper and peers through the window. Dean doesn't look up, not even when a hand reaches over the couch and grips the twig in Sam's eye. There's a wet sound as it's pulled free.
"You've taken everything from me," Dean says flatly.
Sam has never seen this man before, but his yellow eyes are unmistakeable. Sam has dreamed about those eyes, about them fizzling away to nothing, one of the Colt's bullets embedded between them. White hot fury ripples through Sam. Yellow Eyes grins at Dean, dazzling white smile, and lays a hand on his shoulder. Dean shrugs him off, mouth curled in disgust.
"We have to go!" Sam's reaper hisses, gripping his shoulder. He shakes her off, not tearing his eyes away.
"I know, I know. The business with Mommy and Daddy was nasty," says Yellow Eyes, "but what happened to poor Sam here has nothing to do with me."
"Everything has been because of you!" Dean snaps, gaze finally pulled away from the corner of the room. When he looks at Yellow Eyes, his eyes are shining wet and full of hate.
Yellow Eyes chuckles and raises his hands. "I wouldn't say everything. Sure, I pull a string here and there, but this path was paved by very human decisions. Yours, to be exact. If you hadn't gone wacko and locked your brother away, he wouldn't have run from you."
Dean rolls his eyes. "Jesus. I don't need the lecture. Why don't you just hurry up and kill me already?"
Sam bangs his fist against the wall and tries to reach his hand through where the empty window pane was, to no avail. He cries, "No! Dean!"
Two yellow eyes slide over to the window, to Sam. He gives him a wink. Sam is struck cold.
"I'll make you a deal here, Dean-o," Yellow Eyes says, turning his attention back to Dean. "I'll bring back Sam and in exchange – "
"Yes," Dean says, quick as a bullet.
The demon raises an eyebrow. "You don't want to hear my terms?"
"I don't care," Dean grinds out. He gets to his feet. He's taller than Yellow Eyes's meatsuit, but he manages to look so much smaller. He says, "I'll give you whatever you want. Just bring him back."
"Oh, God," the reaper whispers. She tugs on Sam's arm. "Come with me! We need to go right now!"
Yellow Eyes grins. "Nice to have an eager customer," he says, and grips Dean by the shoulders. "Pucker up."
Sam can't look away, the reaper's pleas fall on deaf ears. Dean's face is twisted and sour, eyes clenched closed. Sam screams at him through the window, but the only Sam Dean can see is the one on the couch.
"It's too late," the reaper says from behind. She looks up at him mournfully. "I'm sorry," she says. "I tried."
When the smoke comes, she doesn't try to fight. The look she gives Sam is one of pure agony and she closes her eyes. When they open, Sam sees only yellow.
The feel of her palm against his forehead is like a shock of lightning.
Sam doesn't speak for a long time after he wakes up, but Dean doesn't mind. Sam is here. He's here. Sam doesn't have to say anything for as long as he lives, so long as he lives a long time. He's quiet as Dean opens the medical kit to bandage up Sam's eye. Maybe Dean should have read the terms and conditions, he should have asked for Sam's eye to come included in the resurrection.
Dean doesn't care. He doesn't care if hellhounds come for him any second. Having Sam here, warm and breathing and alive, Dean doesn't need anything more. The feeling of Sam's body, cold and stiff, broken bones uneven under his skin, is one he'll never forget, one he'll have nightmares about for the rest of his days. He keeps one hand pressed to Sam's chest, just to feel his heart beat beneath his ribs.
"You shouldn't have done that," are Sam's first words.
"Done what?" Dean asks. Sam's lungs fill and empty, his chest gently rises and falls beneath Dean's palm.
"You made a deal," Sam accuses.
Dean doesn't reply. He removes his hand from Sam's chest and slowly winds the bandage around Sam's head.
"I died," Sam says. "And you brought me back."
Dean pauses, looks him straight in the eye. "Yeah, I did. I'd do it again."
"And in ten years you go to hell?"
Dean shrugs. "I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I didn't ask what I was giving. It doesn't matter anyway."
"Of course, it does!" Sam yells. He pushes Dean away and gets to his feet. He pulls off the bandages and drops them on the floor as he wanders over to the window. He stares outside and the dark stares right back. He isn't afraid, Dean realises. Sam seems taller, somehow.
"It doesn't matter to me," Dean says. "You're worth more than anything. Even my soul."
"God, you're an idiot," Sam says, voice low through gritted teeth. The pressure in the room drops and the fireplace flickers. The skin on Dean's arms rise with gooseflesh, a chill runs up his spine. He tries to forget what Yellow Eyes did right before Sam took his first breath of his new life. He tries not to think about the stink of sulphur as he sliced his wrist, the pat, pat, pat of crimson droplets on Sam's tongue. He tries to forget, but when he looks at Sam all he sees is how red his lips are.
Dean flinches when a lamp shatters beside the bunkbed. Sam keeps glancing out the window. When he speaks, his voice is flat, empty, "I saw it. The thing in the woods. I know what it was."
"What was it?" Dean asks, even though he knows he doesn't want the answer. He has never felt fear like this, not when Dad died, not even when Sam died. He knows if he opened his mouth now, no words would come out. Every inch of him is frozen stiff, he doesn't dare move.
Sam turns, half his face caked in dried blood beneath his empty socket. A single yellow eye stares down at Dean, red lips part, his face is lax with wonder. Sam's voice fills the room, "It was my future."
END
A/N: I hope this was suitably chilling. I loved writing it and I'd love to hear your thoughts.