A Minor Prelude
Author’s Note: This takes place before all of the other entries chronologically, including The Epilogue to a Very Long Biography. Sam’s on his own and has been for a few years after dispelling Lucifer. Warnings for: suicidal ideation thoughts, self-deprecation, trauma, body horror (injury), and depression.
Prequel to The Epilogue of a Very Long Biography, but likely unneeded to read this.
*************
The sun beats down on the earth and bakes everything and everyone in its path without mercy. Sam can think of a few things that could relate to the sun, bright and strong and overwhelming, all of which make his mouth dry and a hot shiver slither up his spine. He's not sure where he is now; it's somewhere in California, he'd like to think, but it's hard to tell where he is based on weather patterns anymore. All he knows is that it's scorching, dust whipping in loose circles to catch in his untamed hair.
He runs into a group traveling from place to place, scavenging for what they can, wary and wear and ready to attack whatever attacked first. The Croats, while not as intensely overwhelming as they had been when - when, um... Lucifer was around, they were still an on-going problem. As it was, the tiny close-knit group had lost two people last week already to the virus. Sam wishes there was something he could do to bring them all back. But the power left inside of him after the archangel had been ripped out his body (released like ripped up pieces of a letter on the breeze) could do nothing against the stinking stain left in a person's blood once the virus had found its way inside. It makes Sam feel a coil of disgust and self-hate when he thinks about it, when he thinks about how he's free not to worry because of that original dribble of demon blood, that tar that had turned him into something less than human. He doesn't fight that fact anymore. He knows what he is now, that Dean had been right. He was a freak. And he was a monster. And Dean wasn't the only one who knew it, either; each day posed the risk of running into someone who knew, exactly, where his face had come from. What he'd done to society. Oftentimes, he was met with horror, though other times, pure unadulterated fury (for homes, for friends, for families, for livelihoods lost). More and more as people learned about him, realization at who he was meant Sam would have a few dozen buckshots to tweeze out of his flesh in the dead of night, by dim flashlight.
He's lucky, today. He's blessed. None of the eight or so people recognize the man who ruined everything. There will be no bullets to unwedge from his bones today. No waiting for his gurgling, slit throat to mend itself back together. He shouldn't feel so relieved; he knows he has it coming to him. He just feels bad for them, that all of their efforts to smother his life out keep failing; it's like one of those fake birthday cake candles, where you blow and blow and blow and it just flickers and laughs back in your face. He sits with these people, haunted and guilty but so eager for interaction after being trapped inside Lucifer's shadow for what felt like a thousand years. He refuses their offer of food, though. He has to draw the line at their kindness somewhere. He makes up for wasting their time with him by going into the more dangerous sections of the small city, fetching anything he can that could be useful later. Sam finds he can see really well in the dark, and then at least he'll see the Croats coming on top of being immune to their mindless violence.
They rest up for a night, when Sam decides to offer them the direction to a settlement a few miles away, and it seems to brighten their outlooks considerably when he describes the small, homely place. He had helped the settlement repair some old cars for emergency purposes, after they'd had found an old garage lined with big, red gasoline cans. As it turns out, the original owner of the place had wanted to be ready for the end of the world. Gasoline was a must to juice their car up fat and happy for the long haul (one they never got to, it sadly seems). Dean would have loved to have it for Baby, he thinks. Dean must still keep her cleaned up and put away. He has to, because that was their home. Dean's home... Dean's and Dad's, if not Sam's. He should ask if he can have one of them, maybe drop it off on the outskirts of Dean's encampment if he can ever find it. He'd carry it around for as long as he had to, if it meant giving Dean a chance to give the Impala a spin on the road again. He reminds himself, chides really, that it's not his to take. People need it to survive. He's taken enough from people.
It's not a huge population, he tells them, but the place is flourishing, which is better than roaming in dangerous territory. The small nomadic group easily agreed to follow.
Sitting by the fire, Sam takes first watch to look out for any signs of danger, while the others rest up for the trek ahead. The night is much cooler, drying sweat his neck and filling the usual void of rustic silence with crickets and the occasional owl call. Someone sleeping shifts and sighs in the calmness, the kind of noise you make when you dream of better things. It causes a small, hesitant smile to curl on his lips, until he notices with a start that someone in the back has crawled out from their sleeping bag to join him in the land of the conscious. The fire casts orange splotches over their skin as they wander closer to where he sits. It's an older man, in his fourties, maybe fifties, like his father had been before he died. Sam saw him in the back of the group, meek and very tired looking, hair peppered black and white, burns on his arms and cheek. He'd been afraid to know what had happened to him. Either way, it's likely Sam's fault it happened.
Why is he disrespecting all these people by walking the same earth as them? He wants to tear his own throat out more and more, for every groove of puckered, shining skin he sees. He looks away.
"You're Sam Winchester," the man whispers in a rough voice. If ever a name to make his blood run cold, it's his own. He whips his horrified gaze around to meet a surprisingly calm one. The man holds up his hands, one set of fingers bent unnaturally. "Please. Don't be afraid. I won't... I won't tell anyone who you are. I'm Quinton. I, um. I don't think you remember me, huh?"
Sam doesn't, not at all, and that scares him, too. His heart is pounding away in his chest, the coldness in the night dissipated.
Quinton sits down next to him. He says quietly, "I was - possessed. By a demon. Took me around all over the place. He... answered to the thing in your body. Guess the monster riding around in me needed me to take orders from, from... Lucifer. I did things to people. Horrible things I can't ever forget, not even 'til I die, maybe." He holds out his arms, as if inventorying each mauled inch of flesh. Now doesn't seem like the time to speak, not with how the man seems to be bracing himself to tell him all this; Sam just forces his mouth shut, hands clasped on his knees hard enough to bruise. "I got burned like this out of someone's personal vengeance for what the demon did; I can't say it didn't make me feel a little better... A hunter realized what was goin' on, had it exorcised." Kill me, he thinks. Kill me for this. He remembers now, the faintest memory of Quinton's voice peeking through the veil of blackness, only his voice wasn't soft like this. It was sharp and confident and dripped with chaotic energy. God.
"I'm so... sorry," he manages, without choking. But a lump in his throat makes things complicated. He feels like he can't even try to swallow. Feels like it's impossible to move at all. When he speaks again, it's with great difficulty, eyes burning, bowing his head. "I'm so sorry, Quinton. None of this should've... I'm sorry. I wish I could fix it. All of it, I'd do anything..."
The man's hand is a warmth on his shoulder that takes Sam by surprise. It doesn't even hurt. It occurs to Sam, to his dismay, that it's comfort being offered to him. Quinton says, more firmly, "Don't. It got you, too. Didn't it? You didn't want t'do the things you did, either. I could tell watching you, you felt the same way. It takes something out of you, when they're finally gone from you. Makes life... harder. Makes looking at people in the face harder. But, um... I just. I just wanted to say - " The man ducks his head, lip quivering. "I just wanted to say it's okay. It's good that you're vertical, that you're alive. I don't... hold anything against you. You got more in common with me than anyone else can understand - I see that it broke you something awful, too. And I don't blame you. For breaking. Or for doin' the breaking."
Sam can't believe the words spoken. Quinton's wrong; he doesn't understand the full story, probably. Lucifer only got to him because Sam wasn't strong enough to protect humanity. He was reckless and foolish to think he ever could hold his own, and now everyone's suffering from one simple word he'd said, a word not even spoken with complete assuredness. This man couldn't have had any chance to outrun a demon's smoke, but Sam looked Lucifer's rotting suit in the eye and knew what he was up against.
But this kindness - the sympathy and understanding - it smashes through Sam with a force that might as well have been him being flung from a car. He squeezes his eyes shut, curls himself into a tight ball, and gambles his sanity by putting his hand over the one still splayed on his shoulder. There is nothing, for many weeks after this, that will relieve him more than the hand not pulling away in rejection. "Thank you," he barely croaks, forehead against his knees. "Thank you. I'm so sorry. Thank you."
"I've learned to forgive myself, Sam," the man says, "It's a lot to hope for, but... I hope someday you can forgive yourself, too."
Sam feels like such a thing is just a ridiculous fantasy. Quinton looks at him like it's just out there, waiting for him.
The few weeks after that night, Sam stays with them at the small settlement, helping clear out damaged buildings full of dusty or broken things. He works day to day until his shirt is doused in sweat, skipping meal after meal, wandering night after night, ignoring the alluring call of sleep. As always, the people inside the camp grow unsure of him. Unsettled by his inhumanity. Sam simply makes sure he's gone off into the night before his name starts floating on the wind. But he makes sure to keep Quinton's name with him.
Prequel to The Epilogue of a Very Long Biography, but likely unneeded to read this.
*************
The sun beats down on the earth and bakes everything and everyone in its path without mercy. Sam can think of a few things that could relate to the sun, bright and strong and overwhelming, all of which make his mouth dry and a hot shiver slither up his spine. He's not sure where he is now; it's somewhere in California, he'd like to think, but it's hard to tell where he is based on weather patterns anymore. All he knows is that it's scorching, dust whipping in loose circles to catch in his untamed hair.
He runs into a group traveling from place to place, scavenging for what they can, wary and wear and ready to attack whatever attacked first. The Croats, while not as intensely overwhelming as they had been when - when, um... Lucifer was around, they were still an on-going problem. As it was, the tiny close-knit group had lost two people last week already to the virus. Sam wishes there was something he could do to bring them all back. But the power left inside of him after the archangel had been ripped out his body (released like ripped up pieces of a letter on the breeze) could do nothing against the stinking stain left in a person's blood once the virus had found its way inside. It makes Sam feel a coil of disgust and self-hate when he thinks about it, when he thinks about how he's free not to worry because of that original dribble of demon blood, that tar that had turned him into something less than human. He doesn't fight that fact anymore. He knows what he is now, that Dean had been right. He was a freak. And he was a monster. And Dean wasn't the only one who knew it, either; each day posed the risk of running into someone who knew, exactly, where his face had come from. What he'd done to society. Oftentimes, he was met with horror, though other times, pure unadulterated fury (for homes, for friends, for families, for livelihoods lost). More and more as people learned about him, realization at who he was meant Sam would have a few dozen buckshots to tweeze out of his flesh in the dead of night, by dim flashlight.
He's lucky, today. He's blessed. None of the eight or so people recognize the man who ruined everything. There will be no bullets to unwedge from his bones today. No waiting for his gurgling, slit throat to mend itself back together. He shouldn't feel so relieved; he knows he has it coming to him. He just feels bad for them, that all of their efforts to smother his life out keep failing; it's like one of those fake birthday cake candles, where you blow and blow and blow and it just flickers and laughs back in your face. He sits with these people, haunted and guilty but so eager for interaction after being trapped inside Lucifer's shadow for what felt like a thousand years. He refuses their offer of food, though. He has to draw the line at their kindness somewhere. He makes up for wasting their time with him by going into the more dangerous sections of the small city, fetching anything he can that could be useful later. Sam finds he can see really well in the dark, and then at least he'll see the Croats coming on top of being immune to their mindless violence.
They rest up for a night, when Sam decides to offer them the direction to a settlement a few miles away, and it seems to brighten their outlooks considerably when he describes the small, homely place. He had helped the settlement repair some old cars for emergency purposes, after they'd had found an old garage lined with big, red gasoline cans. As it turns out, the original owner of the place had wanted to be ready for the end of the world. Gasoline was a must to juice their car up fat and happy for the long haul (one they never got to, it sadly seems). Dean would have loved to have it for Baby, he thinks. Dean must still keep her cleaned up and put away. He has to, because that was their home. Dean's home... Dean's and Dad's, if not Sam's. He should ask if he can have one of them, maybe drop it off on the outskirts of Dean's encampment if he can ever find it. He'd carry it around for as long as he had to, if it meant giving Dean a chance to give the Impala a spin on the road again. He reminds himself, chides really, that it's not his to take. People need it to survive. He's taken enough from people.
It's not a huge population, he tells them, but the place is flourishing, which is better than roaming in dangerous territory. The small nomadic group easily agreed to follow.
Sitting by the fire, Sam takes first watch to look out for any signs of danger, while the others rest up for the trek ahead. The night is much cooler, drying sweat his neck and filling the usual void of rustic silence with crickets and the occasional owl call. Someone sleeping shifts and sighs in the calmness, the kind of noise you make when you dream of better things. It causes a small, hesitant smile to curl on his lips, until he notices with a start that someone in the back has crawled out from their sleeping bag to join him in the land of the conscious. The fire casts orange splotches over their skin as they wander closer to where he sits. It's an older man, in his fourties, maybe fifties, like his father had been before he died. Sam saw him in the back of the group, meek and very tired looking, hair peppered black and white, burns on his arms and cheek. He'd been afraid to know what had happened to him. Either way, it's likely Sam's fault it happened.
Why is he disrespecting all these people by walking the same earth as them? He wants to tear his own throat out more and more, for every groove of puckered, shining skin he sees. He looks away.
"You're Sam Winchester," the man whispers in a rough voice. If ever a name to make his blood run cold, it's his own. He whips his horrified gaze around to meet a surprisingly calm one. The man holds up his hands, one set of fingers bent unnaturally. "Please. Don't be afraid. I won't... I won't tell anyone who you are. I'm Quinton. I, um. I don't think you remember me, huh?"
Sam doesn't, not at all, and that scares him, too. His heart is pounding away in his chest, the coldness in the night dissipated.
Quinton sits down next to him. He says quietly, "I was - possessed. By a demon. Took me around all over the place. He... answered to the thing in your body. Guess the monster riding around in me needed me to take orders from, from... Lucifer. I did things to people. Horrible things I can't ever forget, not even 'til I die, maybe." He holds out his arms, as if inventorying each mauled inch of flesh. Now doesn't seem like the time to speak, not with how the man seems to be bracing himself to tell him all this; Sam just forces his mouth shut, hands clasped on his knees hard enough to bruise. "I got burned like this out of someone's personal vengeance for what the demon did; I can't say it didn't make me feel a little better... A hunter realized what was goin' on, had it exorcised." Kill me, he thinks. Kill me for this. He remembers now, the faintest memory of Quinton's voice peeking through the veil of blackness, only his voice wasn't soft like this. It was sharp and confident and dripped with chaotic energy. God.
"I'm so... sorry," he manages, without choking. But a lump in his throat makes things complicated. He feels like he can't even try to swallow. Feels like it's impossible to move at all. When he speaks again, it's with great difficulty, eyes burning, bowing his head. "I'm so sorry, Quinton. None of this should've... I'm sorry. I wish I could fix it. All of it, I'd do anything..."
The man's hand is a warmth on his shoulder that takes Sam by surprise. It doesn't even hurt. It occurs to Sam, to his dismay, that it's comfort being offered to him. Quinton says, more firmly, "Don't. It got you, too. Didn't it? You didn't want t'do the things you did, either. I could tell watching you, you felt the same way. It takes something out of you, when they're finally gone from you. Makes life... harder. Makes looking at people in the face harder. But, um... I just. I just wanted to say - " The man ducks his head, lip quivering. "I just wanted to say it's okay. It's good that you're vertical, that you're alive. I don't... hold anything against you. You got more in common with me than anyone else can understand - I see that it broke you something awful, too. And I don't blame you. For breaking. Or for doin' the breaking."
Sam can't believe the words spoken. Quinton's wrong; he doesn't understand the full story, probably. Lucifer only got to him because Sam wasn't strong enough to protect humanity. He was reckless and foolish to think he ever could hold his own, and now everyone's suffering from one simple word he'd said, a word not even spoken with complete assuredness. This man couldn't have had any chance to outrun a demon's smoke, but Sam looked Lucifer's rotting suit in the eye and knew what he was up against.
But this kindness - the sympathy and understanding - it smashes through Sam with a force that might as well have been him being flung from a car. He squeezes his eyes shut, curls himself into a tight ball, and gambles his sanity by putting his hand over the one still splayed on his shoulder. There is nothing, for many weeks after this, that will relieve him more than the hand not pulling away in rejection. "Thank you," he barely croaks, forehead against his knees. "Thank you. I'm so sorry. Thank you."
"I've learned to forgive myself, Sam," the man says, "It's a lot to hope for, but... I hope someday you can forgive yourself, too."
Sam feels like such a thing is just a ridiculous fantasy. Quinton looks at him like it's just out there, waiting for him.
The few weeks after that night, Sam stays with them at the small settlement, helping clear out damaged buildings full of dusty or broken things. He works day to day until his shirt is doused in sweat, skipping meal after meal, wandering night after night, ignoring the alluring call of sleep. As always, the people inside the camp grow unsure of him. Unsettled by his inhumanity. Sam simply makes sure he's gone off into the night before his name starts floating on the wind. But he makes sure to keep Quinton's name with him.