Unexpected Destinies Chapter 87
Title: Unexpected Destinies
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 2,650
Summary: Sam is forced to reveal some more of the truth to his family.
PRESENT
The first thing that Sam became aware of when he woke was the painful throbbing of his entire body. He groaned but it had unfortunately become the norm for him lately ever since they'd performed the first simple cleansing spell. The next thing he became aware of was the growling of his stomach and briefly he closed his eyes again in resignation before he remembered that today was the day that Bobby and Samuel had decided that he could eat normally instead of just the gruel they'd found that wouldn't really interfere with the spells and could sorta fill him but which tasted like complete and utter shit.
With the promise of real food awaiting him, Sam was out of bed and in the shower in no time. As always, he was grateful for the amazing water pressure and seemingly endless supply of hot water that Mark somehow managed to get them here despite the compound being in the middle of nowhere. He wasn't sure how his cousin did it and Mark refused to talk about it, but he was endlessly thankful for it as he'd washed the grit and grime of countless hunts down the drain with it. When he was done and dressed, he headed straight for the kitchen and wasn't surprised to find Bobby already there, no doubt on his third or forth cup of coffee of the day.
"Morning," Sam chirped, making a beeline for the fridge.
"You're in a good mood this morning," Bobby observed.
"That's because I can actually eat today!"
Even as he said it, Sam pulled out eggs, bacon and butter. He put those on the counter before digging out the large frying pan and a loaf of bread. He put several rashers of bacon in the pan to get it greasy before he turned back to the older hunter.
"Do you want anything or have you already eaten?"
"I'm good," Bobby replied. "How are you feeling?"
"About the same as usual, achy like I've completely overworked every muscle in my body."
"Still? It hasn't lessened in intensity any?"
"No."
Sam hated to admit it, but he knew that if he lied and said that things were getting better that they'd just move up to the next level of spell and then the truth would come out pretty damn quickly. Not only that, but he really didn't want to risk passing out again like he had so often in the beginning. It still embarrassed him to think of that but nothing he'd tried had allowed him to remain conscious as the pain had been unbearable. It had literally felt like the spells were trying to rip part of him out and he'd wondered more than once if that wasn't true. Bobby and Samuel were pretty sure that it was the demon blood he'd drunk that was causing the problem and not his little stint in Hell. And, since he'd first consumed demon blood when he was only six months old, he couldn't help but wonder if, after so long, the original blood hadn't perhaps quite literally become a part of him? If that was what had happened then they were just banging their heads against a brick wall here. He didn't like the idea, but it wasn't like there was anything anyone could do about it now. If only his father had thought to do a simple cleansing spell on him years ago! It really was kind of unforgivable that Dad hadn't given their line of work and especially if the man had possessed even an inkling of what had happened in his nursery that faithful night.
The smell of frying bacon brought Sam's attention back to his cooking and he pushed the rashers around the pan to get it good and greasy before he cracked two eggs open. Though he normally enjoyed eating more healthy food, this was what he craved now, probably from having smelled it the past few mornings and not having been able to partake of it along with the others. While he waited for everything to finish cooking, he popped two slices of bread into the toaster and poured himself a cup of coffee. It was amazing what the prospect of a good meal did for his mood despite the fact that everything still hurt.
"That's not good," Bobby stated and it took Sam a moment to remember what they'd been talking about.
"Not much we can do about it," Sam replied.
"We could try asking Dean or Castiel if this is normal."
"They're the reason we're doing this in the first place."
"Yes, exactly, so maybe Castiel knows more about it."
"No, what I meant is that they must have known it would be necessary as they asked you to do it two weeks ago and haven't been back since."
"Perhaps, though they could just be waiting for the all clear from us."
"This is Dean we're talking about, Bobby. When have you ever known him to wait around patiently for things to happen even when he does know how long something is supposed to take?"
"True."
Sam wanted to snort and say that of course it was. What he'd said had been about Dean and no one knew his brother better than he did, no matter what Bobby might say to the contrary. Hell, the older hunter didn't even know about certain aspects of Dean's personality simply because he'd never seen them before. There were facets to his brother that even he hadn't seen in years as they were too well hidden behind Dean's stupid defenses and lack of self-worth. He'd have thought that his big brother would have outgrown those childish tendencies years ago and become his own man by now instead of a hybrid of the soldier Dad had created and an overgrown child, but clearly he'd been wrong. It was one of Dean's bigger faults as it let people dictate his worth too much and made him rely on others for his happiness instead of taking matters into his own hands.
It was just as Sam was scooping his bacon and eggs onto his plate that he heard others enter the kitchen. A quick glance up showed it to be Samuel, Christian and Gwen. Uh oh, this didn't look good. Not only had Christian been avoiding him as of late, not telling him what he'd done wrong or how he could fix it, but they all looked grim as if about to do something they didn't want to.
"Hey, guys," Sam greeted. "What's up?"
"We need to talk," Samuel stated.
"Okay, sure. Anyone need anything to eat?"
"No, thanks, we're good," Gwen replied.
Since he had a bad feeling about this, Sam procrastinated as much as he could, rinsing the pan and cleaning the counter, but eventually he had to take his plate and mug and join the others at the table. Suddenly he wasn't feeling so well anymore and his breakfast looked a lot less appealing despite how desperately hungry he still was.
"Sam," Samuel began hesitantly.
"Yes?"
"I think it's become abundantly clear this past week that there's something you're not telling us."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh for crying out loud!" Christian exclaimed angrily. "Drop the fucking act. We know you're hiding something from us. There's no way that you're having all of this trouble with the cleansing spells just from one exposure to demon blood, which means that there's something else."
Sam's eyes flickered to Bobby for help but, as he'd expected, he found none there. They'd argued about what he should tell the Campbells more than once with Bobby thinking he should tell them everything while he thought that it really wasn't any of their business and thus there was no need to tell them anything. Now it seemed that his choice might be taken from him and he hated that. The thing was that he knew that they wouldn't understand the truth; that they wouldn't be able to understand why he'd had no choice but to do what he had even if things had turned out so badly. There was no way he could have known what Ruby was really up to as she had seemed so sincere.
"How would you know if it could or couldn't be from the demon blood, it's not like we've got any precedents here," Sam argued.
"Actually we do," Gwen stated.
"What?" Bobby demanded.
"It's something we found in one of the old Campbell journals," Samuel explained. "That of Edward who made the crossing over from Europe on the Mayflower. He speaks of an instance where demons in France had been making people drink the blood of other demons in an effort to corrupt them. When the hunters discovered this and put an end to it, they managed to save a few people and the journal talks about how it took only a few cleansing spells to clear them of any residual taint, even those who'd been given massive doses of the blood."
Sam could feel the blood draining from his face as he processed that. He wished like hell that they'd had access to that journal before as it could have helped him see what was happening before it had been too late.
"Sam?" Gwen prompted gently.
He sighed as he realized that he had no choice but to tell them. "It wasn't just the one time," Sam admitted.
"What?" Samuel asked.
"The demon blood, I didn't just have it the once."
"What?" Christian exploded. "You actually drank that stuff several times? What the fuck is wrong with you?"
The words and anger startled Sam even as part of him was relieved to learn what it was that had been bothering his cousin. It quickly turned to anxiety and fear though as he thought of how Christian would take the rest of the truth. Could this really wreck the friendship and trust they'd established? He didn't really see why it should as it had all been over and done with long before he'd met any of the Campbells and thus didn't really affect or concern them.
"I didn't exactly have a choice the first time!" Sam retorted, angry at Christian's unreasonable behavior. It was so Dean like in a way, the manner in which his cousin thought he could judge a situation he knew nothing about like that on so little evidence.
"What do you mean you didn't have a choice?" Gwen demanded, suddenly urgent. "Did they force it down your throat?"
"They didn't have to as I didn't know any better," Sam began, glancing at his grandfather. This would be hard on the old man and he'd hoped to spare Samuel, but they'd just taken the decision out of his hands. "It happened when I was just a baby, the night Mom died. It was why Azazel was there that night; to bleed into my mouth."
There was a stunned silence that was eventually broken by Bobby who went on to explain exactly what Azazel had been doing and why. Surprisingly, that went smoother than expected and Sam was startled to learn that Samuel already knew part of the story from back when his path had crossed with that of Dean and his time traveling brother had guided Samuel into chasing Azazel when he was in town back then. The guilt he could see starting to form on his grandfather's face pained him but he didn't quite know what to say because it was true that if Samuel had managed to stop Azazel back then that his life never would have been fucked up to begin with. Instead of ending up the prize child of a demon, he'd have been able to live a normal life with at least one good parent and most likely no overbearing brother as Dean wouldn't have been all but brainwashed into becoming nothing but an obedient little soldier and attack dog.
"Jesus," Gwen breathed when Bobby had finished explaining about the blood and Azazel's kids. "But that's... I mean you were a baby!"
"Yeah," Sam replied, deliberately not looking at Bobby as he knew exactly what he'd see in the other man's eyes if he did.
Perhaps he wouldn't have to tell his family about Ruby after all.
"That was nearly three decades ago," Samuel stated.
"Hey, I'm not that old!" Sam protested.
"Close enough. No wonder the spells are having such a hard time cleansing the stain of the blood from your system."
If it weren't for the fact that the words proved that the revelation of this new knowledge was enough to effectively distract the others from the rest of the truth, Sam would have protested again. Stain was such a harsh word. Yes, sure, it was pretty obvious by now that the demon blood he'd ingested had tainted him on some level, but stain had so much stronger a connotation to it.
"So now what?" Samuel asked. "Do we just keep going with the cleansing spells and hope that they start having more of an effect with repetitive applications?"
"I don't see what else we can do," Bobby replied and Sam could hear an edge to his voice that he knew the others would miss. "Sam and I had just been discussing calling Dean and Castiel. It's possible that they might know more seeing as they were the ones who said we'd need to cleanse Sam in the first place."
"Have you considered the fact that maybe they knew that this would happen and just gave you this task to keep us busy?" Christian demanded. "We've already wasted over two weeks on this when we could have been doing other, more valuable stuff to end the Apocalypse."
Sam couldn't help but flinch at the harsh words and it took him a few moments to find the obvious flaw in that logic, but by then his grandfather had, predictably as always when it came to Dean, reacted.
"Must you continue to think the worst of him, Christian?" Samuel demanded.
"Must you continue to think the best of him?" Christian shot right back.
"Regardless of Dean's actual motivations that just doesn't make any sense, Christian," Sam said. "Just think, if Dean or the angels didn't want us involved with the Apocalypse, then they'd simply never have told us about it to begin with."
"Sam's right," Gwen stated. "Dean was the one who contacted us and arranged the meeting, not the other way around."
"Still doesn't mean that they didn't assign this task knowing that we wouldn't be able to succeed in it," Christian argued.
"Oh enough already with the melodramatic act, ya idjit," Bobby snapped and Sam nearly choked on his coffee. "Everyone here already knows that you don't like Dean, you've only told us this a hundred times. Now, if you don't have anything productive or useful to say, shut up and let the rest of us discuss the situation."
The outburst had silenced the room and Sam realized that this was the first time his family had witnessed the wrath that was Bobby Singer when his patience finally wore thin. It would have amused him if the situation wasn't so dire. Despite what he'd said to the others, the fact that he still wasn't able to go through a medium level cleansing spell without near debilitating pain bothered him greatly. It wasn't his fault that Azazel had fed him demon blood as a baby so it really wasn't fair that he had to deal with this now. As for Ruby, well his intentions had always been pure, didn't that count for something?
"I believe that calling Dean is an excellent idea," Samuel finally said. "Not only might he or this Castiel know something useful about the situation, but it will give us another opportunity to learn more about the Apocalypse and the angels that Dean is working with."
A.N.: For those of you who've seen the season 6 finale and don't like it, please have a look at my thoughts of it. Personally I loved the ending and think that there are a lot of things people haven't considered yet, especially regarding Dean/Cas, that makes what was done really exciting.
Chapter 88
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 2,650
Summary: Sam is forced to reveal some more of the truth to his family.
PRESENT
The first thing that Sam became aware of when he woke was the painful throbbing of his entire body. He groaned but it had unfortunately become the norm for him lately ever since they'd performed the first simple cleansing spell. The next thing he became aware of was the growling of his stomach and briefly he closed his eyes again in resignation before he remembered that today was the day that Bobby and Samuel had decided that he could eat normally instead of just the gruel they'd found that wouldn't really interfere with the spells and could sorta fill him but which tasted like complete and utter shit.
With the promise of real food awaiting him, Sam was out of bed and in the shower in no time. As always, he was grateful for the amazing water pressure and seemingly endless supply of hot water that Mark somehow managed to get them here despite the compound being in the middle of nowhere. He wasn't sure how his cousin did it and Mark refused to talk about it, but he was endlessly thankful for it as he'd washed the grit and grime of countless hunts down the drain with it. When he was done and dressed, he headed straight for the kitchen and wasn't surprised to find Bobby already there, no doubt on his third or forth cup of coffee of the day.
"Morning," Sam chirped, making a beeline for the fridge.
"You're in a good mood this morning," Bobby observed.
"That's because I can actually eat today!"
Even as he said it, Sam pulled out eggs, bacon and butter. He put those on the counter before digging out the large frying pan and a loaf of bread. He put several rashers of bacon in the pan to get it greasy before he turned back to the older hunter.
"Do you want anything or have you already eaten?"
"I'm good," Bobby replied. "How are you feeling?"
"About the same as usual, achy like I've completely overworked every muscle in my body."
"Still? It hasn't lessened in intensity any?"
"No."
Sam hated to admit it, but he knew that if he lied and said that things were getting better that they'd just move up to the next level of spell and then the truth would come out pretty damn quickly. Not only that, but he really didn't want to risk passing out again like he had so often in the beginning. It still embarrassed him to think of that but nothing he'd tried had allowed him to remain conscious as the pain had been unbearable. It had literally felt like the spells were trying to rip part of him out and he'd wondered more than once if that wasn't true. Bobby and Samuel were pretty sure that it was the demon blood he'd drunk that was causing the problem and not his little stint in Hell. And, since he'd first consumed demon blood when he was only six months old, he couldn't help but wonder if, after so long, the original blood hadn't perhaps quite literally become a part of him? If that was what had happened then they were just banging their heads against a brick wall here. He didn't like the idea, but it wasn't like there was anything anyone could do about it now. If only his father had thought to do a simple cleansing spell on him years ago! It really was kind of unforgivable that Dad hadn't given their line of work and especially if the man had possessed even an inkling of what had happened in his nursery that faithful night.
The smell of frying bacon brought Sam's attention back to his cooking and he pushed the rashers around the pan to get it good and greasy before he cracked two eggs open. Though he normally enjoyed eating more healthy food, this was what he craved now, probably from having smelled it the past few mornings and not having been able to partake of it along with the others. While he waited for everything to finish cooking, he popped two slices of bread into the toaster and poured himself a cup of coffee. It was amazing what the prospect of a good meal did for his mood despite the fact that everything still hurt.
"That's not good," Bobby stated and it took Sam a moment to remember what they'd been talking about.
"Not much we can do about it," Sam replied.
"We could try asking Dean or Castiel if this is normal."
"They're the reason we're doing this in the first place."
"Yes, exactly, so maybe Castiel knows more about it."
"No, what I meant is that they must have known it would be necessary as they asked you to do it two weeks ago and haven't been back since."
"Perhaps, though they could just be waiting for the all clear from us."
"This is Dean we're talking about, Bobby. When have you ever known him to wait around patiently for things to happen even when he does know how long something is supposed to take?"
"True."
Sam wanted to snort and say that of course it was. What he'd said had been about Dean and no one knew his brother better than he did, no matter what Bobby might say to the contrary. Hell, the older hunter didn't even know about certain aspects of Dean's personality simply because he'd never seen them before. There were facets to his brother that even he hadn't seen in years as they were too well hidden behind Dean's stupid defenses and lack of self-worth. He'd have thought that his big brother would have outgrown those childish tendencies years ago and become his own man by now instead of a hybrid of the soldier Dad had created and an overgrown child, but clearly he'd been wrong. It was one of Dean's bigger faults as it let people dictate his worth too much and made him rely on others for his happiness instead of taking matters into his own hands.
It was just as Sam was scooping his bacon and eggs onto his plate that he heard others enter the kitchen. A quick glance up showed it to be Samuel, Christian and Gwen. Uh oh, this didn't look good. Not only had Christian been avoiding him as of late, not telling him what he'd done wrong or how he could fix it, but they all looked grim as if about to do something they didn't want to.
"Hey, guys," Sam greeted. "What's up?"
"We need to talk," Samuel stated.
"Okay, sure. Anyone need anything to eat?"
"No, thanks, we're good," Gwen replied.
Since he had a bad feeling about this, Sam procrastinated as much as he could, rinsing the pan and cleaning the counter, but eventually he had to take his plate and mug and join the others at the table. Suddenly he wasn't feeling so well anymore and his breakfast looked a lot less appealing despite how desperately hungry he still was.
"Sam," Samuel began hesitantly.
"Yes?"
"I think it's become abundantly clear this past week that there's something you're not telling us."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh for crying out loud!" Christian exclaimed angrily. "Drop the fucking act. We know you're hiding something from us. There's no way that you're having all of this trouble with the cleansing spells just from one exposure to demon blood, which means that there's something else."
Sam's eyes flickered to Bobby for help but, as he'd expected, he found none there. They'd argued about what he should tell the Campbells more than once with Bobby thinking he should tell them everything while he thought that it really wasn't any of their business and thus there was no need to tell them anything. Now it seemed that his choice might be taken from him and he hated that. The thing was that he knew that they wouldn't understand the truth; that they wouldn't be able to understand why he'd had no choice but to do what he had even if things had turned out so badly. There was no way he could have known what Ruby was really up to as she had seemed so sincere.
"How would you know if it could or couldn't be from the demon blood, it's not like we've got any precedents here," Sam argued.
"Actually we do," Gwen stated.
"What?" Bobby demanded.
"It's something we found in one of the old Campbell journals," Samuel explained. "That of Edward who made the crossing over from Europe on the Mayflower. He speaks of an instance where demons in France had been making people drink the blood of other demons in an effort to corrupt them. When the hunters discovered this and put an end to it, they managed to save a few people and the journal talks about how it took only a few cleansing spells to clear them of any residual taint, even those who'd been given massive doses of the blood."
Sam could feel the blood draining from his face as he processed that. He wished like hell that they'd had access to that journal before as it could have helped him see what was happening before it had been too late.
"Sam?" Gwen prompted gently.
He sighed as he realized that he had no choice but to tell them. "It wasn't just the one time," Sam admitted.
"What?" Samuel asked.
"The demon blood, I didn't just have it the once."
"What?" Christian exploded. "You actually drank that stuff several times? What the fuck is wrong with you?"
The words and anger startled Sam even as part of him was relieved to learn what it was that had been bothering his cousin. It quickly turned to anxiety and fear though as he thought of how Christian would take the rest of the truth. Could this really wreck the friendship and trust they'd established? He didn't really see why it should as it had all been over and done with long before he'd met any of the Campbells and thus didn't really affect or concern them.
"I didn't exactly have a choice the first time!" Sam retorted, angry at Christian's unreasonable behavior. It was so Dean like in a way, the manner in which his cousin thought he could judge a situation he knew nothing about like that on so little evidence.
"What do you mean you didn't have a choice?" Gwen demanded, suddenly urgent. "Did they force it down your throat?"
"They didn't have to as I didn't know any better," Sam began, glancing at his grandfather. This would be hard on the old man and he'd hoped to spare Samuel, but they'd just taken the decision out of his hands. "It happened when I was just a baby, the night Mom died. It was why Azazel was there that night; to bleed into my mouth."
There was a stunned silence that was eventually broken by Bobby who went on to explain exactly what Azazel had been doing and why. Surprisingly, that went smoother than expected and Sam was startled to learn that Samuel already knew part of the story from back when his path had crossed with that of Dean and his time traveling brother had guided Samuel into chasing Azazel when he was in town back then. The guilt he could see starting to form on his grandfather's face pained him but he didn't quite know what to say because it was true that if Samuel had managed to stop Azazel back then that his life never would have been fucked up to begin with. Instead of ending up the prize child of a demon, he'd have been able to live a normal life with at least one good parent and most likely no overbearing brother as Dean wouldn't have been all but brainwashed into becoming nothing but an obedient little soldier and attack dog.
"Jesus," Gwen breathed when Bobby had finished explaining about the blood and Azazel's kids. "But that's... I mean you were a baby!"
"Yeah," Sam replied, deliberately not looking at Bobby as he knew exactly what he'd see in the other man's eyes if he did.
Perhaps he wouldn't have to tell his family about Ruby after all.
"That was nearly three decades ago," Samuel stated.
"Hey, I'm not that old!" Sam protested.
"Close enough. No wonder the spells are having such a hard time cleansing the stain of the blood from your system."
If it weren't for the fact that the words proved that the revelation of this new knowledge was enough to effectively distract the others from the rest of the truth, Sam would have protested again. Stain was such a harsh word. Yes, sure, it was pretty obvious by now that the demon blood he'd ingested had tainted him on some level, but stain had so much stronger a connotation to it.
"So now what?" Samuel asked. "Do we just keep going with the cleansing spells and hope that they start having more of an effect with repetitive applications?"
"I don't see what else we can do," Bobby replied and Sam could hear an edge to his voice that he knew the others would miss. "Sam and I had just been discussing calling Dean and Castiel. It's possible that they might know more seeing as they were the ones who said we'd need to cleanse Sam in the first place."
"Have you considered the fact that maybe they knew that this would happen and just gave you this task to keep us busy?" Christian demanded. "We've already wasted over two weeks on this when we could have been doing other, more valuable stuff to end the Apocalypse."
Sam couldn't help but flinch at the harsh words and it took him a few moments to find the obvious flaw in that logic, but by then his grandfather had, predictably as always when it came to Dean, reacted.
"Must you continue to think the worst of him, Christian?" Samuel demanded.
"Must you continue to think the best of him?" Christian shot right back.
"Regardless of Dean's actual motivations that just doesn't make any sense, Christian," Sam said. "Just think, if Dean or the angels didn't want us involved with the Apocalypse, then they'd simply never have told us about it to begin with."
"Sam's right," Gwen stated. "Dean was the one who contacted us and arranged the meeting, not the other way around."
"Still doesn't mean that they didn't assign this task knowing that we wouldn't be able to succeed in it," Christian argued.
"Oh enough already with the melodramatic act, ya idjit," Bobby snapped and Sam nearly choked on his coffee. "Everyone here already knows that you don't like Dean, you've only told us this a hundred times. Now, if you don't have anything productive or useful to say, shut up and let the rest of us discuss the situation."
The outburst had silenced the room and Sam realized that this was the first time his family had witnessed the wrath that was Bobby Singer when his patience finally wore thin. It would have amused him if the situation wasn't so dire. Despite what he'd said to the others, the fact that he still wasn't able to go through a medium level cleansing spell without near debilitating pain bothered him greatly. It wasn't his fault that Azazel had fed him demon blood as a baby so it really wasn't fair that he had to deal with this now. As for Ruby, well his intentions had always been pure, didn't that count for something?
"I believe that calling Dean is an excellent idea," Samuel finally said. "Not only might he or this Castiel know something useful about the situation, but it will give us another opportunity to learn more about the Apocalypse and the angels that Dean is working with."
A.N.: For those of you who've seen the season 6 finale and don't like it, please have a look at my thoughts of it. Personally I loved the ending and think that there are a lot of things people haven't considered yet, especially regarding Dean/Cas, that makes what was done really exciting.
Chapter 88