"Abyss" Sam/Dean for apocalyptothon, NC-17
Title: Abyss
Author: Alizarin_nyc
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Some graphic horror stuff throughout, NC-17 at the very end for sex.
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Spoilers: All of Season 2
Written for: The apocalyptothon, recipient slodwick. Beta by regala_electra.
Request: A breakdown between realities interrupts the Yellow-Eyed Demon's plans, and now the guys have an even bigger enemy to face.
Notes: Sam don’t know from physics, and neither do I, so I beg your patience in these matters of black holes and polarity and stuff. We just find it interesting.
Summary: Today was March 1st, 2010, by Sam’s best estimate. Nearly three years to the day that a fiery hell blast spiraled up and out of Wyoming, taking millions of lives and plunging the continent into some sort of strange dark place, full of all the stuff of nightmares.
The library held fourteen rows of dusty hardcover books. Sam liked the green-shaded lamps shining on the old wood tables in the back, and he’d perfected the art of being left alone there to peruse history books and his laptop to pull pieces of several puzzles together, but still not enough to give him a complete picture of the whole.
The Librarian was a stern-faced woman of thirty, who looked nearly twice her age. She read books aloud to herself in a low mumble that Sam had slowly grown accustomed to. When she began to bang her head against the check-out desk, Sam would have to get up from his seat and traipse down row H-L to the front to stroke her shoulder until she calmed. If he lost his patience and shouted at her or shook her, his whole day would be blown by the screaming.
Today was March 1st, 2010, by Sam’s best estimate. Nearly three years to the day that a fiery hell blast spiraled up and out of Wyoming, taking millions of lives and plunging the continent into some sort of strange dark place, full of all the stuff of nightmares.
He got up to piss in the stale, dank space that had once held toilets and now held cracked porcelain and non-working sinks. Old habits and all that. An old drain in the men’s room was the best option for a piss, not that anyone cared. But he wasn’t about to let the library smell of urine and shit, as long as he could help it. That’s why he cleaned up the Librarian’s mess, and occasionally took her outside and washed her down with lake water he’d brought up in buckets from Lake Susan.
He wasn’t about to descend into a state of mind where he’d be just as comfortable sleeping in his own filth as not. And he’d never let that happen to Dean, either.
Sam always got home before nightfall. He locked the library door behind him, replacing the salt over the lintel. He put a small dish of food on the counter as if the Librarian was a cat. In the morning he would check to make sure she’d nibbled at whatever it was. She watched him with her pale moon-face. He had no idea if she ever slept or not.
He’d chosen a corner apartment on the top floor of a big brick building with cornices and gargoyles and molding. Sam picked it for its location, not its beauty. In the center of town, it had windows that faced north, east, and west, three long windows on each side. Not all of the glass had been blown out, and the wooden shutters on the inside were easily boarded up and shut tight against whatever might try to crawl in. Sam wanted to see what was coming when he needed to, but he wanted to seal the place up like Fort Knox in an emergency.
There were too many emergencies.
He’d wondered how he’d get Dean down the stairs and out if it came to that, so eventually he rigged up a pulley to the fire escape. The two of them would be able to freefall down the 12 stories, and then he could get them into his van pretty fast. Seven and a half minutes, at last count. He’d planned it all out and had done several test runs with a sleeping bag packed full to weigh as much as Dean, which wasn’t very much anymore.
Sam found that he was better off in the apartment than out on the road, and as long as he could kill whatever came up the stairs, and keep the salt in stock, he would be safe and so would Dean. Driving all over would eventually kill Dean, so there was no point in running anymore. There was nowhere to go, anyway.
He unlocked the front door with his six keys and deactivated all the alarm systems. Climbing 12 flights of stairs had given him nice-looking calves that no one would ever see, but hey, he could definitely kick in the face of any vampire, demon or other that tried to get in his way. He rapped on the door quickly, in the code that he’d made up, even though Dean wouldn’t answer and wouldn’t know what it was.
“Hey there, buddy. Good to see you. How about you wake up and say hey tonight.”
There was no point in losing the habit of talking to Dean. If he could hear, he’d need to know that Sam was there, and if he couldn’t hear, Sam needed to talk to him anyway.
Dean lay still, unchanged. He’d been in a coma or something much like it, since Sam had fallen through his own reality into this one. It was hard for Sam to remind himself that Dean was alive and well somewhere else when this was the Dean that he lived with.
“I’m going to the Shear tonight, Dean, so I’m going to feed you, clean you and adjust your meds and then go. But I’ll be back, I always come back.” Sam brushed the hair off of Dean’s forehead. “You need a haircut man, you’re going Whitesnake on me.”
Sam went to the storage closet and pulled out a warm beer. He wedged the bottle against the counter and slammed his fist down on the top. He drank it down in one. Better to give Dean a haircut tomorrow, when he was less tired. Tonight he had to get moving and hurry to the Shear and back as quickly as possible.
He checked the supply of IVs and set Dean up with everything he needed to stay alive another day. His brother’s breathing was steady and even and tonight not even a grimace crossed his face. Sam was glad he wasn’t in pain. The first year had been a nightmare, with Dean unconscious but clearly in pain; his breath often stopped for long periods of time and Sam had nearly gone mad.
Amber had helped them. Amber, the pretty nurse who Sam had found cowering inside the inhospitable hospital - full of zombies and creatures that fed on flesh and blood. Amber hadn’t yet been killed or infected with the deadly flu that reminded Sam of The Stand.
Stephen King would shit himself if he could see half of what Sam’s seen.
Amber taught him how to insert an IV needle. Amber had taught him how to check Dean’s pulse and eyes and how to administer CPR. She taught him how to set a broken bone - had made him learn by doing his own fingers after a fight - and he’d taught her how to survive in return.
Only he hadn’t taught her well enough. He buried her outside of what had once been Austin, Texas, and shortly after that he’d dreamt of the Shear.
***
A creek's trickle wet the corner of his sneaker and the cool seeped in and set off a full-body chill. A week of rolling heat wave, followed by frost that crackled underneath the surfaces. Weather would never be a casual topic of conversation, ever again. The Apocalypse, as Sam thought of it, had twisted the earth's rotation on its axis and the sun could appear or disappear, along with clouds, storms, tornadoes, hurricanes and twisters of all shapes and sizes. He'd once woken to see the sun and the moon in the sky together, the sun a brownish round ball and the moon a deep blue. Whatever was in the air, he didn't want to know. Some days his lungs burned, and some days it snowed ash. Then other days smelled like spring and tiny flowers grew, only to be swept away by torrential rains within days.
Sam tugged the sweater he was wearing around him tightly, and ran faster. His endurance was better than it had ever been, bravo, Sam. Props where props were due. The trees whispered above him, and Sam ignored them. Demons in trees -- they were the worst. They changed locations and fucked with his head so that each time he came to the Shear he had to rely on the things he could trust. He couldn't trust living trees. Only the dead stumps of former trees, never occupied by demons, could be trusted. There were enough of those that were happy to keep Sam's knife marks safe for him, so he could find his way back.
Compasses were for shit. The air was full of metal and radiation and witchcraft. Sam knew roughly where he was, what the name of the town had been, but for all he knew, parts of the continent had shifted into the ocean and the moon had dragged Mexico off like a war bride.
What about the rest of the world? Dean had asked him, the first time they talked through the Shear. Maybe right now China is preparing to come over and help you out, or like, Russia or something.
I don't think so, Dean. It's been a year. I'd have seen or heard something, a plane in the sky, a radio transmission, something. I see nothing. I hear nothing. This world - the whole damn thing, is dead and dying. China's eaten up by demons, Russia's sunk into the sea, fucking Peru is on fire... I can only imagine. But if there were a place that was safe, if there were a place fighting back... don't you think I'd have heard by now?
Sam's feet pounded the ground, narrowly avoiding thrashing roots and a little spinning tornado of leaves. The demons were restless tonight. Maybe they knew something Sam didn't know.
“Whatever it is, I don't wanna know,” he said to himself. “Got trouble of my own, too deep to measure.” He smirked, thinking that his maudlin chants to himself felt a little like something Dean would’ve sung along to, blasting the car radio, purposefully out of tune to get a whiplash smile across Sam’s face. It wasn’t the first time he’d had that feeling.
Right arrow. Left arrow. Little squiggly arrow and he was there. The living trees had moved around and the Shear was now in a clearing. It was glowing blue-green, like a phosphorescent scar in the air. It was an honest-to-God rip in time and space. “Doctor Who got nothing on me,” Sam had said, the first time he saw it for real.
He'd dreamed of it for months. He didn't know what it was, only that it existed and that it carried a strong feeling of home. He'd followed it, piecing together signs and pictures from dreams, dragging Dean, lifeless but breathing, and Amber, reluctant and suspicious. Even after Amber died, Sam kept driving in his once-blue van, Dean and his tubes bouncing around in the back.
Sam sat on a tree stump and checked his watch. He was 13 minutes early. He'd never be late, but he didn't want to sit there, vulnerable in the clearing, for too long. He was tired, though. He sat and closed his eyes. He fucking deserved it. Three years of vigilance surely earned him ten minutes of downtime.
“Hey Sleepy. Where's Sneezey and Dopey?”
Dean's voice. Sweet and clear and the most beautiful thing Sam ever heard.
“Hey,” he opened his eyes. “I'm looking at Dopey.”
“Bitch.”
“Jerk.”
“That's my Sammy,” Dean crowed. Sam could see his triumphant grin on the other side of the Shear. The scar had widened; the rip in reality had grown into a hole big enough to see through, and Sam could see Dean's face, he could hear him, and he could see behind him into the cemetery -- a big blackened spot of earth dotted by white gravestones. “How's it kicking, little bro?”
“It's kicking. I'm still kicking. You're still kicking. Everything is kicking. You?”
“I'm fine, just fine. Miss you like a motherfucker, though.”
“Miss you too.” Sam hated that Dean had to reassure him every single time. He hated that he had to hold his emotions in check or risk digging into the forest floor and letting go completely. He had to stuff it all in, stuff it all back inside and use this time with Dean to move forward. Any backwards slide and he'd be toast. “Enough of the mushy bullshit,” he forced himself to say. “Any news?”
“Well, let's see.” Sam could immediately see from Dean's face that something was up, but it wasn't good. He forced himself to stay calm. Dean was doing his best. Screaming and cursing at him wasn't going to do any good. Dean had been through enough. Not like Sam had, but still.
“Ellen found ol' Yellow Eyes' trail, like I told you last time. Every hunter we ever knew, every hunter she knows, hell, every hunter ever born is on his ass. They'll find him.”
“And then they'll kill him, and I'll be stuck here.”
“No. No, Sammy. They know what's at stake. They want to know what this is as much as you do. An alternate reality where demons roam and all hell's broken loose, that's not something they take lightly.”
“Because they always look at the big picture.”
“Hey. No need to get sarcastic. Enough of 'em have seen the Shear to know that this thing is for real. They won't let us down. Sammy, I won't let you down.”
“I never said you would, Dean.”
“Okay then. Let's think positive. How's your research goin'?”
“I've made some progress. I've been reading a lot of science, string theory, alternate dimensions shit. I don't have the concentration I used to have, though.”
“Can't really blame you for that,” Dean said. His face was twisted in concern, blue-green and rippling through the Shear. Sam was used to seeing him like that. Dean always perched on a gravestone, leaning forward, staring into the Shear. He always looked like he was going to jump into it, even though they both knew that wasn't possible. They'd tried that, and each of them had ended up feeling like they'd stuck a fork in a socket, lying on the ground on their own side, the Shear rippling and shrinking up until next time.
Every nine days, for eleven and a half minutes, and it was never enough time.
“Dean,” Sam said. “Small talk wastes our time. Something's up, I can tell, and it isn't good. Spill it or I'll be fucking miserable for the next nine days.”
“Fuck, Sammy. Okay, here it is.” Dean took in a long breath. “There was a run-in with the Demon.”
“Did you tell him I said hello?”
“He's pretty pissed off. Hunter that saw him says he's weaker now, but he also said that Yellow Eyes says he wants his army back, and he plans to get it. Mentioned your name, too.”
“Well, I don't have his fucking army,” Sam said. “And I've seen Yellow Eyes, so we know he's definitely here, too. He's leading the charge, he's Mr. Chaos. He... wait, so there's two of them.”
“Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Two of you, two of me, two of him. Alternate universes, down to the last detail.”
“One of me,” Sam said.
“Two of you, Sammy, I saw you. Hell, I buried you. Don't tell me that wasn't real.” Dean shifted on his stone seat and Sam saw a look cross his face and flicker away in the dimming doorway of light.
“Dean, wait a second. Hold on. What are you sitting on?” Sam's mind, as it often did now, split off into two different directions. One was processing the news of having two Yellow-Eyed demons to deal with, and the other was a new thought -- a sudden curiosity as to where Dean had buried his body after the showdown at the cemetery when he'd been “killed.”
“Whose grave is that?”
“What are you talking about?”
“We're almost out of time, Dean. Whose grave is that?”
“Let's see, um...” Dean stood up and circled the stone, jutting up from long-neglected grass in the cemetery that Sam remembered all too well. “Bolivia Shagnasty, loving whore and sometime mistress, may she rest in peace.”
“You're hilarious. That's my grave, isn't it? You've been sitting on my dead body for two years while we've talked to each other? I cannot fucking believe you.”
“Come on, Sam. Why do you think I was standing here like a dumbass when the Shear opened up? Not a coincidence, if you ask me.”
But there was no time for Sam to ask him because the Shear shivered and shrank, the air in front of his face warming and then cooling again to match the night. “Fuck fuck fuck!” Sam swore.
***
Sam jogged down the hills and out of the forest. He passed by the old Victorian houses on the outskirts of the town, most of them with their doors marked with an X and their windows blacked out. Demons had killed the inhabitants or the virus had gotten them. The burned X on the door was the equivalent of saying that the house was a tomb; let the dead rest in whatever peace they could find. Sam had burned plenty of them on doors all across the country.
Sam took a shortcut down an alley leading back to the main street, where he'd stop at the demolished shell of a Ralph's and see if he could scare up a few more cans of beans and maybe some shampoo. He rounded the corner and saw a thin figure standing at the end of the alleyway. He drew his gun from the back of his pants and pulled his knife out of the sheath. Learning to be ambidextrous with weapons had saved his bacon more than once. The figure remained still and Sam approached cautiously.
“Hello sexy,” the girl called out.
“Desiree, is that you?” Sam said.
“Give me your holy water, let me take a sip, and let's get out of here, it's creeping me out.”
Sam uncorked his vial and handed it to her, making sure she ingested a good portion of it before taking a sip himself and then putting it back in his pocket and sighing with relief.
“Where have you been and more importantly, why are you here? If you're here and you've got demons on your tail, you're not doing me any favors.”
“Good to see you too,” she smirked. Desiree was a tall black woman, formerly head of sales in a New York firm. She’d been lucky enough to be on the road at a client's in Oklahoma when New York was incinerated in hellfire. She was a quick study and Sam had trained her and sent her on her way. She had family she was intent on tracking down and Sam knew better than to stand in the way of that, even though he could guess what the outcome would be.
“You told me where you thought your dreams would lead you. I've been checking in a multitude of small towns from here to the ass-crack of the world, Sam. Didn't think I'd ever find you, but here you are.”
“Yeah, here I am.”
“I know you're suspicious, and I swear I'm gonna move on. But I was bored as fuck and I don't know anyone in the whole entire world anymore. Can you blame me for looking you up?” Desiree spread her wide hands, long fingers splayed, shoulders shrugging as if to say why not?
“I guess not. But I ain't got a lot to share.”
“I can fend for myself, Sam. You taught me how. If anything, I owe you, and maybe I can help, if you need it?”
Sam sighed. Okay, Dez. You're right, I'm sorry.” He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. She smiled. Her teeth were still amazingly white.
“I've been followed around, yeah, and I hope I didn't bring you trouble, but I figure that one way or another, we're in a shitstorm of demons and there's always going to be someone on my tail. Can't blame them as I got pretty nice tail.” She wiggled her ass in his direction.
“Yeah,” Sam said, feeling the crack of dry skin on his face as a smile endeavored to creep up. “The best in the west, Dez.”
They made good time getting back to Sam's apartment. Desiree went into Dean's room and laid her hand on his cheek. “Hey Dean, how's my fine, sweet man?” Dean didn't move, of course, and Sam left her to commune with him for a few minutes. She was aware of how much Dean had taught Sam; she knew that her survival was thanks to Dean as well as Sam, and she'd always been good -- not as good as Amber, but better than Sam -- at talking to someone who never talked back. Sam still found it strange, even though by now it was second nature.
Sam went into the corner room he'd claimed as his, even though he slept in a nest of blankets in Dean's room every night. He sat in a chair and rested his hands on his knees. Desiree being here had sidetracked him from the other two threads running through his mind. One thread, news about Yellow Eyes and the other about how his brother was dealing with his death by sitting around on his grave like some sort of ghoul. He'd never thought about what Dean had done with his body, he'd only known that seeing Sam in the Shear was as much of a shock to Dean as it had been to Sam. It was harder to convince Dean that he wasn't a ghost; Dean had seen him die that night, killed by the Demon, who then sent their dad straight back to hell.
Sam figured Dean had burned his body just like they did to Dad's. It was just what they did. Fire was a Winchester thing. Ashes to ashes.
Sam let his hand stretch out on his jeans. The jeans weren't blue anymore, but a brownish rust color. Blood wasn't really red, it was brown. People always forgot that. But Sam couldn't forget the smell, taste and sight of blood; he'd bathed in it enough times. He'd barely escaped from a makeshift slaughterhouse in Oklahoma, built in a big barn on someone's farm, used by demons to corral and slaughter hundreds of humans. After wading through entrails in an enormous pen, his jeans had never gone back to their original color. Desiree had helped him out, lifting him bodily from the pen where he was nearly drowning in blood and fluid and going into shock. He'd collapsed on her, starry-eyed and panting and she'd helped him out, stitched him up like he'd taught her, and pumped out bucket after bucket of water when Sam kept insisting he'd never get clean.
She was a good person, Dez. Maybe he could use the company after all, though he'd been keen to part ways with her after a while, just because he didn't want to be responsible for her. Dean was almost too much, and anyone else was that much more of a burden.
“He's doing well,” Desiree said, coming into Sam's room and pausing, hands on her hips. “Needs a haircut, though. Where are your scissors?”
“I'll take care of his hair, Dez. Why don't you rustle up some dinner like a good woman should?”
“Funny, Winchester. Nice to see the macho come out. Every now and again.”
Desiree went into the kitchen and began to rustle around in Sam's storage closet. “Tell me what you found up here, Winchester. All your dreams come true?”
“I found something, Dez, but I'd rather not talk about it. Can we skip that for now? I promise I'll tell you soon, just not tonight. Why don't you tell me about what's following you?” Sam knew that eventually he'd ask or she'd tell him what she'd found -- whether or not she'd seen what horrors had been visited upon her family or if they'd just disappeared off the face of the earth. This version of earth, anyway.
“Demon, naturally. But none I know. Not a vamp, not a wolf, not a shapeshifter or unhappy spirit. He stays out of my peripherals, just lingers on the edge. Whispers. Invades my dreams. When I think I see him, he's got yellow eyes, like...”
“What?” Sam jumped out of his chair and rounded the corner of his room into the kitchen area. He slammed his hand down on the counter and Desiree shrieked briefly. “What did you say?”
“Yellow eyes,” Desiree said. “And don't fucking do that. I'm jumpy as it is.”
“Dez. This demon is THE demon. He's the one who killed me, who fucked with my head, who chased me through the other world, who split our realities. He's the one.”
“You gone crazy, Sammy?”
“Sam. Please don’t call me,” he had to cut himself off, couldn’t say it, old, old habit that died when he was dropped on the wrong side of the rainbow. “And no. I'm not crazy. This is it. He's coming for me, maybe to finish the job. I don't know. This is fucked. Sit down, forget about dinner. Tell me everything you've seen, everything. Right now.”
***
“Shhhh,” the Librarian said.
“Fuck off,” Desiree said.
“Don't antagonize her, or we'll never get any work done,” Sam said, steering Desiree firmly around the Librarian's desk and to the back, where he clicked on the green-shaded lamps. “Generator,” he said, as Desiree looked at him questioningly. “Won't last forever, but I'll go blind otherwise.”
Desiree sat down gingerly on a dusty chair. Sam strode up and down the stacks, culling books he'd want to use. He plugged his laptop into an outlet and turned the screen toward Desiree. “How long has it been since you surfed the net?”
“Um? The Internet still exists?”
“Not really. That's your job today. Skim through the links I've bookmarked, see if there are any messages or news. Most of them will just say 'cannot connect to server,' but I don't want to miss it if someone starts an underground revolution or something.”
“Revolution. Right. Let's start with Google news and see if Paris Hilton made it out alive.”
“I personally hope she did.” Sam hunched over his books and went to work. He'd been working on a theory that the Shear was a wormhole, but the fact that he wasn't a theoretical physicist was really getting in the way.
After a few hours he explained the Shear to Desiree, and she was so excited that Sam immediately regretted telling her. “It's not for playing around,” he said, “it's for figuring out what the Yellow-Eyed Demon's next move is going to be. Seriously.”
“But Dean can find out if my parents are there, if my family's alive! He can get a message to them.” Desiree's eyes were wide and black and shining. Sam felt sorry for her.
“They're dead then.”
“Yeah Sam. ‘Course. You knew they would be. Can't blame me for... but they're alive over there, and I can see them...”
“Dez, honey. Chances are you're still alive, and living in that other universe like this is all a bad dream. Your parents getting a message from their daughter from another universe would probably break those laws of physics, not to mention totally freak them out.”
“Right,” she said, but Sam could tell she didn't get it.
He sighed and stacked up his books. He'd put them back and then take a look at the laptop himself, and then they'd head back. He'd wasted a lot of time talking today, but he had nine more days until the next Shear opening and there was bound to be enough hours to get Desiree settled down and useful.
Nine days. In those nine days, he cut Dean's hair, and his own. Desiree cooked for him, a nice change from his usual staple of beans from a can. She made some sort of pineapple rice that was his favorite. She helped him bathe Dean, arranging his spindly limbs sideways so they could sponge him down. Sam handled the catheter because he was just so used to it by now, and he wanted Dean to have his privacy, even though he realized how lame that was.
With Desiree around, Sam began to realize how ridiculous the whole thing was. If he'd gotten himself killed, what would happen to Dean? He was so worried about being responsible for Dez, that he hadn't been responsible for Dean. She was the sort of person who would take care of him, and there weren't that many people left who would do that.
How many times had he run into gangs of survivors who told him to ditch his brother and come with them? And then there was that time he'd thought he'd found some sympathetic survivors; a few tough old men and a couple of women. He'd planned to travel with them for a while, take it easy, and then he'd opened up their generator-run cold storage, seen a human torso hanging from a meat hook, along with other things he'd tried to block from his mind, and then he knew exactly why they hadn't minded having Dean along.
It was all he could do not to kill them before he left, but he had already seen way too much death. He simply drove for two straight days to get as much distance as he could between them. Live and let live.
Somewhere around the fifth day, Desiree came into Dean's room at night and laid down next to him. He hadn't had any human contact of a sexual nature since Madison - in another life and another universe. He knew it shouldn't matter, but it did, and he didn't feel anything for Dez. And Dean was right there. He gently pushed her away and she went back to her room.
At the end of the ninth day, Sam was reading about the Casimir effect and he didn't notice the sun going down. Sometimes it came on quickly, it was hard to predict. This time, the sun fell right out of the sky, apparently, and Desiree had her head down over a book, snoring lightly. Sam stretched. He hadn't seen or heard anything unusual in days, so he thought they'd probably be okay, but still they should get going. He poked Dez with his boot.
“Sleeping beauty, wake your ass up.”
“Fuck off, Sam. I was having a nice dream where I was getting some.”
“Sun went down already, we have to move.”
“Oh Sam,” Desiree finally lifted her head and looked at him. “I'm tired. I want to go to the movies, I want to watch TV, I want to talk to other people. This whole thing sucks, d'you know that?”
“I try not to think about it too much. But yeah, there's not a lot that keeps you going.”
Desiree stood up and stretched, her long arms reaching up toward the ceiling. She checked all her weapons - good girl - and Sam checked his, stowing his laptop inside his bag and taping it with duct tape to his back so it didn't bounce around in case he needed to run.
“The Casimir effect,” Desiree said, looking down.
“Yeah? What about it? I've been reading about it.”
“Two objects that get so close, so very close, they can't help but touch because they create a field of attraction with their proximity?”
“Essentially, yeah,” Sam said.
“Other than a recipe for you and me finally getting together, why’re you interested in that?”
Sam smiled, feeling again, how strange it felt on his face. “I'm thinking that if the two universes get close enough, they could create that kind of Effect and then draw each other in or something.” Sam sighed. “It's stupid, I'm just dreaming at this point. I’ve run out of mythology and moved on to physics out of boredom. Half the stuff I read I have no idea what it means. I think the Demon created a black hole or a wormhole - kinda makes me wish we were the main characters in a sci-fi show -- but I'm thinking that if Yellow Eyes has any power over exotic matter, or the proximity of the universes he created, he might be able to create a larger intersection… something...” Sam finished half-heartedly and looked up at Desiree.
“You could jump to the other universe.”
“Yeah.”
“Because you're dead in that universe.”
“I'm alive, my alternate universe doppelganger is dead.”
“How do you know that wasn't the real Sam, the one that died, and that you're breaking the laws of physics by going over?”
“I don't know, I don't know anything. At this rate, the only thing getting broken is my fucking spirit.” Sam turned away from her and walked up the aisle. He’d crushed her dreams of contacting her family; it was only fair that she use the same logic on him. How did he know which Sam was the real Sam anyway?
He hadn't heard a peep from the Librarian all day. He wondered if she'd finally learned how to get some sleep.
When he reached the front desk and looked down, he saw that something was wrong. The Librarian’s head was on the desk, but it was turned at an awkward angle. He reached out and pulled her shoulder gently. Her body slumped down in the chair and her head rolled back. Her eyes were empty, but he checked her pulse anyway, just to be sure.
“Fuck. She's dead. Someone snapped her neck.”
“Shit,” Desiree pulled out her gun and backed away. “He's here. Shit. Shit. Check all the corners, Sam.”
“Yeah, every aisle, meet at the back,” Sam said, moving away from the lifeless Librarian and gripping both gun and knife. It was way too dark in the library, and he'd fucked up. He hadn't heard a thing. He heard Dez click on her flashlight.
“Got an extra?” He called. He heard the sound of one rolling across the hardwood floor toward him. He picked it up and clicked it on. He sheathed the knife and crossed the light in his left hand over his right.
“Nothing here,” he said to Dez when he met up with her in the back. She was shaking. “It's okay. We don't know it was him, it could have been any nutcase popped in and killed her.”
“We would have heard him, Sam,” she said. “It's him, I know it. I can feel it.”
“Okay, psychic girl, let's just head back to base and we'll sort it out.” Keep moving. That was one of Sam's main mottos. If you didn't stop to think about what you were doing, or what you'd seen, you'd be better off. Take advantage of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and just keep moving.
They banged out of the library's front door and made their way to the apartment. Just a few blocks, but they covered each other almost like they were Mulder and Scully, using military handwaves and all that stuff. Dean would be proud of him, hell, Dad would be proud of him. He could survive an apocalypse.
Just as Sam reached the door to the building, he looked up. Standing in the window, shutters blown wide, was the Demon. The blue moon was just a sliver in the sky, hanging above the curled roof top, keeping the night indigo dark, making the yellow eyes shine.
Sam didn't say anything, didn't yell or scream. He ran up the stairs two or three at a time, and blasted in through his own front door, aiming at the window. “Don't move, you son of a bitch,” he said.
Yellow Eyes laughed. “Oh Sam, you amuse me,” he said. His voice had the same light, whispery vibration that caused a chill to run down Sam's spine. “Bullets can't do a goddamn thing to me, you know that. And we need each other now.”
He stepped away from the window, into the dark of the room. Sam clicked on the flashlight and his breath completely left his body as he saw Dean propped up against the wall, his eyes open, staring. For an irrational minute Sam thought the Demon had healed his brother, brought him back, for what purpose who could say, Sam didn't care. But then Sam realized that Dean was dead, his eyes weren't moving, they were just open.
“He went quietly, if it's any consolation,” the Demon said. The grin that didn’t show up on his voice was right there in the fucking delivery.
“Fuck you, motherfucker,” Sam hissed. He pulled out the holy water and flung it in the Demon's direction. A satisfying sizzle and the sound of burning flesh. “These bullets are coated in holy water and dead man's blood, too.”
Yellow Eyes was laughing again. He had a mighty fine sense of humor. “Sam. Sam. Sam. I'm not here to hurt you, you know. I'm here to present yet another mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“Excuse me if I don't want to hear all the ways you plan to play me,” Sam said. His mind was quickly splitting off on its paths again; burying the sight of lifeless Dean away and racing on to try to outsmart the Demon and figure out where Dez was, assuming she hadn't made a run for it.
“You'll want to hear this,” Yellow Eyes said. “Pay attention, boy.” He uttered a Latin phrase and Sam felt himself lowering the gun, felt himself swaying on his feet, then sitting down hard on the floor. “It’s story time.”
Sam struggled, but it was useless, the Demon had control of his limbs. “Why did you kill him?” he panted.
“'Cause you’re my boy, Sammy-Sam, mine. No, I’m not going to let anyone come between us this time. Not even your little friend creeping up the stairs right now.” He twisted his wrist, cutting off the sound of Sam's warning shout.
He turned just as Desiree's head popped up over the balustrade, both guns firing straight at Yellow Eyes. Good girl. The bullets tore tiny holes in the Demon, but he waved his hand and a pulse of electromagnetic energy blasted Desiree against the wall and Sam heard the crunch and thud of her body tumbling down the stairs.
The Demon breathed in the moment, savoring it, then said, “That was intermission, a quick little demo of the pointless heroics of humans. Where were we? Oh yes. Your father's ill-advised journey out of hell and your brother's attempt to blast me with the Colt.”
“You see, Sammy, just before the bullet reached me, I split off from that reality. I created a new reality. Or rather, I should point out, parallel universes exist all around us, I just made this one exceptionally real. That was what caused the Colt's bullet to shear off and hit you, instead. Poetic justice, I'd say, you dying from the bullet intended for me. I don’t think your dear brother has mentioned that little detail in your recent conversations across time and space.”
“And now,” he continued, “all my dreams have come to pass. This world is dead. It belongs to me.”
The Demon strolled around the room, letting his leathery fingers brush against the walls. He kicked Dean's boot as he passed his body and Sam started up, struggling, still unable to speak.
“Easy now, your brother can't feel a thing,” the Demon said soothingly. “So you'd think I'd be happy, what with having my own Apocalypse, but I can't shake the feeling that my alter-ego, back in the original universe, is getting the rest of the goodies. Now that I've laid this world to waste, I want to do the same to the other one. Oh, I know what you're thinking: I'm getting greedy, too big for my britches. Well, you'd be right, but when have I ever not gotten exactly what I wanted?”
“That's right,” he continued, while Sam struggled and tried to convey with his eyes exactly what he thought of that. “I'm insatiable. And I miss the challenge of that original world. We had some good times, didn't we, Sammy, my boy?”
Sam struggled to speak but the Demon held his tongue fast. His eyes darted around the room, looking for something, some way to free himself.
“The laws of physics can be manipulated,” the Demon said. “That's what spells do, but I can't go back as long as I exist there. Since you're dead -- remember? -- you don't have that problem. I need a ticket to ride.”
He grinned and his eyes glowed yellow as he turned toward Sam. “Yeah, you know what I need. You know now why I've kept you alive tonight. You know...”
Sam felt the thundering of his heart as he groped with the terror filling his mind. The Demon would possess him, would jump into Dean's world, and Dean wouldn't be expecting it. There was nothing he could to warn him, or to stop it. He felt his mouth opening up in a yawn, a scream, as the black burning substance of the Demon filled him. The Demon scraped his throat raw, shoving down and inside and Sam felt himself stepping aside as the Demon's consciousness rose to the fore.
There was no Sam here now, just the weak little echo, his spirit forced backstage and the Demon could almost hear the screams ringing out across the Shear, the future destruction he’d bring while clad in sanctimonious Winchester skin.
He moved gracefully down the stairs, stepped over the girl's broken body and walked out into the street. He was headed to the Shear and he was feeling fine, better in fact, that he'd felt in three whole years.
Being invincible was fantastic. Soon he'd be back in the real world, he'd be killing Dean Winchester and all the other hunters gathered around the Shear. His hunger ripped through him and made him feel alive inside Sam's skin. It was a beautiful skin to be in, even if it was a little worse for wear.
The trees waved and thrashed in the night wind, demon faces showing in their trunks and limbs and then disappearing again at the sight of him. They'd bow down if they could. A cold wind blew off the lake and several werewolves crawled in the underbrush behind him. Lake Susan had probably once been quite the quaint little town, full of antiques and families and picnics by the lake. Until it had been overrun with demons, terrified refugees, insanity, sickness.
It was a beautiful thing.
The Shear opened up for him, right on time, and there was Dean, shouting at Sam, never suspecting. And hey, the other one, the splinter-half twin, was there, too.
“We got him, Sam, we got him!” Dean shouted. “He can bring these worlds together long enough for us to get you out of there.” His voice was loud with excitement. Ellen and Bobby and a number of other people were there, their cars pulled up in the cemetery, lights shining over the burnt grass.
“Get me out of here, Dean,” Not-Sam said.
He could see himself on the other side, a far weaker version, and it was startling. A round bullet hole like a crater bloomed on that Demon's forehead; he'd been captured by the hunters and was down on his knees in front of the Shear. A two-for-one deal, Not-Sam thought. He’d lay his Other to rest right then and there, and then be free to take whatever form he liked. The Winchester crew had brought the lamb to the sacrifice, thinking they were ahead of the game. Well, why not let the Other do all the work then, and be free of the jet-lag when he landed?
Dean stood to the side, hollering at him to be ready.
Oh yes. He was ready.
He looked into his human-form face, straight into the yellow eyes -- the right one rolling and glowing like a marble in a jar. He saw his lips move, the Demon on the other side chanting and casting the spell that would send a tidal wave along the edge of the world; powerful enough to create a black hole, a tiny pinpoint of energy and light that would collapse in on itself and literally move the world, shake the foundations of reality and send parallel universes colliding into each other. He felt it, and he swam in, crashing over into the other side, landing hard on his Other and knocking the spell askew. The Shear shuddered and closed behind him, the alternate universe lurching away and spinning into the void.
“Sam!” Dean was jumping up and down. “Sam, get away from him, over here!”
Not-Sam stood and Dean was there, beckoning. Why wasn't Dean running to him? He got up and Dean was still waving him over, what was his deal?
“Sam, we've trapped him, get out of the circle before he gets any ideas.”
“Oh shit.” A Devil's Trap. He'd jumped right into the middle, trapping himself. His Other was still lying down, face grey with the effort of the spell, black veins spider-webbing across his forehead. He was weak, this one, not long for this world. But as long as he was still here, the Demon couldn't leave Sam. Matter would overlap matter and they'd both be destroyed.
He hesitated and all was lost.
“Yep, it's him,” Dean said. “Yellow Eyes was right. He wanted to come back just as bad as our Demon wanted to go over there. You bastards should have just switched places. But since you’re both here, guess it wouldn’t be rude to give you a real welcome party...” Dean began the incantation, Bobby, Ellen and the others chanting along with him just for good measure.
“I'm invincible,” the Demon said. “You can't destroy me.” He raced to kill his Other before the spell could work, flinging his hands around his neck and squeezing tightly. Too late. He'd made a serious error. He'd underestimated Dean's caution. He'd underestimated himself and his Other.
His own neck snapped back and he felt the force of his will being taken from him, pulled right out of Sam's body. “No,” was the last thing he said as he swirled and filled the air above Sam's head. He was screaming right along with his twin, writhing on the dead grass, the last of his strength flying out of him and the two of them melted together and exploded like dying stars.
“Yep, guess I can destroy you,” Dean said, running over to Sam, catching him as he collapsed.
***
Sam watched Dean prowl around the kitchen. His apartment in Wyoming was small but clean. Ellen had been mothering him while Sam was... what? Away? Dead? In a parallel universe?
“Stop pacing.”
“I'm not pacing, I just want to keep moving, ya know?”
“Yeah, I know Dean. Sit down.”
Dean sat and Sam looked at him. The last of the hunters was gone and there was no more beer in the fridge. It meant the party was over and they'd have to plan the next step.
Sam needed to keep moving, too. He'd been slapped on the back so many times, his shoulder hurt. Dean offered to look up Amber and Desiree but Sam declined. They thought of all the ways they could try to get their Dad out of hell, but Dean was pretty firm on leaving things as they were. He had confessed his deal with the Crossroads Demon to Sam, and how he'd been able to weasel out of it after all, since Sam had died anyway and the Demon had a thing for Dean and his man-pain. Sam didn't even have the energy to be angry about all that.
“What's next?” Sam looked carefully at Dean, who was intently avoiding his eyes.
“What do you want, Sam? You're the one who’s been in hell for three years. It's 2010, the Demon is dead, and the hunt will always be there, if you want that.” Dean was worried, the deep-etched furrow kept on reappearing between his eyebrows. He handled Sam with kid gloves, but that was okay, because Sam felt fragile as eggshells.
“I need time to think, Dean. I need time to adjust. How about a road trip, a real one? Head toward the West Coast, then maybe down south. It will be reassuring to see that California's still there and not dropped into the ocean.”
Dean was eager to please, and within days he'd sold his apartment and they'd left town. Sam refused to visit his own grave before they left, but Dean went out there one last time and Sam said nothing about it.
Old habits were hard to break. Sam forgot to turn on the lights when he walked into a room. He forgot to put things in the refrigerator. He slept in a pile of blankets at the foot of Dean’s bed and couldn’t remember leaving his bed when he woke up. He ate beans out of cans, cold.
He carried his gun and his laptop everywhere, which wasn't so very unusual, except for places like the bathroom, no matter how much Dean reassured him that it was okay to relax. Sam couldn't really relax.
“Just leave the laptop here. Right here, with me,” Dean said one day, pulling on it as Sam was heading to the shower. They were getting ready to leave; the motel they’d picked wasn’t up to even their early childhood standards, which were pretty low.
“Fuck off, Dean, it’s a habit. I’ll lose it, don’t worry.”
“I know. But it’s bugging me. How about you lose the habit right now?” He tugged harder, working his fingers around the edge.
“Dean, I’m warning you.”
They tussled, and it was like old times, except that it wasn’t. Sam knew this wasn’t going to end with Dean rubbing noogies into his head or whatever. Sam barely kept his temper leashed and resisted the urge to hit Dean as hard as he could.
Dean held on. “Goddammit Sam, I don’t want to lose to you whatever the fuck nightmare’s still plugging away up there,” Dean said.
Sam struggled but Dean held him, almost in a head-lock except for how much it felt like an embrace. Sam shuddered and felt the abyss open up underneath him. It was up to him if he wanted to just fall into it.
Instead, Sam knotted his hands in Dean’s hair and let it go. Fear and rage, and all the things in between and even deeper. He was crying -- no, laughing. Something in between. Dean was urging him on, telling him it was okay. Dean was talking, rubbing Sam’s back and shoulders, offering himself up like a chew toy or a punching bag and Sam just wanted him to shut the hell up. Dean murmured in his ear like Sam was some kind of wild animal. And the sounds that were coming out of Sam sounded wild, they were strange and foreign to his own ears.
He needed more, more touch, more of Dean’s voice. Something in him was rising up. It was the emptiness and the black space that he’d carried around with him, something Dean couldn’t ever fill, something Sam couldn’t ever let Dean share. But he had to share something, or he’d go insane with it all.
Dean’s face was next to his and he pulled back suddenly to look at it. Dean was scared, Sam was scaring him, and when Dean saw his face, he went white. So Sam stopped thinking and crushed his lips against Dean’s. He wanted to make Dean stop looking, stop talking, just feel a tiny bit of Sam’s pain and horror and take it away.
It was totally unfair; Sam knew it the minute he did it.
Dean didn’t pull away, just made a squeaky sort of grunting noise and kept his arms around Sam. Sam gripped his head and kept kissing him, violently, urgently, tasting blood and salt and fear.
Sam pulled back again, this time to try something else, because his gut was churning and his lungs were on fire. The color had returned to Dean’s face, though, and Dean started talking again, saying his name, telling him it was okay, lying to him. He raised a hand to knock Dean away, and Dean caught it. With his other hand, Dean touched Sam’s face, his fingers traced around to Sam’s neck and he pulled him in, gently, and kissed him again.
“S’okay,” Dean said. “It’s alright. It’s going to be. It’s going to be. Whatever you want, Sammy, whatever you need. I got you.”
Sam pushed him, hard, then followed him, grabbing him again and pushing him again. Dean went with along, let Sam manhandle him, resisting the pushes and swaying into the embraces. He kept reaching out for Sam and finally Sam felt something in him give way each time he reached for Dean, over and over. He twisted Dean’s shirt in his fist and pulled him down, both of them hitting the floor hard. He covered Dean’s body with his, kissed him, and held him down.
“That’s it, Sam. I want it, I want you, too. It’s okay. Come on,” Dean said. He stripped off his shirt and pulled Sam’s over his head. Sam almost cried at the feel of his skin against Dean’s. His brain was popping like a flashbulb - all the scenes of death and dismemberment he’d witnessed - nothing could keep them at bay, but he tried, biting Dean’s chest, pressing against him, muttering his low, animal sounds.
They kicked their jeans off. Sam opened his eyes once, to see the afternoon sunlight dotting the ceiling with strange shapes, dust rising out of the nasty motel carpet they were laying on, and the top of Dean’s head, hair plastered with sweat as he went down on him.
The sensation was new and strange; Sam had never had a blowjob from a guy before, and he’d nearly forgotten about sex, but his body was still responsive, his hips bucked up and his dick was hard and Dean’s mouth felt good. Dean was letting him do whatever he wanted, he realized, and so he thrust up, hard, and reached down to hold Dean’s head in place. Christ, what had happened to them?
Dean didn’t care, clearly, and Sam was shocked to find himself coming, shocked to feel Dean drinking it down, shocked to find that he still felt angry and scared at the same time that he acknowledged the pleasure coursing through him. He grabbed Dean and pushed him down on the floor. He wanted to give as good as he got. Dean was hard, and as many times as Sam had seen his cock, he’d never seen it like this, and he had to push that thought away - the thought that this was unnatural, abnormal, something he’d never do.
The real Sam wouldn’t do this.
Fuck it. Sam licked up Dean’s cock and put his mouth around it and even though it tasted terrible - nothing like a woman at all - he wasn’t about to feel something as alien as regret. He lifted his head and met Dean’s eyes and that was all it took; he wanted this, he really did.
He emulated the same motions that Dean had, bringing in his hand to help out. He felt frenzied, manic, and heard Dean gasp when his teeth got in the way, but he couldn’t stop to care. He pressed Dean down with one hand as Dean started to come, and he moved his face out of the way, guiding Dean through it with his hand.
“Fuck. Sam. Fuck.”
“Shit, that was, that was different,” Sam said, his face still near Dean’s belly.
They showered and said nothing as they packed their bags. They talked again in the car, decided on their next stop, and argued about where to stop for dinner. Sam was thinking it was just a one-time thing, something he needed to get out of his system, but the minute they were in the motel room, Dean clambered onto Sam’s chosen bed and put an arm around Sam’s shoulders, waiting. Sam kissed him, thumbed his jaw, and felt the heat rise up in him again.
“Missed you.” Dean said, gruffly. Sam knew what he meant. He let Dean kiss his neck, his tongue rasping against the grain of stubble and tried to shut his mind against the images that paraded against his eyelids.
“I’m the real Sam,” Sam said. Tried to believe it.
“I know,” Dean replied. “I know. I get it. Let me make you feel good, Sam. Let me.”
Dean had picked up condoms at the gas station; Sam knew because the box was new. Dean rolled it on him, pushing Sam down on his back every time he tried to sit up and protest. Dean kissed him fervently while he did something behind his back with lube he’d fished out of his bag.
“Shit,” Sam said, when Dean lowered himself down onto Sam’s cock. “Dean.”
The furrow reappeared on Dean’s forehead. “Okay, Sammy, okay?”
Sam couldn’t speak. Someone else was taking care of him, wondering about his well-being, and it was the person he most wanted to do the caring. A choking sound came from his throat, but it seemed that Dean understood. Dean leaned forward and rode him, while Sam stared at his face.
Later, in the middle of the night, Sam woke up as usual but the scream died in his throat. The images were still there, so he woke Dean up, pinned him down in the pillows and fucked him.
“Jesus, Sam. I bought condoms, for chrissakes,” Dean said after.
“Sorry,” Sam said. “Did you give me an STD?”
“I’ll have you know,” Dean’s hair was sticking straight up and he sat in a pool of light from the motel’s giant Vacant sign. “I got laid all of once while you were gone.”
“Oh shut the fuck up, Dean. You’re the worst liar in history.”
“I’m not shitting you. Once. Okay, I gave a few blowjobs to some guys here and there, but actually getting laid? One chick, before the Shear, and it was terrible.”
“Now I know you’re telling the truth. Since when are you into guys and since when do you admit when you’ve had bad sex?”
“Things took a serious downturn while you were gone, what can I say?”
“Yeah. I know the feeling.” Sam ran his hand up Dean’s side to his face. Dean leaned into it. The laugh lines on his face were more pronounced but his face was still like smooth marble. His expression became serious at the unspoken subject of Sam’s life for the past three years. Sam would have to make sure that going forward, Dean didn’t have to feel that what he’d been through was somehow less than what Sam went through. He’d have to be there for Dean as much as Dean was there for him.
Sam could do that. He could definitely do that.
“So,” Sam said.
“So.”
“Is this how things are going to be?”
“This is how things are going to be. No going back. Get used to it.”
Sam could definitely do that, too.
.
Author: Alizarin_nyc
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Some graphic horror stuff throughout, NC-17 at the very end for sex.
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Spoilers: All of Season 2
Written for: The apocalyptothon, recipient slodwick. Beta by regala_electra.
Request: A breakdown between realities interrupts the Yellow-Eyed Demon's plans, and now the guys have an even bigger enemy to face.
Notes: Sam don’t know from physics, and neither do I, so I beg your patience in these matters of black holes and polarity and stuff. We just find it interesting.
Summary: Today was March 1st, 2010, by Sam’s best estimate. Nearly three years to the day that a fiery hell blast spiraled up and out of Wyoming, taking millions of lives and plunging the continent into some sort of strange dark place, full of all the stuff of nightmares.
The library held fourteen rows of dusty hardcover books. Sam liked the green-shaded lamps shining on the old wood tables in the back, and he’d perfected the art of being left alone there to peruse history books and his laptop to pull pieces of several puzzles together, but still not enough to give him a complete picture of the whole.
The Librarian was a stern-faced woman of thirty, who looked nearly twice her age. She read books aloud to herself in a low mumble that Sam had slowly grown accustomed to. When she began to bang her head against the check-out desk, Sam would have to get up from his seat and traipse down row H-L to the front to stroke her shoulder until she calmed. If he lost his patience and shouted at her or shook her, his whole day would be blown by the screaming.
Today was March 1st, 2010, by Sam’s best estimate. Nearly three years to the day that a fiery hell blast spiraled up and out of Wyoming, taking millions of lives and plunging the continent into some sort of strange dark place, full of all the stuff of nightmares.
He got up to piss in the stale, dank space that had once held toilets and now held cracked porcelain and non-working sinks. Old habits and all that. An old drain in the men’s room was the best option for a piss, not that anyone cared. But he wasn’t about to let the library smell of urine and shit, as long as he could help it. That’s why he cleaned up the Librarian’s mess, and occasionally took her outside and washed her down with lake water he’d brought up in buckets from Lake Susan.
He wasn’t about to descend into a state of mind where he’d be just as comfortable sleeping in his own filth as not. And he’d never let that happen to Dean, either.
Sam always got home before nightfall. He locked the library door behind him, replacing the salt over the lintel. He put a small dish of food on the counter as if the Librarian was a cat. In the morning he would check to make sure she’d nibbled at whatever it was. She watched him with her pale moon-face. He had no idea if she ever slept or not.
He’d chosen a corner apartment on the top floor of a big brick building with cornices and gargoyles and molding. Sam picked it for its location, not its beauty. In the center of town, it had windows that faced north, east, and west, three long windows on each side. Not all of the glass had been blown out, and the wooden shutters on the inside were easily boarded up and shut tight against whatever might try to crawl in. Sam wanted to see what was coming when he needed to, but he wanted to seal the place up like Fort Knox in an emergency.
There were too many emergencies.
He’d wondered how he’d get Dean down the stairs and out if it came to that, so eventually he rigged up a pulley to the fire escape. The two of them would be able to freefall down the 12 stories, and then he could get them into his van pretty fast. Seven and a half minutes, at last count. He’d planned it all out and had done several test runs with a sleeping bag packed full to weigh as much as Dean, which wasn’t very much anymore.
Sam found that he was better off in the apartment than out on the road, and as long as he could kill whatever came up the stairs, and keep the salt in stock, he would be safe and so would Dean. Driving all over would eventually kill Dean, so there was no point in running anymore. There was nowhere to go, anyway.
He unlocked the front door with his six keys and deactivated all the alarm systems. Climbing 12 flights of stairs had given him nice-looking calves that no one would ever see, but hey, he could definitely kick in the face of any vampire, demon or other that tried to get in his way. He rapped on the door quickly, in the code that he’d made up, even though Dean wouldn’t answer and wouldn’t know what it was.
“Hey there, buddy. Good to see you. How about you wake up and say hey tonight.”
There was no point in losing the habit of talking to Dean. If he could hear, he’d need to know that Sam was there, and if he couldn’t hear, Sam needed to talk to him anyway.
Dean lay still, unchanged. He’d been in a coma or something much like it, since Sam had fallen through his own reality into this one. It was hard for Sam to remind himself that Dean was alive and well somewhere else when this was the Dean that he lived with.
“I’m going to the Shear tonight, Dean, so I’m going to feed you, clean you and adjust your meds and then go. But I’ll be back, I always come back.” Sam brushed the hair off of Dean’s forehead. “You need a haircut man, you’re going Whitesnake on me.”
Sam went to the storage closet and pulled out a warm beer. He wedged the bottle against the counter and slammed his fist down on the top. He drank it down in one. Better to give Dean a haircut tomorrow, when he was less tired. Tonight he had to get moving and hurry to the Shear and back as quickly as possible.
He checked the supply of IVs and set Dean up with everything he needed to stay alive another day. His brother’s breathing was steady and even and tonight not even a grimace crossed his face. Sam was glad he wasn’t in pain. The first year had been a nightmare, with Dean unconscious but clearly in pain; his breath often stopped for long periods of time and Sam had nearly gone mad.
Amber had helped them. Amber, the pretty nurse who Sam had found cowering inside the inhospitable hospital - full of zombies and creatures that fed on flesh and blood. Amber hadn’t yet been killed or infected with the deadly flu that reminded Sam of The Stand.
Stephen King would shit himself if he could see half of what Sam’s seen.
Amber taught him how to insert an IV needle. Amber had taught him how to check Dean’s pulse and eyes and how to administer CPR. She taught him how to set a broken bone - had made him learn by doing his own fingers after a fight - and he’d taught her how to survive in return.
Only he hadn’t taught her well enough. He buried her outside of what had once been Austin, Texas, and shortly after that he’d dreamt of the Shear.
***
A creek's trickle wet the corner of his sneaker and the cool seeped in and set off a full-body chill. A week of rolling heat wave, followed by frost that crackled underneath the surfaces. Weather would never be a casual topic of conversation, ever again. The Apocalypse, as Sam thought of it, had twisted the earth's rotation on its axis and the sun could appear or disappear, along with clouds, storms, tornadoes, hurricanes and twisters of all shapes and sizes. He'd once woken to see the sun and the moon in the sky together, the sun a brownish round ball and the moon a deep blue. Whatever was in the air, he didn't want to know. Some days his lungs burned, and some days it snowed ash. Then other days smelled like spring and tiny flowers grew, only to be swept away by torrential rains within days.
Sam tugged the sweater he was wearing around him tightly, and ran faster. His endurance was better than it had ever been, bravo, Sam. Props where props were due. The trees whispered above him, and Sam ignored them. Demons in trees -- they were the worst. They changed locations and fucked with his head so that each time he came to the Shear he had to rely on the things he could trust. He couldn't trust living trees. Only the dead stumps of former trees, never occupied by demons, could be trusted. There were enough of those that were happy to keep Sam's knife marks safe for him, so he could find his way back.
Compasses were for shit. The air was full of metal and radiation and witchcraft. Sam knew roughly where he was, what the name of the town had been, but for all he knew, parts of the continent had shifted into the ocean and the moon had dragged Mexico off like a war bride.
What about the rest of the world? Dean had asked him, the first time they talked through the Shear. Maybe right now China is preparing to come over and help you out, or like, Russia or something.
I don't think so, Dean. It's been a year. I'd have seen or heard something, a plane in the sky, a radio transmission, something. I see nothing. I hear nothing. This world - the whole damn thing, is dead and dying. China's eaten up by demons, Russia's sunk into the sea, fucking Peru is on fire... I can only imagine. But if there were a place that was safe, if there were a place fighting back... don't you think I'd have heard by now?
Sam's feet pounded the ground, narrowly avoiding thrashing roots and a little spinning tornado of leaves. The demons were restless tonight. Maybe they knew something Sam didn't know.
“Whatever it is, I don't wanna know,” he said to himself. “Got trouble of my own, too deep to measure.” He smirked, thinking that his maudlin chants to himself felt a little like something Dean would’ve sung along to, blasting the car radio, purposefully out of tune to get a whiplash smile across Sam’s face. It wasn’t the first time he’d had that feeling.
Right arrow. Left arrow. Little squiggly arrow and he was there. The living trees had moved around and the Shear was now in a clearing. It was glowing blue-green, like a phosphorescent scar in the air. It was an honest-to-God rip in time and space. “Doctor Who got nothing on me,” Sam had said, the first time he saw it for real.
He'd dreamed of it for months. He didn't know what it was, only that it existed and that it carried a strong feeling of home. He'd followed it, piecing together signs and pictures from dreams, dragging Dean, lifeless but breathing, and Amber, reluctant and suspicious. Even after Amber died, Sam kept driving in his once-blue van, Dean and his tubes bouncing around in the back.
Sam sat on a tree stump and checked his watch. He was 13 minutes early. He'd never be late, but he didn't want to sit there, vulnerable in the clearing, for too long. He was tired, though. He sat and closed his eyes. He fucking deserved it. Three years of vigilance surely earned him ten minutes of downtime.
“Hey Sleepy. Where's Sneezey and Dopey?”
Dean's voice. Sweet and clear and the most beautiful thing Sam ever heard.
“Hey,” he opened his eyes. “I'm looking at Dopey.”
“Bitch.”
“Jerk.”
“That's my Sammy,” Dean crowed. Sam could see his triumphant grin on the other side of the Shear. The scar had widened; the rip in reality had grown into a hole big enough to see through, and Sam could see Dean's face, he could hear him, and he could see behind him into the cemetery -- a big blackened spot of earth dotted by white gravestones. “How's it kicking, little bro?”
“It's kicking. I'm still kicking. You're still kicking. Everything is kicking. You?”
“I'm fine, just fine. Miss you like a motherfucker, though.”
“Miss you too.” Sam hated that Dean had to reassure him every single time. He hated that he had to hold his emotions in check or risk digging into the forest floor and letting go completely. He had to stuff it all in, stuff it all back inside and use this time with Dean to move forward. Any backwards slide and he'd be toast. “Enough of the mushy bullshit,” he forced himself to say. “Any news?”
“Well, let's see.” Sam could immediately see from Dean's face that something was up, but it wasn't good. He forced himself to stay calm. Dean was doing his best. Screaming and cursing at him wasn't going to do any good. Dean had been through enough. Not like Sam had, but still.
“Ellen found ol' Yellow Eyes' trail, like I told you last time. Every hunter we ever knew, every hunter she knows, hell, every hunter ever born is on his ass. They'll find him.”
“And then they'll kill him, and I'll be stuck here.”
“No. No, Sammy. They know what's at stake. They want to know what this is as much as you do. An alternate reality where demons roam and all hell's broken loose, that's not something they take lightly.”
“Because they always look at the big picture.”
“Hey. No need to get sarcastic. Enough of 'em have seen the Shear to know that this thing is for real. They won't let us down. Sammy, I won't let you down.”
“I never said you would, Dean.”
“Okay then. Let's think positive. How's your research goin'?”
“I've made some progress. I've been reading a lot of science, string theory, alternate dimensions shit. I don't have the concentration I used to have, though.”
“Can't really blame you for that,” Dean said. His face was twisted in concern, blue-green and rippling through the Shear. Sam was used to seeing him like that. Dean always perched on a gravestone, leaning forward, staring into the Shear. He always looked like he was going to jump into it, even though they both knew that wasn't possible. They'd tried that, and each of them had ended up feeling like they'd stuck a fork in a socket, lying on the ground on their own side, the Shear rippling and shrinking up until next time.
Every nine days, for eleven and a half minutes, and it was never enough time.
“Dean,” Sam said. “Small talk wastes our time. Something's up, I can tell, and it isn't good. Spill it or I'll be fucking miserable for the next nine days.”
“Fuck, Sammy. Okay, here it is.” Dean took in a long breath. “There was a run-in with the Demon.”
“Did you tell him I said hello?”
“He's pretty pissed off. Hunter that saw him says he's weaker now, but he also said that Yellow Eyes says he wants his army back, and he plans to get it. Mentioned your name, too.”
“Well, I don't have his fucking army,” Sam said. “And I've seen Yellow Eyes, so we know he's definitely here, too. He's leading the charge, he's Mr. Chaos. He... wait, so there's two of them.”
“Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Two of you, two of me, two of him. Alternate universes, down to the last detail.”
“One of me,” Sam said.
“Two of you, Sammy, I saw you. Hell, I buried you. Don't tell me that wasn't real.” Dean shifted on his stone seat and Sam saw a look cross his face and flicker away in the dimming doorway of light.
“Dean, wait a second. Hold on. What are you sitting on?” Sam's mind, as it often did now, split off into two different directions. One was processing the news of having two Yellow-Eyed demons to deal with, and the other was a new thought -- a sudden curiosity as to where Dean had buried his body after the showdown at the cemetery when he'd been “killed.”
“Whose grave is that?”
“What are you talking about?”
“We're almost out of time, Dean. Whose grave is that?”
“Let's see, um...” Dean stood up and circled the stone, jutting up from long-neglected grass in the cemetery that Sam remembered all too well. “Bolivia Shagnasty, loving whore and sometime mistress, may she rest in peace.”
“You're hilarious. That's my grave, isn't it? You've been sitting on my dead body for two years while we've talked to each other? I cannot fucking believe you.”
“Come on, Sam. Why do you think I was standing here like a dumbass when the Shear opened up? Not a coincidence, if you ask me.”
But there was no time for Sam to ask him because the Shear shivered and shrank, the air in front of his face warming and then cooling again to match the night. “Fuck fuck fuck!” Sam swore.
***
Sam jogged down the hills and out of the forest. He passed by the old Victorian houses on the outskirts of the town, most of them with their doors marked with an X and their windows blacked out. Demons had killed the inhabitants or the virus had gotten them. The burned X on the door was the equivalent of saying that the house was a tomb; let the dead rest in whatever peace they could find. Sam had burned plenty of them on doors all across the country.
Sam took a shortcut down an alley leading back to the main street, where he'd stop at the demolished shell of a Ralph's and see if he could scare up a few more cans of beans and maybe some shampoo. He rounded the corner and saw a thin figure standing at the end of the alleyway. He drew his gun from the back of his pants and pulled his knife out of the sheath. Learning to be ambidextrous with weapons had saved his bacon more than once. The figure remained still and Sam approached cautiously.
“Hello sexy,” the girl called out.
“Desiree, is that you?” Sam said.
“Give me your holy water, let me take a sip, and let's get out of here, it's creeping me out.”
Sam uncorked his vial and handed it to her, making sure she ingested a good portion of it before taking a sip himself and then putting it back in his pocket and sighing with relief.
“Where have you been and more importantly, why are you here? If you're here and you've got demons on your tail, you're not doing me any favors.”
“Good to see you too,” she smirked. Desiree was a tall black woman, formerly head of sales in a New York firm. She’d been lucky enough to be on the road at a client's in Oklahoma when New York was incinerated in hellfire. She was a quick study and Sam had trained her and sent her on her way. She had family she was intent on tracking down and Sam knew better than to stand in the way of that, even though he could guess what the outcome would be.
“You told me where you thought your dreams would lead you. I've been checking in a multitude of small towns from here to the ass-crack of the world, Sam. Didn't think I'd ever find you, but here you are.”
“Yeah, here I am.”
“I know you're suspicious, and I swear I'm gonna move on. But I was bored as fuck and I don't know anyone in the whole entire world anymore. Can you blame me for looking you up?” Desiree spread her wide hands, long fingers splayed, shoulders shrugging as if to say why not?
“I guess not. But I ain't got a lot to share.”
“I can fend for myself, Sam. You taught me how. If anything, I owe you, and maybe I can help, if you need it?”
Sam sighed. Okay, Dez. You're right, I'm sorry.” He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. She smiled. Her teeth were still amazingly white.
“I've been followed around, yeah, and I hope I didn't bring you trouble, but I figure that one way or another, we're in a shitstorm of demons and there's always going to be someone on my tail. Can't blame them as I got pretty nice tail.” She wiggled her ass in his direction.
“Yeah,” Sam said, feeling the crack of dry skin on his face as a smile endeavored to creep up. “The best in the west, Dez.”
They made good time getting back to Sam's apartment. Desiree went into Dean's room and laid her hand on his cheek. “Hey Dean, how's my fine, sweet man?” Dean didn't move, of course, and Sam left her to commune with him for a few minutes. She was aware of how much Dean had taught Sam; she knew that her survival was thanks to Dean as well as Sam, and she'd always been good -- not as good as Amber, but better than Sam -- at talking to someone who never talked back. Sam still found it strange, even though by now it was second nature.
Sam went into the corner room he'd claimed as his, even though he slept in a nest of blankets in Dean's room every night. He sat in a chair and rested his hands on his knees. Desiree being here had sidetracked him from the other two threads running through his mind. One thread, news about Yellow Eyes and the other about how his brother was dealing with his death by sitting around on his grave like some sort of ghoul. He'd never thought about what Dean had done with his body, he'd only known that seeing Sam in the Shear was as much of a shock to Dean as it had been to Sam. It was harder to convince Dean that he wasn't a ghost; Dean had seen him die that night, killed by the Demon, who then sent their dad straight back to hell.
Sam figured Dean had burned his body just like they did to Dad's. It was just what they did. Fire was a Winchester thing. Ashes to ashes.
Sam let his hand stretch out on his jeans. The jeans weren't blue anymore, but a brownish rust color. Blood wasn't really red, it was brown. People always forgot that. But Sam couldn't forget the smell, taste and sight of blood; he'd bathed in it enough times. He'd barely escaped from a makeshift slaughterhouse in Oklahoma, built in a big barn on someone's farm, used by demons to corral and slaughter hundreds of humans. After wading through entrails in an enormous pen, his jeans had never gone back to their original color. Desiree had helped him out, lifting him bodily from the pen where he was nearly drowning in blood and fluid and going into shock. He'd collapsed on her, starry-eyed and panting and she'd helped him out, stitched him up like he'd taught her, and pumped out bucket after bucket of water when Sam kept insisting he'd never get clean.
She was a good person, Dez. Maybe he could use the company after all, though he'd been keen to part ways with her after a while, just because he didn't want to be responsible for her. Dean was almost too much, and anyone else was that much more of a burden.
“He's doing well,” Desiree said, coming into Sam's room and pausing, hands on her hips. “Needs a haircut, though. Where are your scissors?”
“I'll take care of his hair, Dez. Why don't you rustle up some dinner like a good woman should?”
“Funny, Winchester. Nice to see the macho come out. Every now and again.”
Desiree went into the kitchen and began to rustle around in Sam's storage closet. “Tell me what you found up here, Winchester. All your dreams come true?”
“I found something, Dez, but I'd rather not talk about it. Can we skip that for now? I promise I'll tell you soon, just not tonight. Why don't you tell me about what's following you?” Sam knew that eventually he'd ask or she'd tell him what she'd found -- whether or not she'd seen what horrors had been visited upon her family or if they'd just disappeared off the face of the earth. This version of earth, anyway.
“Demon, naturally. But none I know. Not a vamp, not a wolf, not a shapeshifter or unhappy spirit. He stays out of my peripherals, just lingers on the edge. Whispers. Invades my dreams. When I think I see him, he's got yellow eyes, like...”
“What?” Sam jumped out of his chair and rounded the corner of his room into the kitchen area. He slammed his hand down on the counter and Desiree shrieked briefly. “What did you say?”
“Yellow eyes,” Desiree said. “And don't fucking do that. I'm jumpy as it is.”
“Dez. This demon is THE demon. He's the one who killed me, who fucked with my head, who chased me through the other world, who split our realities. He's the one.”
“You gone crazy, Sammy?”
“Sam. Please don’t call me,” he had to cut himself off, couldn’t say it, old, old habit that died when he was dropped on the wrong side of the rainbow. “And no. I'm not crazy. This is it. He's coming for me, maybe to finish the job. I don't know. This is fucked. Sit down, forget about dinner. Tell me everything you've seen, everything. Right now.”
***
“Shhhh,” the Librarian said.
“Fuck off,” Desiree said.
“Don't antagonize her, or we'll never get any work done,” Sam said, steering Desiree firmly around the Librarian's desk and to the back, where he clicked on the green-shaded lamps. “Generator,” he said, as Desiree looked at him questioningly. “Won't last forever, but I'll go blind otherwise.”
Desiree sat down gingerly on a dusty chair. Sam strode up and down the stacks, culling books he'd want to use. He plugged his laptop into an outlet and turned the screen toward Desiree. “How long has it been since you surfed the net?”
“Um? The Internet still exists?”
“Not really. That's your job today. Skim through the links I've bookmarked, see if there are any messages or news. Most of them will just say 'cannot connect to server,' but I don't want to miss it if someone starts an underground revolution or something.”
“Revolution. Right. Let's start with Google news and see if Paris Hilton made it out alive.”
“I personally hope she did.” Sam hunched over his books and went to work. He'd been working on a theory that the Shear was a wormhole, but the fact that he wasn't a theoretical physicist was really getting in the way.
After a few hours he explained the Shear to Desiree, and she was so excited that Sam immediately regretted telling her. “It's not for playing around,” he said, “it's for figuring out what the Yellow-Eyed Demon's next move is going to be. Seriously.”
“But Dean can find out if my parents are there, if my family's alive! He can get a message to them.” Desiree's eyes were wide and black and shining. Sam felt sorry for her.
“They're dead then.”
“Yeah Sam. ‘Course. You knew they would be. Can't blame me for... but they're alive over there, and I can see them...”
“Dez, honey. Chances are you're still alive, and living in that other universe like this is all a bad dream. Your parents getting a message from their daughter from another universe would probably break those laws of physics, not to mention totally freak them out.”
“Right,” she said, but Sam could tell she didn't get it.
He sighed and stacked up his books. He'd put them back and then take a look at the laptop himself, and then they'd head back. He'd wasted a lot of time talking today, but he had nine more days until the next Shear opening and there was bound to be enough hours to get Desiree settled down and useful.
Nine days. In those nine days, he cut Dean's hair, and his own. Desiree cooked for him, a nice change from his usual staple of beans from a can. She made some sort of pineapple rice that was his favorite. She helped him bathe Dean, arranging his spindly limbs sideways so they could sponge him down. Sam handled the catheter because he was just so used to it by now, and he wanted Dean to have his privacy, even though he realized how lame that was.
With Desiree around, Sam began to realize how ridiculous the whole thing was. If he'd gotten himself killed, what would happen to Dean? He was so worried about being responsible for Dez, that he hadn't been responsible for Dean. She was the sort of person who would take care of him, and there weren't that many people left who would do that.
How many times had he run into gangs of survivors who told him to ditch his brother and come with them? And then there was that time he'd thought he'd found some sympathetic survivors; a few tough old men and a couple of women. He'd planned to travel with them for a while, take it easy, and then he'd opened up their generator-run cold storage, seen a human torso hanging from a meat hook, along with other things he'd tried to block from his mind, and then he knew exactly why they hadn't minded having Dean along.
It was all he could do not to kill them before he left, but he had already seen way too much death. He simply drove for two straight days to get as much distance as he could between them. Live and let live.
Somewhere around the fifth day, Desiree came into Dean's room at night and laid down next to him. He hadn't had any human contact of a sexual nature since Madison - in another life and another universe. He knew it shouldn't matter, but it did, and he didn't feel anything for Dez. And Dean was right there. He gently pushed her away and she went back to her room.
At the end of the ninth day, Sam was reading about the Casimir effect and he didn't notice the sun going down. Sometimes it came on quickly, it was hard to predict. This time, the sun fell right out of the sky, apparently, and Desiree had her head down over a book, snoring lightly. Sam stretched. He hadn't seen or heard anything unusual in days, so he thought they'd probably be okay, but still they should get going. He poked Dez with his boot.
“Sleeping beauty, wake your ass up.”
“Fuck off, Sam. I was having a nice dream where I was getting some.”
“Sun went down already, we have to move.”
“Oh Sam,” Desiree finally lifted her head and looked at him. “I'm tired. I want to go to the movies, I want to watch TV, I want to talk to other people. This whole thing sucks, d'you know that?”
“I try not to think about it too much. But yeah, there's not a lot that keeps you going.”
Desiree stood up and stretched, her long arms reaching up toward the ceiling. She checked all her weapons - good girl - and Sam checked his, stowing his laptop inside his bag and taping it with duct tape to his back so it didn't bounce around in case he needed to run.
“The Casimir effect,” Desiree said, looking down.
“Yeah? What about it? I've been reading about it.”
“Two objects that get so close, so very close, they can't help but touch because they create a field of attraction with their proximity?”
“Essentially, yeah,” Sam said.
“Other than a recipe for you and me finally getting together, why’re you interested in that?”
Sam smiled, feeling again, how strange it felt on his face. “I'm thinking that if the two universes get close enough, they could create that kind of Effect and then draw each other in or something.” Sam sighed. “It's stupid, I'm just dreaming at this point. I’ve run out of mythology and moved on to physics out of boredom. Half the stuff I read I have no idea what it means. I think the Demon created a black hole or a wormhole - kinda makes me wish we were the main characters in a sci-fi show -- but I'm thinking that if Yellow Eyes has any power over exotic matter, or the proximity of the universes he created, he might be able to create a larger intersection… something...” Sam finished half-heartedly and looked up at Desiree.
“You could jump to the other universe.”
“Yeah.”
“Because you're dead in that universe.”
“I'm alive, my alternate universe doppelganger is dead.”
“How do you know that wasn't the real Sam, the one that died, and that you're breaking the laws of physics by going over?”
“I don't know, I don't know anything. At this rate, the only thing getting broken is my fucking spirit.” Sam turned away from her and walked up the aisle. He’d crushed her dreams of contacting her family; it was only fair that she use the same logic on him. How did he know which Sam was the real Sam anyway?
He hadn't heard a peep from the Librarian all day. He wondered if she'd finally learned how to get some sleep.
When he reached the front desk and looked down, he saw that something was wrong. The Librarian’s head was on the desk, but it was turned at an awkward angle. He reached out and pulled her shoulder gently. Her body slumped down in the chair and her head rolled back. Her eyes were empty, but he checked her pulse anyway, just to be sure.
“Fuck. She's dead. Someone snapped her neck.”
“Shit,” Desiree pulled out her gun and backed away. “He's here. Shit. Shit. Check all the corners, Sam.”
“Yeah, every aisle, meet at the back,” Sam said, moving away from the lifeless Librarian and gripping both gun and knife. It was way too dark in the library, and he'd fucked up. He hadn't heard a thing. He heard Dez click on her flashlight.
“Got an extra?” He called. He heard the sound of one rolling across the hardwood floor toward him. He picked it up and clicked it on. He sheathed the knife and crossed the light in his left hand over his right.
“Nothing here,” he said to Dez when he met up with her in the back. She was shaking. “It's okay. We don't know it was him, it could have been any nutcase popped in and killed her.”
“We would have heard him, Sam,” she said. “It's him, I know it. I can feel it.”
“Okay, psychic girl, let's just head back to base and we'll sort it out.” Keep moving. That was one of Sam's main mottos. If you didn't stop to think about what you were doing, or what you'd seen, you'd be better off. Take advantage of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and just keep moving.
They banged out of the library's front door and made their way to the apartment. Just a few blocks, but they covered each other almost like they were Mulder and Scully, using military handwaves and all that stuff. Dean would be proud of him, hell, Dad would be proud of him. He could survive an apocalypse.
Just as Sam reached the door to the building, he looked up. Standing in the window, shutters blown wide, was the Demon. The blue moon was just a sliver in the sky, hanging above the curled roof top, keeping the night indigo dark, making the yellow eyes shine.
Sam didn't say anything, didn't yell or scream. He ran up the stairs two or three at a time, and blasted in through his own front door, aiming at the window. “Don't move, you son of a bitch,” he said.
Yellow Eyes laughed. “Oh Sam, you amuse me,” he said. His voice had the same light, whispery vibration that caused a chill to run down Sam's spine. “Bullets can't do a goddamn thing to me, you know that. And we need each other now.”
He stepped away from the window, into the dark of the room. Sam clicked on the flashlight and his breath completely left his body as he saw Dean propped up against the wall, his eyes open, staring. For an irrational minute Sam thought the Demon had healed his brother, brought him back, for what purpose who could say, Sam didn't care. But then Sam realized that Dean was dead, his eyes weren't moving, they were just open.
“He went quietly, if it's any consolation,” the Demon said. The grin that didn’t show up on his voice was right there in the fucking delivery.
“Fuck you, motherfucker,” Sam hissed. He pulled out the holy water and flung it in the Demon's direction. A satisfying sizzle and the sound of burning flesh. “These bullets are coated in holy water and dead man's blood, too.”
Yellow Eyes was laughing again. He had a mighty fine sense of humor. “Sam. Sam. Sam. I'm not here to hurt you, you know. I'm here to present yet another mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“Excuse me if I don't want to hear all the ways you plan to play me,” Sam said. His mind was quickly splitting off on its paths again; burying the sight of lifeless Dean away and racing on to try to outsmart the Demon and figure out where Dez was, assuming she hadn't made a run for it.
“You'll want to hear this,” Yellow Eyes said. “Pay attention, boy.” He uttered a Latin phrase and Sam felt himself lowering the gun, felt himself swaying on his feet, then sitting down hard on the floor. “It’s story time.”
Sam struggled, but it was useless, the Demon had control of his limbs. “Why did you kill him?” he panted.
“'Cause you’re my boy, Sammy-Sam, mine. No, I’m not going to let anyone come between us this time. Not even your little friend creeping up the stairs right now.” He twisted his wrist, cutting off the sound of Sam's warning shout.
He turned just as Desiree's head popped up over the balustrade, both guns firing straight at Yellow Eyes. Good girl. The bullets tore tiny holes in the Demon, but he waved his hand and a pulse of electromagnetic energy blasted Desiree against the wall and Sam heard the crunch and thud of her body tumbling down the stairs.
The Demon breathed in the moment, savoring it, then said, “That was intermission, a quick little demo of the pointless heroics of humans. Where were we? Oh yes. Your father's ill-advised journey out of hell and your brother's attempt to blast me with the Colt.”
“You see, Sammy, just before the bullet reached me, I split off from that reality. I created a new reality. Or rather, I should point out, parallel universes exist all around us, I just made this one exceptionally real. That was what caused the Colt's bullet to shear off and hit you, instead. Poetic justice, I'd say, you dying from the bullet intended for me. I don’t think your dear brother has mentioned that little detail in your recent conversations across time and space.”
“And now,” he continued, “all my dreams have come to pass. This world is dead. It belongs to me.”
The Demon strolled around the room, letting his leathery fingers brush against the walls. He kicked Dean's boot as he passed his body and Sam started up, struggling, still unable to speak.
“Easy now, your brother can't feel a thing,” the Demon said soothingly. “So you'd think I'd be happy, what with having my own Apocalypse, but I can't shake the feeling that my alter-ego, back in the original universe, is getting the rest of the goodies. Now that I've laid this world to waste, I want to do the same to the other one. Oh, I know what you're thinking: I'm getting greedy, too big for my britches. Well, you'd be right, but when have I ever not gotten exactly what I wanted?”
“That's right,” he continued, while Sam struggled and tried to convey with his eyes exactly what he thought of that. “I'm insatiable. And I miss the challenge of that original world. We had some good times, didn't we, Sammy, my boy?”
Sam struggled to speak but the Demon held his tongue fast. His eyes darted around the room, looking for something, some way to free himself.
“The laws of physics can be manipulated,” the Demon said. “That's what spells do, but I can't go back as long as I exist there. Since you're dead -- remember? -- you don't have that problem. I need a ticket to ride.”
He grinned and his eyes glowed yellow as he turned toward Sam. “Yeah, you know what I need. You know now why I've kept you alive tonight. You know...”
Sam felt the thundering of his heart as he groped with the terror filling his mind. The Demon would possess him, would jump into Dean's world, and Dean wouldn't be expecting it. There was nothing he could to warn him, or to stop it. He felt his mouth opening up in a yawn, a scream, as the black burning substance of the Demon filled him. The Demon scraped his throat raw, shoving down and inside and Sam felt himself stepping aside as the Demon's consciousness rose to the fore.
There was no Sam here now, just the weak little echo, his spirit forced backstage and the Demon could almost hear the screams ringing out across the Shear, the future destruction he’d bring while clad in sanctimonious Winchester skin.
He moved gracefully down the stairs, stepped over the girl's broken body and walked out into the street. He was headed to the Shear and he was feeling fine, better in fact, that he'd felt in three whole years.
Being invincible was fantastic. Soon he'd be back in the real world, he'd be killing Dean Winchester and all the other hunters gathered around the Shear. His hunger ripped through him and made him feel alive inside Sam's skin. It was a beautiful skin to be in, even if it was a little worse for wear.
The trees waved and thrashed in the night wind, demon faces showing in their trunks and limbs and then disappearing again at the sight of him. They'd bow down if they could. A cold wind blew off the lake and several werewolves crawled in the underbrush behind him. Lake Susan had probably once been quite the quaint little town, full of antiques and families and picnics by the lake. Until it had been overrun with demons, terrified refugees, insanity, sickness.
It was a beautiful thing.
The Shear opened up for him, right on time, and there was Dean, shouting at Sam, never suspecting. And hey, the other one, the splinter-half twin, was there, too.
“We got him, Sam, we got him!” Dean shouted. “He can bring these worlds together long enough for us to get you out of there.” His voice was loud with excitement. Ellen and Bobby and a number of other people were there, their cars pulled up in the cemetery, lights shining over the burnt grass.
“Get me out of here, Dean,” Not-Sam said.
He could see himself on the other side, a far weaker version, and it was startling. A round bullet hole like a crater bloomed on that Demon's forehead; he'd been captured by the hunters and was down on his knees in front of the Shear. A two-for-one deal, Not-Sam thought. He’d lay his Other to rest right then and there, and then be free to take whatever form he liked. The Winchester crew had brought the lamb to the sacrifice, thinking they were ahead of the game. Well, why not let the Other do all the work then, and be free of the jet-lag when he landed?
Dean stood to the side, hollering at him to be ready.
Oh yes. He was ready.
He looked into his human-form face, straight into the yellow eyes -- the right one rolling and glowing like a marble in a jar. He saw his lips move, the Demon on the other side chanting and casting the spell that would send a tidal wave along the edge of the world; powerful enough to create a black hole, a tiny pinpoint of energy and light that would collapse in on itself and literally move the world, shake the foundations of reality and send parallel universes colliding into each other. He felt it, and he swam in, crashing over into the other side, landing hard on his Other and knocking the spell askew. The Shear shuddered and closed behind him, the alternate universe lurching away and spinning into the void.
“Sam!” Dean was jumping up and down. “Sam, get away from him, over here!”
Not-Sam stood and Dean was there, beckoning. Why wasn't Dean running to him? He got up and Dean was still waving him over, what was his deal?
“Sam, we've trapped him, get out of the circle before he gets any ideas.”
“Oh shit.” A Devil's Trap. He'd jumped right into the middle, trapping himself. His Other was still lying down, face grey with the effort of the spell, black veins spider-webbing across his forehead. He was weak, this one, not long for this world. But as long as he was still here, the Demon couldn't leave Sam. Matter would overlap matter and they'd both be destroyed.
He hesitated and all was lost.
“Yep, it's him,” Dean said. “Yellow Eyes was right. He wanted to come back just as bad as our Demon wanted to go over there. You bastards should have just switched places. But since you’re both here, guess it wouldn’t be rude to give you a real welcome party...” Dean began the incantation, Bobby, Ellen and the others chanting along with him just for good measure.
“I'm invincible,” the Demon said. “You can't destroy me.” He raced to kill his Other before the spell could work, flinging his hands around his neck and squeezing tightly. Too late. He'd made a serious error. He'd underestimated Dean's caution. He'd underestimated himself and his Other.
His own neck snapped back and he felt the force of his will being taken from him, pulled right out of Sam's body. “No,” was the last thing he said as he swirled and filled the air above Sam's head. He was screaming right along with his twin, writhing on the dead grass, the last of his strength flying out of him and the two of them melted together and exploded like dying stars.
“Yep, guess I can destroy you,” Dean said, running over to Sam, catching him as he collapsed.
***
Sam watched Dean prowl around the kitchen. His apartment in Wyoming was small but clean. Ellen had been mothering him while Sam was... what? Away? Dead? In a parallel universe?
“Stop pacing.”
“I'm not pacing, I just want to keep moving, ya know?”
“Yeah, I know Dean. Sit down.”
Dean sat and Sam looked at him. The last of the hunters was gone and there was no more beer in the fridge. It meant the party was over and they'd have to plan the next step.
Sam needed to keep moving, too. He'd been slapped on the back so many times, his shoulder hurt. Dean offered to look up Amber and Desiree but Sam declined. They thought of all the ways they could try to get their Dad out of hell, but Dean was pretty firm on leaving things as they were. He had confessed his deal with the Crossroads Demon to Sam, and how he'd been able to weasel out of it after all, since Sam had died anyway and the Demon had a thing for Dean and his man-pain. Sam didn't even have the energy to be angry about all that.
“What's next?” Sam looked carefully at Dean, who was intently avoiding his eyes.
“What do you want, Sam? You're the one who’s been in hell for three years. It's 2010, the Demon is dead, and the hunt will always be there, if you want that.” Dean was worried, the deep-etched furrow kept on reappearing between his eyebrows. He handled Sam with kid gloves, but that was okay, because Sam felt fragile as eggshells.
“I need time to think, Dean. I need time to adjust. How about a road trip, a real one? Head toward the West Coast, then maybe down south. It will be reassuring to see that California's still there and not dropped into the ocean.”
Dean was eager to please, and within days he'd sold his apartment and they'd left town. Sam refused to visit his own grave before they left, but Dean went out there one last time and Sam said nothing about it.
Old habits were hard to break. Sam forgot to turn on the lights when he walked into a room. He forgot to put things in the refrigerator. He slept in a pile of blankets at the foot of Dean’s bed and couldn’t remember leaving his bed when he woke up. He ate beans out of cans, cold.
He carried his gun and his laptop everywhere, which wasn't so very unusual, except for places like the bathroom, no matter how much Dean reassured him that it was okay to relax. Sam couldn't really relax.
“Just leave the laptop here. Right here, with me,” Dean said one day, pulling on it as Sam was heading to the shower. They were getting ready to leave; the motel they’d picked wasn’t up to even their early childhood standards, which were pretty low.
“Fuck off, Dean, it’s a habit. I’ll lose it, don’t worry.”
“I know. But it’s bugging me. How about you lose the habit right now?” He tugged harder, working his fingers around the edge.
“Dean, I’m warning you.”
They tussled, and it was like old times, except that it wasn’t. Sam knew this wasn’t going to end with Dean rubbing noogies into his head or whatever. Sam barely kept his temper leashed and resisted the urge to hit Dean as hard as he could.
Dean held on. “Goddammit Sam, I don’t want to lose to you whatever the fuck nightmare’s still plugging away up there,” Dean said.
Sam struggled but Dean held him, almost in a head-lock except for how much it felt like an embrace. Sam shuddered and felt the abyss open up underneath him. It was up to him if he wanted to just fall into it.
Instead, Sam knotted his hands in Dean’s hair and let it go. Fear and rage, and all the things in between and even deeper. He was crying -- no, laughing. Something in between. Dean was urging him on, telling him it was okay. Dean was talking, rubbing Sam’s back and shoulders, offering himself up like a chew toy or a punching bag and Sam just wanted him to shut the hell up. Dean murmured in his ear like Sam was some kind of wild animal. And the sounds that were coming out of Sam sounded wild, they were strange and foreign to his own ears.
He needed more, more touch, more of Dean’s voice. Something in him was rising up. It was the emptiness and the black space that he’d carried around with him, something Dean couldn’t ever fill, something Sam couldn’t ever let Dean share. But he had to share something, or he’d go insane with it all.
Dean’s face was next to his and he pulled back suddenly to look at it. Dean was scared, Sam was scaring him, and when Dean saw his face, he went white. So Sam stopped thinking and crushed his lips against Dean’s. He wanted to make Dean stop looking, stop talking, just feel a tiny bit of Sam’s pain and horror and take it away.
It was totally unfair; Sam knew it the minute he did it.
Dean didn’t pull away, just made a squeaky sort of grunting noise and kept his arms around Sam. Sam gripped his head and kept kissing him, violently, urgently, tasting blood and salt and fear.
Sam pulled back again, this time to try something else, because his gut was churning and his lungs were on fire. The color had returned to Dean’s face, though, and Dean started talking again, saying his name, telling him it was okay, lying to him. He raised a hand to knock Dean away, and Dean caught it. With his other hand, Dean touched Sam’s face, his fingers traced around to Sam’s neck and he pulled him in, gently, and kissed him again.
“S’okay,” Dean said. “It’s alright. It’s going to be. It’s going to be. Whatever you want, Sammy, whatever you need. I got you.”
Sam pushed him, hard, then followed him, grabbing him again and pushing him again. Dean went with along, let Sam manhandle him, resisting the pushes and swaying into the embraces. He kept reaching out for Sam and finally Sam felt something in him give way each time he reached for Dean, over and over. He twisted Dean’s shirt in his fist and pulled him down, both of them hitting the floor hard. He covered Dean’s body with his, kissed him, and held him down.
“That’s it, Sam. I want it, I want you, too. It’s okay. Come on,” Dean said. He stripped off his shirt and pulled Sam’s over his head. Sam almost cried at the feel of his skin against Dean’s. His brain was popping like a flashbulb - all the scenes of death and dismemberment he’d witnessed - nothing could keep them at bay, but he tried, biting Dean’s chest, pressing against him, muttering his low, animal sounds.
They kicked their jeans off. Sam opened his eyes once, to see the afternoon sunlight dotting the ceiling with strange shapes, dust rising out of the nasty motel carpet they were laying on, and the top of Dean’s head, hair plastered with sweat as he went down on him.
The sensation was new and strange; Sam had never had a blowjob from a guy before, and he’d nearly forgotten about sex, but his body was still responsive, his hips bucked up and his dick was hard and Dean’s mouth felt good. Dean was letting him do whatever he wanted, he realized, and so he thrust up, hard, and reached down to hold Dean’s head in place. Christ, what had happened to them?
Dean didn’t care, clearly, and Sam was shocked to find himself coming, shocked to feel Dean drinking it down, shocked to find that he still felt angry and scared at the same time that he acknowledged the pleasure coursing through him. He grabbed Dean and pushed him down on the floor. He wanted to give as good as he got. Dean was hard, and as many times as Sam had seen his cock, he’d never seen it like this, and he had to push that thought away - the thought that this was unnatural, abnormal, something he’d never do.
The real Sam wouldn’t do this.
Fuck it. Sam licked up Dean’s cock and put his mouth around it and even though it tasted terrible - nothing like a woman at all - he wasn’t about to feel something as alien as regret. He lifted his head and met Dean’s eyes and that was all it took; he wanted this, he really did.
He emulated the same motions that Dean had, bringing in his hand to help out. He felt frenzied, manic, and heard Dean gasp when his teeth got in the way, but he couldn’t stop to care. He pressed Dean down with one hand as Dean started to come, and he moved his face out of the way, guiding Dean through it with his hand.
“Fuck. Sam. Fuck.”
“Shit, that was, that was different,” Sam said, his face still near Dean’s belly.
They showered and said nothing as they packed their bags. They talked again in the car, decided on their next stop, and argued about where to stop for dinner. Sam was thinking it was just a one-time thing, something he needed to get out of his system, but the minute they were in the motel room, Dean clambered onto Sam’s chosen bed and put an arm around Sam’s shoulders, waiting. Sam kissed him, thumbed his jaw, and felt the heat rise up in him again.
“Missed you.” Dean said, gruffly. Sam knew what he meant. He let Dean kiss his neck, his tongue rasping against the grain of stubble and tried to shut his mind against the images that paraded against his eyelids.
“I’m the real Sam,” Sam said. Tried to believe it.
“I know,” Dean replied. “I know. I get it. Let me make you feel good, Sam. Let me.”
Dean had picked up condoms at the gas station; Sam knew because the box was new. Dean rolled it on him, pushing Sam down on his back every time he tried to sit up and protest. Dean kissed him fervently while he did something behind his back with lube he’d fished out of his bag.
“Shit,” Sam said, when Dean lowered himself down onto Sam’s cock. “Dean.”
The furrow reappeared on Dean’s forehead. “Okay, Sammy, okay?”
Sam couldn’t speak. Someone else was taking care of him, wondering about his well-being, and it was the person he most wanted to do the caring. A choking sound came from his throat, but it seemed that Dean understood. Dean leaned forward and rode him, while Sam stared at his face.
Later, in the middle of the night, Sam woke up as usual but the scream died in his throat. The images were still there, so he woke Dean up, pinned him down in the pillows and fucked him.
“Jesus, Sam. I bought condoms, for chrissakes,” Dean said after.
“Sorry,” Sam said. “Did you give me an STD?”
“I’ll have you know,” Dean’s hair was sticking straight up and he sat in a pool of light from the motel’s giant Vacant sign. “I got laid all of once while you were gone.”
“Oh shut the fuck up, Dean. You’re the worst liar in history.”
“I’m not shitting you. Once. Okay, I gave a few blowjobs to some guys here and there, but actually getting laid? One chick, before the Shear, and it was terrible.”
“Now I know you’re telling the truth. Since when are you into guys and since when do you admit when you’ve had bad sex?”
“Things took a serious downturn while you were gone, what can I say?”
“Yeah. I know the feeling.” Sam ran his hand up Dean’s side to his face. Dean leaned into it. The laugh lines on his face were more pronounced but his face was still like smooth marble. His expression became serious at the unspoken subject of Sam’s life for the past three years. Sam would have to make sure that going forward, Dean didn’t have to feel that what he’d been through was somehow less than what Sam went through. He’d have to be there for Dean as much as Dean was there for him.
Sam could do that. He could definitely do that.
“So,” Sam said.
“So.”
“Is this how things are going to be?”
“This is how things are going to be. No going back. Get used to it.”
Sam could definitely do that, too.
.