Unexpected Destinies Chapter 159
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: 3,259
Summary: The next part of Raziel's ritual to free Sam from being constantly open as Lucifer's vessel.
PRESENT
Once he had prepared the potion this part of Raziel's ritual required, Michael stepped back. They had decided back before Dean had even gone to stay at the Campbell's that it would be best if his vessel performed this particular part. As there was no special requirement or innate magic necessary, simply the ability to carry out a slightly more complex spell that would help purify Sam's body of the link it had created with Lucifer upon first joining with his brother, Castiel had thought it would work best if Dean were the one to perform it as Sam was most likely to trust his own brother most when it came to accepting the accompanying potion that was three quarters hemlock, a highly poisonous substance for humans.
At the time Michael had agreed with his brother's reasoning as it had made logical sense. Now, however, he had his doubts after having observed Sam interacting with his vessel. It was clear that something was adversely affecting their relationship because it was clearly not what he'd heard it to be. Sure, he'd already known to expect some of that given the way in which Sam Winchester had betrayed Dean, abandoning his brother on a whim, but this was still a far greater divide than he had been expecting.
Raphael's realization earlier in the day had gone a long way towards explaining that behavior, but Michael wasn't yet sure that it would be enough to help mend things between the two brothers. He had, after all, observed that there was often a large gap between knowing something and accepting it. And he wasn't just thinking about humans either, much as he wished that he were. He could only hope that Sam Winchester wouldn't simply write off all that they had told him and continue on as he was, following in Lucifer's footsteps. He wasn't entirely sure what would happen if the boy did. Beyond devastating Dean, it would force some very tough decisions on them, ones that he'd much rather his vessel never had to face for himself, knowing from personal experience how difficult they could be. He would do all that he could to ensure those events never transpired, even if it meant that he had to come up with some means of making Sam Winchester see reason.
The rhythmic chanting of fluid Enochian and the feel of magic beginning to spark and crackle in the air drew Michael back to the present and he dismissed his brother's vessel in favor of watching his own. He'd thought it many times now, but Dean truly was magnificent, especially in situations like this where his human was fully focused on the task at hand, mind and soul united in concentration, both boosting the other, shining strong and bright.
To hear the language of Heaven- of home- rolling so easily and fluidly off of Dean's tongue caused a strong swell of possessiveness to rise within Michael. Not possessiveness in the sense of thinking of his hunter as his, but rather in the sense of thinking of Dean as theirs; as Heaven's. As angelic rather than human. It was a ridiculous thought in a lot of ways because he knew if there was one truth about his vessel it was that Dean was most definitely, and proudly, human. Yet at the same time it wasn't so farfetched at all. His little one had proven time and time again that he wasn't just some ordinary human and was actually quite capable of many things which should be purely and exclusively angelic.
It was a contradiction which still fascinated Michael now as much as it had the day that he'd first realized it. On some level he hoped that he never figured the puzzle out as it was so Dean as to almost make him hesitate to try and solve it, not wanting to make his human seem any less precious or amazing to him.
The addition of a few drops of the potion onto the latticework of Holy oil which had been poured on the ground in an extremely complicated pattern around Sam's kneeling form caused localized flares of purple flames at the four cardinal points which rose and fell in time with the cadence of Dean's voice as his vessel continued the spell throughout. Sam's eyes were wide now and he couldn't help but wonder if the hunter could feel the effect of the power this part of the ritual was conjuring up as it started to affect his body.
"I am glad that I am not performing this particular part of the ritual," Raphael whispered as his brother came to stand beside him. "Being that close to lit Holy oil?Never again, not voluntarily anyway."
Michael could easily sympathize with his brother's physical reaction to the mere thought, knowing only all too well what the bite of those flames felt like from countless battles past. He would have done it, though, if Dean had not wanted to perform this part of the ritual. It was a controlled situation and he knew that he'd be released from the fiery prison that was about to ensnare both Sam and his brother as soon as this part of the ritual was done. Still, he was happy not to have to.
"What-" Raphael began and then hesitated. "What did you do with the demon after you had collected it's tears? One of the garrisons hunting the demons that escaped when Lucifer broke the seal to Hell required assistance and I was unable to stay."
The question made Michael frown as it caused uncertainty and doubt to rise within him. He used the excuse provided by the lighting of the rest of the Holy oil to not respond right away. Even now he wasn't entirely certain why he had done what he had, nor was he sure that he'd made the right decision. He despised feeling this way and wondered not for the first time how humans managed to live like this their entire lives, never truly knowing what it was that Father wanted or expected of them. The knowledge that what he had done in the past had always been right had tempted him to follow that same route this time, but he had resisted doing so, knowing it would have been an excuse to evade the true question he faced.
Namely what was truly the right thing to do?
Part of his hesitance came from the fact that Michael didn't really feel qualified to be able to answer that question. It was something that he'd never before spent much time pondering as he'd always known what was right and what was wrong as his Father had told him or made it clear to him through other means. To have to figure it out on his own was difficult to say the least. Therefore he hadn't left it entirely up to himself, but he'd rather done what he'd seen Castiel do and used Dean as his moral compass. Though his hunter had no love for demons, he had that one conversation with his vessel about the existence and purpose of Hell to go on. There his vessel had made it clear that Dean disliked the vicious cycle that was Hell, demons and the damned souls that were doomed there.
Michael was mostly sure that his precious human would approve of what he had done. He could only hope that his Father would as well.
"I finished the restoration of it's human soul and allowed it entrance into Heaven," Michael finally replied quietly.
The silence that followed his words was quite telling and when Michael risked a glance at his brother it was to find Raphael staring at him in astonishment. Thankfully, though, he couldn't detect any traces of either disapproval or disappointment within his brother's Grace. Instead Raphael's shock and surprise were slowly transforming into a thoughtfulness and he felt something ease within himself. If Raphael couldn't fault him then at least he hadn't made an extremely bad decision. He knew that he'd have Castiel's approval as well based on his younger brother's past actions and combined with his other brother's reaction he felt himself begin to slowly relax, feeling more comfortable with his decision.
Despite that, Michael resolved to go visit the newly restored soul soon, just to be sure that it had fully recovered and was now indeed worthy of Heaven.
/
As the fire in the four cardinal pillars turned a more natural color and then suddenly flared outwards along the lines of the rest of the Holy oil, Sam bit back a cry as it felt like his own body was suddenly consumed by flames. It felt a little like the early cleansing spells had, but only a little. The rest was unlike anything that he'd ever felt before. It moved through his veins, a liquid heat that felt like fire, but which didn't burn like its namesake, not really. It was more like light in a way, warm light slowly traveling through him and changing him in some unknown way.
Sam's eyes fell shut as he tried to concentrate on the weird sensation. Once he realized that it wasn't quite burning him it became easier to bear, to the point where he wasn't even entirely sure that he disliked it anymore. It just felt peculiar. Bubbly and warm, yet forceful and powerful as well, consuming all in its path that it disliked or saw as wrong. It was hard to believe that his brother was conjuring all of this with merely a potion, some Holy oil and the right words.
When the chanting finally stopped, Sam opened his eyes to look at Dean once more. The Holy fire served to isolate them from the others as well as bathe them both in its heat. With the darkness that had fallen this served to give the illusion that it was just the two of them, brothers together, once more. The sound of someone shifting beyond the flames ruined the illusion a little, but when he turned his eyes back to Dean after failing to penetrate the darkness beyond the flames, his breath caught in his throat.
In some ways it was as if Sam was truly seeing his brother for the first time in a long time. The light of the fire behind Dean cast part of his brother into silhouette but this was immediately countered to some extent by the light of the flames behind himself which cast a flickering, orange glow over parts of Dean's face. He had the sudden strange thought of whether this was what the souls on his brother's rack in Hell had seen, but it instantly vanished when Dean uttered a few more foreign words and the Holy fire leapt and danced in response. The words sounded like Enochian from what little he knew of the angelic language and he wondered whether his brother had merely memorized the necessary incantation for this part of the ritual or whether, like Italian, this was a language which Castiel had given Dean.
Jealousy rose swift and strong within Sam at the thought and it was only because of what the others had told him earlier that he was able to recognize it for what it was. Oh, sure, he'd have known that it was jealously before, but somehow he wouldn't have realized the strength and depth of it. He wouldn't have believed it possible but for the fact that he could think back and find examples of it in his recent memory. It just felt so right and natural and that terrified the crap out of him and reigned in his first automatic reaction to just write off the criticism as either jealously or envy on their part. The fact that one of the ways in which he would have done so would be to criticize the source of the information only helped as there he ran into yet more proof of Lucifer's influence.
The realization tasted sour in Sam's mouth, but if he stopped to look at what he despised about Michael and Raphael, he couldn't find any solid, concrete basis for most of it. It was almost all based on how he felt about them and given how impersonal his previous interactions with them had been (if he'd had any real interactions with them at all!), the deeply personal feelings of betrayal and dislike simply couldn't be his own.
Which meant that they had to be the devil's.
Sam swallowed down the terror that threatened to engulf him at the thought that Lucifer was essentially still in him in some ways given the influence the devil had over his thoughts and actions. His fear froze as his eyes locked with Dean's, though, and that allowed him to take back enough control to push it down so that it wouldn't overpower him. The way that his brother met his gaze head on was reassuring and like so often before in his life, he found himself drawing strength from Dean. Like this, here and now in the middle of a burning ring of protective Holy oil, it was essentially just the two of them like it had been so very often in the past. Two against the world as he'd used to like to think of them when they were younger, before either of them had taken up hunting full time and the divides between them had started to appear, steadily deepening over the years to reach their peak when he'd been away at Stanford. Things had gotten a bit better again once he'd joined Dean fulltime on the road, but even then they'd never fully regained the connection and union that they'd had before, as kids.
All of that ran through Sam's head now as he looked at his big brother, completely unable to break Dean's gaze, but for the first time in a very long time, that was okay. Whatever else might be going on between them and with either of them, his big brother was here for him now and that was all that mattered at the moment. He could trust Dean and he shoved aside anything that rose within him and tried to make him think otherwise. He didn't care how strong or right it felt, it was wrong, all that he had to do was to think of all the times that his brother had been there for him throughout the years to know that with absolute certainty.
Now that the Ruby connection was back in his head, Sam was also a lot more wary of anything that felt so unequivocally right and just. He could only all too clearly recall feeling those selfsame emotions back then, with her even as she manipulated and used him so easily, to trust them now that the others had said that this situation was exactly the same. Part of him rebelled at the very idea, not wanting to think that he could be misled so easily yet again, after all that had happened and how he'd promised himself that it would never happen again. Ironically it was precisely that part of him which had proven the others right as it had been determined to find proof that they were wrong and had instead failed to find even a single trace of concrete evidence that he himself was right. Instead all it had found were theories and emotions with nothing else to back them up.
It had been a humbling realization and one that made Sam fill with shame. To have done it once with Ruby was bad enough, but to have done it a second time? It was inexcusable really, especially since this time he didn't even have something like the demon blood addiction to help explain how it had happened. He could only hope that the shame and horror of it all would be enough to prevent himself from simply reacting in the future. Thinking before he acted would have to become his new motto for the foreseeable future, he just hoped that he could manage it.
The thought fled as Dean suddenly broke their eye contact and Sam floundered for a moment, lost, before his brother looked up once more, face grim. He was about to ask why when Dean held out the silver chalice that he'd spotted in his big brother's room the first day Dean had come to stay with them at the Campbell compound, only now it was filled with what should by all means be an extremely potent poison. He reached out for it without hesitation and, at his brother's nod, downed the whole thing as quickly as possible before he could think twice about it. Strangely enough it wasn't the hemlock that would have made him hesitate, but rather the demon tears. He'd had enough bad experiences with ingesting liquids of demonic origin to want to ever do so voluntarily again, but he forced himself to do so now.
If this was part of what was necessary to keep Lucifer out, then Sam would do it.
The absolute last thing he needed now was for the devil to be able to slip inside him once more. Sam shuddered at the mere thought of what would happen then. If having been Lucifer's vessel once had affected him so profoundly, then what would repeated exposures do? Would there even be anything of him left over in the end?
At first Sam didn't feel any different, which was almost worse than if he were to be immediately consumed by blinding pain as at least then he'd know that it was working, whereas now he was just left waiting for it to strike. When another minute went by without any discernible effects, though, he started to worry. What if the demon tears weren't enough given all of the demon blood that he'd drunk in the past? Had anyone stopped to think about that? Could it be that this ritual had been intended for someone who hadn't been exposed to that since infanthood?
"Uh, Dean, I don't feel anything," Sam said. "Should I?"
"Just give it a moment," Dean replied calmly, watching him closely. "It'll work."
"What am I supposed to fe-"
Sam screamed as the pain suddenly hit him hard and fast, blossoming deep inside of him. For a moment he had the thought that the origins of the agony felt similar to where he'd been kept imprisoned when Lucifer had been in charge of his meatsuit, but then it spread and all rational thought became impossible. Pain was all that he could feel and he was only absently aware that his body had hit the ground and was twitching and jerking uncontrollably with the agony that now consumed him. It seemed to go on forever, washing through every part of him.
Each time that Sam was sure that he couldn't take anymore, it seemed to get worse and he had no clue how long it all lasted before the pain finally, finally started to fade. It happened so slowly though that he wasn't quite sure when he first began to regain awareness of his surroundings. It was all vague and fuzzy and words like 'Little One' and 'Beloved' made him sure that he was hallucinating, but if that was true then it was a good hallucination as he was held up against a strong chest and the scent of his big brother filled his awareness.
"Dean," Sam muttered weakly, smiling before he lost consciousness.
A.N.: Grr, I hate that this has been happening and I can't believe how long it's been since I've last updated. The delay has been due to two things. First, my Big Bang fic ended up being far longer than I thought it would be, ending just over 43k, and then my wireless broke while I was on a business trip. While I was able to check e-mails on a colleague's computer, I didn't really feel comfortable logging onto LJ. I think seeing this would have given him a heart attack!
Chapter 160
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 3,259
Summary: The next part of Raziel's ritual to free Sam from being constantly open as Lucifer's vessel.
PRESENT
Once he had prepared the potion this part of Raziel's ritual required, Michael stepped back. They had decided back before Dean had even gone to stay at the Campbell's that it would be best if his vessel performed this particular part. As there was no special requirement or innate magic necessary, simply the ability to carry out a slightly more complex spell that would help purify Sam's body of the link it had created with Lucifer upon first joining with his brother, Castiel had thought it would work best if Dean were the one to perform it as Sam was most likely to trust his own brother most when it came to accepting the accompanying potion that was three quarters hemlock, a highly poisonous substance for humans.
At the time Michael had agreed with his brother's reasoning as it had made logical sense. Now, however, he had his doubts after having observed Sam interacting with his vessel. It was clear that something was adversely affecting their relationship because it was clearly not what he'd heard it to be. Sure, he'd already known to expect some of that given the way in which Sam Winchester had betrayed Dean, abandoning his brother on a whim, but this was still a far greater divide than he had been expecting.
Raphael's realization earlier in the day had gone a long way towards explaining that behavior, but Michael wasn't yet sure that it would be enough to help mend things between the two brothers. He had, after all, observed that there was often a large gap between knowing something and accepting it. And he wasn't just thinking about humans either, much as he wished that he were. He could only hope that Sam Winchester wouldn't simply write off all that they had told him and continue on as he was, following in Lucifer's footsteps. He wasn't entirely sure what would happen if the boy did. Beyond devastating Dean, it would force some very tough decisions on them, ones that he'd much rather his vessel never had to face for himself, knowing from personal experience how difficult they could be. He would do all that he could to ensure those events never transpired, even if it meant that he had to come up with some means of making Sam Winchester see reason.
The rhythmic chanting of fluid Enochian and the feel of magic beginning to spark and crackle in the air drew Michael back to the present and he dismissed his brother's vessel in favor of watching his own. He'd thought it many times now, but Dean truly was magnificent, especially in situations like this where his human was fully focused on the task at hand, mind and soul united in concentration, both boosting the other, shining strong and bright.
To hear the language of Heaven- of home- rolling so easily and fluidly off of Dean's tongue caused a strong swell of possessiveness to rise within Michael. Not possessiveness in the sense of thinking of his hunter as his, but rather in the sense of thinking of Dean as theirs; as Heaven's. As angelic rather than human. It was a ridiculous thought in a lot of ways because he knew if there was one truth about his vessel it was that Dean was most definitely, and proudly, human. Yet at the same time it wasn't so farfetched at all. His little one had proven time and time again that he wasn't just some ordinary human and was actually quite capable of many things which should be purely and exclusively angelic.
It was a contradiction which still fascinated Michael now as much as it had the day that he'd first realized it. On some level he hoped that he never figured the puzzle out as it was so Dean as to almost make him hesitate to try and solve it, not wanting to make his human seem any less precious or amazing to him.
The addition of a few drops of the potion onto the latticework of Holy oil which had been poured on the ground in an extremely complicated pattern around Sam's kneeling form caused localized flares of purple flames at the four cardinal points which rose and fell in time with the cadence of Dean's voice as his vessel continued the spell throughout. Sam's eyes were wide now and he couldn't help but wonder if the hunter could feel the effect of the power this part of the ritual was conjuring up as it started to affect his body.
"I am glad that I am not performing this particular part of the ritual," Raphael whispered as his brother came to stand beside him. "Being that close to lit Holy oil?Never again, not voluntarily anyway."
Michael could easily sympathize with his brother's physical reaction to the mere thought, knowing only all too well what the bite of those flames felt like from countless battles past. He would have done it, though, if Dean had not wanted to perform this part of the ritual. It was a controlled situation and he knew that he'd be released from the fiery prison that was about to ensnare both Sam and his brother as soon as this part of the ritual was done. Still, he was happy not to have to.
"What-" Raphael began and then hesitated. "What did you do with the demon after you had collected it's tears? One of the garrisons hunting the demons that escaped when Lucifer broke the seal to Hell required assistance and I was unable to stay."
The question made Michael frown as it caused uncertainty and doubt to rise within him. He used the excuse provided by the lighting of the rest of the Holy oil to not respond right away. Even now he wasn't entirely certain why he had done what he had, nor was he sure that he'd made the right decision. He despised feeling this way and wondered not for the first time how humans managed to live like this their entire lives, never truly knowing what it was that Father wanted or expected of them. The knowledge that what he had done in the past had always been right had tempted him to follow that same route this time, but he had resisted doing so, knowing it would have been an excuse to evade the true question he faced.
Namely what was truly the right thing to do?
Part of his hesitance came from the fact that Michael didn't really feel qualified to be able to answer that question. It was something that he'd never before spent much time pondering as he'd always known what was right and what was wrong as his Father had told him or made it clear to him through other means. To have to figure it out on his own was difficult to say the least. Therefore he hadn't left it entirely up to himself, but he'd rather done what he'd seen Castiel do and used Dean as his moral compass. Though his hunter had no love for demons, he had that one conversation with his vessel about the existence and purpose of Hell to go on. There his vessel had made it clear that Dean disliked the vicious cycle that was Hell, demons and the damned souls that were doomed there.
Michael was mostly sure that his precious human would approve of what he had done. He could only hope that his Father would as well.
"I finished the restoration of it's human soul and allowed it entrance into Heaven," Michael finally replied quietly.
The silence that followed his words was quite telling and when Michael risked a glance at his brother it was to find Raphael staring at him in astonishment. Thankfully, though, he couldn't detect any traces of either disapproval or disappointment within his brother's Grace. Instead Raphael's shock and surprise were slowly transforming into a thoughtfulness and he felt something ease within himself. If Raphael couldn't fault him then at least he hadn't made an extremely bad decision. He knew that he'd have Castiel's approval as well based on his younger brother's past actions and combined with his other brother's reaction he felt himself begin to slowly relax, feeling more comfortable with his decision.
Despite that, Michael resolved to go visit the newly restored soul soon, just to be sure that it had fully recovered and was now indeed worthy of Heaven.
/
As the fire in the four cardinal pillars turned a more natural color and then suddenly flared outwards along the lines of the rest of the Holy oil, Sam bit back a cry as it felt like his own body was suddenly consumed by flames. It felt a little like the early cleansing spells had, but only a little. The rest was unlike anything that he'd ever felt before. It moved through his veins, a liquid heat that felt like fire, but which didn't burn like its namesake, not really. It was more like light in a way, warm light slowly traveling through him and changing him in some unknown way.
Sam's eyes fell shut as he tried to concentrate on the weird sensation. Once he realized that it wasn't quite burning him it became easier to bear, to the point where he wasn't even entirely sure that he disliked it anymore. It just felt peculiar. Bubbly and warm, yet forceful and powerful as well, consuming all in its path that it disliked or saw as wrong. It was hard to believe that his brother was conjuring all of this with merely a potion, some Holy oil and the right words.
When the chanting finally stopped, Sam opened his eyes to look at Dean once more. The Holy fire served to isolate them from the others as well as bathe them both in its heat. With the darkness that had fallen this served to give the illusion that it was just the two of them, brothers together, once more. The sound of someone shifting beyond the flames ruined the illusion a little, but when he turned his eyes back to Dean after failing to penetrate the darkness beyond the flames, his breath caught in his throat.
In some ways it was as if Sam was truly seeing his brother for the first time in a long time. The light of the fire behind Dean cast part of his brother into silhouette but this was immediately countered to some extent by the light of the flames behind himself which cast a flickering, orange glow over parts of Dean's face. He had the sudden strange thought of whether this was what the souls on his brother's rack in Hell had seen, but it instantly vanished when Dean uttered a few more foreign words and the Holy fire leapt and danced in response. The words sounded like Enochian from what little he knew of the angelic language and he wondered whether his brother had merely memorized the necessary incantation for this part of the ritual or whether, like Italian, this was a language which Castiel had given Dean.
Jealousy rose swift and strong within Sam at the thought and it was only because of what the others had told him earlier that he was able to recognize it for what it was. Oh, sure, he'd have known that it was jealously before, but somehow he wouldn't have realized the strength and depth of it. He wouldn't have believed it possible but for the fact that he could think back and find examples of it in his recent memory. It just felt so right and natural and that terrified the crap out of him and reigned in his first automatic reaction to just write off the criticism as either jealously or envy on their part. The fact that one of the ways in which he would have done so would be to criticize the source of the information only helped as there he ran into yet more proof of Lucifer's influence.
The realization tasted sour in Sam's mouth, but if he stopped to look at what he despised about Michael and Raphael, he couldn't find any solid, concrete basis for most of it. It was almost all based on how he felt about them and given how impersonal his previous interactions with them had been (if he'd had any real interactions with them at all!), the deeply personal feelings of betrayal and dislike simply couldn't be his own.
Which meant that they had to be the devil's.
Sam swallowed down the terror that threatened to engulf him at the thought that Lucifer was essentially still in him in some ways given the influence the devil had over his thoughts and actions. His fear froze as his eyes locked with Dean's, though, and that allowed him to take back enough control to push it down so that it wouldn't overpower him. The way that his brother met his gaze head on was reassuring and like so often before in his life, he found himself drawing strength from Dean. Like this, here and now in the middle of a burning ring of protective Holy oil, it was essentially just the two of them like it had been so very often in the past. Two against the world as he'd used to like to think of them when they were younger, before either of them had taken up hunting full time and the divides between them had started to appear, steadily deepening over the years to reach their peak when he'd been away at Stanford. Things had gotten a bit better again once he'd joined Dean fulltime on the road, but even then they'd never fully regained the connection and union that they'd had before, as kids.
All of that ran through Sam's head now as he looked at his big brother, completely unable to break Dean's gaze, but for the first time in a very long time, that was okay. Whatever else might be going on between them and with either of them, his big brother was here for him now and that was all that mattered at the moment. He could trust Dean and he shoved aside anything that rose within him and tried to make him think otherwise. He didn't care how strong or right it felt, it was wrong, all that he had to do was to think of all the times that his brother had been there for him throughout the years to know that with absolute certainty.
Now that the Ruby connection was back in his head, Sam was also a lot more wary of anything that felt so unequivocally right and just. He could only all too clearly recall feeling those selfsame emotions back then, with her even as she manipulated and used him so easily, to trust them now that the others had said that this situation was exactly the same. Part of him rebelled at the very idea, not wanting to think that he could be misled so easily yet again, after all that had happened and how he'd promised himself that it would never happen again. Ironically it was precisely that part of him which had proven the others right as it had been determined to find proof that they were wrong and had instead failed to find even a single trace of concrete evidence that he himself was right. Instead all it had found were theories and emotions with nothing else to back them up.
It had been a humbling realization and one that made Sam fill with shame. To have done it once with Ruby was bad enough, but to have done it a second time? It was inexcusable really, especially since this time he didn't even have something like the demon blood addiction to help explain how it had happened. He could only hope that the shame and horror of it all would be enough to prevent himself from simply reacting in the future. Thinking before he acted would have to become his new motto for the foreseeable future, he just hoped that he could manage it.
The thought fled as Dean suddenly broke their eye contact and Sam floundered for a moment, lost, before his brother looked up once more, face grim. He was about to ask why when Dean held out the silver chalice that he'd spotted in his big brother's room the first day Dean had come to stay with them at the Campbell compound, only now it was filled with what should by all means be an extremely potent poison. He reached out for it without hesitation and, at his brother's nod, downed the whole thing as quickly as possible before he could think twice about it. Strangely enough it wasn't the hemlock that would have made him hesitate, but rather the demon tears. He'd had enough bad experiences with ingesting liquids of demonic origin to want to ever do so voluntarily again, but he forced himself to do so now.
If this was part of what was necessary to keep Lucifer out, then Sam would do it.
The absolute last thing he needed now was for the devil to be able to slip inside him once more. Sam shuddered at the mere thought of what would happen then. If having been Lucifer's vessel once had affected him so profoundly, then what would repeated exposures do? Would there even be anything of him left over in the end?
At first Sam didn't feel any different, which was almost worse than if he were to be immediately consumed by blinding pain as at least then he'd know that it was working, whereas now he was just left waiting for it to strike. When another minute went by without any discernible effects, though, he started to worry. What if the demon tears weren't enough given all of the demon blood that he'd drunk in the past? Had anyone stopped to think about that? Could it be that this ritual had been intended for someone who hadn't been exposed to that since infanthood?
"Uh, Dean, I don't feel anything," Sam said. "Should I?"
"Just give it a moment," Dean replied calmly, watching him closely. "It'll work."
"What am I supposed to fe-"
Sam screamed as the pain suddenly hit him hard and fast, blossoming deep inside of him. For a moment he had the thought that the origins of the agony felt similar to where he'd been kept imprisoned when Lucifer had been in charge of his meatsuit, but then it spread and all rational thought became impossible. Pain was all that he could feel and he was only absently aware that his body had hit the ground and was twitching and jerking uncontrollably with the agony that now consumed him. It seemed to go on forever, washing through every part of him.
Each time that Sam was sure that he couldn't take anymore, it seemed to get worse and he had no clue how long it all lasted before the pain finally, finally started to fade. It happened so slowly though that he wasn't quite sure when he first began to regain awareness of his surroundings. It was all vague and fuzzy and words like 'Little One' and 'Beloved' made him sure that he was hallucinating, but if that was true then it was a good hallucination as he was held up against a strong chest and the scent of his big brother filled his awareness.
"Dean," Sam muttered weakly, smiling before he lost consciousness.
A.N.: Grr, I hate that this has been happening and I can't believe how long it's been since I've last updated. The delay has been due to two things. First, my Big Bang fic ended up being far longer than I thought it would be, ending just over 43k, and then my wireless broke while I was on a business trip. While I was able to check e-mails on a colleague's computer, I didn't really feel comfortable logging onto LJ. I think seeing this would have given him a heart attack!
Chapter 160