Boy King of a Lot of Things | Part 2
Part 1
Sam was man enough to admit it: he’d been wallowing since he’d made it back to the (huge, empty) Bunker.
He kept going back over the hunt, back over every minute detail, wondering how he could’ve changed this. How he could’ve kept himself from being shot, kept himself from going into shock, kept that goddamned bastard from smothering him. Kept Dean from feeling like his only option was to deal with a reaper who had (multiple times) said that she wouldn’t deal.
He wished he’d never found the hunt. If only he’d dropped it when Dean had told him to, if only he’d let it go and gotten back to researching the real problem, then Dean would still be right next to him, farting and grunting and complaining again and again about being cooped up.
Dean would still be alive.
(He wasn’t fool enough to call any Dean willingly following Amara fully alive. He’d graciously say “soulless,” maybe, but that was almost worse than death, in his experience. Not having control over what your body did…that was worse than hell.)
Sam stared into the bottom of one of the Men of Letters’ fancy crystal highball glasses, swirling the rotgut he’d bought and watching the amber refractions on the tabletop. He figured at this point, around half a bottle in, he was probably a bit drunk, but he didn’t give a shit.
His side throbbed dully and he remembered his antibiotic. He swallowed the pills dry and went to find some toast to try and soak up the alcohol in his stomach and help the pill go down. Having a wound go septic was the last damn thing he needed.
He stumbled around the corner, heading toward the kitchen, when he saw a figure standing in the War Room. Sam stopped, hoping for just a second that it was Dean, but the figure was too short (and squat), and Dean didn’t have a bald spot. It took him a couple of seconds (through the haze of alcohol) to recognize Crowley.
He stormed over, grabbing the demon by the lapel and spinning him around. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he hissed.
Crowley made a face, grimacing and screwing his eyes up. “Good God, Moose,” he said, “If I could get tipsy, a whiff of your breath would do it. You’ve let yourself go.” Sam shook him and Crowley held up a hand. “Now, now, no need to get violent, dear boy. I’m assuming you’ve heard the news?”
Sam glared. “What news?”
“You haven’t?” Crowley asked in disbelief. “Then why the hell are you here, wasting yourself away? Why the hell aren’t you going back out and trying to…I don’t know, cut a swathe through demonkind again to get your brother back?”
“Crowley,” Sam growled, tired of the conversation already. “What news.”
“Oh, nothing,” the demon said, waving a hand and rolling his eyes. “Just, you know, your brother wreaking bloody havoc at the side of Amara, you wanker! I’d have thought you’d like to know that your brother happened to not only be alive and kicking, but kicking at blasted five-year-old churchgoers that Amara decided she could sacrifice on whatever insane mission she’s on!”
Sam let go of Crowley and stepped back. What? He hadn’t heard anything…but, then again, he hadn’t exactly been answering calls. Or watching the news. Or reading anything online.
Goddammit.
“Where are they now?” Sam asked, stepping forward and doing his best not to lurch too far. (His lack of proper nutrition and sleep was catching up to him fast.) “Crowley. Where is Dean?”
Crowley rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. “Bloody hell, Moose, how should I know? I nearly got smeared like a marmalade on hot toast just for being within a hundred meters! I’m not getting near that crazy broad again!”
Sam stepped forward again, getting into Crowley’s space and ignoring the stench of sulfur that surrounded him. “Crowley. Where is my brother.”
Crowley sighed gustily. “Look, Sam, there’s nothing you can do looking like a good wind would blow you over. I’m not getting myself killed on your damn suicide mission. If I’m taking you anywhere, you’ll be looking fresh as a bunch of daisies, do you hear me? Now go take care of yourself, you smell like an Irish pub.” Crowley walked away, up the stairs toward the door, and Sam started to wonder how he’d gotten in. That question was answered when Crowley yelled down, “And lock your damn front door, you idiot! Who knows what could decide to come in. I’ll call you tomorrow, and you’d better well have gotten some sleep.”
Sam rolled his eyes and followed the demon up, slamming the door behind him. He spun the lock and heard it click into place, feeling the warding hum to life around it.
He turned and looked down at the Bunker, already seeming more empty. He took a deep breath and made his way to the kitchen, hoping that some of the leftovers were still good. He didn’t have the energy to cook, let alone clean up after cooking.
After reheating and eating as much two-day-old lasagna as he could stomach off of a paper plate, Sam threw the rest away, knowing that even three days was pushing it, and shoved himself away from the kitchen table.
He groaned as the stitches (no staples, thank God) in his side protested. He figured he had a couple more days before they could come out, and he hoped that it would be sooner. Feeling the tug on his skin and insides was uncomfortable as fuck, and it only served as a reminder of just how he’d failed Dean and gotten them all into this situation in the first place.
He stumbled toward his room, the down from the rotgut hitting harder than he’d thought it would. He almost turned back for a glass of water and some ibuprofen, but couldn’t find the will in himself to change the path his feet were taking.
He collapsed on his bed and everything went mercifully dark.
He didn’t dream, for once.
---------------
Dean didn’t sleep. Something about that felt wrong to him, but every time he thought about it, his Lady would find him and comfort him, her mouth on his soothing his worries.
He loved his Lady. He may not understand why she did what she did, but he knew that she had a purpose. She had a purpose when she tore apart churches like tissue paper and sent him after the congregants. She had a purpose when she screamed at the sky, bathed in blood. Dean had to be honest, she had never seemed so beautiful and deadly as in that moment.
Sometimes he asked her how he could help her further, and his Lady always reassured him with her voice and her lips that he was doing all he could.
Dean was proud of himself, that he could be such a fine companion to his Lady Darkness, his Lady Amara.
Dean watched in horror as every mirror around him showed the outside world. He screamed denial as he watched his own hands slice into a child’s throat. He fell to the floor of his prison, unable to look away because the images surrounded him on all sides, like Amara was trying to show him what happened when someone resisted her.
Sometimes, late at night in the “real world,” Amara would find him in his prison and just watch him. She never spoke, only watched him as he watched her. Dean felt like a zoo animal and hated it, hated her, hated how she was forcing his body to do things that he never would have done under his own free will.
The worst times were those times that Amara decided her loyal follower had done something especially deserving of a reward and clutched him to her chest as his body - not him, not anymore - mouthed at her like a starving man. At those times, Dean closed his eyes and covered his ears, but even then he could hear her triumphant laughter.
Dean wished he could sleep, but knew that Amara would never let him.
---------------
Sam woke with a start to his phone buzzing its way off his nightstand. He grumbled and rolled over, wondering why the hell Dean was calling him when he could just come bang on his door.
Seeing Crowley’s number on the screen brought it all rushing back, and Sam fell backward. “Oh, Jesus.”
The call went to voicemail as he lay there, trying to (once again) come to terms with the fact that Dean was AWOL and following Amara like a puppet.
Sam rolled over and opened his voicemail. The most recent one played first.
“Sam!” Crowley’s voice hissed out of his phone’s speaker. “Get your enormous ass up here and let me in! Bloody good for you to lock the door, but I’ve been out here for hours while you did whatever the hell it is you’ve been doing.” A silence. “Just answer your damned phone.” A click echoed from the speaker and the robotic voice announced another ten new messages. Sam scrolled through them, hearing Crowley’s voice on all but one, the oldest new voicemail.
He shouldn’t have been as surprised to hear Jody as he was. Hell, he was surprised Jody hadn’t dragged Claire and Alex to the Bunker and stuffed them in head-first to keep them safe. “Sam?” Jody asked. “Everything’s going insane out here. There’s a crazy woman destroying places around the world - the world, Sam! - and I’m seeing a lot of descriptions of an accomplice matching Dean’s description. Dean won’t answer his phone. Call me, you hear? I’m getting antsy but if I up and leave my town will go crazier that it already is.”
He checked his call log to find that Jody had called him yesterday, probably right in the middle of his bender. He figured it was probably a good thing he hadn’t picked up then; anything he could’ve said would’ve been less than comforting.
He selected her contact and let the call go through. Jody picked up after only one ring, asking “Sam?”
Sam cleared his throat. “Yeah, uh, yeah. It’s me.”
“Oh, thank God,” Jody sighed. “Look, Sam, I’m gonna put you on speaker. The girls are right behind me and I don’t want Claire to steal my phone like she looks like she’s planning on doing.”
Claire’s indignant voice drowned his “Oh, no, seriously, you don’t…” as she retorted, “I would not. I mean, maybe I’d’ve pushed the speaker button for you, but I wouldn’t steal your phone!”
Sam heard Alex in the background or at least he assumed it was Alex) sighing. He sighed, too. Great. Now he had to figure out some way to frame this to not only Jody but two kids who thought Dean was a hero.
He heard a loud thudding from down the hall and remembered that Crowley was still waiting to get inside. He levered himself upright and groaned at the stiffness in his back. “Sam, you okay?” Jody asked.
“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Sam replied absentmindedly. “I’m okay. I mean, I’m alive so…”
“Sam…” Jody said in that one voice she had that made Sam feel all of three feet tall.
Sam rolled his eyes as he opened the door, holding a finger of his free hands up to shut Crowley up. (The demon rolled his eyes but walked in, deftly avoiding the devil’s trap on the ceiling.) “Look, Jody, I’m alright, okay? I’ve been cared for by an actual professional-” Jody’s exclamation about that was ignored “-and I’m healing up just fine. Not septic or anything.”
Jody’s voice sounded very, very hard (and Claire and Alex were suspiciously silent) when she said, “That was something you were worried about? Sepsis? Dammit, Sam!”
Sam glanced at Crowley to find him smirking like he could hear every word. Who knew, he probably could. “Look, Jody,” he began, trying to head off a rant about how he needed to take care of himself more, yadda yadda, he needed to eat more, et cetera, et cetera. “This isn’t why you called.”
Alex was apparently brave enough to speak over Jody. “Is that really Dean?” she asked. “I mean, I’ve - we’ve all seen grainy footage, but it could … maybe … be someone else.”
Sam sighed, wishing he didn’t have to have this conversation. “Look, guys, I’m…I’m sorry. That’s Dean. It’s…it’s complicated.”
“Sam.” Claire said. “You don’t get to dismiss us. Okay? You don’t get to fucking decide what to tell us and what to hide, because we have a stake in this too. So don’t you dare-” Her voice cut off, and Sam heard low murmuring before something clicked and Jody’s voice came back on, a lot clearer than before.
“She’s right, you know,” she said. “We may not be related to Dean, but we damn well like him, and you do not have the right to hide something this big from us.” Sam looked to the ceiling, wishing what they were saying made less sense, and caught sight of Crowley nodding his head proudly.
He glared at the demon before answering, “I know, Jody. Look, I know. It’s just…God. I don’t even know where to start.”
He heard a vague shout that sounded a lot like “The beginning!” from Claire, but he couldn’t be sure. He huffed a laugh, because he didn’t even know what the “beginning” of this mess was.
“I guess I can try to condense it,” he said. “You may want to sit down.”
He heard Jody call the girls over and heard the speakerphone click back on. He drew in a breath and tried to get a logical order of events straight in his head.
“I guess you all - or most of you? - are aware of the fact that me and Dean have died and come back more than once.” He heard Alex’s muffled exclamation over Jody’s whispered promise of more information later. “Yeah, so anyway, the real reason that was happening was we were, I don’t know, amusing? Amusing to the old…avatar? Yeah, I guess so...of Death. And so he’d deal and let us come back and all that jazz.” He drew in a breath.
He tried to tell the story, about how they’d killed the old Death, and how the new one was much less forgiving. He talked about her promises of the Empty and tried to keep any and all longing out of his voice (God, he just wanted peace, he thought. He didn’t notice Crowley’s troubled look.) He skated over the details of the hunt but noted the highlights: the shot to the gut (which got him a shocked gasp and a muffled exclamation of anger from Jody), the smothering and subsequent shock, what he could piece together of Dean’s motivations, and the end result of Dean’s body disappearing after the Mark came back.
“So, yeah,” Sam said, his voice a little hoarse. “That’s…that’s why Dean’s doing what he’s doing. To be honest, I’m not even sure it is Dean. He’d be fighting if it was. I’m…I’m starting to worry that Amara brought him back without a soul.”
No one but Crowley reacted, mostly because no one but Crowley remembered (or knew him from) his own soulless days. Crowley stared, blinking deliberately, before quietly going pale. Sam knew the feeling.
Jody swore quietly. Even if she didn’t know what, exactly, being soulless meant, she could obviously tell from his tone how bad it was. “Look, Sam, there’s gotta be some way to fix this,” she said.
Sam shook his head before he realized that she couldn’t see. “I don’t know, Jody,” he said. “No one can get close to Amara without being eviscerated, it looks like, and I’m not having any of you risk it.”
Alex spoke up, asking quietly, “So you will instead?”
“No one else can,” Sam sighed. Before they could protest, Sam hung up the phone, turned it off, and turned to Crowley.
Crowley grimaced. “Well, that was lovely. I almost felt a tear in my eye.”
“Shut up, Crowley, and tell me why you’re here,” Sam said dejectedly. He held up a hand, realizing what he’d said just as a mischievous light appeared in Crowley’s eyes. “I meant shut up about the phone call, not shut up in general. Now tell me why you’re so damn insistent about talking to me.”
Crowley sighed, rolling his eyes. “Can’t it just be that I miss your looming presence?” he asked snidely.
Sam glared. “Crowley. Talk or I’m going back to bed after throwing you out on your ass.”
“Look, Moose, we both know that Dean has gone rogue. Don’t give me that look, you just admitted it to the good Sheriff and her little ducklings. Regardless of why, Dean’s off the reservation and acting in a way I’ve only seen him act once before. I’m sure you remember that time; didn’t he go after you with a hammer, of all things?”
Sam tensed. He hated the comparison, but it was all too apt. “But if he was a demon…”
“He’s not,” Crowley stated. “Trust me, I’d know if everyone’s favorite Squirrel was black-eyed again. No, this time I’m worried that he’s something worse.”
Sam blinked. “Wait, worse than a demon?” he asked incredulously. “What could be-”
“Soulless might be good way to put it.” Sam shook his head, trying desperately to refuse the notion even as it made more sense than anything else. “Now, Sam, don’t you try to deny it, you already admitted that you’ve considered it. And if he’s not soulless, he’s something worse altogether.”
“What - what do you mean?” Sam asked.
“I mean that powerful beings, myself excluded - I’m talking the heavy hitters, the guys even an angel would be wary of - have the ability to reach into your soul and mess about in there.” Sam shuddered, remembering the cold fingers of Lucifer in his soul, and did his best to shrug it off. It was past. (It had to be past.) Crowley had paused, an odd look on his face, but when Sam looked at him quizzically he continued, “Anyway, I’d be willing to bet my suit that Amara has meddled around with Dean’s soul.”
“So?” Sam asked.
“So? So?” Crowley spluttered. “So, if you remember what Dean was like hopped up on black eyes and the Mark, I can almost guarantee a Dean messed about by the Darkness her-own-bloody-self will be ten - no, a hundred - no, a thousand times worse! And I for one am not going to wait about until she decides that Hell would be a good place to go at!”
Sam sighed. He saw Crowley’s point, but he didn’t exactly see what he could do about it. “Look, I get it,” he said. “But what the hell do you want me for?”
Crowley looked shifty for a just the shortest amount of time, but it had Sam uneasy. Surely the demon wasn’t trying to double-cross him (again). “So?” he asked pointedly.
“Well,” Crowley said, waving a hand, “I figure, you and Dean have this whole thing going - you know, that awful epic codependency, ‘I’ll never hurt my brother’ thing. And I for one have a feeling that was the very first thing Amara went after in dear Squirrel’s soul.”
Sam shook his head. He refused to believe that. After all, that had been what had saved them (or doomed them) every time - Dean’s refusal to let Sam die at Cold Oak, Sam’s refusal to let Dean stay dead and in Hell, Sam’s recognition of the Impala, their easy recognition of each other (and when one of them isn’t their brother), Dean’s refusal to let Sam die (again; that one didn’t bring up any good memories), and Dean’s refusal to kill him (that one had good and bad points).
Crowley held up a hand. “No, Moose. Before you start going on about how you two have some bond and you’ll always recognize each other, blah, blah, blah, listen to me.” Sam opened his mouth and Crowley exclaimed, “No! Look, Sam, I know that you Winchesters have somehow managed to drag yourselves out of whatever thing you’ve gotten yourselves into through the power of brotherly love every time. But I’m saying that, if Amara did what I think she did, not only will it not work, it will have what’s left of Dean laughing in your face as you die of a gut wound. It will not work.”
“But how do you know that?” Sam, demanded, refusing to believe anything the demon was saying. He could be lying…for some reason that Sam couldn’t figure out. Or something.
Crowley rolled his eyes, letting them fall back level with red smoke in the corneas. “Because I am a demon, Sam. Because, in case you didn’t know, us infernal denizens of Hell can see these things, these scars on a soul. We, and by that I mean I, can see the mess Amara has made of Squirrel by pulling out the greater part of his soul - that part that knows you, most likely. It’s tucked away in the middle, huddled in on itself and blanketed by Darkness.” Sam opened his mouth, suddenly interested, and Crowley interjected, eyes becoming more smoke-infused if it was possible, “So help me, if you ask how it works I will gut you and hide in a small corner of the Earth and wait for the Darkness to rewrite the universe!”
Sam raised his hands, shaking his head. “Fine, fine. Whatever. So I just trust you?”
The red drained out of Crowley’s eyes and the look on Crowley’s face almost mimicked relief, if Sam could believe that Crowley had been worried. “Exactly, Moose. You trust me.”
Sam waited for something else, because he could feel the “but” added onto that statement. Nothing was forthcoming, and Crowley was looking distinctly uncomfortable but determined. “And?” Sam finally asked, tired of the waiting game.
Crowley deflated, and Sam waited some more. “Look, Sam,” Crowley began, “I have a proposition for you.”
“You do, do you?” Sam said, skeptical. Nothing from Crowley ever came without its price, and he didn’t want to be paying for this until he was old and wrinkled.
Crowley nodded and drew in a deep breath. It looked like it pained him to say, “I know that, no matter how much I argue, you’re going to go off chasing after Dean.” He sniffed, cutting Sam’s protests (without any heat behind them) off with “Ah, don’t deny it.” He continued, “You’re going to find some way to pursue the Darkness and your brother. So here’s my offer: you let me ferry you around the world, and you don’t argue about my methods in getting us there. I let you investigate and do my very best to keep you breathing, because as much as I hate to admit it, you’re the world’s best bet at survival. You do your very best to not go running off half-cocked and try to listen to my warnings and advice.”
Sam parsed the deal Crowley was offered. The very core of his felt sickened at the fact that he was contemplating it, and he could almost hear Dean trying to talk him away from it, but he couldn’t find any surface faults. It didn’t have any actual restrictions on him except “try not to get killed” and “try to listen to me,” and the implied word “try” made all the difference. He worried slightly about Crowley’s “methods,” so he asked, “What methods?”
Crowley replied, “Only dimension hopping distances, swear it on my immortal soul. Teleporting, you’d say. It’d treat your gut better than angel transport any day.”
With that worry dealt with easily, Sam thought back through the wording. He was sure he was missing something, but he could see Crowley getting impatient and didn’t want him withdrawing the offer. “You swear not to knowingly harm me and to protect me to the best of your ability?”
“Of course, Sam,” Crowley replied. “Does this mean you accept?”
“I don’t really have any other choice,” Sam answered, already dreading what Crowley was going to request. “Sure, I could try to find a friendly god or an angel, but I imagine nothing else wants to get within a hundred miles of Amara.”
Crowley shrugged. “No, I can’t see it happening.”
“Fine,” Sam said. “I agree.” He leaned in for the kiss to seal the deal, disgust roiling in his gut and his eyes screwed closed. (He had to do this, to save Dean. He had to.)
A finger on his cheek stopped him. “Look, Sam,” Crowley said, “Not that I’m against sealing the deal the old-fashioned way, but, well…”
“You are?” Sam asked bitterly. Of course. Now the deal wouldn’t be binding, so Crowley could renege on it at any time and remind him of this moment.
Crowley blinked. “No, for…it’s not like that, you dumb giant! I won’t break my word. I’ve got some principles, you know! It’s just…”
Sam huffed a bitter laugh. “Whatever. Save it for someone who cares. If you go back on the terms, I reserve the right to stick Ruby’s knife between your ribs.” He watched in satisfaction as Crowley gulped. Good. Maybe, if nothing else, the threat would keep the deal intact.
Crowley nodded gingerly. “Ah, right. So, um, when do you want to, ah, start?”
“When can you find her?” Sam asked.
Crowley see-sawed a hand. “Well, I can sense her at any time. She’s causing…quite a stir, she is, and it’s hard to ignore. Anything tuned into the right channels now could pinpoint her to a couple hundred square kilometers.”
Sam blinked. He hadn’t expected it to be so easy. He was just about to head off to start researching, finding the pattern, exactly what he and Dean had done for Yellow Eyes and the Horsemen and so many other monsters over the years.
Now that he didn’t have a reason to do it, he felt bereft of something. Like something fundamentally wrong had just happened and he’d been dropped into a Bizarro world.
On second thought, he almost had, considering that God’s sister (who even could have seen that) was destroying the world for no apparent reason, his brother by her side, apparently willingly. If this wasn’t a Bizarro world, he didn’t know what was.
Sam shrugged when Crowley cleared his throat, obviously waiting for a response. “I guess let me pack a bag. I’ll be back in ten.” Crowley seemed almost stunned at the speed. “What? I need to save my brother.”
---------------
Amara watched as her Consort ripped his way through another crowd of helpless dependents of her Sibling. Humans, she thought derisively, So weak and…breakable. I could make something better.
Her Consort, though, her Dean was an unmatched specimen of humanity. She reveled in the blood that he allowed to spatter over his face, knowing that she loved seeing evidence of his deeds for her. She smiled lightly as he turned to her, his knife held loosely in hand and the last human’s corpse fell to the ground behind him.
She stepped up to her Consort and allowed him to press a hungry kiss to her lips. She did not reciprocate, not wanting to lag and allow their tail to catch them. Dean noticed her reticence and pulled back, eyeing her confusedly, and Amara reassured him, “Hush, my Consort, we must move on. Come, take my hand.”
Her Consort happily took her outstretched hand and she lifted them away from the grisly scene. She wondered how many she would have to leave before her Sibling would take notice and confront her.
If only her Sibling had listened to her calls, she would not have to kill their faithful and enslave their Chosen.
She could hear the true Dean’s silenced screams, and she let him scream. She would visit him in his prison sometime soon; she wondered whether he was close to breaking yet. She wanted Dean in his entirety, not this shell of a man that she had fashioned to obey.
She caressed her Consort’s cheek as she carried him away and he leaned into it; she wondered if her Consort had ever had such affection lavished upon him.
She would mend this injustice, to be sure.
Part 3