Convergence (1/?)
Title: Convergence (1/?)
Author: emmram (duckondebut)
Fandom: Supernatural (gasp!)
Summary: Your regular End!verse AU wherein the end of the world is just the beginning of a brand new journey. Except it’s not quite that simple.
Notes: For the ever-wonderful veliseraptor (minviendha) for her birthday. This was supposed to be a short End!verse hurt!Sam drabble, and instead grew into a bit of a monster that I was forced to chop into bits. How many bits, I’m not quite sure yet. But I hope you like it!
Warnings: SPOILERS for s5; elements of later seasons, including bits of s8, come in later. Violence, gore, metaphor-abuse. Also, I’m really, really rusty, so-yeah. It will all become clear! Really!
Convergence
At the end of everything, there’s an angel, a monster, and a boy.The angel is triumphant-he has everything that he ever wanted. He is a being of infinite patience, wonder, and ingeniousness; the driving force behind a plan put into motion several millennia ago. He stands at the brink of everything and shouts to the endless cosmos look at what I have achieved! At what I am! At what I can become!
(and the cosmos echoes his triumph, hollow and empty and uncaring-)
The monster writhes and pants-restless, unsatisfied. There is no beginning or end for the monster, no success or failure; it is ruled by need. The more the angel fed this monster, the hungrier it became. And now-it turns and snarls and nips at the angel, growling, begging, demanding-
(for more, more, more-)
The angel and the monster turn on each other, for there is nothing else to turn to. The angel fights viciously, with all of his strength and cunning and skill; the monster pushes through every crushing blow, fuelled by pure rage and want. Finally, the monster-bleeding and broken-eats the angel alive, and the two beings die, intertwined in death as in life.
The boy watches.
The boy waits; the boy wins.
-
There was a time, about a year ago now, when there was an outbreak of bacterial meningitis in Camp Chitaqua. Dean doesn’t remember much about it because he was one of the first to get it; all he knows is that he was the only survivor. He remembers waking up one morning, smelling of sweat and vomit and urine, and thinking the angels still care. He remembers dragging himself out of bed, weak and shaking, and screaming yes! Yes! Come on, take me, you bastards! I know you kept me alive for a reason! at the skies until his throat was a raw husk.
But there was only silence-for weeks, for months.
He remembers thinking all hope was dead.
It flares in him now as he opens his eyes, feeling weak and oddly disoriented, like he’s rediscovering his body all over again and realising that he doesn’t quite… fit. There’s a warm hand on his forehead; instinct tells him to slap that hand away, but his body merely twitches. He sees nothing but blurred images and colours; he blinks rapidly, tries to focus, and sees-
-Lucifer (Sam)-
Dean flinches violently, feels a white-hot burst of pain in his neck as something grates in there, then falls into darkness once more.
-
“Michael,” Dean says when he wakes up again.
The name’s a sickening strand of hope that’s been coiled in his gut for over five years. He knows he died back there; knows that if he’s sitting here in those very ruins, alive and whole, then Heaven hasn’t abandoned them just yet.
Or it’s just their way of laughing at you, his mind tells him, sounding disconcertingly like Sam. Can’t have you dead before you see every last person you know die in front of your eyes.
“Dean.”
Dean turns slowly, unwilling, disbelieving, hoping, even now-
It’s Lucifer, white shirt and jacket soaked in blood that drips in great globs from his nose, off his chin. He grins (wide, much too wide) with bloodstained teeth. He’s swaying, his feet just a few inches above the ground. “Dean,” he says again, and the voice is not Lucifer’s, or Sam’s-it’s just on this side of unhinged, high with a kind of a manic joy. Dean scrabbles back, one hand groping about for the Colt.
Lucifer steps closer-floats, whatever-and says, “I did it. Ohgoddean I did it!”
Dean finally remembers where the goddamned gun is (remembers he never even had the time to take it out of his fucking coat), before bringing it around and pulling the trigger. “I was fooled once,” he snarls. “Never again.”
The gun merely clicks, jammed.
Sam (Lucifer) giggles. Dean sighs. Honestly-he was a fool for expecting anything else.
An invisible power flicks the gun out of his hands and slams him to the ground. In the blink of an eye, Sam’s straddling him, blood and saliva splattering on Dean’s face. “I did it,” he says again. “I brought you back-I-” He pokes at Dean’s neck. “Well-not perfectly, sure, but-you’re here, Dean, you’re here!”
Dean stares at him. “Sam?” He tries to rise, feels that same grinding pain in his neck, and falls back, panting. “What-?”
“Here, let me help you,” Sam says, and before Dean can protest, grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him up. There’s a blinding rush of pain and vertigo before Dean steadies himself, Sam still clutching his elbow. “It’s a bit of a complication,” Sam tells him cheerfully, “but nothing you can’t manage-right, Dean?
Dean looks down at himself-and realises his head is still turned to the side, neck rigid and twisted at an unnatural angle. White-hot panic twists his gut, and he tastes bile at the back of his throat (except he’s not quite sure what’ll happen if he does try to vomit, and if he tries to eat, and how is he still talking oh god oh god oh god-)
“Fix this!” He reaches for Sam clumsily, hands groping and clutching at air. “Do you hear me? Fix this!”
“I would have to kill you again to do that,” Sam tells him matter-of-factly. “Not terribly sure if I can bring you back again.”
“Then I don’t want to come back!” Dean shouts, and realises that he means it. Every last fucking word, because nothing’s fucking changed-he’s lead the people who trusted in him to their deaths, Lucifer is still there (Sam’s still dead), and the planet’s still dying. He stumbles away; he has to find the Colt and end it by his own hands-make sure nothing can bring him back-
“Dean,” Sam says again, and he sounds sad, resigned, and so much like Sam that Dean’s heart aches. “Please. It’s me. I-I don’t know how it happened, but-Lucifer’s still somewhere in here, I can feel him, but he’s dormant, Dean. It’s me. I promise.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Dean growls.
“I haven’t seen you in so long,” Sam continues. “Haven’t seen anything since Detroit, haven’t felt like this since-well, as long as I can remember… and I can fix this, Dean. I just-I need your help.”
Dean trips; he falls on his side, eye-wateringly hard, and lies there, panting. “You don’t need me,” he says. “You can do this on your own.”
“Yeah, well,” Sam says, “I don’t want to.”
TBC