Tear You Apart
title: Tear You Apart
author:
monicawoe
word-count: ~8,200
characters: Sam Winchester, Tyson Brady, Dean Winchester, Crowley , Castiel, Death, Bobby
pairings: soulless!Sam/Brady, soulless!Sam/Sam's soul
genre: horror, M
warnings:Soulless Sam Winchester, Boy King of Hell Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester on Demon Blood, Cannibalism, Self-Harm, Blood Magic, Corporal Punishment, Season/Series 06, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Knives, Body Horror
story summary: Sam doesn’t want his soul back. He resurrects Brady who helps him figure out a way to outsmart Death: by damaging his soul so it can’t be reintegrated. With Brady’s help, Sam reclaims his power, and takes his soul apart one piece at a time.
written for
wetsammy who wanted Soulless!Sam/Brady and more specifically Soulless!Sam taking on the mantle of King of Hell.
thanks to my beta
quickreaver !
on AO3
Sam didn’t want his soul back.
But thanks to Dean, and his relentless drive to get his real brother back, Sam had twenty four hours before Death would try to force his soul back inside of him. Sam’s soul had been in Hell for over a year, more than one hundred twenty years by Hell’s clock. His soul was tattered, likely barely functional, and Dean wanted to shove that back into Sam regardless of how much he himself didn’t want it. Apparently his opinion didn’t matter. No soul, no say.
Sam wasn’t going to let them do that to him. He’d find a way to stop them. Everybody could be stopped if you knew the way, even Death.
It was easy to slip Bobby. He was old, and his reflexes had gotten even slower, his senses dimmer over the last few years. Sam left the junkyard by foot, took the next car he found and got miles away likely before Bobby even realized he’d gone.
Sam drove to the storage locker, praising his past self for having had enough brains to keep it within range of Bobby’s. It was almost like he’d foreseen needing to make a break for it someday. He pulled the lockbox out and looked at his collection. Despite Dean’s misgivings, Sam had learned the value of magic, particularly blood magic, in which Ruby had given him a primer. She hadn’t taught him anything truly powerful, just a few basic things like tracking people and demons. In retrospect it was clear why she hadn’t taught him anything more. But Sam didn’t need personalized lessons, he was good at research. And there were volumes and volumes about all the fucked up stuff you could do with somebody’s blood, or hair, or both.
He pulled out the small wrapped bundle of cloth and tucked it in his pocket, grabbed the bowl and needed herbs, then shut the locker again, hurrying back to the car.
#
The condemned house was hidden away enough that nobody would find Sam there. At least nobody human. A hex bag would keep the rest at bay. He’d ditched the car a half mile back, just in case. He’d have left it further away, but he was pressed for time as it was. Dean’s deal was to play Death for twenty four hours after which, in exchange, Death would pluck Sam’s soul from the cage and stick it back inside Sam’s body; by Sam’s calculations that meant he had a little over twenty-one hours left to stop Dean, or figure out how to keep Death from following through on his part of the deal. He’d opted for the latter.
He unfolded the bundle and looked at what he’d kept from the kill. If he was anyone else, he supposed, it could’ve been considered a trophy: a lock of hair, a scrap of clothing and most importantly dried blood. Dried demon blood. Brady’s blood, from the night Sam had killed him.
He’d been so angry then. Sam remembered it now through the filter of rational thought, without his soul’s fuel, simply as a betrayal. One he should’ve seen coming. Nobody in his life had ever liked him just for him. Everybody had an angle, and the fact that Brady had been a demon while they were still in school together and that he’d set Jessica up to be slaughtered shouldn’t have surprised Sam. But it had, because that Sam-Sammy-was an idiot, swayed by his heart and his misplaced kindness.
Sam picked up the cloth and turned it inside out over the iron bowl, letting the flakes of dried blood fall into the mixture of herbs he’d prepared. The spell he was attempting was complicated, but in many ways also uniquely suited to him. Back before his trip to Hell, he’d been able to wield all sorts of power over demons, so resurrecting and binding one with his blood should be easier for him than the average witch. He’d considered multiple options before settling on Brady. Crowley, Balthazar, maybe even Castiel, but after thinking through all their skills and connections, he’d realized his best bet was Brady. He wasn’t just trying to outwit Dean, he had to evade Death. And Brady knew the Horsemen. He’d worked for Pestilence back when Lucifer’s apocalypse was still underway.
Sam sliced his knife over the meat of his palm in the shape of the spell’s sigil, and let three drops of red fall into the bowl as he began to chant, "Tae invoco apro..." His blood struck the herbs and dried crimson flakes, sizzling and bubbling as the magic began to build. A blue flame rose on the words "fundus inferni," and grew, spilling out over the edges of the bowl and spreading out along the ground, writhing tentacles of spell work. They surrounded Sam in an ornate circle, licking at the toes of his boots, winding up his calves and thighs and middle. "Anima corpori. Fuerit corpus totem resurgent."
"Ad ligandum eos," Sam said as the magic twisted around his arm, "coram me!" The blue flame flowed downwards, spiraling onto the ground and growing, until it reached the height of a man, nearly as tall as Sam.
When the light faded Brady was standing there, black eyes and all; he looked exactly as he had the day Sam had killed him. For a few moments he seemed disoriented, scanning his surroundings with jerky, nervous movements of his head, but then his gaze settled and he scoffed a laugh. “Sam?” He laughed again sharply, and lunged forward, grabbing for Sam’s throat.
Sam’s lips curved as he sidestepped Brady’s sloppy attempt, and he pushed his fingers against the mark he’d made on his palm. Brady doubled over in pain and fell to his knees, grinding out, “Nice to see you again,” through gritted teeth.
“I need your help,” Sam said. They didn’t need a preamble.
“Why would I want to help you?” Brady asked, still defiant.
“Because if you do, you get to keep existing.” This wasn’t a discussion. He had a job for Brady, that he’d either do or Sam would send him right back into nothingness.
Brady looked at the spent bowl of herbs, Sam’s bloody palm, and then his eyes. “What, no powers? You gotta use spell work to keep me in line?”
“For now.”
“Is that-that’s not why you brought me back, is it? For a juice box? There’s other demons out there-“ Brady’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. Something’s different about you.” The black faded from his eyes and he looked genuinely confused. “You’re all...hollowed out. What did they do to you?”
“I was in Hell, in the Cage, and then somebody brought me back without my soul.”
Brady snorted. “And you think I’m gonna help you get it back? Why would-”
“No. I don’t want it back. I want to stay like this.”
“Interesting.”
“Dean is-he made a deal with Death, and in-“ Sam glanced at his watch, “twenty hours, Death is going to get my soul from the cage and force it back into me.” He shook his head, fingers curling into fists. “I won’t let them do that to me. Destroy me just so Dean can have his brother back.”
Brady laughed, sharp and mean. “And you think I can help you stop Death?”
“You worked for Pestilence.”
“Yeah, Pestilence. Not Death.” Brady took a step forward. “You resurrected the wrong demon, pal. I can’t help you.” He took another step, foot knocking against the bowl, spilling its contents over the edge of the devil’s trap Sam had drawn to keep him in. Brady caught Sam’s eyes, tracking the spill and then lunged, knocking Sam off balance.
They tumbled to the floor, arms locked in combat.
Brady had Sam pinned instantly, knee on his chest, arms framing his head, forcing Sam to go to plan B. He bucked his hips enough to throw Brady off-center, and twisted his head into Brady’s arm, biting down sharply onto Brady’s forearm. His teeth broke skin with surprising ease and sulfur-filled, warm blood gushed into his mouth.
“Fuck!” Brady cried out as he tried to pull back. But Sam held him tight until he’d had several swallows.
Brady finally yanked free and landed on his ass, looking at Sam wide-eyed.
Sam raised his arm, palm aimed at Brady and called on his power.
Nothing happened.
He concentrated harder, trying to recall what it felt like-the push-pulling sensation, like a live wire between him and the demon he’d latched onto. He’d had enough blood for somebody of Brady’s level, he was sure of it. But no matter how hard he reached mentally, he couldn’t grab hold of Brady, the demonic essence slipping through his psychic fingers over and over, like he was made of sand.
“Well would you look at that,” Brady said with a smirk, and pushed himself back to his feet. “Lost your special combo move, huh?”
“Why isn’t it working?” Sam asked, lowering his hand so it hovered near his hidden knife-sheath, where he had plan C: Ruby’s blade.
“Because you need both. Body,” Brady said jabbing a finger at Sam’s chest, “and soul.” He cocked his head to the side. “Without it, you’re like an engine with fuel but no starter. No ignition.” Brady tilted his chin up. “Guess we’re done here.” He shouldered past Sam. “I’ll be on my way. I’d stay longer but you know how it is: Calls to make. People to kill.”
Sam let him go a few more feet towards the door and then threw Ruby’s blade with practiced ease, hitting Brady in the back of the shoulder.
He screamed in pain and fell to his knees, the blade sparking violent orange.
Sam slowly walked over to him and pulled the knife out, bringing it to Brady’s chin. “Let’s try this again. You help me. Or I kill you. Again,”
“Fine,” Brady snarled as Sam yanked him ungently back to his feet.
Sam flipped the knife in his palm, tip angled up, point digging into Brady’s throat.
"It doesn’t matter what you do to me. I still can’t help you stop Death.” Brady scoffed, eyes black and gleaming. “Nobody can.”
“Not stop. Outsmart. Or make it so my soul’s unusable. Can’t be hard, it’s already shredded to pieces.”
Brady looked at him steadily. “And you really don’t care about that at all.”
“I don’t need it. All it did was make me weak, make me hesitate when I shouldn’t have.”
Brady nodded, lips curling. “You can definitely destroy your soul. Not just make it unusable, you can obliterate it.”
“How?”
“Well that’s the tricky part. You have to get hold of it without Death noticing. So we have to be slick about it.” His brow furrowed. “But you’ll need power to destroy it completely. Real power. Like the kind you used to have.”
“You said I need my soul for it to work. I’m not doing that.”
Brady laughed. “Actually, that’s exactly what you’re gonna do.”
Sam couldn’t believe how eager this demon was to die again. “No, I won’t-“
“You need your soul to use your power, but it doesn’t need to be in one piece. Actually…” Brady’s eyebrows creeped slowly upwards, “...if you consume it, piece by piece, you’d get your power back and destroy your soul at the same time.”
“Fine,” Sam said, still not positive the demon was telling the truth. But he didn’t have any other viable options at the moment. “We have twenty hours.”
“Guess we’d better get started then.”
#
An hour later they were ready.
“We need an anchor,” Sam said, reviewing the elements of the spell. “Something to pull me back.”
“You bound us, remember?” Brady said. “I’m your anchor, whether I want to be or not.”
Sam looked at the mirror dubiously, watching the watery shimmer of the enchantment. He and Brady had done the spell together, a combination of blood and the Enochian Sam had used to open Lucifer’s cage. Apparently his voice, as the former vessel of Lucifer, still acted as a key, no Horsemen's' rings required. “How do we know this will bring me to the cage?”
“Because that’s where you already are. That’s where your soul is, anyway. Once you’re down below it’ll act like a homing beacon.” Brady pointed at the rapidly undulating lights in the mirror. But you have to time it right. That-“ he pointed at a disjointed bright red streak darting across the surface, “is Lucifer. You need to wait until he’s gone before you go in.”
“Gone? He’s trapped down there too with my soul, and Michael and Adam.”
“Trapped, sure. But he’s an archangel.” Brady shook his head, clearly exasperated with Sam’s lack of understanding. “Think of the cage as having different rooms. Your human soul is much easier to contain, so you’re isolated in one cell. Lucifer has free range of the whole suite. He leaves every few minutes, or you know, days-to go check on the other rooms.”
Sam nodded. He knew, conceptually, that time passed differently in Hell. A month was ten years, an hour here a week down below, a minute was three days, give or take. They only had eighteen hours here to destroy his soul, but he’d have plenty of time to do what he needed to do in Hell. Nearly four months. A lot could change in four months.
“How do I do it?” Sam asked, thumbing his knife. “How do I cut into my soul? It’s a soul, it’s not-“ Sam stopped himself and started again as the realization hit. “When Lucifer cut into me, when I was still there, he wasn’t just hurting my body,” Sam said, recalling for a red-hazed moment the barbs and blades and teeth the archangel had used on him over and over.
Brady licked his lips. “Hell makes souls flesh and blood. Much more fun that way; how else are you gonna tear into them?” He shrugged. “But like I said, you need the power to really dig into them. You’ve got the home-field advantage in this case because you and your soul are already irrevocably attached to each other.”
Sam didn’t like the sound of that at all.
“Meaning,” Brady went on, oblivious to Sam’s thoughts, “that you have a modicum of power over it already. Enough for the first surface slice anyway.” He smiled, showing teeth. “And after that first taste, you’ll get your power back and then you can really dig in.”
“So I cut it out and eat it and then you pull me back here.”
“Don’t eat it there. Lucifer’ll know.”
“How?”
“Consuming a soul sends out a shockwave of energy, and in the cage, he’s used to being the only one creating them. Your soul’s suffering is constant, by design, so he won’t notice a few extra screams, but no, you have to bring whatever you cut out back here first. Plus, it’ll be too hard to swallow-“ Brady waggled his eyebrows at the pun, “-down there. Souls are slippery things. And yours is confined, technically. You need a tool to break it out without setting off alarms."
"What kind of tool?"
Brady held out a small wooden box covered in sigils. "Cut out a part of him, put it in this, and by the time you get back topside it’ll be soul-stuff.”
Sam looked at the box, thumb brushing over the engravings along its edges. He opened the lid, snapped it shut again and stuck it in his jacket pocket. "I'm ready."
Brady gestured at the mirror. "You're the one with the key."
It seemed crazy that Sam could just get into the cage on his own, no rings required, but then he wasn’t really opening it. He was prying it open a crack, just enough for his body to be pulled back to his soul. "Beh voh tah mo en," Sam started, hand stretched out towards the mirror, "tah beh geh sah..."
As Sam finished the chant, the mirror's glass undulated and then peeled open, leaving a hole just wide enough for Sam to step through.
#
The portal sucked Sam in, fire and darkness swirling around him as it pulled him straight to the cage. He recognized it immediately: the grated floor, the rusted bars, the stench of old blood and decay somehow even more visceral here than in the world above.
His soul was on the opposite side of the cage, huddled in the corner. He looked small, his overlong, naked body folded into a ball, knees clutched close.
Sam crossed the cage floor until he was standing right next to him and crouched down to get a better look.
The other him-his soul-was trembling. He knew somebody was here with him, likely assumed it was Lucifer. Sam reached out a hand and shoved at his soul's shoulder to get his attention. "Hey," he said. "You've got company."
But his soul didn't move, stayed where he was, curling his head even farther in, like he could make himself disappear.
Sam scoffed. This was going to be easier than expected. He pulled his knife from his sheath and traced the tip over the soul’s shoulder, eliciting a full-body shudder. Superficial wound, Brady had said. Something simple and not too deep for this first go around. Fine.
Dragging the knife tip to his back, he ran his fingers over the skin, trying to determine where best to take a slice. As he touched his soul, he saw flickers of images-memories-like every inch of it was full of them. Flashes of his soul's guilt and sorrow and horror-too removed from Sam now, but still his. It annoyed him that this is what he consisted of. That this pathetic, quivering thing was the sum of his memories. More than that, his great sacrifice to stop Lucifer had been pointless.
Leaning in close to his soul's ear, he whispered, “You didn’t change anything, you know that? You didn’t save anyone. The world’s still just as shitty. Maybe shittier. Sure, maybe a few people get a few extra years, but what’s so special about that?”
He traced his fingertip along the faded scar near his nape, recalling the sense memory of a harpy talon that had torn into him there. There was another memory connected to that flicker of pain, a centimeter deeper down, not far at all, so Sam angled the blade and pushed in, twisting it slightly until he found it. John and Dean arguing because Sam had gotten hurt. He hadn’t been fast enough, and that’s when the second harpy had come down and gone straight for Dean. Sam had shoved him out of the way, taken the brunt of the harpy's attack instead. Stupid move, but he'd survived. Dean had never forgiven himself for it. Sam slid the knife in another centimeter, then brought it back up and around in a curve with expert ease, slicing off a tear-drop shaped piece of flesh, bleeding muscle and sinew.
Quickly, he opened the box and dropped the bloody strip inside, snapped the lid shut.
Without another look at his whimpering soul, Sam stood, turned back towards the cage wall, laid his palm against the bars and pushed. The tunnel opened and he could hear Brady’s voice at the other end of it, felt the tug of spell-work pulling him back topside. He held the box tight and let the magic drag him up.
#
The box was glowing-even before Sam had the lid open all the way-light bleeding out the edges; when he opened it he had to shield his eyes for a few seconds before they adjusted to the brilliant white-blue.
“How do I…” Sam poked his finger at the glowing mass experimentally. The soul sliver curled around his finger, iron shavings to a magnet, and when he lifted his hand out, the whole thing came with it in a shifting, gleaming blob.
“Down the hatch,” Brady said.
Sam gave him a steady look. He still hadn’t ruled out the possibility that Brady was deceiving him, but that’d be obvious soon enough and then Sam would deal with him.
Sam brought his glowing fingers to his mouth and the light from the soul tingled as he swallowed it down, tasteless but substantial. It hit his system with a flare, a burst of power that started at his sacrum and worked its way through his heart and into his limbs, much quicker than the demon blood had, faster than anything. He felt something inside of him shift, metaphysical parts slotting into place one click after another and when he turned his attention back to Brady, he could feel him-could see the confines of the dark demon cloud inside and the hollow gaps in the body where its own soul used to be. Looking down at himself he saw a photo-negative: dark light occupying the hollows, branching along his nerves and capillaries. The remnants of the soul's light flickered inside of him but died down quickly, consumed by his cells.
He reached out with his mind, probing, traced the contours of Brady, pushing against the demonic cloud until it shuddered. Brady let out a gasp, eyes blown wide as Sam grabbed hold of him psychically and yanked him in close, pulling both demon and vessel flush against his body.
Brady looked at him with unabashed eagerness and asked, “You thirsty?” He wriggled in Sam’s hold just enough to reach for the knife strapped to Sam’s belt.
Sam nodded, just once, and clasped his hand around Brady’s, angling the sharp tip of the blade at the hollow of Brady’s throat. Brady eyes fluttered shut as Sam pushed the tip in and drew the blade up in a gentle, curving arc, watching the red bead up in its wake like a string of rubies. He stuck the knife back in its sheath and closed his lips over the wound, brain buzzing pleasantly as the blood hit his system.
After he'd had his fill, Sam pulled back and Brady's eyes drifted open, staring at him with a blissed-out look on his face. "See? What'd I tell you?"
Sam traced his fingers over Brady's cheek and dropped his hand to his shoulder, pushing him down to his knees.
Brady's eyes never left Sam's as he undid Sam's belt and zipper.
#
They were lying together on the floor, limbs entangled, when the red light in the mirror faded for the fourth time.
“How much left?” Sam asked, mind still pleasantly hazy with post-coital bliss and the background thrum of his ever-growing power.
“Twelve hours,” Brady said, stretching languidly.
Sam pushed himself to his feet and rolled his shoulders back, mentally running his fingers over the contours of Brady's soul. He still remembered what it felt like when he’d killed Lilith-the reach and force of his psychic strength at full capacity. Or maybe not full. He didn’t actually know how far he could go. Particularly now that he had no reason to stop. He'd barely scratched the surface with these three tastes of soul, and he was ready to take a lot more this time.
After slipping back into his clothes, Sam chanted the Enochian key phrase again and the mirror peeled open. Sam stepped through and the Cage yanked him back down.
His soul looked as pathetic as the last time, maybe even more so. Despite the passage of time here, the wounds Sam had left on his soul were still raw, the patch on his shoulder barely scabbed over, the long gash in his upper back still oozing sluggishly. He’d pulled a deep memory from there, powerful and painful. Well, painful to Sammy anyway. The way John’s hand had struck him, the burn of the belt, and the aftermath: a night spent vacillating between impotent rage and shame. It was a key moment for Sammy, for his stunted self-worth, because surely there was something wrong with him if his only parent deemed him worthy of that much punishment. That much hurt.
Sam didn’t feel the shame or the rage, only mild curiosity at how Sammy had simply let it happen. He hadn’t been that small at twelve. He could’ve stopped John if he’d really wanted. But he hadn’t, and so he deserved no sympathy.
That chunk of soul he’d taken had given Sam one hell of a power boost though. He didn’t even have to touch demons anymore to burn them now. A look was enough, and his reach had grown by miles. He'd tracked one down just across the state-line from where he and Brady were holed up, summoned it to them and killed it all in the span of ten minutes. Then he'd fucked Brady, scalding his insides with his mind until Brady’d cried out, begging Sam to keep going even as his soul started to char.
Pulling his thoughts back to the present, Sam focused once more on his abused soul. “What do you have left, I wonder?” Sam mused, tracing the blade along the side of Sammy’s ribs, down his belly and over his thigh.
Compassion and betrayal all knotted together, buried beneath the old thick scarring on his lower back. Sam himself remembered this wound, remembered how he'd stood there, metal rod at the ready: it would've been so easy to bring it crashing down, to have ended Jake right then and there; Sam had felt his impending victory, heard whispers in his head promising him a kingdom, promising him power, promising him vengeance. But he'd let the rod drop and walked towards his brother's voice, just before the blade cut into his back.
As Sam pushed in the knife tip, slicing in at the same angle Jake had, he felt the echo of it in his bones, the smell of the muddy ground as his knees slammed down onto it, Dean’s panicked voice calling for him, holding him up as his brain stuttered to a halt. Then darkness. Then...here. He'd been here before. Not in the cage, but in Hell. And no one had laid a finger on him. They saved that privilege for Lucifer. Sam scanned the borders of the cage, looking for signs of Lucifer's return, but there were none. Not yet.
Sam held up the strip of flesh he’d cut, looked down at his butchered soul, and watched the synovial fluid ooze out, filling the hollow in his back to the brim before spilling out onto the floor of the cage, slithering through its grated floor as a hundred worms of darkness.
His soul lay listlessly, not even voicing a sound of pain. He'd been quiet the entire time. It would've been infuriating, if Sam could feel such things. He fought back the unexpected urge to kick him, and instead, turned his back, pushed his palm against the bars of the cage, mentally calling for Brady right before he caught a glimmer of red far on the outskirts of his periphery.
#
He took his soul’s heart next.
#
Brady moaned beneath him, reveling in Sam’s newly amplified strength, and Sam drank from him purely for the pleasure of it. The blood was a drop in the bucket now, no real power to be gained from it, but he liked it regardless. He liked the taste of it, he liked draining Brady and the added sway it gave him. Even the act itself, Sam’s teeth on Brady’s throat, pushed Brady from subservience straight into worship, which Sam definitely liked. The litany of praise fell from Brady’s lips in an electric prickle, running up and down Sam's spine, spreading through his nerves, amplifying everything, like his faith in Sam was making him even stronger.
Maybe it was.
Afterwards, the mirror was gleaming with Lucifer’s red light, so with time to kill and power itching in his veins, Sam summoned Crowley. It was easy to find him. Sam could sense every demon now, here on Earth and down in Hell.
“Moose. You’re looking well,” Crowley said, perturbed. He shifted his weight nervously, going stiff when he saw Brady. “You?”
“Me.”
“You were dead.”
“Aren’t we all.” Brady leaned against the wall, giving Crowley and Sam plenty of room.
“Fair.” Crowley turned back to Sam. “What’s the meaning of all this?”
“You’re not the one who brought me back.”
Crowley looked like he was going to protest but thought better of it, tongue pausing between his teeth before he forced a smile back onto his face. “No. But I would’ve, had I been able.”
“But you know who did," Sam continued.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Crowley shook his head. “I’ve been sworn to secrecy.”
“There’s no secrets here,” Sam said, mouth curving in anticipation. “Not from me.” He latched onto Crowley’s soul with his mind and bore down, pushing thorns of power deep into it, rooting around in Crowley’s thoughts until he began to howl in pain. “No way,” Sam said, when he found the answer. “No fucking way. He didn’t even mean to leave my soul there, and he thought he could just-he’s been lying this whole time.” Sam laughed at how ludicrous it was, and let go of Crowley who collapsed to his knees, panting.
Crowley pushed himself back to his feet, straightened his jacket and tie, and shrugged. “He meant well, but he’s not the brightest of angels, is he?”
Sam scoffed. "No, he's really not."
“So. Are we done here? Don’t want to be rude, but I’ve got kingly duties to attend to…”
“Of course you do,” Sam said coldly. He’d seen exactly what Crowley’s plans entailed. Cracking open Purgatory with Castiel’s help, then stealing all the souls for himself to use as ammunition.
“Yeah, pretty sure we’re done,” Brady said with a mocking wave, as Sam’s power took hold of Crowley and set him ablaze from the inside out. His soul burned first, and then his meat-suit, tailored slacks and all.
“The king is dead, long live the king,” Brady said, eyes locked on Sam as he dropped to his knees before him.
“I don’t want to be king. I don’t want the throne. I just want to be free.” Sam put his hand on Brady’s shoulder, straddled his hips and sunk down on top of him, pushing him down onto the scorched floor. Crowley’s ashes fluttered up into the air around them as Sam bore down on Brady’s neck, breaking the skin.
Brady’s hips bucked and he clutched at Sam’s back, his thoughts an open stream of praise and revelry that Sam drank down along with more blood.
#
The mirror went dark again a while later, and Sam wasted no time going back. He might have a claim to the throne now, and he might have had enough power to take Crowley down, but he’d need a lot more to keep the rest of Hell in check. And more still to keep Death at bay.
His soul was sitting in the corner, cross-legged, awake and alert, almost like he’d been waiting for Sam to come back. But he didn’t say a word as Sam came closer, didn’t fight when Sam grabbed him roughly by the hair and pulled his head back. But when Sam brought the knife to his eye socket, he screamed.
The memories held in the soul’s eyes were the most potent Sam had encountered so far. Everything his soul wished it could forget but couldn’t. Disgust on the faces of others, Dean’s most of all: If I didn’t know you I would want to hunt you….How far from normal, from human! The soul’s self-loathing bubbled up along with the memories, curdling in Sam’s gut like acid: I’m a whole new level of freak. I’m just trying to take this curse and make something good of it, because I have to. Dean’s cruelty, locking him up and leaving him to suffer as his body tore itself apart, and his taunts, over and over, that boiled down to one thing: Monster, Sam. You’re a monster.
The memory came to life around Sam and he caught Dean’s fist as it came crashing towards him, flung him onto the floor, straddled him, choked him until he went still. The room crumbled, tacky wallpaper giving way to cold brick and they were in the basement of a church in River Pass, Colorado, and Dean was looking at him again with that high and mighty judgment. Wouldn’t trust him to go outside in a town full of demons. “Like I haven’t learned my lesson?” Sam said in his memory. “Well have you?” Dean asked.
Sam shoved Dean against the wall hard, and dozens of eager bloody hands burst through the stone, grabbed hold of Dean and pulled him in, clawed fingers digging into his flesh as they pulled him farther and farther into the teeming mass, Dean was silent, eyes still glaring at Sam in accusation.
And then Dean was gone, and Sam was holding his own soul’s eyes in his palm. He reached for the box, opened it and dropped them inside, made a move towards the cage bars and then paused when he heard the whimpering sounds from his soul shift into laughter.
His soul was laughing at him. Sam turned back, rounding on the wretched, flayed thing and glared at it. “What’s so damn funny?”
The soul’s laughter dimmed into a soft chuckle. “You don’t know what you’ve done, do you?”
Sam’s jaw twitched with irritation. “Enlighten me.”
“You wouldn’t understand. Not yet.” It pushed itself to its feet, blackened blood oozing from the holes in its face, making Sam recoil. “But you will. You’ll see.”
“Very funny.” Sam made to leave again.
“Thank you.”
“What?” Sam asked, well beyond irritated now. He was angry. He whipped back around and shoved his soul, sent it staggering back. “Don’t thank me, you fucking spineless coward.”
“Thank you,” the soul said again.
“For what?”
“You took it away. It was so heavy, it was crushing me, but now…” the soul reached for Sam.
“I didn’t do it for you.”
“Of course you did, and you’re the only one who could.”
Sam’s anger grew spikes-he didn’t like the way this vestigial waste was talking to him. Like it was part of Sam’s plan. It wasn’t. He was doing this for himself, only. “Shut up,” he snapped.
“Make me,” the soul said, opening its mouth wide.
And so, in a moment of razor-fine fury, Sam grabbed hold of its tongue and cut it out.
#
The power boost was enormous.
Unlike the last times, the rush didn’t fade in a few minutes. It lasted for hours, through several increasingly aggressive rounds with Brady, until Sam realized he wasn’t coming down. Maybe not ever. In terms of what he could do now, that was a definite plus but pragmatically speaking, it was a problem. His focus had splintered, he saw and heard more than he ever had, too much to process all at once, and it was hard to reel himself in and keep his attention in the here and now. He could see through the dimensional barriers, hear the non-stop chattering thoughts of every single human and demon, even some of the angels above and the monsters in Purgatory. If he concentrated he could feel all of them at once. It was too much and took an extraordinary effort to shut them out.
“Take your Throne. It’ll be easier down there,” Brady suggested. “Plus, maybe it’ll take a few extra hours for Death to find you,” he added, hopefully.
Sam nodded in agreement, millions of souls flittering at the edge of his consciousness.
This time, he didn’t enter Hell through the mirror. He used his power to open a portal, stepped right into the throne room and took his seat.
#
Being in Hell helped. Sam found it easier to shut out Earth, Heaven and Purgatory. The throne helped center him, spoke to him about his destiny, like it had been waiting for him. It showed him what he could do with his power, and, less importantly, what he could do with Lucifer’s grace inside of him. Sam had no intention of going after Lucifer. The Devil could stay where he was and rot for the rest of eternity.
Brady stayed by his side, still bound to him, and held watch. Sam wanted more than anything else to be left alone, until he had a handle on his new power which seemed to still be growing, painfully so, pushing against his skin from the inside.
Demons came from time to time, but Sam didn’t want them anywhere near him. Those that didn’t heed Brady’s suggestions to leave were obliterated with a thought before they got within ten feet of Sam.
A few peaceful hours passed, and then Sam heard a call-a summons for the King of Hell. Castiel trying to summon Crowley. Sam found himself inclined to answer, if for no other reason than to see the look on the angel’s face.
“Stay here,” Sam told Brady, making it enough of a command that the binding spell wouldn’t protest.
Castiel’s summoning was still going, his voice growing ever more frustrated and desperate, and so Sam answered.
#
He appeared in an abandoned house. There were traces of sulfur in the air, along with the unmistakable ozone stink angels left behind when they blipped in and out. Castiel was standing in front of a summoning circle, in front of a splintering fake fireplace mantle.
“Sam?” Castiel said, face blanching. “I was-“
“Summoning the king of Hell.” Sam cocked his head. “There’s been a change in leadership.”
“Where’s Crowley?” Castiel understood the answer, before Sam spoke it aloud, realization spreading across his features. “How much did he tell you?”
“Everything,” Sam said steadily, taking a few steps forward. “Gotta say, Cas, I’m surprised. This is pretty shifty, even for you.”
“I don’t have a choice. Raphael is-“
“You think I give a shit about angel politics?”
“No.” Castiel crossed the last few feet between them. “But maybe you should.” Quickly he brought his fingers to Sam’s forehead, pushed power at him, likely to try to put him to sleep or send him into the cornfield or whatever.
But nothing happened. Sam’s power brushed off Castiel’s attempts with surprising ease.
“What have you done?” Castiel asked, stricken, lowering his hand. “What did you do to yourself?”
“I should be asking you that,” Sam said. “Don’t you think?”
“Sam, I-I tried to save you, believe me, I didn’t know that your soul would be left behind.”
“I suppose I should thank you, actually,” Sam said. “I wouldn’t even exist like this if you hadn’t fucked up my rescue so spectacularly.”
“I am sorry.” Castiel’s eyes widened almost comically in alarm.
Sam was amused by the reaction until he realized the fear wasn’t directed at him. Someone else was coming, someone ancient and indomitable. Castiel was trying to flee; Sam grabbed for his arm, clamped onto him before he could flutter away, hoping if nothing else to hitch a ride. He couldn’t teleport away himself, he could sense it; a dimensional lockdown had closed around them.
Death appeared, and Sam and Castiel both froze where they stood. The End of All Things focused his attention first on Castiel. “It’s better this way, believe me. If Sam here hadn't stopped you and your dead demon friend, things would have gone far worse for you.” He inclined his head, and Castiel vanished, pulled away against his will to who knew where.
Death turned, curling his spindly fingers over the head of his cane and gave Sam what was likely meant to be an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to destroy you. I’m going to make you whole again.”
“I don’t want to be made whole,” Sam said, but then Death rapped his cane on the floor once, and they were somewhere else entirely.
#
Sam was disoriented; he’d landed flat on his back in the panic room cot, the familiar devil’s trap fan rotating above his head. He hated this room, on a level cell-deep. Even without his soul it made him nervous and uneasy, even panicked. Dean and Bobby stood by the door watching him warily, and Death sat to Sam’s right with a large black medical bag on his lap.
“This will hurt, but only for a moment,” Death said, placing his right hand over Sam’s forehead while he reached inside his bag with the left.
Death closed his eyes and Sam flinched, drawing on his power but it couldn’t shield him. It wasn’t enough, and in desperation he tried to open the portal to the cage, to seek refuge there for one more hour, one more day, as long as he could still stay himself unfettered by his soul. But he wasn’t strong enough and he had no mirror, no Brady to call him back. He was alone, with Death.
Until he wasn’t.
The cot beneath him shifted, subtly at first, a shiver of cold, barely noticeable amidst Sam’s building panic. But he felt it: the familiar, nauseating presence of his soul, and at first he thought it was Death putting them back together, but then he saw the confusion on the Horseman’s face, the furrowed forehead, the slight arching of his thin brows.
And then the cot opened beneath him and Sam fell down, plummeting countless miles in a second. He landed on the grated, unforgiving floor of the cage. Pushing himself to his feet, he found his soul standing across from him, holding himself tall despite all his missing parts. There was light seeping from his wounds, gleaming star-white: what was left of his skin was slick with it. He radiated light, except for his empty eye sockets, which were devoid of it, an absolute darkness that Sam couldn’t bear to look at head-on. There was a finality in them, something inescapable and inevitable.
“Death came for me,” Sam said, focusing instead on the spot just below his soul’s chest, where he’d carved out his heart. Three of his ribs were visible, dark bars over the pulsing muscle that had started to regrow: glowing red flesh streaked with white light. “He’s coming for you too.”
“Death can’t touch us. You saw to that.” The soul shrugged, and the hollows of his eyes seemed to grow, pulling everything around them in and down, twin vortexes, black holes of emptiness.
Sam felt his gaze drawn up against his will, and he wanted to look-really look. More than that, he wanted to reach out and stick his fingertips inside just to see what would happen. But he didn’t. He was strong now, strong enough that even angels couldn’t touch him, but that emptiness in Sammy’s eyes could. He could feel cold heat from them, biting like liquid nitrogen. And so he averted his gaze, staring resolutely at the soul’s chapped, grey lips instead.
His soul moved closer until Sam could see the tiny twitches in its face: amusement, maybe, certainly not fear.
“What are you looking at?” he snapped, irritated by his own physical responses. He was sweating, he was...unnerved. When he had no reason to be. His other weaker half wasn’t a threat. He was a husk. A nearly emptied vestigial part of him that he’d outgrown.
“At you,” the husk smiled wide, the expression eerie on its strange face. “At us.” Its tongue had regrown, shimmering with white and red light.
“Like what you see?” Sam asked, tilting his chin up, defiant. He still avoided direct eye contact though, wary of the pull. Maybe this was how Death was going to reassemble them.
The soul nodded, and closed the last few inches between them, his spindly fingers wrapping around Sam’s biceps.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked, trying to pull away, but found he couldn’t, locked in place, his body gone rigid.
“I want to...thank you for setting me free,” said his soul, the tattered thing he loathed, smiling wide with blackened teeth. “Look at me.”
“No.” Sam jerked back, trying to get free of his hold, but his soul’s fingers were like metal clamps.
“But I want you to,” the soul said. “Don’t you want to see what you made us into?” Sammy’s void-eyes seemed to grow wider, and Sam could feel himself start to fall again, could see the cage bars warp around them, bowing inwards like they were being crushed by a giant hand.
Sam grabbed hold of one of the bars, clutched at it, while mentally screaming for Brady, who could still hear him. Sam could hear him calling back, voice garbled but there.
“Death can’t touch us now,” the soul said, “nobody can. Not now, not ever.” His eyes grew wider still, until their void covered Sam’s whole view. “Do you even know what we are?”
“I know what I am,” Sam said, but his voice sounded unsure, even to himself.
The Void nodded. “Then you know that you don’t belong here. And that you have something of mine. I can take it back now, our burden. I can take it all.” He smiled benevolently, and with two fingers, gently tilted Sam’s chin up, leaned forward and kissed him, chastely, on the mouth.
Sam met his soul’s empty eyes, he looked and couldn’t tear himself free. Caught in their inexorable pull, he felt himself torn apart atom by atom, consumed by that endless depth and he tried to stop it, scrambling for purchase with all of his power, calling on demons calling on Hell itself to save him, but he was still falling, forever and ever down a deep dark pit devoid of light and sound and there was nothing here, an absolute emptiness. Nothing could exist here. Nothing, not even him not even him but he did, he was he was, and the digested pieces of his soul that he’d carved out and consumed burst from his body, angry and fanged, his skin flaking off, hollowed like a pupae, and all around him his soul-his tarnished, weak pathetic soul-burst into color and spread out into the nothingness setting it alight with fire in every shade of yellow, red and gold. The Void filled with light until it was too bright to see anything and Sam clenched his eyes shut against the overwhelming finality of it, because this was it: his existence unraveling only he was still here, he wasn’t ending, why wasn’t he ending? If Death had done this then he should be gone, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t.
A voice from all around Sam, a voice of flesh and blood and pain, the voice of the throne, of Hell itself spoke: “Our King is come, His will be done.”
#
Sam came to on the cot, back in the panic room. In what was left of the panic room. The fan had stopped spinning and the wall to his left was badly warped, metal distended.
“Sammy?” Dean asked, a look of tentative hope on his face.
Sam stared at him blankly, reminded himself that he had to show emotion, the right one preferably, so he shifted his face, slowly, carefully into shock and joy, let his eyes grow wet. “It’s me.”
Death frowned at him.
“Thank god.” Dean scooped Sam into a hug, oblivious to Death’s expression.
Sam hugged back as long as he could stomach it until finally pulling back to ask, “What happened?”
“Tell you later,” Dean said, and his eyes were wet too. Sam had fooled him, for the moment.
He could work with this, Sam decided. He was still himself, still unburdened by a soul, still powerful, though notably less so than he’d been moments before. And Dean believed he’d won.
He could get away soon, probably tonight.
Death shook his head and stood, closing his bag. “I’m sorry, Dean.”
“What do you mean, you’re sorry?” Dean said. “You did it.” Dean’s smile faded. “You did it, right?”
Death sighed, and he sounded weary. “Even I can't put back what no longer exists.”
Dean’s jaw trembled. He looked at Sam and every trace of affection was gone. “So that’s not my brother?”
“He is all that’s left.”
Dean nodded stiffly, turned his back on them, yanked open the door and stomped out. Bobby, brow deeply furrowed, followed him seconds later.
“You lied to him,” Sam said to Death.
“I have no need to lie to the likes of him or you.”
“Did you see what happened?” Sam asked. He wasn’t sure why, but he needed to know.
“In Hell?” Death nodded, gravely. “I saw.”
“What is he?”
“You know what he is,” Death said. “After all, you’re his creator.” And with that, he bowed his head, and vanished.
#
The Cage collapsed. It fell in on itself red dwarf to white dwarf to supernova, carving deep furrows through the fabric of Hell as it exploded outwards. Time stopped and started again and the throne reformed, rising from the scarred new terrain in jagged spikes of onyx, dark as black matter, with gleaming bits of torn up soul and archangel grace suspended inside like insect pieces in amber: a tribute to the new king, a memorial to the old dead god.
And the King, the Void, the soul that died a thousand deaths, the god-eater took his place and all of Hell bowed down before him.
author:
monicawoe
word-count: ~8,200
characters: Sam Winchester, Tyson Brady, Dean Winchester, Crowley , Castiel, Death, Bobby
pairings: soulless!Sam/Brady, soulless!Sam/Sam's soul
genre: horror, M
warnings:Soulless Sam Winchester, Boy King of Hell Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester on Demon Blood, Cannibalism, Self-Harm, Blood Magic, Corporal Punishment, Season/Series 06, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Knives, Body Horror
story summary: Sam doesn’t want his soul back. He resurrects Brady who helps him figure out a way to outsmart Death: by damaging his soul so it can’t be reintegrated. With Brady’s help, Sam reclaims his power, and takes his soul apart one piece at a time.
written for
wetsammy who wanted Soulless!Sam/Brady and more specifically Soulless!Sam taking on the mantle of King of Hell.
thanks to my beta
quickreaver !
on AO3
Sam didn’t want his soul back.
But thanks to Dean, and his relentless drive to get his real brother back, Sam had twenty four hours before Death would try to force his soul back inside of him. Sam’s soul had been in Hell for over a year, more than one hundred twenty years by Hell’s clock. His soul was tattered, likely barely functional, and Dean wanted to shove that back into Sam regardless of how much he himself didn’t want it. Apparently his opinion didn’t matter. No soul, no say.
Sam wasn’t going to let them do that to him. He’d find a way to stop them. Everybody could be stopped if you knew the way, even Death.
It was easy to slip Bobby. He was old, and his reflexes had gotten even slower, his senses dimmer over the last few years. Sam left the junkyard by foot, took the next car he found and got miles away likely before Bobby even realized he’d gone.
Sam drove to the storage locker, praising his past self for having had enough brains to keep it within range of Bobby’s. It was almost like he’d foreseen needing to make a break for it someday. He pulled the lockbox out and looked at his collection. Despite Dean’s misgivings, Sam had learned the value of magic, particularly blood magic, in which Ruby had given him a primer. She hadn’t taught him anything truly powerful, just a few basic things like tracking people and demons. In retrospect it was clear why she hadn’t taught him anything more. But Sam didn’t need personalized lessons, he was good at research. And there were volumes and volumes about all the fucked up stuff you could do with somebody’s blood, or hair, or both.
He pulled out the small wrapped bundle of cloth and tucked it in his pocket, grabbed the bowl and needed herbs, then shut the locker again, hurrying back to the car.
#
The condemned house was hidden away enough that nobody would find Sam there. At least nobody human. A hex bag would keep the rest at bay. He’d ditched the car a half mile back, just in case. He’d have left it further away, but he was pressed for time as it was. Dean’s deal was to play Death for twenty four hours after which, in exchange, Death would pluck Sam’s soul from the cage and stick it back inside Sam’s body; by Sam’s calculations that meant he had a little over twenty-one hours left to stop Dean, or figure out how to keep Death from following through on his part of the deal. He’d opted for the latter.
He unfolded the bundle and looked at what he’d kept from the kill. If he was anyone else, he supposed, it could’ve been considered a trophy: a lock of hair, a scrap of clothing and most importantly dried blood. Dried demon blood. Brady’s blood, from the night Sam had killed him.
He’d been so angry then. Sam remembered it now through the filter of rational thought, without his soul’s fuel, simply as a betrayal. One he should’ve seen coming. Nobody in his life had ever liked him just for him. Everybody had an angle, and the fact that Brady had been a demon while they were still in school together and that he’d set Jessica up to be slaughtered shouldn’t have surprised Sam. But it had, because that Sam-Sammy-was an idiot, swayed by his heart and his misplaced kindness.
Sam picked up the cloth and turned it inside out over the iron bowl, letting the flakes of dried blood fall into the mixture of herbs he’d prepared. The spell he was attempting was complicated, but in many ways also uniquely suited to him. Back before his trip to Hell, he’d been able to wield all sorts of power over demons, so resurrecting and binding one with his blood should be easier for him than the average witch. He’d considered multiple options before settling on Brady. Crowley, Balthazar, maybe even Castiel, but after thinking through all their skills and connections, he’d realized his best bet was Brady. He wasn’t just trying to outwit Dean, he had to evade Death. And Brady knew the Horsemen. He’d worked for Pestilence back when Lucifer’s apocalypse was still underway.
Sam sliced his knife over the meat of his palm in the shape of the spell’s sigil, and let three drops of red fall into the bowl as he began to chant, "Tae invoco apro..." His blood struck the herbs and dried crimson flakes, sizzling and bubbling as the magic began to build. A blue flame rose on the words "fundus inferni," and grew, spilling out over the edges of the bowl and spreading out along the ground, writhing tentacles of spell work. They surrounded Sam in an ornate circle, licking at the toes of his boots, winding up his calves and thighs and middle. "Anima corpori. Fuerit corpus totem resurgent."
"Ad ligandum eos," Sam said as the magic twisted around his arm, "coram me!" The blue flame flowed downwards, spiraling onto the ground and growing, until it reached the height of a man, nearly as tall as Sam.
When the light faded Brady was standing there, black eyes and all; he looked exactly as he had the day Sam had killed him. For a few moments he seemed disoriented, scanning his surroundings with jerky, nervous movements of his head, but then his gaze settled and he scoffed a laugh. “Sam?” He laughed again sharply, and lunged forward, grabbing for Sam’s throat.
Sam’s lips curved as he sidestepped Brady’s sloppy attempt, and he pushed his fingers against the mark he’d made on his palm. Brady doubled over in pain and fell to his knees, grinding out, “Nice to see you again,” through gritted teeth.
“I need your help,” Sam said. They didn’t need a preamble.
“Why would I want to help you?” Brady asked, still defiant.
“Because if you do, you get to keep existing.” This wasn’t a discussion. He had a job for Brady, that he’d either do or Sam would send him right back into nothingness.
Brady looked at the spent bowl of herbs, Sam’s bloody palm, and then his eyes. “What, no powers? You gotta use spell work to keep me in line?”
“For now.”
“Is that-that’s not why you brought me back, is it? For a juice box? There’s other demons out there-“ Brady’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. Something’s different about you.” The black faded from his eyes and he looked genuinely confused. “You’re all...hollowed out. What did they do to you?”
“I was in Hell, in the Cage, and then somebody brought me back without my soul.”
Brady snorted. “And you think I’m gonna help you get it back? Why would-”
“No. I don’t want it back. I want to stay like this.”
“Interesting.”
“Dean is-he made a deal with Death, and in-“ Sam glanced at his watch, “twenty hours, Death is going to get my soul from the cage and force it back into me.” He shook his head, fingers curling into fists. “I won’t let them do that to me. Destroy me just so Dean can have his brother back.”
Brady laughed, sharp and mean. “And you think I can help you stop Death?”
“You worked for Pestilence.”
“Yeah, Pestilence. Not Death.” Brady took a step forward. “You resurrected the wrong demon, pal. I can’t help you.” He took another step, foot knocking against the bowl, spilling its contents over the edge of the devil’s trap Sam had drawn to keep him in. Brady caught Sam’s eyes, tracking the spill and then lunged, knocking Sam off balance.
They tumbled to the floor, arms locked in combat.
Brady had Sam pinned instantly, knee on his chest, arms framing his head, forcing Sam to go to plan B. He bucked his hips enough to throw Brady off-center, and twisted his head into Brady’s arm, biting down sharply onto Brady’s forearm. His teeth broke skin with surprising ease and sulfur-filled, warm blood gushed into his mouth.
“Fuck!” Brady cried out as he tried to pull back. But Sam held him tight until he’d had several swallows.
Brady finally yanked free and landed on his ass, looking at Sam wide-eyed.
Sam raised his arm, palm aimed at Brady and called on his power.
Nothing happened.
He concentrated harder, trying to recall what it felt like-the push-pulling sensation, like a live wire between him and the demon he’d latched onto. He’d had enough blood for somebody of Brady’s level, he was sure of it. But no matter how hard he reached mentally, he couldn’t grab hold of Brady, the demonic essence slipping through his psychic fingers over and over, like he was made of sand.
“Well would you look at that,” Brady said with a smirk, and pushed himself back to his feet. “Lost your special combo move, huh?”
“Why isn’t it working?” Sam asked, lowering his hand so it hovered near his hidden knife-sheath, where he had plan C: Ruby’s blade.
“Because you need both. Body,” Brady said jabbing a finger at Sam’s chest, “and soul.” He cocked his head to the side. “Without it, you’re like an engine with fuel but no starter. No ignition.” Brady tilted his chin up. “Guess we’re done here.” He shouldered past Sam. “I’ll be on my way. I’d stay longer but you know how it is: Calls to make. People to kill.”
Sam let him go a few more feet towards the door and then threw Ruby’s blade with practiced ease, hitting Brady in the back of the shoulder.
He screamed in pain and fell to his knees, the blade sparking violent orange.
Sam slowly walked over to him and pulled the knife out, bringing it to Brady’s chin. “Let’s try this again. You help me. Or I kill you. Again,”
“Fine,” Brady snarled as Sam yanked him ungently back to his feet.
Sam flipped the knife in his palm, tip angled up, point digging into Brady’s throat.
"It doesn’t matter what you do to me. I still can’t help you stop Death.” Brady scoffed, eyes black and gleaming. “Nobody can.”
“Not stop. Outsmart. Or make it so my soul’s unusable. Can’t be hard, it’s already shredded to pieces.”
Brady looked at him steadily. “And you really don’t care about that at all.”
“I don’t need it. All it did was make me weak, make me hesitate when I shouldn’t have.”
Brady nodded, lips curling. “You can definitely destroy your soul. Not just make it unusable, you can obliterate it.”
“How?”
“Well that’s the tricky part. You have to get hold of it without Death noticing. So we have to be slick about it.” His brow furrowed. “But you’ll need power to destroy it completely. Real power. Like the kind you used to have.”
“You said I need my soul for it to work. I’m not doing that.”
Brady laughed. “Actually, that’s exactly what you’re gonna do.”
Sam couldn’t believe how eager this demon was to die again. “No, I won’t-“
“You need your soul to use your power, but it doesn’t need to be in one piece. Actually…” Brady’s eyebrows creeped slowly upwards, “...if you consume it, piece by piece, you’d get your power back and destroy your soul at the same time.”
“Fine,” Sam said, still not positive the demon was telling the truth. But he didn’t have any other viable options at the moment. “We have twenty hours.”
“Guess we’d better get started then.”
#
An hour later they were ready.
“We need an anchor,” Sam said, reviewing the elements of the spell. “Something to pull me back.”
“You bound us, remember?” Brady said. “I’m your anchor, whether I want to be or not.”
Sam looked at the mirror dubiously, watching the watery shimmer of the enchantment. He and Brady had done the spell together, a combination of blood and the Enochian Sam had used to open Lucifer’s cage. Apparently his voice, as the former vessel of Lucifer, still acted as a key, no Horsemen's' rings required. “How do we know this will bring me to the cage?”
“Because that’s where you already are. That’s where your soul is, anyway. Once you’re down below it’ll act like a homing beacon.” Brady pointed at the rapidly undulating lights in the mirror. But you have to time it right. That-“ he pointed at a disjointed bright red streak darting across the surface, “is Lucifer. You need to wait until he’s gone before you go in.”
“Gone? He’s trapped down there too with my soul, and Michael and Adam.”
“Trapped, sure. But he’s an archangel.” Brady shook his head, clearly exasperated with Sam’s lack of understanding. “Think of the cage as having different rooms. Your human soul is much easier to contain, so you’re isolated in one cell. Lucifer has free range of the whole suite. He leaves every few minutes, or you know, days-to go check on the other rooms.”
Sam nodded. He knew, conceptually, that time passed differently in Hell. A month was ten years, an hour here a week down below, a minute was three days, give or take. They only had eighteen hours here to destroy his soul, but he’d have plenty of time to do what he needed to do in Hell. Nearly four months. A lot could change in four months.
“How do I do it?” Sam asked, thumbing his knife. “How do I cut into my soul? It’s a soul, it’s not-“ Sam stopped himself and started again as the realization hit. “When Lucifer cut into me, when I was still there, he wasn’t just hurting my body,” Sam said, recalling for a red-hazed moment the barbs and blades and teeth the archangel had used on him over and over.
Brady licked his lips. “Hell makes souls flesh and blood. Much more fun that way; how else are you gonna tear into them?” He shrugged. “But like I said, you need the power to really dig into them. You’ve got the home-field advantage in this case because you and your soul are already irrevocably attached to each other.”
Sam didn’t like the sound of that at all.
“Meaning,” Brady went on, oblivious to Sam’s thoughts, “that you have a modicum of power over it already. Enough for the first surface slice anyway.” He smiled, showing teeth. “And after that first taste, you’ll get your power back and then you can really dig in.”
“So I cut it out and eat it and then you pull me back here.”
“Don’t eat it there. Lucifer’ll know.”
“How?”
“Consuming a soul sends out a shockwave of energy, and in the cage, he’s used to being the only one creating them. Your soul’s suffering is constant, by design, so he won’t notice a few extra screams, but no, you have to bring whatever you cut out back here first. Plus, it’ll be too hard to swallow-“ Brady waggled his eyebrows at the pun, “-down there. Souls are slippery things. And yours is confined, technically. You need a tool to break it out without setting off alarms."
"What kind of tool?"
Brady held out a small wooden box covered in sigils. "Cut out a part of him, put it in this, and by the time you get back topside it’ll be soul-stuff.”
Sam looked at the box, thumb brushing over the engravings along its edges. He opened the lid, snapped it shut again and stuck it in his jacket pocket. "I'm ready."
Brady gestured at the mirror. "You're the one with the key."
It seemed crazy that Sam could just get into the cage on his own, no rings required, but then he wasn’t really opening it. He was prying it open a crack, just enough for his body to be pulled back to his soul. "Beh voh tah mo en," Sam started, hand stretched out towards the mirror, "tah beh geh sah..."
As Sam finished the chant, the mirror's glass undulated and then peeled open, leaving a hole just wide enough for Sam to step through.
#
The portal sucked Sam in, fire and darkness swirling around him as it pulled him straight to the cage. He recognized it immediately: the grated floor, the rusted bars, the stench of old blood and decay somehow even more visceral here than in the world above.
His soul was on the opposite side of the cage, huddled in the corner. He looked small, his overlong, naked body folded into a ball, knees clutched close.
Sam crossed the cage floor until he was standing right next to him and crouched down to get a better look.
The other him-his soul-was trembling. He knew somebody was here with him, likely assumed it was Lucifer. Sam reached out a hand and shoved at his soul's shoulder to get his attention. "Hey," he said. "You've got company."
But his soul didn't move, stayed where he was, curling his head even farther in, like he could make himself disappear.
Sam scoffed. This was going to be easier than expected. He pulled his knife from his sheath and traced the tip over the soul’s shoulder, eliciting a full-body shudder. Superficial wound, Brady had said. Something simple and not too deep for this first go around. Fine.
Dragging the knife tip to his back, he ran his fingers over the skin, trying to determine where best to take a slice. As he touched his soul, he saw flickers of images-memories-like every inch of it was full of them. Flashes of his soul's guilt and sorrow and horror-too removed from Sam now, but still his. It annoyed him that this is what he consisted of. That this pathetic, quivering thing was the sum of his memories. More than that, his great sacrifice to stop Lucifer had been pointless.
Leaning in close to his soul's ear, he whispered, “You didn’t change anything, you know that? You didn’t save anyone. The world’s still just as shitty. Maybe shittier. Sure, maybe a few people get a few extra years, but what’s so special about that?”
He traced his fingertip along the faded scar near his nape, recalling the sense memory of a harpy talon that had torn into him there. There was another memory connected to that flicker of pain, a centimeter deeper down, not far at all, so Sam angled the blade and pushed in, twisting it slightly until he found it. John and Dean arguing because Sam had gotten hurt. He hadn’t been fast enough, and that’s when the second harpy had come down and gone straight for Dean. Sam had shoved him out of the way, taken the brunt of the harpy's attack instead. Stupid move, but he'd survived. Dean had never forgiven himself for it. Sam slid the knife in another centimeter, then brought it back up and around in a curve with expert ease, slicing off a tear-drop shaped piece of flesh, bleeding muscle and sinew.
Quickly, he opened the box and dropped the bloody strip inside, snapped the lid shut.
Without another look at his whimpering soul, Sam stood, turned back towards the cage wall, laid his palm against the bars and pushed. The tunnel opened and he could hear Brady’s voice at the other end of it, felt the tug of spell-work pulling him back topside. He held the box tight and let the magic drag him up.
#
The box was glowing-even before Sam had the lid open all the way-light bleeding out the edges; when he opened it he had to shield his eyes for a few seconds before they adjusted to the brilliant white-blue.
“How do I…” Sam poked his finger at the glowing mass experimentally. The soul sliver curled around his finger, iron shavings to a magnet, and when he lifted his hand out, the whole thing came with it in a shifting, gleaming blob.
“Down the hatch,” Brady said.
Sam gave him a steady look. He still hadn’t ruled out the possibility that Brady was deceiving him, but that’d be obvious soon enough and then Sam would deal with him.
Sam brought his glowing fingers to his mouth and the light from the soul tingled as he swallowed it down, tasteless but substantial. It hit his system with a flare, a burst of power that started at his sacrum and worked its way through his heart and into his limbs, much quicker than the demon blood had, faster than anything. He felt something inside of him shift, metaphysical parts slotting into place one click after another and when he turned his attention back to Brady, he could feel him-could see the confines of the dark demon cloud inside and the hollow gaps in the body where its own soul used to be. Looking down at himself he saw a photo-negative: dark light occupying the hollows, branching along his nerves and capillaries. The remnants of the soul's light flickered inside of him but died down quickly, consumed by his cells.
He reached out with his mind, probing, traced the contours of Brady, pushing against the demonic cloud until it shuddered. Brady let out a gasp, eyes blown wide as Sam grabbed hold of him psychically and yanked him in close, pulling both demon and vessel flush against his body.
Brady looked at him with unabashed eagerness and asked, “You thirsty?” He wriggled in Sam’s hold just enough to reach for the knife strapped to Sam’s belt.
Sam nodded, just once, and clasped his hand around Brady’s, angling the sharp tip of the blade at the hollow of Brady’s throat. Brady eyes fluttered shut as Sam pushed the tip in and drew the blade up in a gentle, curving arc, watching the red bead up in its wake like a string of rubies. He stuck the knife back in its sheath and closed his lips over the wound, brain buzzing pleasantly as the blood hit his system.
After he'd had his fill, Sam pulled back and Brady's eyes drifted open, staring at him with a blissed-out look on his face. "See? What'd I tell you?"
Sam traced his fingers over Brady's cheek and dropped his hand to his shoulder, pushing him down to his knees.
Brady's eyes never left Sam's as he undid Sam's belt and zipper.
#
They were lying together on the floor, limbs entangled, when the red light in the mirror faded for the fourth time.
“How much left?” Sam asked, mind still pleasantly hazy with post-coital bliss and the background thrum of his ever-growing power.
“Twelve hours,” Brady said, stretching languidly.
Sam pushed himself to his feet and rolled his shoulders back, mentally running his fingers over the contours of Brady's soul. He still remembered what it felt like when he’d killed Lilith-the reach and force of his psychic strength at full capacity. Or maybe not full. He didn’t actually know how far he could go. Particularly now that he had no reason to stop. He'd barely scratched the surface with these three tastes of soul, and he was ready to take a lot more this time.
After slipping back into his clothes, Sam chanted the Enochian key phrase again and the mirror peeled open. Sam stepped through and the Cage yanked him back down.
His soul looked as pathetic as the last time, maybe even more so. Despite the passage of time here, the wounds Sam had left on his soul were still raw, the patch on his shoulder barely scabbed over, the long gash in his upper back still oozing sluggishly. He’d pulled a deep memory from there, powerful and painful. Well, painful to Sammy anyway. The way John’s hand had struck him, the burn of the belt, and the aftermath: a night spent vacillating between impotent rage and shame. It was a key moment for Sammy, for his stunted self-worth, because surely there was something wrong with him if his only parent deemed him worthy of that much punishment. That much hurt.
Sam didn’t feel the shame or the rage, only mild curiosity at how Sammy had simply let it happen. He hadn’t been that small at twelve. He could’ve stopped John if he’d really wanted. But he hadn’t, and so he deserved no sympathy.
That chunk of soul he’d taken had given Sam one hell of a power boost though. He didn’t even have to touch demons anymore to burn them now. A look was enough, and his reach had grown by miles. He'd tracked one down just across the state-line from where he and Brady were holed up, summoned it to them and killed it all in the span of ten minutes. Then he'd fucked Brady, scalding his insides with his mind until Brady’d cried out, begging Sam to keep going even as his soul started to char.
Pulling his thoughts back to the present, Sam focused once more on his abused soul. “What do you have left, I wonder?” Sam mused, tracing the blade along the side of Sammy’s ribs, down his belly and over his thigh.
Compassion and betrayal all knotted together, buried beneath the old thick scarring on his lower back. Sam himself remembered this wound, remembered how he'd stood there, metal rod at the ready: it would've been so easy to bring it crashing down, to have ended Jake right then and there; Sam had felt his impending victory, heard whispers in his head promising him a kingdom, promising him power, promising him vengeance. But he'd let the rod drop and walked towards his brother's voice, just before the blade cut into his back.
As Sam pushed in the knife tip, slicing in at the same angle Jake had, he felt the echo of it in his bones, the smell of the muddy ground as his knees slammed down onto it, Dean’s panicked voice calling for him, holding him up as his brain stuttered to a halt. Then darkness. Then...here. He'd been here before. Not in the cage, but in Hell. And no one had laid a finger on him. They saved that privilege for Lucifer. Sam scanned the borders of the cage, looking for signs of Lucifer's return, but there were none. Not yet.
Sam held up the strip of flesh he’d cut, looked down at his butchered soul, and watched the synovial fluid ooze out, filling the hollow in his back to the brim before spilling out onto the floor of the cage, slithering through its grated floor as a hundred worms of darkness.
His soul lay listlessly, not even voicing a sound of pain. He'd been quiet the entire time. It would've been infuriating, if Sam could feel such things. He fought back the unexpected urge to kick him, and instead, turned his back, pushed his palm against the bars of the cage, mentally calling for Brady right before he caught a glimmer of red far on the outskirts of his periphery.
#
He took his soul’s heart next.
#
Brady moaned beneath him, reveling in Sam’s newly amplified strength, and Sam drank from him purely for the pleasure of it. The blood was a drop in the bucket now, no real power to be gained from it, but he liked it regardless. He liked the taste of it, he liked draining Brady and the added sway it gave him. Even the act itself, Sam’s teeth on Brady’s throat, pushed Brady from subservience straight into worship, which Sam definitely liked. The litany of praise fell from Brady’s lips in an electric prickle, running up and down Sam's spine, spreading through his nerves, amplifying everything, like his faith in Sam was making him even stronger.
Maybe it was.
Afterwards, the mirror was gleaming with Lucifer’s red light, so with time to kill and power itching in his veins, Sam summoned Crowley. It was easy to find him. Sam could sense every demon now, here on Earth and down in Hell.
“Moose. You’re looking well,” Crowley said, perturbed. He shifted his weight nervously, going stiff when he saw Brady. “You?”
“Me.”
“You were dead.”
“Aren’t we all.” Brady leaned against the wall, giving Crowley and Sam plenty of room.
“Fair.” Crowley turned back to Sam. “What’s the meaning of all this?”
“You’re not the one who brought me back.”
Crowley looked like he was going to protest but thought better of it, tongue pausing between his teeth before he forced a smile back onto his face. “No. But I would’ve, had I been able.”
“But you know who did," Sam continued.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Crowley shook his head. “I’ve been sworn to secrecy.”
“There’s no secrets here,” Sam said, mouth curving in anticipation. “Not from me.” He latched onto Crowley’s soul with his mind and bore down, pushing thorns of power deep into it, rooting around in Crowley’s thoughts until he began to howl in pain. “No way,” Sam said, when he found the answer. “No fucking way. He didn’t even mean to leave my soul there, and he thought he could just-he’s been lying this whole time.” Sam laughed at how ludicrous it was, and let go of Crowley who collapsed to his knees, panting.
Crowley pushed himself back to his feet, straightened his jacket and tie, and shrugged. “He meant well, but he’s not the brightest of angels, is he?”
Sam scoffed. "No, he's really not."
“So. Are we done here? Don’t want to be rude, but I’ve got kingly duties to attend to…”
“Of course you do,” Sam said coldly. He’d seen exactly what Crowley’s plans entailed. Cracking open Purgatory with Castiel’s help, then stealing all the souls for himself to use as ammunition.
“Yeah, pretty sure we’re done,” Brady said with a mocking wave, as Sam’s power took hold of Crowley and set him ablaze from the inside out. His soul burned first, and then his meat-suit, tailored slacks and all.
“The king is dead, long live the king,” Brady said, eyes locked on Sam as he dropped to his knees before him.
“I don’t want to be king. I don’t want the throne. I just want to be free.” Sam put his hand on Brady’s shoulder, straddled his hips and sunk down on top of him, pushing him down onto the scorched floor. Crowley’s ashes fluttered up into the air around them as Sam bore down on Brady’s neck, breaking the skin.
Brady’s hips bucked and he clutched at Sam’s back, his thoughts an open stream of praise and revelry that Sam drank down along with more blood.
#
The mirror went dark again a while later, and Sam wasted no time going back. He might have a claim to the throne now, and he might have had enough power to take Crowley down, but he’d need a lot more to keep the rest of Hell in check. And more still to keep Death at bay.
His soul was sitting in the corner, cross-legged, awake and alert, almost like he’d been waiting for Sam to come back. But he didn’t say a word as Sam came closer, didn’t fight when Sam grabbed him roughly by the hair and pulled his head back. But when Sam brought the knife to his eye socket, he screamed.
The memories held in the soul’s eyes were the most potent Sam had encountered so far. Everything his soul wished it could forget but couldn’t. Disgust on the faces of others, Dean’s most of all: If I didn’t know you I would want to hunt you….How far from normal, from human! The soul’s self-loathing bubbled up along with the memories, curdling in Sam’s gut like acid: I’m a whole new level of freak. I’m just trying to take this curse and make something good of it, because I have to. Dean’s cruelty, locking him up and leaving him to suffer as his body tore itself apart, and his taunts, over and over, that boiled down to one thing: Monster, Sam. You’re a monster.
The memory came to life around Sam and he caught Dean’s fist as it came crashing towards him, flung him onto the floor, straddled him, choked him until he went still. The room crumbled, tacky wallpaper giving way to cold brick and they were in the basement of a church in River Pass, Colorado, and Dean was looking at him again with that high and mighty judgment. Wouldn’t trust him to go outside in a town full of demons. “Like I haven’t learned my lesson?” Sam said in his memory. “Well have you?” Dean asked.
Sam shoved Dean against the wall hard, and dozens of eager bloody hands burst through the stone, grabbed hold of Dean and pulled him in, clawed fingers digging into his flesh as they pulled him farther and farther into the teeming mass, Dean was silent, eyes still glaring at Sam in accusation.
And then Dean was gone, and Sam was holding his own soul’s eyes in his palm. He reached for the box, opened it and dropped them inside, made a move towards the cage bars and then paused when he heard the whimpering sounds from his soul shift into laughter.
His soul was laughing at him. Sam turned back, rounding on the wretched, flayed thing and glared at it. “What’s so damn funny?”
The soul’s laughter dimmed into a soft chuckle. “You don’t know what you’ve done, do you?”
Sam’s jaw twitched with irritation. “Enlighten me.”
“You wouldn’t understand. Not yet.” It pushed itself to its feet, blackened blood oozing from the holes in its face, making Sam recoil. “But you will. You’ll see.”
“Very funny.” Sam made to leave again.
“Thank you.”
“What?” Sam asked, well beyond irritated now. He was angry. He whipped back around and shoved his soul, sent it staggering back. “Don’t thank me, you fucking spineless coward.”
“Thank you,” the soul said again.
“For what?”
“You took it away. It was so heavy, it was crushing me, but now…” the soul reached for Sam.
“I didn’t do it for you.”
“Of course you did, and you’re the only one who could.”
Sam’s anger grew spikes-he didn’t like the way this vestigial waste was talking to him. Like it was part of Sam’s plan. It wasn’t. He was doing this for himself, only. “Shut up,” he snapped.
“Make me,” the soul said, opening its mouth wide.
And so, in a moment of razor-fine fury, Sam grabbed hold of its tongue and cut it out.
#
The power boost was enormous.
Unlike the last times, the rush didn’t fade in a few minutes. It lasted for hours, through several increasingly aggressive rounds with Brady, until Sam realized he wasn’t coming down. Maybe not ever. In terms of what he could do now, that was a definite plus but pragmatically speaking, it was a problem. His focus had splintered, he saw and heard more than he ever had, too much to process all at once, and it was hard to reel himself in and keep his attention in the here and now. He could see through the dimensional barriers, hear the non-stop chattering thoughts of every single human and demon, even some of the angels above and the monsters in Purgatory. If he concentrated he could feel all of them at once. It was too much and took an extraordinary effort to shut them out.
“Take your Throne. It’ll be easier down there,” Brady suggested. “Plus, maybe it’ll take a few extra hours for Death to find you,” he added, hopefully.
Sam nodded in agreement, millions of souls flittering at the edge of his consciousness.
This time, he didn’t enter Hell through the mirror. He used his power to open a portal, stepped right into the throne room and took his seat.
#
Being in Hell helped. Sam found it easier to shut out Earth, Heaven and Purgatory. The throne helped center him, spoke to him about his destiny, like it had been waiting for him. It showed him what he could do with his power, and, less importantly, what he could do with Lucifer’s grace inside of him. Sam had no intention of going after Lucifer. The Devil could stay where he was and rot for the rest of eternity.
Brady stayed by his side, still bound to him, and held watch. Sam wanted more than anything else to be left alone, until he had a handle on his new power which seemed to still be growing, painfully so, pushing against his skin from the inside.
Demons came from time to time, but Sam didn’t want them anywhere near him. Those that didn’t heed Brady’s suggestions to leave were obliterated with a thought before they got within ten feet of Sam.
A few peaceful hours passed, and then Sam heard a call-a summons for the King of Hell. Castiel trying to summon Crowley. Sam found himself inclined to answer, if for no other reason than to see the look on the angel’s face.
“Stay here,” Sam told Brady, making it enough of a command that the binding spell wouldn’t protest.
Castiel’s summoning was still going, his voice growing ever more frustrated and desperate, and so Sam answered.
#
He appeared in an abandoned house. There were traces of sulfur in the air, along with the unmistakable ozone stink angels left behind when they blipped in and out. Castiel was standing in front of a summoning circle, in front of a splintering fake fireplace mantle.
“Sam?” Castiel said, face blanching. “I was-“
“Summoning the king of Hell.” Sam cocked his head. “There’s been a change in leadership.”
“Where’s Crowley?” Castiel understood the answer, before Sam spoke it aloud, realization spreading across his features. “How much did he tell you?”
“Everything,” Sam said steadily, taking a few steps forward. “Gotta say, Cas, I’m surprised. This is pretty shifty, even for you.”
“I don’t have a choice. Raphael is-“
“You think I give a shit about angel politics?”
“No.” Castiel crossed the last few feet between them. “But maybe you should.” Quickly he brought his fingers to Sam’s forehead, pushed power at him, likely to try to put him to sleep or send him into the cornfield or whatever.
But nothing happened. Sam’s power brushed off Castiel’s attempts with surprising ease.
“What have you done?” Castiel asked, stricken, lowering his hand. “What did you do to yourself?”
“I should be asking you that,” Sam said. “Don’t you think?”
“Sam, I-I tried to save you, believe me, I didn’t know that your soul would be left behind.”
“I suppose I should thank you, actually,” Sam said. “I wouldn’t even exist like this if you hadn’t fucked up my rescue so spectacularly.”
“I am sorry.” Castiel’s eyes widened almost comically in alarm.
Sam was amused by the reaction until he realized the fear wasn’t directed at him. Someone else was coming, someone ancient and indomitable. Castiel was trying to flee; Sam grabbed for his arm, clamped onto him before he could flutter away, hoping if nothing else to hitch a ride. He couldn’t teleport away himself, he could sense it; a dimensional lockdown had closed around them.
Death appeared, and Sam and Castiel both froze where they stood. The End of All Things focused his attention first on Castiel. “It’s better this way, believe me. If Sam here hadn't stopped you and your dead demon friend, things would have gone far worse for you.” He inclined his head, and Castiel vanished, pulled away against his will to who knew where.
Death turned, curling his spindly fingers over the head of his cane and gave Sam what was likely meant to be an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to destroy you. I’m going to make you whole again.”
“I don’t want to be made whole,” Sam said, but then Death rapped his cane on the floor once, and they were somewhere else entirely.
#
Sam was disoriented; he’d landed flat on his back in the panic room cot, the familiar devil’s trap fan rotating above his head. He hated this room, on a level cell-deep. Even without his soul it made him nervous and uneasy, even panicked. Dean and Bobby stood by the door watching him warily, and Death sat to Sam’s right with a large black medical bag on his lap.
“This will hurt, but only for a moment,” Death said, placing his right hand over Sam’s forehead while he reached inside his bag with the left.
Death closed his eyes and Sam flinched, drawing on his power but it couldn’t shield him. It wasn’t enough, and in desperation he tried to open the portal to the cage, to seek refuge there for one more hour, one more day, as long as he could still stay himself unfettered by his soul. But he wasn’t strong enough and he had no mirror, no Brady to call him back. He was alone, with Death.
Until he wasn’t.
The cot beneath him shifted, subtly at first, a shiver of cold, barely noticeable amidst Sam’s building panic. But he felt it: the familiar, nauseating presence of his soul, and at first he thought it was Death putting them back together, but then he saw the confusion on the Horseman’s face, the furrowed forehead, the slight arching of his thin brows.
And then the cot opened beneath him and Sam fell down, plummeting countless miles in a second. He landed on the grated, unforgiving floor of the cage. Pushing himself to his feet, he found his soul standing across from him, holding himself tall despite all his missing parts. There was light seeping from his wounds, gleaming star-white: what was left of his skin was slick with it. He radiated light, except for his empty eye sockets, which were devoid of it, an absolute darkness that Sam couldn’t bear to look at head-on. There was a finality in them, something inescapable and inevitable.
“Death came for me,” Sam said, focusing instead on the spot just below his soul’s chest, where he’d carved out his heart. Three of his ribs were visible, dark bars over the pulsing muscle that had started to regrow: glowing red flesh streaked with white light. “He’s coming for you too.”
“Death can’t touch us. You saw to that.” The soul shrugged, and the hollows of his eyes seemed to grow, pulling everything around them in and down, twin vortexes, black holes of emptiness.
Sam felt his gaze drawn up against his will, and he wanted to look-really look. More than that, he wanted to reach out and stick his fingertips inside just to see what would happen. But he didn’t. He was strong now, strong enough that even angels couldn’t touch him, but that emptiness in Sammy’s eyes could. He could feel cold heat from them, biting like liquid nitrogen. And so he averted his gaze, staring resolutely at the soul’s chapped, grey lips instead.
His soul moved closer until Sam could see the tiny twitches in its face: amusement, maybe, certainly not fear.
“What are you looking at?” he snapped, irritated by his own physical responses. He was sweating, he was...unnerved. When he had no reason to be. His other weaker half wasn’t a threat. He was a husk. A nearly emptied vestigial part of him that he’d outgrown.
“At you,” the husk smiled wide, the expression eerie on its strange face. “At us.” Its tongue had regrown, shimmering with white and red light.
“Like what you see?” Sam asked, tilting his chin up, defiant. He still avoided direct eye contact though, wary of the pull. Maybe this was how Death was going to reassemble them.
The soul nodded, and closed the last few inches between them, his spindly fingers wrapping around Sam’s biceps.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked, trying to pull away, but found he couldn’t, locked in place, his body gone rigid.
“I want to...thank you for setting me free,” said his soul, the tattered thing he loathed, smiling wide with blackened teeth. “Look at me.”
“No.” Sam jerked back, trying to get free of his hold, but his soul’s fingers were like metal clamps.
“But I want you to,” the soul said. “Don’t you want to see what you made us into?” Sammy’s void-eyes seemed to grow wider, and Sam could feel himself start to fall again, could see the cage bars warp around them, bowing inwards like they were being crushed by a giant hand.
Sam grabbed hold of one of the bars, clutched at it, while mentally screaming for Brady, who could still hear him. Sam could hear him calling back, voice garbled but there.
“Death can’t touch us now,” the soul said, “nobody can. Not now, not ever.” His eyes grew wider still, until their void covered Sam’s whole view. “Do you even know what we are?”
“I know what I am,” Sam said, but his voice sounded unsure, even to himself.
The Void nodded. “Then you know that you don’t belong here. And that you have something of mine. I can take it back now, our burden. I can take it all.” He smiled benevolently, and with two fingers, gently tilted Sam’s chin up, leaned forward and kissed him, chastely, on the mouth.
Sam met his soul’s empty eyes, he looked and couldn’t tear himself free. Caught in their inexorable pull, he felt himself torn apart atom by atom, consumed by that endless depth and he tried to stop it, scrambling for purchase with all of his power, calling on demons calling on Hell itself to save him, but he was still falling, forever and ever down a deep dark pit devoid of light and sound and there was nothing here, an absolute emptiness. Nothing could exist here. Nothing, not even him not even him but he did, he was he was, and the digested pieces of his soul that he’d carved out and consumed burst from his body, angry and fanged, his skin flaking off, hollowed like a pupae, and all around him his soul-his tarnished, weak pathetic soul-burst into color and spread out into the nothingness setting it alight with fire in every shade of yellow, red and gold. The Void filled with light until it was too bright to see anything and Sam clenched his eyes shut against the overwhelming finality of it, because this was it: his existence unraveling only he was still here, he wasn’t ending, why wasn’t he ending? If Death had done this then he should be gone, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t.
A voice from all around Sam, a voice of flesh and blood and pain, the voice of the throne, of Hell itself spoke: “Our King is come, His will be done.”
#
Sam came to on the cot, back in the panic room. In what was left of the panic room. The fan had stopped spinning and the wall to his left was badly warped, metal distended.
“Sammy?” Dean asked, a look of tentative hope on his face.
Sam stared at him blankly, reminded himself that he had to show emotion, the right one preferably, so he shifted his face, slowly, carefully into shock and joy, let his eyes grow wet. “It’s me.”
Death frowned at him.
“Thank god.” Dean scooped Sam into a hug, oblivious to Death’s expression.
Sam hugged back as long as he could stomach it until finally pulling back to ask, “What happened?”
“Tell you later,” Dean said, and his eyes were wet too. Sam had fooled him, for the moment.
He could work with this, Sam decided. He was still himself, still unburdened by a soul, still powerful, though notably less so than he’d been moments before. And Dean believed he’d won.
He could get away soon, probably tonight.
Death shook his head and stood, closing his bag. “I’m sorry, Dean.”
“What do you mean, you’re sorry?” Dean said. “You did it.” Dean’s smile faded. “You did it, right?”
Death sighed, and he sounded weary. “Even I can't put back what no longer exists.”
Dean’s jaw trembled. He looked at Sam and every trace of affection was gone. “So that’s not my brother?”
“He is all that’s left.”
Dean nodded stiffly, turned his back on them, yanked open the door and stomped out. Bobby, brow deeply furrowed, followed him seconds later.
“You lied to him,” Sam said to Death.
“I have no need to lie to the likes of him or you.”
“Did you see what happened?” Sam asked. He wasn’t sure why, but he needed to know.
“In Hell?” Death nodded, gravely. “I saw.”
“What is he?”
“You know what he is,” Death said. “After all, you’re his creator.” And with that, he bowed his head, and vanished.
#
The Cage collapsed. It fell in on itself red dwarf to white dwarf to supernova, carving deep furrows through the fabric of Hell as it exploded outwards. Time stopped and started again and the throne reformed, rising from the scarred new terrain in jagged spikes of onyx, dark as black matter, with gleaming bits of torn up soul and archangel grace suspended inside like insect pieces in amber: a tribute to the new king, a memorial to the old dead god.
And the King, the Void, the soul that died a thousand deaths, the god-eater took his place and all of Hell bowed down before him.