SPN: "Affliction," Chapter 5
Chapter 1: Anosmia
Chapter 2: Ageusia
Chapter 3: Anaphia, Part 1
Chapter 3: Anaphia, Part 2
Chapter 4: Anacusis
It can't be fixed. Whoever is doing this, whoever wrote that prophecy, whoever is fulfilling that prophecy, it's plain: Short of divine intervention, this will never be fixed. Sam's going to be stuck like this until his sight goes, and then....
Just what he needs. More nightmares.
Sam comes downstairs, stumbles on the rug at the bottom--it must be stapled to the floor, otherwise Dean would have gotten rid of it by now--and steps into the living room. Nobody's there. "Dean?" Sam says into the empty room, and Dean steps out of the kitchen, into Sam's line of sight. His mouth moves. By his expression, Sam thinks he's asking a question. Sam ignores it. "Can we--um--talk?"
Dean frowns, since that's not exactly something they usually say to each other. But he shakes it off quickly enough and comes over, sitting down at Bobby's desk and pulling out a marker and one of the ever-present legal pads.
Sam eases himself into the chair at the corner desk. "When I go blind--"
Dean immediately starts talking. Sam recognizes his expression, even if the words are too quick for him to catch. It's not no but hell no combined with don't be ridiculous, Sammy. He should have known. Dean never has been good at facing this kind of thing.
"Dean!" Dean quits talking. "Just--think about what it's going to be like for me, okay?"
Scribble. Be fine.
"No, I won't." He'll be trapped in darkness, in silence, unable to even feel the world around him; it'll be him stuck inside his head, and that'll be all. What good is the ability to move if he can't see where he's going, can't feel if he's hit something? He's more likely to poke himself in the eye with a fork than actually manage to get food in his mouth, and that's now, when he can still see what he's doing.
If he could still touch, none of this would matter. The sense they forgot is the one that would enable him to actually have a life. Look what Helen Keller accomplished, and she started out not being able to hear or see.
But his skin is dead; he can only manage as much as he does because he can still see, because he can watch where his feet and hands go, because he only wears sweats and T-shirts and no longer attempts anything that has to be fastened, be it buttons or zippers or laces. Without his vision--
Without his vision, he won't even be able to take care of himself, and there will be Dean, stuck with a helpless, hopeless invalid of a brother, with the very real possibility that the angels and demons will take the delay in Armageddon out on both of them. The two of them have a hard enough time handling Bobby, and Bobby's only problem is that he can't walk.
Not to mention, long-term sensory deprivation is considered a form of torture for a reason. Once his sight goes, his sanity will eventually follow. Being able to hear Cas may hold it off for awhile, but it'll still happen.
Dean holds up the notepad. I will find a way, Sammy. I WILL FIX THIS.
He took the trouble to write out both whole sentences, punctuation and all. Sam knows it means that Dean is utterly serious about his promise, the way he was when he promised to save Sam so long ago, but what comes out is "The way you fixed it at Cold Oak?"
Scribble. Trust me. Please. "Please" is underlined five times.
"You shouldn't be stuck taking care of me!"
Dean's never looked so betrayed. And Sam's shot him at least twice, not to mention the whole Ruby thing. "Sammy," he says, it's a word Sam has learned to lip-read very well, but that's all he can get out.
"Dean, when I go blind-- I'm going to be helpless, don't you get that? People who are deaf and blind rely on being able to touch to communicate, to--to do anything. I'm going to be stuck in my own head for the rest of my life, unable to interact with anybody at all. Ever. It'll be worse than a coma, because I'll be fully aware that I'm in one." Dean's eyes go dark. "What are you going to do then, Dean? Make another deal? Keep me on Bobby's couch until I go crazy?"
Dean writes something. Not kill.
"I'm not saying that." Dean looks confused. "I'm saying-- Don't spend the rest of your life trying to take care of me. I'm telling you--" He takes a deep breath. Asking Dean to kill him would be easier. He's done it before. And dying would be easier than what awaits him. "When it happens, I want you to stuff me in a nursing home or something and forget I'm there."
By the expression on Dean's face, he's wishing Sam had insisted on being killed. Neither one of them truly fears death anymore. The threat of a long, lingering, decline, on the other hand.... He knows for certain it's something Dean fears--maybe not as much as he did before Hell, but it's still in the top ten. To grow old and decrepit and helpless....
Dean writes down something, and holds up the notepad again. NO. The lines are thick and bold and the letters take up the entire page.
"Dean--"
Dean waves the notepad again, this time shouting "No, Sammy!" He tears off a page, scribbles some more, and shoves it into Sam's hands.
Not giving up. Not ever.
"That's the problem!" Sam shouts. Just once, he wants Dean to listen to reason, not to that overdeveloped sense of responsibility that their father planted in his head. "This time, you need to give up!"
"Fuck you," Dean says, making sure to enunciate the words clearly enough for Sam to lip-read, and he stalks out of the room.
***
Sam retreats to his desk and his list of possibilities: every woman he can remember interacting with since he and Dean started hunting together again. Ellen, Jo, Bobby's sheriff friend. Mostly victims, but those vampires and that werewolf, a couple of angels and demons in female vessels-- They ran into Meg at one point, but very briefly, and Sam is certain she didn't touch him. Assorted law enforcement. Waitresses. A lot of waitresses.
Does he count dead women, too? Half the zombies were women, plus there's been a couple of ghosts. The prophecy didn't specify alive.
It's an impossible list. Before he lost all feeling, before walking through a crowd became an exercise in patience and staying upright, he seldom paid attention to gender; he was looking for threats. There's absolutely no way to narrow this down.
Dean fixes dinner, even makes sure Sam has the special skid-proof plate and spill-proof cup and large-handled utensils he bought, but he doesn't even try to communicate, let alone eat at the table. He fixes a plate for Sam and stalks out of the kitchen, leaving Sam sitting there with Bobby.
Sam can't hear the Impala's engine, but he can still see the black blur as it revs past the windows.
Bobby gives Sam a questioning look, but Sam's not in the mood to elaborate, just focuses on his own plate and the food he can't taste, and Bobby doesn't push.
***
Sam opens his eyes, and it's dark. There was still some light outside when he went to bed, so he hadn't turned the lamp on--the switch is small and his fingers clumsy. But Dean should have turned it on when he came to bed. Dean wouldn't forget, not with his own rest and Sam's safety both dependent on a light in the dark.
Maybe Dean never came to bed. After that fight, it wouldn't surprise Sam at all. Dean's probably still downstairs, or even out in the Impala, depending on whether or not he felt up to facing Bobby. And whether he was sober enough to manage the stairs.
Sam rolls over towards the lamp.
No lamp. No bed. No Dean. Not even the vague outlines of night-vision.
It's not dark.
He's blind.
Panic seizes him. He can feel the scream tearing out of his throat even though he can't hear it. He knows his body's moving--he can feel his numbed limbs hitting things hard enough that he actually registers the pain in his bones. The light's gone, it's not coming back, and even though he expected this, knew it was coming, has dreaded it every day, there was nothing that could have prepared him for the utter blackness that surrounds him, bottomless and unfeeling as demon eyes. Nothing could have prepared him for this feeling of being suspended in nothingness, a mind stripped of its body. He thinks he might be flailing, but his sensations are so dulled that he can't be sure, he could just be imagining it, he could be dead and in a silent black corner of Hell and he couldn't even tell--
There's suddenly two points of building pressure on his cheekbones (he has cheekbones), smaller matching points against the back of his skull--pressing hard, hard enough to bruise, hard enough to hurt, and it finally occurs to him what he's feeling: Dean's fingers against his face, trying to reach him, trying to calm him down.
Dean's here. It's black and silent and numb, but he hasn't been abandoned to the darkness. Dean hasn't left him. Despite their fight yesterday, Dean's still here.
It's not much.
It's just enough.
Sam gulps air, the thin scentless air, feels his lungs expand, and gets hold of his panic. There's a stuffy feeling in his sinuses, near where Dean's fingers--his thumbs, probably--are pressing against his cheekbones, and Sam wonders if he's crying again. If there are tears, if Dean wipes them away, Sam won't feel it.
What he does feel is pressure against the front of his skull--not the pinpoints of fingers now, but smoother, wider, more even. It takes him awhile to realize that it's Dean, pressing his forehead against Sam's. Trying to force as much contact as possible, trying to reassure him.
"Sam."
Relief floods him as the voice echoes inside his head, in the blackness. "Cas?" He's not sure he even says the word. He might just think it.
Either way, Cas hears. "You have to relax. You're tangled up in the sheets and we can't lift you when you're flailing like this. Relax so that Dean and I can get you loose."
But if he relaxes, Dean will let go, and if Dean lets go, there'll be nothing anchoring him, it'll just be him and the dark--
The bones of his shoulder suddenly register pressure and deep pain. Dean, squeezing, letting him know he's still there, that he hasn't left, that he won't--
"He promises, Sam, he'll stay with you. But we have to get you to where you are not doing yourself further harm first."
Sam nods--well, he has the intention of nodding, and there's a vague sense of movement that may or may not be connected to his inner ears, the part connected to balance, not hearing. He's not sure how to consciously relax, so he just orders his body to go limp. Even if part of him argues, hopefully, that will be enough.
It's an eternity before Dean's gripping his shoulder again, hard enough to hurt--but it's probably only a few minutes. Maybe only heartbeats. Sam can't feel his heartbeat. Why can't he feel his heartbeat? How is he going to know if his heart gives out? How will he even know if he's dead? How can he even be certain he's not dead now?
"Sam." Cas's voice cuts through the darkness. "You must remain calm."
"I--"
"Dean says not to try lying, he knows when you are panicking."
Panic. Hah. This is so much more than mere panic. He has nothing, no world, nothing but darkness and silence and numbness, occasionally cut by the voice of a dead man being worn by an angel. He could die and go to Hell and he wouldn't even know, it would just be another wasteland of blackness--
"I assure you, Sam, Hell is neither dark nor silent."
Right. Cas saw Hell when he rescued Dean.
"Dean wants you to stand up. Can you?"
Stand? Standing requires something to stand on. Standing requires gravity. He's--
With effort, Sam derails that train of thought. "I think I can, but I can't tell where anything is--"
He means his arms and legs, but Cas--and maybe Dean--misunderstand him as meaning the furniture. "Let us worry about that."
It's sort of like when he was possessed, except that the manipulation is external, not internal. Sam's ravaged position sense, the part that is apparently dependent on the inner ear, tells him when he's upright, but that's about all the information he gets. Once upright, he just stands, afraid to move, afraid to try to move, until Dean-through-Cas persuades him to take that first step. He's terrified of falling, not just because it could kill him if he lands wrong, but because he's not sure Cas or Dean can get him back up.
"We will not let you fall, Sam."
Sam wishes he could believe that. Wishes he could feel their hands guiding him. Wishes he could feel anything. If whoever is doing this would just give him back his sense of touch, give him back the ability to feel pain and temperature and vibration and pressure, he'd willingly let them keep the other four--
"Sam."
There's an edge in Cas's voice that he's never heard before, an edge that sounds kinda like the one in Dean's voice when he's annoyed and worried at the same time. Is Cas worried? Why would Cas be worried? Cas thinks he's an abomination, so it must be for Dean's benefit, it can't possibly be for his--
"Sam!" Cas's voice echoes painfully inside his skull, and whether he can feel it or not, Sam's pretty sure he flinches. Then, more softly, Cas says, "You're saying all these things out loud."
Oh, shit.
"And I no longer believe that, regardless."
That's undoubtedly just for Dean's benefit--Sam knows how his brother reacts even to perceived threats. But without Cas, he can't hear anything, there's nothing at all in the darkness, so he tries to get control of his panic so that he can focus on only speaking when he intends to. The last thing he needs is to let them see just how panicked he is--
"Sam, we cannot do anything if you do not calm down."
"I can't!" The words rip at his throat, and his sinuses go all stuffy again, so there must be tears accompanying the words. He knows it doesn't make sense to them, it can't possibly, but he's alone in darkness and silence without even enough of his senses to feel gravity, and if this isn't an excellent time to panic he doesn't know what is. He doesn't know how he can live like this. He doesn't know how anybody can live like this.
Somewhere beneath the panic and disorientation, the trickle of information from his inner ear tells him that he's gone down, and there's a moment of pain deep in one hip that makes him think maybe he's hit the floor. Or it could be sensory deprivation already kicking in, making him imagine things, making him hallucinate the only way the black silence will let him.
Either way, he lets reflex take over, curls in on himself, and then there's a vague sense of being lifted, being upright again--sitting, not standing, and there's hard pressure on both arms and his back, like he's being squeezed--
Dean. Holding him, like he did in Sam's scrambled memories of those last few moments in Cold Oak.
He's tried so hard to cling to his dignity, to be strong, to pretend that this isn't affecting him beyond the physical, but he's lost in the silence and darkness and it saps what little strength he has left and he just can't anymore.
Sam lets his brother hold him and just breaks.
***
Eventually, he cries himself out, and between the three of them, they manage to get him up and sitting safely on one of the beds. Dean and Cas stay with him, Cas relaying for Dean. (Going to the bathroom has certainly become more of an adventure; Bobby's upstairs bathroom is not big enough for three grown men.) Dean keeps pushing food and drink into him; Sam can still recognize a straw when it's shoved into his mouth, and reflex takes care of the rest. Once or twice, according to Cas, Dean gets a little overzealous, but Sam can't feel the spills soaking through his shirt, or see the stains to care, or even tell that he still has a shirt on, and what's the point? He can't see it and he certainly isn't going anywhere, not even to a chair, because he doesn't want Dean leaving him, but he can't tell if Dean's there if he's not crushing Sam's hand, and there's no place in the house that'll hold both of them except the bed or the couch downstairs, and he'd just as soon not have Bobby see him like this. Bad enough Cas and Dean are.
He thinks he nods off at one point--it's hard to tell when you're locked in your own head like this, unless you dream, and he doesn't, not this time. All he knows is that he's suddenly more aware of the darkness weighing down on him and nobody's crushing his hand. "Dean?"
There's no answer, no squeeze or punch in the arm or pressure against his leg, just the silence and the darkness and the nothingness, and he can't tell anything but which way is up and he's not certain about that. "Dean!" The word tears at his throat, so he knows he's screamed it. Why did Dean leave? Did he go off and do something stupid, like say yes? Dean has absolutely no sense when it comes to Sam, they both know that-- "DEAN!"
"Sam."
"Cas?" The panic dies down, just a bit. "Is--"
"He's downstairs. You were asleep and he needed to eat. He's on--" Pressure on his hand, so hard that one of the bones cries out in protest and Sam wonders if it's cracked. "He's here now," Cas says uselessly. There's a moment of quiet in Sam's head, and Cas says, "Dean wishes me to tell you that I am an utter failure when it comes to taking care of you properly." Sam can imagine the confused look on Cas' face. "Also, there is something about my ancestry, but I cannot quite follow the lineage. It seems to involve a baboon and a horse's ass. That is not biologically feasible, Dean."
Sam has to laugh at that, it's just so Dean. He can't help but wonder if Cas relayed it just for that purpose, if perhaps he knew what Sam's reaction would be, if he knew that it would calm him down.
"Dean also wants me to tell you that you are wearing them."
He probably frowns. He can't really tell. "Wearing what?"
"The slippers."
"The-- Dean!" Dammit, he should have thrown those things out when he had the chance.
There's another moment of quiet, and then Cas says, almost sheepishly, "Dean says Jo thinks they look very nice."
"DEAN! You did not send pictures of--"
"He did. Also to Ellen, Bobby, and I believe to me, though my minutes were too low to check." There's a pause. "I know that rabbits are emblematic of fertility, but I am not sure what that has to do with one's footwear, or the significance of the color--"
"The significance is that Dean's an ass!" He thinks he shouts that last part. It earns him a sharp deep pain in his upper arm--most likely Dean giving him a friendly punch.
"Ah," Cas says, as if that explains everything, and Sam belatedly realizes that it probably does.
***
The day lasts forever, and all he can think about is an eternity of days like this, to be followed by Hell, because where else will the man who set Lucifer free go? He'd almost rather be in Hell now. At least there would be sound and light and sensation.
If Lucifer showed up now.... He'd say yes. Just for the chance that this could be fixed.
"You must not despair, Sam."
Right. Despair is a mortal sin. Never mind that he's stuck inside his own head for--what? He's twenty-six years old. He could easily live another sixty years like this. Longer.
"Sam." Cas' voice cuts through the silence. "Dean wants me to tell you that he has you and that everything will be fine." There's puzzlement in the angel's voice, like he doesn't quite understand.
Sam does, though, because he's heard it all his life. He knows what Dean's said that Cas has translated so literally. I gotcha, Sammy, it'll be okay. Dean's voice is as clear in his head as if he actually can hear it, and he relaxes automatically, a reaction born of a lifetime of hearing those words.
Someone still has a good grip on his hand; he assumes it's Dean. He squeezes back, a silent acknowledgement, and can only hope he's not crushing Dean's hand the way Dean's crushing his. Dean can still feel pain.
There's a faint sense of movement that might be the mattress sinking under somebody else's weight. "Dean says he will stay here with you."
Like that was ever in question. Sam's more concerned that there's not room for both of them on this bed. What if they fall off?
"This is the room Bobby used to use, before he was injured." Before Sam can argue that he went to sleep in their room, Cas adds, "We brought you here after the last bathroom trip, rather than returning to your room. Dean thought you wouldn't want him to leave, and the beds in the other room are too narrow."
Oh. Makes sense. It doesn't say much for his sense of direction, but that's probably as reliant on sensory cues as everything else. He is now officially useless.
It occurs to him suddenly that if Dean and Cas are here, with him, nobody's working on fixing things. Bobby can only do so much. "There's no reason for you two to stay--" Sam begins, only to have the words halted by a sudden bloom of pain in his upper arm. Dean hits hard when he thinks Sam's being stupid. Especially now.
"Dean says, and I quote, 'Shut up, bitch.'"
Sam has to smile at that. "Jerk."
He has a flash of something, almost but not quite a vision--himself, pale, exhausted, eyes reddened, feet in those damned slippers, curled up against Dean like he's a kid again, clutching Dean's hand for all he's worth, and Dean with his other arm around him, his free hand bruised. He knows an instant later it's what Cas is looking at, that somehow Cas can project sight as well as voice into Sam's head, though it's only what he sees and pretty useless for anybody else. It gives him an anchor, though, a better sense of what's going on outside his head.
"Dean wants me to sit on the other side of you," Cas asks, his voice awkward and formal. "May I?"
Sam manages not to laugh. What's he going to do to keep Cas away? Glare in his general direction? Throw a punch with an arm that won't even feel it if it connects? "The more, the merrier."
This time, he's almost certain that he feels the mattress sinking as Cas sits down on the other side of him. A hand grips his forearm, just enough that he can feel it. He shouldn't find it so reassuring, but he does.
He doesn't know how long this will last, these few moments of being anchored in the silent, numb darkness, but he'll hold on to it as long as he can.
***
This time, Sam knows he's asleep, because it's blatantly obvious that he's dreaming.
The air is warm, the sky is bright, the grass is soft beneath his feet, and there's a mingled scent of commercial coconut and vanilla that always makes his eyes sting, because it's the smell he associates with Jess. There are trees in the distance on one side, water to the other, but here is a huge lawn of grass so vividly green that it can't possibly be natural. And he's wearing the clothes that used to be normal, before he couldn't manage buttons and zippers--jeans and tee and flannel.
A woman's voice speaks behind him. "Hello, Sam."
It's not Jess. He knows that even before he turns around and sees her. Part of him is disappointed anyway, the deeply-buried spark that's all that's left of the kid from Stanford, the kid who still clings to a desperate hope of Heaven.
She's older, maybe Ellen's age, and despite the serene blue gaze and odd long robes, there's some of the same fierceness about her that he associates with Ellen. Maternal, his brain finally supplies, but not the insipid sweetness celebrated in Mother's Day cards. This is more like a mama bear.
There's one other place he's felt that: In their old house, watching the spirit of his mother issue an order to a poltergeist.
"You're the one who did this to me," he says, and the words come out flat. He's not even sure how he knows it. She's a stranger, not familiar at all. She's definitely not an angel; he has yet to meet the angel who could reliably fake maternal. Neither does she have the feel of a demon. "You're the one who wrote that prophecy."
"One of them, yes," she says simply. As if he doesn't deserve an explanation. As if he doesn't deserve anything.
"Why?" he asks. "What did I--"
"You did nothing." She waves her hand, and two stone benches appear. She takes a seat on one, as regally as any queen, and gestures for him to do the same. Sam obeys warily. "The Lord of Angels--"
"Who?"
"He has many names and none. You refer to him as 'God,' as if he were the only one." Sam stares at her, willing his jaw not to drop. "He has vanished from this world, leaving the angels unguided. If he will not come back to discipline them...." She shrugs. "It is our world as much as it is his, and they cannot be allowed to destroy it in a tantrum over who their father loved best."
And Sam thought his life was complicated when the angels got involved. "So instead of letting them destroy the world, you're destroying me?"
"You are hardly destroyed."
"I can't do anything!" he shouts. "What the hell do you call it?"
"Injury," she replies, unruffled, and damn her, but technically, she's right. "The plans of the angels hinge on the vessels they created. If the Lord of Angels returns, he will be able to heal you. That is all the hope we can offer you. You understand that we could not leave it so that his children could work the healing."
No, of course not. If Lucifer could fix him, the whole thing would be pointless. "You couldn't stop me from letting Lucifer loose in the first place?" Sam demands. "None of this would have mattered if you'd--"
"Sam." It's soft, gentle, caring--that maternal thing again, like he's going to be convinced she cares, now that he knows she's behind this. She reaches over and taps his chest. When he looks down, he sees a glowing golden mark over his heart, gleaming through his shirt. A cross. "You were not born to one of us. You were born to the faith of the Lord of Angels, and that is what has shaped your destiny. We could only have interfered if you chose to come to our altars--and because of who you are, who the angels made you to be, we could have only done it before the first seal was broken. Now-- This is all we can do to save the world for our children. None of us wished to harm you, and I wish it were not so painful for you, but it was the only way left to us." She sighs, looks out over the expanse of green. "We created this place so that you might have a sanctuary, when all was done. A respite. A place where you could have what you had lost, even if only for a short while."
Sam stares at her, bewildered. "You made me a park."
"It is whatever you wish it to be." She waves a hand, and they're in a blazing autumn forest, complete with a pissed-off squirrel chattering at them from a branch; another wave, and they're on a wide white beach, the tang of the ocean air bringing back a surge of memories of that spring break with Jess. The woman waves again, and they're back to where they started, on the lawn.
There's still a major flaw in her magic trick. "Alone."
"Not entirely. Those who died in the keeping of the Lord of Angels are beyond our reach, but there are still many who dwell in our halls, and some of us will always be here."
In the keeping of the Lord of Angels. In other words, Heaven; Christians, maybe even Jews and Muslims, depending on whether the woman's "Lord of Angels" actually refers to their shared deity rather than being used in a specifically Christian sense. It doesn't surprise him that there are other afterlives out there, that makes as much sense as anything else he's ever dealt with, but he doesn't know anybody who would have gone to those. He knew a handful of Buddhists and Hindus and Neopagans at Stanford, real ones, not dabblers, but as far as he knows, they're all still alive.
Which brings him back to this sanctuary being a lonely one. Mom had believed in angels, Jess was an Episcopalian, and Dad grew up in a place and time where nothing but Christianity was tolerated. Even most of the hunters he's known were at least nominally Christian; the only possible exception he can think of is Ash, but if Ash isn't in Heaven or Hell, if he's in these other "halls," the woman probably would have brought him here already, to make Sam's introduction to this so-called sanctuary easier. "You couldn't just kill me?" he asks bitterly.
"If we had, Lucifer or the angels would simply have resurrected you," she says mildly. "He promised you as much."
True enough, although how she knows that.... "And now?"
"Your soul is still in the keeping of the Lord of Angels." He stares at her. He's a demon-blood addict who set Lucifer on the world and kick-started the Apocalypse, and she thinks that God still claims him? "We would not change that if we could; that must ever be your choice. But your body-- That we will defend from the schemes of his children." There's a glint in her eyes that he doesn't like. "You are going to live a long, natural life, Sam Winchester. No angel, demon, or monster will ever touch you again."
Ice runs down his spine, a sensation he hasn't felt in ages. A long, natural life...trapped in the cage of his own body, no senses, no way to interact. He's barely made it through a day, and he wouldn't have managed that much without the constant attention of Dean and Cas. A long, natural, living hell, the only respite this--this glorified djinn dream. He won't even be able to commit suicide to end his suffering.
Sam jumps to his feet, unable to remain sitting. He looks out over the too-green grass, at the blue haze of the lake. He's never going to see a real lake again, real grass, real sky. A sanctuary, she calls it. How long will it be before he gives up on trying to interact with the real world and retreats into this place, letting his body go on without him? What will that do to him out in the real world?
What will that do to Dean? He never got Dean to promise to abandon him to a nursing home. Dean's going to try to take care of him all by himself, with a cranky cripple and a half-fallen angel as sidekicks, and if there's anything besides Hell that can break his brother....
No. There has to be something he can do. "You keep saying we," he says, grabbing at the first question that floats into his head. "I don't see anybody here but us."
"I thought it would be easier for you at first. Taken together, we can be overwhelming. But the others are here, waiting."
"The others?"
A soft smile, and she stands and waves the benches into nonexistence. "Sisters," she calls.
That suddenly, they are not alone. They're surrounded by a hundred--thousand--more?--women, on all sides.
Sam looks around at them, at costumes from a thousand different cultures, at skin and hair and eyes every human shade and some that aren't. Most are alien. A few are familiar. There's not a single male among them. Every one reeks of power--more than any angel, even Lucifer.
These are not women.
"The prophecy," he says slowly. "It was a bad translation, wasn't it? It didn't say 'woman,' it said 'female.'"
The first woman--the first goddess--smiles, as if pleased that he'd figured it out. "I had heard you were the smart one."
Cas had said it would take a god to truly cripple a vessel. Okay, so he'd said God, but Cas is an angel, and the angels and demons they've dealt with have a peculiar blind spot about the non-Abrahamic religions.
Four of the nearest ones he recognizes on sight, and one he actually knows by name. "Hattie" is Hathor, straight off an Egyptian wall, in red linen and wearing her horned sun headdress. "Ami" wears a kimono, which probably means she's Japanese. By the looks of her clothes, the third, the former Goth with bells on her cheeks, is Aztec or Maya, but the only Aztec deity he knows by name is Quetzalcoatl, who clearly wouldn't qualify for this gathering. There's a real skull hanging from her belt now instead of a silver one at her throat; likely the only reason she bothered with that choker back at the diner was to hide the gaping, bloodless gash through her neck. The black woman with the missing ear is there, too, still in pink, but now it's a dress and turban that makes him think of old National Geographic spreads on Africa. Sam thinks inanely that it's a good thing he never actually offered her the bunny slippers.
And then he recognizes the pattern. Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, the Middle East.
These are all the goddesses of every religion, in all the world, even religions thought to be dead. There's no way he could ever recognize all of them. He knows the Greeks and Romans because of an elementary school history teacher who thought it was an important part of understanding Western civilization, and some of the Egyptians from Stargate and an art history class he barely remembers, and he recognizes the Hindus as Hindus because of their multiple arms, but he doesn't know their names, and the rest, even the ones who look European-- The only times he's ever studied pagan deities have been for hunts. That barely scratched the surface of the world's religions.
"I'm sorry," he says, looking back at his--guide? hostess? The blonde hair and blue eyes might mean she's Germanic or Norse, but then again.... "I don't know you."
She smiles. "I am Frigg."
Frigg, wife of Odin, queen of Asgard. Or, as the stash of antique comics in Bobby's attic Anglicized it, Frigga, since English speakers expect women's names to end in a. That pretty much sums up Sam's familiarity with Norse mythology, except for bloodthirsty scarecrows, and looking at the assemblage, he can't help but wonder if that wasn't actually a demon or some other monster using the trappings of the older religion to manipulate the people in that town, rather than an actual pagan deity. He can feel the power gathered here, and it's more than enough to swat down an archangel like a fly. The scarecrow, that Christmas couple--they didn't radiate this kind of power. The Trickster had, a little, which makes him suddenly wonder if they hadn't been dealing with Loki or Anansi. No wonder they couldn't kill him.
"Oh, he is none of ours," Frigg says, with an amused little smile. She says something quickly--in Norse, he thinks, but he can't be sure--and many of the goddesses vanish. A few wander off, farther into the park, but Frigg's four compatriots stay close. So do others--he recognizes Athena and Artemis in a group robed like Greek and Roman statues. There's a knot of Egyptians with Hathor, and still more in other clusters that he can't recognize.
If he could still read, the first thing he'd do when he woke up would be to read up on world mythology. Can the park become a library? Would it have all the books in the world?
No. He's letting himself be distracted. "Why couldn't you take care of the angels yourselves? Why did you have to damage a vessel?"
It's Athena--or possibly she's Minerva, he's not sure how he'd tell them apart--who answers. "Angels belong only to him. We may not touch them unless they directly threaten us--our worshipers, our sacred spaces, or those mortals to whom we have granted protection."
"They're not the same? As your worshipers, I mean?"
"The mortal soul is free to worship--or not--as it wishes. Likewise, we are free to grant our protection to any mortal as we wish, whether we have a claim upon them or not." Athena has a cold smile, no warmth at all. "As we have with you."
Right. A lifetime in a prison made out of his own body, and nobody will even be able to kill him. "And this is all it takes to derail the Apocalypse."
"All?" Hathor asks. "Do you have any idea of the power it takes to eradicate a mortal's senses without killing him? And to do it so that an archangel cannot heal him? It has taken every goddess ever known to man to arrange this, Sam Winchester. Half the world's deities, focused exclusively on you."
"I didn't mean-- How do you know this will stop them? Michael still has his vessel."
Skull Lady replies, "And who is he going to fight? Lucifer, in that falling-apart shell he's using now?" True enough. The last time Lucifer had shown up in his nightmares, Nick's skin was blistering and peeling from the effort of trying to hold in that much power. "The firstborn is blinded by his own prophecies. If they do not both have their true vessels, there can be no battle."
"The world will end some day, Sam," Frigg says, "but it will not come at the hands of the angels, and it is not yours to stop."
But the world will have time. All the world.
To save the world, he can accept this. He doesn't deserve any better. There's just one problem. "Dean--"
"The Michael Sword is no concern of ours. We have no plans to touch him."
"It's not that. It's-- Leaving me like this--" How does he explain it? How can he convince a group of goddesses that Dean Winchester could very well turn into an actual threat? "He won't stop. He doesn't care about the Apocalypse right now. All he cares about is fixing this. Fixing me. Some people would've learned their lesson when they went to Hell, but not him." There are easily a dozen skeptical looks. "You give him the choice between fixing the world and fixing me, and he'll choose me, every time."
"Then he will fail." Athena's voice is cold.
But if he's not mistaken, there's sympathy in Frigg's eyes. In Hathor's, too.
"Let me explain it to him," he pleads. "Just give me long enough to convince him, and then you can take it all away again."
Frigg shakes her head. "I could temporarily restore your sight, but the other magics have been too long in place. The nature of this working-- Each step had to be made permanent before the next was begun." Sam glances at Hathor and the other three. Now he understands the timing of those encounters, always near the time he lost another sense. Cementing the magic.
"You still have speech," Pink Lady says. "Tell your brother when you wake."
Have they paid no attention? Dean's been right there through this whole thing, he knows what's going on, he knows the power that has to be involved, and he's still convinced they can change it. If Sam ever had any belief that deities were infallible-- Well, that's not a mistake he'll be making again. "Talking's not enough! I need-- There's more to communication than talking!" He needs to see and hear to know that Dean really understands. Relaying through Cas won't be enough, not for something as important as this. Cas can't read Dean the way Sam can, and even if Cas senses a lie, he won't necessarily call Dean on it. And Dean will lie, if he thinks doing so will protect Sam, without thinking twice. Why won't they listen?
And then it comes to him, the way to make them understand. Most pantheons take the form of families, after all. "Some of you have little brothers, right? Or overprotective older ones?" The bond between brothers and sisters is different from that of brothers, but he's willing to bet that there are enough similarities for them to understand. Some of the goddesses nod, and there are scattered rueful smiles. Even Athena looks suddenly thoughtful. Sam turns to Frigg. "If you can't undo the magic on me, I understand, but bring him here. Long enough for me to explain. It-- It will be better in the long run, trust me."
"Perhaps," Frigg says thoughtfully. "But--in all honesty, Sam, reaching your brother may not be possible. This place, and you, are part of the prophecy. Your brother stands outside. And he belongs still to the Lord of Angels."
"But he doesn't disbelieve in pagan gods. We've had to deal with you guys before." Frigg raises an eloquent eyebrow. "Okay, maybe demigods, maybe just demons pretending, but still, they claimed to be pagan deities. He believes in you as much as he does God. The Lord of Angels, I mean. Maybe even more." Believes in them as monsters, but that's still belief, and confronted with evidence-- Dean's all about the evidence, he's said as much more than once. He didn't believe in angels until Cas showed up, but once he had that evidence....
"Sam, you do not understand. The angels have protected him far more than they have you. The claims of the Lord of Angels are deeper. They have to be, because he is meant for Michael. I do not know that any of us has the power to challenge that."
"Sister." One of the Greeks--or Romans, they're fairly indistinguishable--steps out of the group, an absolutely breathtaking blonde whose draperies emphasize, rather than shroud, her curves. This has to be Aphrodite. No wonder Paris gave her the damn apple. Athena's not bad-looking--none of the Greek gods would be, with their obsession on perfection--but she never stood a chance. "I believe I can reach the Michael Sword."
There's muttering through the group, and even Athena and Artemis are looking at Aphrodite like she's lost her mind. Hathor isn't, though--she's got a knowing little smile as she beckons one of the cat-headed women behind her forward. One of the other Europeans steps forward to join Aphrodite--another Nordic goddess, he thinks, and she has a little smirk as well. Likewise one of the Hindus, one carrying a parrot, of all things, on her shoulder.
None of the goddesses are ugly--the worst are what Jess used to call "Hollywood ugly," not so much ugly as less pretty--but the ones who join Aphrodite and then vanish are by far the most beautiful.
There's not much that's universal when it comes to human religion, other than religion itself, but from what he knows of the polytheistic faiths, it's not at all uncommon that beauty, love, and sex wind up in the purview of the same deity.
Of course those are the ones with the best chance at reaching Dean. Whatever the other claims on them, by God and angels and demons, Aphrodite must consider Dean one of her most dedicated worshippers, whether he's ever officially acknowledged her or not. Heaven doesn't exactly have a department to cover that kind of thing.
It's hardly any time--it's forever--before Aphrodite and the others come walking back through the crowd. Dean's not with them, and Sam's heart sinks. Trying to make Dean understand in the real world is going to be impossible--
Aphrodite gives him a blinding smile and waves her hand, and Dean's standing there.
"What the--" He breaks off, looking around. "I wasn't even drinking," Sam hears him mutter.
"Dean. It's not a dream." Half the goddesses glare at him. "Not exactly a dream," he clarifies.
"Sammy?" Dean jerks around, zeroes in on him. "Wait--you can see me?"
"Here I can," Sam says, stressing the here, hoping Dean gets the hint. "This-- These are the goddesses who made that prophecy Cas found."
"Goddesses?" Dean looks around again. "What the hell is this place?"
"This is a--well--"
"This is a world for a man whose world has been taken away," Frigg finishes for him.
Dean's eyes narrow. "Like a djinn dream," he spits.
She only shrugs. "Not much difference, except that we are not using it to feed. Sam's body will remain perfectly safe when he is here."
Dean automatically flexes his fingers, testing to see if being here feels less real than his actual body. It doesn't, of course. This place is frighteningly real--more real to Sam, at least, than the damaged wreck he left behind. "So you're the ones I have to kill."
"No, we are the ones you have to thank for stopping the angels' Apocalypse," Frigg corrects icily. "You are none of ours, Dean Winchester, and you would do well to remember that. You are only here because Sam wished to explain this to you."
"Lady, back off," Dean snarls, and Sam flinches. In the comics, at least, Frigg raised a whole passel of Viking gods, and anybody who handled Thor as a toddler will have no difficulty smacking down a recalcitrant Winchester. "We've taken out gods before."
"No, you have taken out starvelings and pretenders subsisting on scraps," Frigg retorts. "You cannot even find your own god. What makes you think you can destroy others?"
"He's not my--"
"You were born to him, just as Sam was." Light flickers through Dean's shirt--a glowing cross, like the one over Sam's own heart. "You were formed by faith in him, even if only by rejection of it. Your hatred binds you to him."
Dean looks down, scowling at the cross. "You're saying I belong to him because I hate him? That makes no sense."
"Faith is like love. It is seldom sensible."
"Dean!" This is getting them nowhere. Frigg seems fairly even-tempered, but Sam knows perfectly well that his brother could drive a saint to murder, and he does not want Dean to end up a wet spot on the grass. "I asked them to let you come here, so I could explain--"
"Explain what?"
"That you need to stop trying to fix this."
"You can't live like you are, Sammy." Dean's not even bothering to look at him. He's got Frigg in a staring contest, and God help them, the idiot thinks he can win. "They're going to fix you, or so help me, I will find Michael and say yes and make sure he--"
"Little boy," Skull Lady says, somewhere between amused and deadly, "Michael has no power against us. Michael cannot even enter this space without our permission."
Dean glances at Sam, wanting verification; Sam only shrugs. "They swore nobody would threaten me again," he says. "I think that includes archangels."
"And what, you just lie there in bed the rest of your life? Lost in--in this figment of their imaginations?"
"I told you what to do." Dean opens his mouth, but Sam runs right over whatever he's going to say. "No. Not this time. I want that promise. I want you to find someplace that can take care of me out there, and you dump me there and you forget about me."
"I can't--"
"It's better than I deserve!" Sam shouts. "I set Lucifer free! Dammit, Dean, let me make amends!"
"You're out of your mind, Sam." Just like that, as far as Dean's concerned, the matter is settled, and Sam wants to strangle his brother. "You want to damage a vessel?" Dean says to Frigg. "Damage me. Let him go."
"It can't be undone!"
"Yeah, that's what they always say."
"In this case, it is accurate. Only the blindness may still be reversed." Frigg glances at the other four, Hathor and Ami and Skull Lady and Pink Lady. Sam thinks maybe they're exchanging thoughts.
Another goddess steps forward. She's clearly an Egyptian, by her features and clothes, but she's not one Sam recognizes. Her dress is made of leopard skin, not linen, and there's a seven--petaled? leafed?--something decorating her heavy wig. "The prophecy states that that five senses must be taken from a vessel, sisters," she says. She sounds a little like a librarian. "There is nothing that says all five must come from the same vessel."
Jesus Christ.
A loophole. A fucking loophole.
"Crippling both would make it even less likely that the angels will find a way to repair the damage," Athena points out. Murmurs and whispers race through the crowd.
Sam glances at Frigg. She looks--unsettled. Unwilling to commit to it. "It is up to you, sisters, to give them the option," she says finally.
"No," Sam whispers. "Don't. Please."
She tilts her head, reminding him of Cas. "You would rather stay as you are?"
"I know what he'll do!"
"What am I going to do?" Dean asks.
"Don't play stupid," Sam snaps. To Frigg, he says, "If you give him the chance to bargain, he will, and I don't want that. I started this. Let me take the punishment for it."
"It is not a punishment, Sam," Frigg replies, sounding exasperated, at the same time that Dean shouts, "Yeah, because you could have done all this without the fucking first seal!"
"If I'd saved you, it wouldn't have broken! And he still wouldn't have gotten out if I hadn't broken the last!"
"Boys." Frigg's voice has a soft thunder to it. "You will remain civil."
"He's not doing it." For months now, he's watched Dean struggle to sleep in the dark. He's not condemning his brother to eternal darkness just to spare himself. Not after everything Dean's done for him.
"It's not your decision, Sammy," Dean growls.
"This time it is! This time I'm still able to argue! You can't even sleep in a dark room and you think you can handle being blind?"
The words hit Dean like a blow--he actually staggers, just a bit, not noticeable to anybody who doesn't know him as well as Sam. "You knew?"
"Do you think all those lights left themselves on?" Sam snaps.
"I--I didn't think about it," Dean admits. "I--" Like that, he shakes off the shock, the way he always does, and straightens and turns back into the big brother. "It doesn't matter. I can handle it. But he needs to be able to see to have any life. Take my sight and leave him his."
"Dean--"
"Not your call anymore, Sam."
"We have not agreed," Frigg says tartly.
"You want something else? Somebody's soul? That's what demons always want, isn't it?"
Sam's not sure who Dean pisses off with that statement, but half a dozen bolts of lightning slam into the trees at the edge of the lawn. "We are not demons." It's a growl from a dozen different throats, and something that might be actual fear flickers in Dean's eyes. "I am Frigg, Queen of Asgard, mortal, and remember that it is within my power to ensure that your brother never sees or even speaks again!"
Dean doesn't apologize, but his body language relaxes, just a hair, just enough that he's not radiating threat so much. Sam doesn't trust him for a minute, but the goddesses don't know Dean as well as he does and they seem to accept it at face value.
"Now," Frigg goes on, her voice much calmer, "I can do this, if you both wish. Leave Sam his sight and take yours. But there is a price."
"There always is," Dean mutters, but at least this time, he doesn't say anything about demons.
"This is no deal such as your demons offer. They offer little in exchange for much. We offer--a bargain. It is nothing to us which of you cannot see, so long as the prophecy is fulfilled. But for it to be you, we request a small favor."
Dean shoots Sam a look. Sam only shrugs. "Like what?" Dean asks warily.
"The forty generations of the prophecy do not begin until the vessel dies. You are young, so you have many years before you. Those years will give the world even more time. If we give in to your demand, if we cripple you both, are you willing to live? To dwell in those years, rather than seeking death so quickly and so often?"
Dean's eyes darken. "You mean, stop hunting. Settle down. Live like normal people."
"Yes. Will you pay that price for your brother's sight?"
Dean looks at Sam. "Don't," Sam breathes. "Dean--"
Dean's answer is drowned by darkness, and the sanctuary vanishes.
***
Sam's eyes snap open, and he sits up. There's a lamp on. He's in Bobby's bedroom, on Bobby's bed, and when he gets his eyes to focus, it's on those obnoxious bunny slippers, still on his feet. Why is he--
"Sam?" Cas asks from his left. "Is everything--"
Memory rushes back. "You ass, if you said yes--"
"To Michael?" Cas yelps.
"No, to Frigg!"
"Frigg? The goddess?"
"No, Frigg the porn star," Sam snaps. Dean is still beside him, still asleep. The bruises Sam left on his hands earlier fade as Sam watches. A goodbye present from the goddesses?
"What are you talking about, Sam?"
"We found out who's doing this. I'll explain later. Dean!" He reaches over and gives his brother a shake, not caring if his fingers dig into Dean's skin too hard. Serves him right if they do, if he said yes, if he gave in to this stupid plan-- "Wake up!"
Dean shoves his arms away, but it's sleep-instinct; his eyes are still closed. He might mumble something, but Sam still can't hear him.
Sam weighs his options for a second, then decides his brother will live with a black eye and slaps him.
Dean comes wide awake with a yell, sitting up so fast that he nearly collides with Sam. Sam guesses that the initial stream of words is probably cussing, but he doesn't care, he needs to see Dean's eyes--
Dean's pupils dilate, contract. His eyes move just as they normally would if he was looking around the room. Are they a little unfocused? He doesn't look blind, but would he? Every indication is that the problem with Sam's senses is in the brain, not the sensory organs themselves. Nobody said anything about a difference in Sam's eyes, and it's not like Cas is known for his manners. Dean says something, but Sam still can't hear--
"He's asking if you can see," Cas says, moving around the bed to Dean's side.
"Can I see?" Sam repeats incredulously. Is the angel stupid? "Can he see?" Cas just stares at him. "Dean!" Sam shouts, not caring if the whole of Sioux Falls hears him. "Can you see?"
Dean swallows hard. "No," he says, shaking his head, and Sam wants to scream. Dean says something else--clearly an order to Cas, since Cas goes to the bedroom door and speaks into the hall. Probably giving Bobby an update on all the yelling.
"Dammit, Dean, I told you not to!"
Dean's hands come up. He's feeling around, searching for something--and then his hands find Sam's shirt. One clenches in the fabric while the other pats its way up Sam's chest and neck to his face, then his hair. He smiles. "Sammy," Sam lip-reads, and then there's too much too quick for him to catch.
"He says he'd know that brick wall that needs a haircut anywhere," Cas says, looking confused. "He says-- What? Dean, slow down."
Dean must be babbling if Cas can't keep up. Sam knows why. He's desperate to make Sam understand, as if Sam needs an explanation. "I asked you not to," he says, and the words probably come out sullen, but he doesn't care. Just once....
Dean stops, looking stunned and faintly hurt.
"He's not explaining why, Sam," Cas says gently. "He says he's sorry he couldn't get it all back for you."
Chapter 6
Chapter 2: Ageusia
Chapter 3: Anaphia, Part 1
Chapter 3: Anaphia, Part 2
Chapter 4: Anacusis
It can't be fixed. Whoever is doing this, whoever wrote that prophecy, whoever is fulfilling that prophecy, it's plain: Short of divine intervention, this will never be fixed. Sam's going to be stuck like this until his sight goes, and then....
Just what he needs. More nightmares.
Sam comes downstairs, stumbles on the rug at the bottom--it must be stapled to the floor, otherwise Dean would have gotten rid of it by now--and steps into the living room. Nobody's there. "Dean?" Sam says into the empty room, and Dean steps out of the kitchen, into Sam's line of sight. His mouth moves. By his expression, Sam thinks he's asking a question. Sam ignores it. "Can we--um--talk?"
Dean frowns, since that's not exactly something they usually say to each other. But he shakes it off quickly enough and comes over, sitting down at Bobby's desk and pulling out a marker and one of the ever-present legal pads.
Sam eases himself into the chair at the corner desk. "When I go blind--"
Dean immediately starts talking. Sam recognizes his expression, even if the words are too quick for him to catch. It's not no but hell no combined with don't be ridiculous, Sammy. He should have known. Dean never has been good at facing this kind of thing.
"Dean!" Dean quits talking. "Just--think about what it's going to be like for me, okay?"
Scribble. Be fine.
"No, I won't." He'll be trapped in darkness, in silence, unable to even feel the world around him; it'll be him stuck inside his head, and that'll be all. What good is the ability to move if he can't see where he's going, can't feel if he's hit something? He's more likely to poke himself in the eye with a fork than actually manage to get food in his mouth, and that's now, when he can still see what he's doing.
If he could still touch, none of this would matter. The sense they forgot is the one that would enable him to actually have a life. Look what Helen Keller accomplished, and she started out not being able to hear or see.
But his skin is dead; he can only manage as much as he does because he can still see, because he can watch where his feet and hands go, because he only wears sweats and T-shirts and no longer attempts anything that has to be fastened, be it buttons or zippers or laces. Without his vision--
Without his vision, he won't even be able to take care of himself, and there will be Dean, stuck with a helpless, hopeless invalid of a brother, with the very real possibility that the angels and demons will take the delay in Armageddon out on both of them. The two of them have a hard enough time handling Bobby, and Bobby's only problem is that he can't walk.
Not to mention, long-term sensory deprivation is considered a form of torture for a reason. Once his sight goes, his sanity will eventually follow. Being able to hear Cas may hold it off for awhile, but it'll still happen.
Dean holds up the notepad. I will find a way, Sammy. I WILL FIX THIS.
He took the trouble to write out both whole sentences, punctuation and all. Sam knows it means that Dean is utterly serious about his promise, the way he was when he promised to save Sam so long ago, but what comes out is "The way you fixed it at Cold Oak?"
Scribble. Trust me. Please. "Please" is underlined five times.
"You shouldn't be stuck taking care of me!"
Dean's never looked so betrayed. And Sam's shot him at least twice, not to mention the whole Ruby thing. "Sammy," he says, it's a word Sam has learned to lip-read very well, but that's all he can get out.
"Dean, when I go blind-- I'm going to be helpless, don't you get that? People who are deaf and blind rely on being able to touch to communicate, to--to do anything. I'm going to be stuck in my own head for the rest of my life, unable to interact with anybody at all. Ever. It'll be worse than a coma, because I'll be fully aware that I'm in one." Dean's eyes go dark. "What are you going to do then, Dean? Make another deal? Keep me on Bobby's couch until I go crazy?"
Dean writes something. Not kill.
"I'm not saying that." Dean looks confused. "I'm saying-- Don't spend the rest of your life trying to take care of me. I'm telling you--" He takes a deep breath. Asking Dean to kill him would be easier. He's done it before. And dying would be easier than what awaits him. "When it happens, I want you to stuff me in a nursing home or something and forget I'm there."
By the expression on Dean's face, he's wishing Sam had insisted on being killed. Neither one of them truly fears death anymore. The threat of a long, lingering, decline, on the other hand.... He knows for certain it's something Dean fears--maybe not as much as he did before Hell, but it's still in the top ten. To grow old and decrepit and helpless....
Dean writes down something, and holds up the notepad again. NO. The lines are thick and bold and the letters take up the entire page.
"Dean--"
Dean waves the notepad again, this time shouting "No, Sammy!" He tears off a page, scribbles some more, and shoves it into Sam's hands.
Not giving up. Not ever.
"That's the problem!" Sam shouts. Just once, he wants Dean to listen to reason, not to that overdeveloped sense of responsibility that their father planted in his head. "This time, you need to give up!"
"Fuck you," Dean says, making sure to enunciate the words clearly enough for Sam to lip-read, and he stalks out of the room.
***
Sam retreats to his desk and his list of possibilities: every woman he can remember interacting with since he and Dean started hunting together again. Ellen, Jo, Bobby's sheriff friend. Mostly victims, but those vampires and that werewolf, a couple of angels and demons in female vessels-- They ran into Meg at one point, but very briefly, and Sam is certain she didn't touch him. Assorted law enforcement. Waitresses. A lot of waitresses.
Does he count dead women, too? Half the zombies were women, plus there's been a couple of ghosts. The prophecy didn't specify alive.
It's an impossible list. Before he lost all feeling, before walking through a crowd became an exercise in patience and staying upright, he seldom paid attention to gender; he was looking for threats. There's absolutely no way to narrow this down.
Dean fixes dinner, even makes sure Sam has the special skid-proof plate and spill-proof cup and large-handled utensils he bought, but he doesn't even try to communicate, let alone eat at the table. He fixes a plate for Sam and stalks out of the kitchen, leaving Sam sitting there with Bobby.
Sam can't hear the Impala's engine, but he can still see the black blur as it revs past the windows.
Bobby gives Sam a questioning look, but Sam's not in the mood to elaborate, just focuses on his own plate and the food he can't taste, and Bobby doesn't push.
***
Sam opens his eyes, and it's dark. There was still some light outside when he went to bed, so he hadn't turned the lamp on--the switch is small and his fingers clumsy. But Dean should have turned it on when he came to bed. Dean wouldn't forget, not with his own rest and Sam's safety both dependent on a light in the dark.
Maybe Dean never came to bed. After that fight, it wouldn't surprise Sam at all. Dean's probably still downstairs, or even out in the Impala, depending on whether or not he felt up to facing Bobby. And whether he was sober enough to manage the stairs.
Sam rolls over towards the lamp.
No lamp. No bed. No Dean. Not even the vague outlines of night-vision.
It's not dark.
He's blind.
Panic seizes him. He can feel the scream tearing out of his throat even though he can't hear it. He knows his body's moving--he can feel his numbed limbs hitting things hard enough that he actually registers the pain in his bones. The light's gone, it's not coming back, and even though he expected this, knew it was coming, has dreaded it every day, there was nothing that could have prepared him for the utter blackness that surrounds him, bottomless and unfeeling as demon eyes. Nothing could have prepared him for this feeling of being suspended in nothingness, a mind stripped of its body. He thinks he might be flailing, but his sensations are so dulled that he can't be sure, he could just be imagining it, he could be dead and in a silent black corner of Hell and he couldn't even tell--
There's suddenly two points of building pressure on his cheekbones (he has cheekbones), smaller matching points against the back of his skull--pressing hard, hard enough to bruise, hard enough to hurt, and it finally occurs to him what he's feeling: Dean's fingers against his face, trying to reach him, trying to calm him down.
Dean's here. It's black and silent and numb, but he hasn't been abandoned to the darkness. Dean hasn't left him. Despite their fight yesterday, Dean's still here.
It's not much.
It's just enough.
Sam gulps air, the thin scentless air, feels his lungs expand, and gets hold of his panic. There's a stuffy feeling in his sinuses, near where Dean's fingers--his thumbs, probably--are pressing against his cheekbones, and Sam wonders if he's crying again. If there are tears, if Dean wipes them away, Sam won't feel it.
What he does feel is pressure against the front of his skull--not the pinpoints of fingers now, but smoother, wider, more even. It takes him awhile to realize that it's Dean, pressing his forehead against Sam's. Trying to force as much contact as possible, trying to reassure him.
"Sam."
Relief floods him as the voice echoes inside his head, in the blackness. "Cas?" He's not sure he even says the word. He might just think it.
Either way, Cas hears. "You have to relax. You're tangled up in the sheets and we can't lift you when you're flailing like this. Relax so that Dean and I can get you loose."
But if he relaxes, Dean will let go, and if Dean lets go, there'll be nothing anchoring him, it'll just be him and the dark--
The bones of his shoulder suddenly register pressure and deep pain. Dean, squeezing, letting him know he's still there, that he hasn't left, that he won't--
"He promises, Sam, he'll stay with you. But we have to get you to where you are not doing yourself further harm first."
Sam nods--well, he has the intention of nodding, and there's a vague sense of movement that may or may not be connected to his inner ears, the part connected to balance, not hearing. He's not sure how to consciously relax, so he just orders his body to go limp. Even if part of him argues, hopefully, that will be enough.
It's an eternity before Dean's gripping his shoulder again, hard enough to hurt--but it's probably only a few minutes. Maybe only heartbeats. Sam can't feel his heartbeat. Why can't he feel his heartbeat? How is he going to know if his heart gives out? How will he even know if he's dead? How can he even be certain he's not dead now?
"Sam." Cas's voice cuts through the darkness. "You must remain calm."
"I--"
"Dean says not to try lying, he knows when you are panicking."
Panic. Hah. This is so much more than mere panic. He has nothing, no world, nothing but darkness and silence and numbness, occasionally cut by the voice of a dead man being worn by an angel. He could die and go to Hell and he wouldn't even know, it would just be another wasteland of blackness--
"I assure you, Sam, Hell is neither dark nor silent."
Right. Cas saw Hell when he rescued Dean.
"Dean wants you to stand up. Can you?"
Stand? Standing requires something to stand on. Standing requires gravity. He's--
With effort, Sam derails that train of thought. "I think I can, but I can't tell where anything is--"
He means his arms and legs, but Cas--and maybe Dean--misunderstand him as meaning the furniture. "Let us worry about that."
It's sort of like when he was possessed, except that the manipulation is external, not internal. Sam's ravaged position sense, the part that is apparently dependent on the inner ear, tells him when he's upright, but that's about all the information he gets. Once upright, he just stands, afraid to move, afraid to try to move, until Dean-through-Cas persuades him to take that first step. He's terrified of falling, not just because it could kill him if he lands wrong, but because he's not sure Cas or Dean can get him back up.
"We will not let you fall, Sam."
Sam wishes he could believe that. Wishes he could feel their hands guiding him. Wishes he could feel anything. If whoever is doing this would just give him back his sense of touch, give him back the ability to feel pain and temperature and vibration and pressure, he'd willingly let them keep the other four--
"Sam."
There's an edge in Cas's voice that he's never heard before, an edge that sounds kinda like the one in Dean's voice when he's annoyed and worried at the same time. Is Cas worried? Why would Cas be worried? Cas thinks he's an abomination, so it must be for Dean's benefit, it can't possibly be for his--
"Sam!" Cas's voice echoes painfully inside his skull, and whether he can feel it or not, Sam's pretty sure he flinches. Then, more softly, Cas says, "You're saying all these things out loud."
Oh, shit.
"And I no longer believe that, regardless."
That's undoubtedly just for Dean's benefit--Sam knows how his brother reacts even to perceived threats. But without Cas, he can't hear anything, there's nothing at all in the darkness, so he tries to get control of his panic so that he can focus on only speaking when he intends to. The last thing he needs is to let them see just how panicked he is--
"Sam, we cannot do anything if you do not calm down."
"I can't!" The words rip at his throat, and his sinuses go all stuffy again, so there must be tears accompanying the words. He knows it doesn't make sense to them, it can't possibly, but he's alone in darkness and silence without even enough of his senses to feel gravity, and if this isn't an excellent time to panic he doesn't know what is. He doesn't know how he can live like this. He doesn't know how anybody can live like this.
Somewhere beneath the panic and disorientation, the trickle of information from his inner ear tells him that he's gone down, and there's a moment of pain deep in one hip that makes him think maybe he's hit the floor. Or it could be sensory deprivation already kicking in, making him imagine things, making him hallucinate the only way the black silence will let him.
Either way, he lets reflex take over, curls in on himself, and then there's a vague sense of being lifted, being upright again--sitting, not standing, and there's hard pressure on both arms and his back, like he's being squeezed--
Dean. Holding him, like he did in Sam's scrambled memories of those last few moments in Cold Oak.
He's tried so hard to cling to his dignity, to be strong, to pretend that this isn't affecting him beyond the physical, but he's lost in the silence and darkness and it saps what little strength he has left and he just can't anymore.
Sam lets his brother hold him and just breaks.
***
Eventually, he cries himself out, and between the three of them, they manage to get him up and sitting safely on one of the beds. Dean and Cas stay with him, Cas relaying for Dean. (Going to the bathroom has certainly become more of an adventure; Bobby's upstairs bathroom is not big enough for three grown men.) Dean keeps pushing food and drink into him; Sam can still recognize a straw when it's shoved into his mouth, and reflex takes care of the rest. Once or twice, according to Cas, Dean gets a little overzealous, but Sam can't feel the spills soaking through his shirt, or see the stains to care, or even tell that he still has a shirt on, and what's the point? He can't see it and he certainly isn't going anywhere, not even to a chair, because he doesn't want Dean leaving him, but he can't tell if Dean's there if he's not crushing Sam's hand, and there's no place in the house that'll hold both of them except the bed or the couch downstairs, and he'd just as soon not have Bobby see him like this. Bad enough Cas and Dean are.
He thinks he nods off at one point--it's hard to tell when you're locked in your own head like this, unless you dream, and he doesn't, not this time. All he knows is that he's suddenly more aware of the darkness weighing down on him and nobody's crushing his hand. "Dean?"
There's no answer, no squeeze or punch in the arm or pressure against his leg, just the silence and the darkness and the nothingness, and he can't tell anything but which way is up and he's not certain about that. "Dean!" The word tears at his throat, so he knows he's screamed it. Why did Dean leave? Did he go off and do something stupid, like say yes? Dean has absolutely no sense when it comes to Sam, they both know that-- "DEAN!"
"Sam."
"Cas?" The panic dies down, just a bit. "Is--"
"He's downstairs. You were asleep and he needed to eat. He's on--" Pressure on his hand, so hard that one of the bones cries out in protest and Sam wonders if it's cracked. "He's here now," Cas says uselessly. There's a moment of quiet in Sam's head, and Cas says, "Dean wishes me to tell you that I am an utter failure when it comes to taking care of you properly." Sam can imagine the confused look on Cas' face. "Also, there is something about my ancestry, but I cannot quite follow the lineage. It seems to involve a baboon and a horse's ass. That is not biologically feasible, Dean."
Sam has to laugh at that, it's just so Dean. He can't help but wonder if Cas relayed it just for that purpose, if perhaps he knew what Sam's reaction would be, if he knew that it would calm him down.
"Dean also wants me to tell you that you are wearing them."
He probably frowns. He can't really tell. "Wearing what?"
"The slippers."
"The-- Dean!" Dammit, he should have thrown those things out when he had the chance.
There's another moment of quiet, and then Cas says, almost sheepishly, "Dean says Jo thinks they look very nice."
"DEAN! You did not send pictures of--"
"He did. Also to Ellen, Bobby, and I believe to me, though my minutes were too low to check." There's a pause. "I know that rabbits are emblematic of fertility, but I am not sure what that has to do with one's footwear, or the significance of the color--"
"The significance is that Dean's an ass!" He thinks he shouts that last part. It earns him a sharp deep pain in his upper arm--most likely Dean giving him a friendly punch.
"Ah," Cas says, as if that explains everything, and Sam belatedly realizes that it probably does.
***
The day lasts forever, and all he can think about is an eternity of days like this, to be followed by Hell, because where else will the man who set Lucifer free go? He'd almost rather be in Hell now. At least there would be sound and light and sensation.
If Lucifer showed up now.... He'd say yes. Just for the chance that this could be fixed.
"You must not despair, Sam."
Right. Despair is a mortal sin. Never mind that he's stuck inside his own head for--what? He's twenty-six years old. He could easily live another sixty years like this. Longer.
"Sam." Cas' voice cuts through the silence. "Dean wants me to tell you that he has you and that everything will be fine." There's puzzlement in the angel's voice, like he doesn't quite understand.
Sam does, though, because he's heard it all his life. He knows what Dean's said that Cas has translated so literally. I gotcha, Sammy, it'll be okay. Dean's voice is as clear in his head as if he actually can hear it, and he relaxes automatically, a reaction born of a lifetime of hearing those words.
Someone still has a good grip on his hand; he assumes it's Dean. He squeezes back, a silent acknowledgement, and can only hope he's not crushing Dean's hand the way Dean's crushing his. Dean can still feel pain.
There's a faint sense of movement that might be the mattress sinking under somebody else's weight. "Dean says he will stay here with you."
Like that was ever in question. Sam's more concerned that there's not room for both of them on this bed. What if they fall off?
"This is the room Bobby used to use, before he was injured." Before Sam can argue that he went to sleep in their room, Cas adds, "We brought you here after the last bathroom trip, rather than returning to your room. Dean thought you wouldn't want him to leave, and the beds in the other room are too narrow."
Oh. Makes sense. It doesn't say much for his sense of direction, but that's probably as reliant on sensory cues as everything else. He is now officially useless.
It occurs to him suddenly that if Dean and Cas are here, with him, nobody's working on fixing things. Bobby can only do so much. "There's no reason for you two to stay--" Sam begins, only to have the words halted by a sudden bloom of pain in his upper arm. Dean hits hard when he thinks Sam's being stupid. Especially now.
"Dean says, and I quote, 'Shut up, bitch.'"
Sam has to smile at that. "Jerk."
He has a flash of something, almost but not quite a vision--himself, pale, exhausted, eyes reddened, feet in those damned slippers, curled up against Dean like he's a kid again, clutching Dean's hand for all he's worth, and Dean with his other arm around him, his free hand bruised. He knows an instant later it's what Cas is looking at, that somehow Cas can project sight as well as voice into Sam's head, though it's only what he sees and pretty useless for anybody else. It gives him an anchor, though, a better sense of what's going on outside his head.
"Dean wants me to sit on the other side of you," Cas asks, his voice awkward and formal. "May I?"
Sam manages not to laugh. What's he going to do to keep Cas away? Glare in his general direction? Throw a punch with an arm that won't even feel it if it connects? "The more, the merrier."
This time, he's almost certain that he feels the mattress sinking as Cas sits down on the other side of him. A hand grips his forearm, just enough that he can feel it. He shouldn't find it so reassuring, but he does.
He doesn't know how long this will last, these few moments of being anchored in the silent, numb darkness, but he'll hold on to it as long as he can.
***
This time, Sam knows he's asleep, because it's blatantly obvious that he's dreaming.
The air is warm, the sky is bright, the grass is soft beneath his feet, and there's a mingled scent of commercial coconut and vanilla that always makes his eyes sting, because it's the smell he associates with Jess. There are trees in the distance on one side, water to the other, but here is a huge lawn of grass so vividly green that it can't possibly be natural. And he's wearing the clothes that used to be normal, before he couldn't manage buttons and zippers--jeans and tee and flannel.
A woman's voice speaks behind him. "Hello, Sam."
It's not Jess. He knows that even before he turns around and sees her. Part of him is disappointed anyway, the deeply-buried spark that's all that's left of the kid from Stanford, the kid who still clings to a desperate hope of Heaven.
She's older, maybe Ellen's age, and despite the serene blue gaze and odd long robes, there's some of the same fierceness about her that he associates with Ellen. Maternal, his brain finally supplies, but not the insipid sweetness celebrated in Mother's Day cards. This is more like a mama bear.
There's one other place he's felt that: In their old house, watching the spirit of his mother issue an order to a poltergeist.
"You're the one who did this to me," he says, and the words come out flat. He's not even sure how he knows it. She's a stranger, not familiar at all. She's definitely not an angel; he has yet to meet the angel who could reliably fake maternal. Neither does she have the feel of a demon. "You're the one who wrote that prophecy."
"One of them, yes," she says simply. As if he doesn't deserve an explanation. As if he doesn't deserve anything.
"Why?" he asks. "What did I--"
"You did nothing." She waves her hand, and two stone benches appear. She takes a seat on one, as regally as any queen, and gestures for him to do the same. Sam obeys warily. "The Lord of Angels--"
"Who?"
"He has many names and none. You refer to him as 'God,' as if he were the only one." Sam stares at her, willing his jaw not to drop. "He has vanished from this world, leaving the angels unguided. If he will not come back to discipline them...." She shrugs. "It is our world as much as it is his, and they cannot be allowed to destroy it in a tantrum over who their father loved best."
And Sam thought his life was complicated when the angels got involved. "So instead of letting them destroy the world, you're destroying me?"
"You are hardly destroyed."
"I can't do anything!" he shouts. "What the hell do you call it?"
"Injury," she replies, unruffled, and damn her, but technically, she's right. "The plans of the angels hinge on the vessels they created. If the Lord of Angels returns, he will be able to heal you. That is all the hope we can offer you. You understand that we could not leave it so that his children could work the healing."
No, of course not. If Lucifer could fix him, the whole thing would be pointless. "You couldn't stop me from letting Lucifer loose in the first place?" Sam demands. "None of this would have mattered if you'd--"
"Sam." It's soft, gentle, caring--that maternal thing again, like he's going to be convinced she cares, now that he knows she's behind this. She reaches over and taps his chest. When he looks down, he sees a glowing golden mark over his heart, gleaming through his shirt. A cross. "You were not born to one of us. You were born to the faith of the Lord of Angels, and that is what has shaped your destiny. We could only have interfered if you chose to come to our altars--and because of who you are, who the angels made you to be, we could have only done it before the first seal was broken. Now-- This is all we can do to save the world for our children. None of us wished to harm you, and I wish it were not so painful for you, but it was the only way left to us." She sighs, looks out over the expanse of green. "We created this place so that you might have a sanctuary, when all was done. A respite. A place where you could have what you had lost, even if only for a short while."
Sam stares at her, bewildered. "You made me a park."
"It is whatever you wish it to be." She waves a hand, and they're in a blazing autumn forest, complete with a pissed-off squirrel chattering at them from a branch; another wave, and they're on a wide white beach, the tang of the ocean air bringing back a surge of memories of that spring break with Jess. The woman waves again, and they're back to where they started, on the lawn.
There's still a major flaw in her magic trick. "Alone."
"Not entirely. Those who died in the keeping of the Lord of Angels are beyond our reach, but there are still many who dwell in our halls, and some of us will always be here."
In the keeping of the Lord of Angels. In other words, Heaven; Christians, maybe even Jews and Muslims, depending on whether the woman's "Lord of Angels" actually refers to their shared deity rather than being used in a specifically Christian sense. It doesn't surprise him that there are other afterlives out there, that makes as much sense as anything else he's ever dealt with, but he doesn't know anybody who would have gone to those. He knew a handful of Buddhists and Hindus and Neopagans at Stanford, real ones, not dabblers, but as far as he knows, they're all still alive.
Which brings him back to this sanctuary being a lonely one. Mom had believed in angels, Jess was an Episcopalian, and Dad grew up in a place and time where nothing but Christianity was tolerated. Even most of the hunters he's known were at least nominally Christian; the only possible exception he can think of is Ash, but if Ash isn't in Heaven or Hell, if he's in these other "halls," the woman probably would have brought him here already, to make Sam's introduction to this so-called sanctuary easier. "You couldn't just kill me?" he asks bitterly.
"If we had, Lucifer or the angels would simply have resurrected you," she says mildly. "He promised you as much."
True enough, although how she knows that.... "And now?"
"Your soul is still in the keeping of the Lord of Angels." He stares at her. He's a demon-blood addict who set Lucifer on the world and kick-started the Apocalypse, and she thinks that God still claims him? "We would not change that if we could; that must ever be your choice. But your body-- That we will defend from the schemes of his children." There's a glint in her eyes that he doesn't like. "You are going to live a long, natural life, Sam Winchester. No angel, demon, or monster will ever touch you again."
Ice runs down his spine, a sensation he hasn't felt in ages. A long, natural life...trapped in the cage of his own body, no senses, no way to interact. He's barely made it through a day, and he wouldn't have managed that much without the constant attention of Dean and Cas. A long, natural, living hell, the only respite this--this glorified djinn dream. He won't even be able to commit suicide to end his suffering.
Sam jumps to his feet, unable to remain sitting. He looks out over the too-green grass, at the blue haze of the lake. He's never going to see a real lake again, real grass, real sky. A sanctuary, she calls it. How long will it be before he gives up on trying to interact with the real world and retreats into this place, letting his body go on without him? What will that do to him out in the real world?
What will that do to Dean? He never got Dean to promise to abandon him to a nursing home. Dean's going to try to take care of him all by himself, with a cranky cripple and a half-fallen angel as sidekicks, and if there's anything besides Hell that can break his brother....
No. There has to be something he can do. "You keep saying we," he says, grabbing at the first question that floats into his head. "I don't see anybody here but us."
"I thought it would be easier for you at first. Taken together, we can be overwhelming. But the others are here, waiting."
"The others?"
A soft smile, and she stands and waves the benches into nonexistence. "Sisters," she calls.
That suddenly, they are not alone. They're surrounded by a hundred--thousand--more?--women, on all sides.
Sam looks around at them, at costumes from a thousand different cultures, at skin and hair and eyes every human shade and some that aren't. Most are alien. A few are familiar. There's not a single male among them. Every one reeks of power--more than any angel, even Lucifer.
These are not women.
"The prophecy," he says slowly. "It was a bad translation, wasn't it? It didn't say 'woman,' it said 'female.'"
The first woman--the first goddess--smiles, as if pleased that he'd figured it out. "I had heard you were the smart one."
Cas had said it would take a god to truly cripple a vessel. Okay, so he'd said God, but Cas is an angel, and the angels and demons they've dealt with have a peculiar blind spot about the non-Abrahamic religions.
Four of the nearest ones he recognizes on sight, and one he actually knows by name. "Hattie" is Hathor, straight off an Egyptian wall, in red linen and wearing her horned sun headdress. "Ami" wears a kimono, which probably means she's Japanese. By the looks of her clothes, the third, the former Goth with bells on her cheeks, is Aztec or Maya, but the only Aztec deity he knows by name is Quetzalcoatl, who clearly wouldn't qualify for this gathering. There's a real skull hanging from her belt now instead of a silver one at her throat; likely the only reason she bothered with that choker back at the diner was to hide the gaping, bloodless gash through her neck. The black woman with the missing ear is there, too, still in pink, but now it's a dress and turban that makes him think of old National Geographic spreads on Africa. Sam thinks inanely that it's a good thing he never actually offered her the bunny slippers.
And then he recognizes the pattern. Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, the Middle East.
These are all the goddesses of every religion, in all the world, even religions thought to be dead. There's no way he could ever recognize all of them. He knows the Greeks and Romans because of an elementary school history teacher who thought it was an important part of understanding Western civilization, and some of the Egyptians from Stargate and an art history class he barely remembers, and he recognizes the Hindus as Hindus because of their multiple arms, but he doesn't know their names, and the rest, even the ones who look European-- The only times he's ever studied pagan deities have been for hunts. That barely scratched the surface of the world's religions.
"I'm sorry," he says, looking back at his--guide? hostess? The blonde hair and blue eyes might mean she's Germanic or Norse, but then again.... "I don't know you."
She smiles. "I am Frigg."
Frigg, wife of Odin, queen of Asgard. Or, as the stash of antique comics in Bobby's attic Anglicized it, Frigga, since English speakers expect women's names to end in a. That pretty much sums up Sam's familiarity with Norse mythology, except for bloodthirsty scarecrows, and looking at the assemblage, he can't help but wonder if that wasn't actually a demon or some other monster using the trappings of the older religion to manipulate the people in that town, rather than an actual pagan deity. He can feel the power gathered here, and it's more than enough to swat down an archangel like a fly. The scarecrow, that Christmas couple--they didn't radiate this kind of power. The Trickster had, a little, which makes him suddenly wonder if they hadn't been dealing with Loki or Anansi. No wonder they couldn't kill him.
"Oh, he is none of ours," Frigg says, with an amused little smile. She says something quickly--in Norse, he thinks, but he can't be sure--and many of the goddesses vanish. A few wander off, farther into the park, but Frigg's four compatriots stay close. So do others--he recognizes Athena and Artemis in a group robed like Greek and Roman statues. There's a knot of Egyptians with Hathor, and still more in other clusters that he can't recognize.
If he could still read, the first thing he'd do when he woke up would be to read up on world mythology. Can the park become a library? Would it have all the books in the world?
No. He's letting himself be distracted. "Why couldn't you take care of the angels yourselves? Why did you have to damage a vessel?"
It's Athena--or possibly she's Minerva, he's not sure how he'd tell them apart--who answers. "Angels belong only to him. We may not touch them unless they directly threaten us--our worshipers, our sacred spaces, or those mortals to whom we have granted protection."
"They're not the same? As your worshipers, I mean?"
"The mortal soul is free to worship--or not--as it wishes. Likewise, we are free to grant our protection to any mortal as we wish, whether we have a claim upon them or not." Athena has a cold smile, no warmth at all. "As we have with you."
Right. A lifetime in a prison made out of his own body, and nobody will even be able to kill him. "And this is all it takes to derail the Apocalypse."
"All?" Hathor asks. "Do you have any idea of the power it takes to eradicate a mortal's senses without killing him? And to do it so that an archangel cannot heal him? It has taken every goddess ever known to man to arrange this, Sam Winchester. Half the world's deities, focused exclusively on you."
"I didn't mean-- How do you know this will stop them? Michael still has his vessel."
Skull Lady replies, "And who is he going to fight? Lucifer, in that falling-apart shell he's using now?" True enough. The last time Lucifer had shown up in his nightmares, Nick's skin was blistering and peeling from the effort of trying to hold in that much power. "The firstborn is blinded by his own prophecies. If they do not both have their true vessels, there can be no battle."
"The world will end some day, Sam," Frigg says, "but it will not come at the hands of the angels, and it is not yours to stop."
But the world will have time. All the world.
To save the world, he can accept this. He doesn't deserve any better. There's just one problem. "Dean--"
"The Michael Sword is no concern of ours. We have no plans to touch him."
"It's not that. It's-- Leaving me like this--" How does he explain it? How can he convince a group of goddesses that Dean Winchester could very well turn into an actual threat? "He won't stop. He doesn't care about the Apocalypse right now. All he cares about is fixing this. Fixing me. Some people would've learned their lesson when they went to Hell, but not him." There are easily a dozen skeptical looks. "You give him the choice between fixing the world and fixing me, and he'll choose me, every time."
"Then he will fail." Athena's voice is cold.
But if he's not mistaken, there's sympathy in Frigg's eyes. In Hathor's, too.
"Let me explain it to him," he pleads. "Just give me long enough to convince him, and then you can take it all away again."
Frigg shakes her head. "I could temporarily restore your sight, but the other magics have been too long in place. The nature of this working-- Each step had to be made permanent before the next was begun." Sam glances at Hathor and the other three. Now he understands the timing of those encounters, always near the time he lost another sense. Cementing the magic.
"You still have speech," Pink Lady says. "Tell your brother when you wake."
Have they paid no attention? Dean's been right there through this whole thing, he knows what's going on, he knows the power that has to be involved, and he's still convinced they can change it. If Sam ever had any belief that deities were infallible-- Well, that's not a mistake he'll be making again. "Talking's not enough! I need-- There's more to communication than talking!" He needs to see and hear to know that Dean really understands. Relaying through Cas won't be enough, not for something as important as this. Cas can't read Dean the way Sam can, and even if Cas senses a lie, he won't necessarily call Dean on it. And Dean will lie, if he thinks doing so will protect Sam, without thinking twice. Why won't they listen?
And then it comes to him, the way to make them understand. Most pantheons take the form of families, after all. "Some of you have little brothers, right? Or overprotective older ones?" The bond between brothers and sisters is different from that of brothers, but he's willing to bet that there are enough similarities for them to understand. Some of the goddesses nod, and there are scattered rueful smiles. Even Athena looks suddenly thoughtful. Sam turns to Frigg. "If you can't undo the magic on me, I understand, but bring him here. Long enough for me to explain. It-- It will be better in the long run, trust me."
"Perhaps," Frigg says thoughtfully. "But--in all honesty, Sam, reaching your brother may not be possible. This place, and you, are part of the prophecy. Your brother stands outside. And he belongs still to the Lord of Angels."
"But he doesn't disbelieve in pagan gods. We've had to deal with you guys before." Frigg raises an eloquent eyebrow. "Okay, maybe demigods, maybe just demons pretending, but still, they claimed to be pagan deities. He believes in you as much as he does God. The Lord of Angels, I mean. Maybe even more." Believes in them as monsters, but that's still belief, and confronted with evidence-- Dean's all about the evidence, he's said as much more than once. He didn't believe in angels until Cas showed up, but once he had that evidence....
"Sam, you do not understand. The angels have protected him far more than they have you. The claims of the Lord of Angels are deeper. They have to be, because he is meant for Michael. I do not know that any of us has the power to challenge that."
"Sister." One of the Greeks--or Romans, they're fairly indistinguishable--steps out of the group, an absolutely breathtaking blonde whose draperies emphasize, rather than shroud, her curves. This has to be Aphrodite. No wonder Paris gave her the damn apple. Athena's not bad-looking--none of the Greek gods would be, with their obsession on perfection--but she never stood a chance. "I believe I can reach the Michael Sword."
There's muttering through the group, and even Athena and Artemis are looking at Aphrodite like she's lost her mind. Hathor isn't, though--she's got a knowing little smile as she beckons one of the cat-headed women behind her forward. One of the other Europeans steps forward to join Aphrodite--another Nordic goddess, he thinks, and she has a little smirk as well. Likewise one of the Hindus, one carrying a parrot, of all things, on her shoulder.
None of the goddesses are ugly--the worst are what Jess used to call "Hollywood ugly," not so much ugly as less pretty--but the ones who join Aphrodite and then vanish are by far the most beautiful.
There's not much that's universal when it comes to human religion, other than religion itself, but from what he knows of the polytheistic faiths, it's not at all uncommon that beauty, love, and sex wind up in the purview of the same deity.
Of course those are the ones with the best chance at reaching Dean. Whatever the other claims on them, by God and angels and demons, Aphrodite must consider Dean one of her most dedicated worshippers, whether he's ever officially acknowledged her or not. Heaven doesn't exactly have a department to cover that kind of thing.
It's hardly any time--it's forever--before Aphrodite and the others come walking back through the crowd. Dean's not with them, and Sam's heart sinks. Trying to make Dean understand in the real world is going to be impossible--
Aphrodite gives him a blinding smile and waves her hand, and Dean's standing there.
"What the--" He breaks off, looking around. "I wasn't even drinking," Sam hears him mutter.
"Dean. It's not a dream." Half the goddesses glare at him. "Not exactly a dream," he clarifies.
"Sammy?" Dean jerks around, zeroes in on him. "Wait--you can see me?"
"Here I can," Sam says, stressing the here, hoping Dean gets the hint. "This-- These are the goddesses who made that prophecy Cas found."
"Goddesses?" Dean looks around again. "What the hell is this place?"
"This is a--well--"
"This is a world for a man whose world has been taken away," Frigg finishes for him.
Dean's eyes narrow. "Like a djinn dream," he spits.
She only shrugs. "Not much difference, except that we are not using it to feed. Sam's body will remain perfectly safe when he is here."
Dean automatically flexes his fingers, testing to see if being here feels less real than his actual body. It doesn't, of course. This place is frighteningly real--more real to Sam, at least, than the damaged wreck he left behind. "So you're the ones I have to kill."
"No, we are the ones you have to thank for stopping the angels' Apocalypse," Frigg corrects icily. "You are none of ours, Dean Winchester, and you would do well to remember that. You are only here because Sam wished to explain this to you."
"Lady, back off," Dean snarls, and Sam flinches. In the comics, at least, Frigg raised a whole passel of Viking gods, and anybody who handled Thor as a toddler will have no difficulty smacking down a recalcitrant Winchester. "We've taken out gods before."
"No, you have taken out starvelings and pretenders subsisting on scraps," Frigg retorts. "You cannot even find your own god. What makes you think you can destroy others?"
"He's not my--"
"You were born to him, just as Sam was." Light flickers through Dean's shirt--a glowing cross, like the one over Sam's own heart. "You were formed by faith in him, even if only by rejection of it. Your hatred binds you to him."
Dean looks down, scowling at the cross. "You're saying I belong to him because I hate him? That makes no sense."
"Faith is like love. It is seldom sensible."
"Dean!" This is getting them nowhere. Frigg seems fairly even-tempered, but Sam knows perfectly well that his brother could drive a saint to murder, and he does not want Dean to end up a wet spot on the grass. "I asked them to let you come here, so I could explain--"
"Explain what?"
"That you need to stop trying to fix this."
"You can't live like you are, Sammy." Dean's not even bothering to look at him. He's got Frigg in a staring contest, and God help them, the idiot thinks he can win. "They're going to fix you, or so help me, I will find Michael and say yes and make sure he--"
"Little boy," Skull Lady says, somewhere between amused and deadly, "Michael has no power against us. Michael cannot even enter this space without our permission."
Dean glances at Sam, wanting verification; Sam only shrugs. "They swore nobody would threaten me again," he says. "I think that includes archangels."
"And what, you just lie there in bed the rest of your life? Lost in--in this figment of their imaginations?"
"I told you what to do." Dean opens his mouth, but Sam runs right over whatever he's going to say. "No. Not this time. I want that promise. I want you to find someplace that can take care of me out there, and you dump me there and you forget about me."
"I can't--"
"It's better than I deserve!" Sam shouts. "I set Lucifer free! Dammit, Dean, let me make amends!"
"You're out of your mind, Sam." Just like that, as far as Dean's concerned, the matter is settled, and Sam wants to strangle his brother. "You want to damage a vessel?" Dean says to Frigg. "Damage me. Let him go."
"It can't be undone!"
"Yeah, that's what they always say."
"In this case, it is accurate. Only the blindness may still be reversed." Frigg glances at the other four, Hathor and Ami and Skull Lady and Pink Lady. Sam thinks maybe they're exchanging thoughts.
Another goddess steps forward. She's clearly an Egyptian, by her features and clothes, but she's not one Sam recognizes. Her dress is made of leopard skin, not linen, and there's a seven--petaled? leafed?--something decorating her heavy wig. "The prophecy states that that five senses must be taken from a vessel, sisters," she says. She sounds a little like a librarian. "There is nothing that says all five must come from the same vessel."
Jesus Christ.
A loophole. A fucking loophole.
"Crippling both would make it even less likely that the angels will find a way to repair the damage," Athena points out. Murmurs and whispers race through the crowd.
Sam glances at Frigg. She looks--unsettled. Unwilling to commit to it. "It is up to you, sisters, to give them the option," she says finally.
"No," Sam whispers. "Don't. Please."
She tilts her head, reminding him of Cas. "You would rather stay as you are?"
"I know what he'll do!"
"What am I going to do?" Dean asks.
"Don't play stupid," Sam snaps. To Frigg, he says, "If you give him the chance to bargain, he will, and I don't want that. I started this. Let me take the punishment for it."
"It is not a punishment, Sam," Frigg replies, sounding exasperated, at the same time that Dean shouts, "Yeah, because you could have done all this without the fucking first seal!"
"If I'd saved you, it wouldn't have broken! And he still wouldn't have gotten out if I hadn't broken the last!"
"Boys." Frigg's voice has a soft thunder to it. "You will remain civil."
"He's not doing it." For months now, he's watched Dean struggle to sleep in the dark. He's not condemning his brother to eternal darkness just to spare himself. Not after everything Dean's done for him.
"It's not your decision, Sammy," Dean growls.
"This time it is! This time I'm still able to argue! You can't even sleep in a dark room and you think you can handle being blind?"
The words hit Dean like a blow--he actually staggers, just a bit, not noticeable to anybody who doesn't know him as well as Sam. "You knew?"
"Do you think all those lights left themselves on?" Sam snaps.
"I--I didn't think about it," Dean admits. "I--" Like that, he shakes off the shock, the way he always does, and straightens and turns back into the big brother. "It doesn't matter. I can handle it. But he needs to be able to see to have any life. Take my sight and leave him his."
"Dean--"
"Not your call anymore, Sam."
"We have not agreed," Frigg says tartly.
"You want something else? Somebody's soul? That's what demons always want, isn't it?"
Sam's not sure who Dean pisses off with that statement, but half a dozen bolts of lightning slam into the trees at the edge of the lawn. "We are not demons." It's a growl from a dozen different throats, and something that might be actual fear flickers in Dean's eyes. "I am Frigg, Queen of Asgard, mortal, and remember that it is within my power to ensure that your brother never sees or even speaks again!"
Dean doesn't apologize, but his body language relaxes, just a hair, just enough that he's not radiating threat so much. Sam doesn't trust him for a minute, but the goddesses don't know Dean as well as he does and they seem to accept it at face value.
"Now," Frigg goes on, her voice much calmer, "I can do this, if you both wish. Leave Sam his sight and take yours. But there is a price."
"There always is," Dean mutters, but at least this time, he doesn't say anything about demons.
"This is no deal such as your demons offer. They offer little in exchange for much. We offer--a bargain. It is nothing to us which of you cannot see, so long as the prophecy is fulfilled. But for it to be you, we request a small favor."
Dean shoots Sam a look. Sam only shrugs. "Like what?" Dean asks warily.
"The forty generations of the prophecy do not begin until the vessel dies. You are young, so you have many years before you. Those years will give the world even more time. If we give in to your demand, if we cripple you both, are you willing to live? To dwell in those years, rather than seeking death so quickly and so often?"
Dean's eyes darken. "You mean, stop hunting. Settle down. Live like normal people."
"Yes. Will you pay that price for your brother's sight?"
Dean looks at Sam. "Don't," Sam breathes. "Dean--"
Dean's answer is drowned by darkness, and the sanctuary vanishes.
***
Sam's eyes snap open, and he sits up. There's a lamp on. He's in Bobby's bedroom, on Bobby's bed, and when he gets his eyes to focus, it's on those obnoxious bunny slippers, still on his feet. Why is he--
"Sam?" Cas asks from his left. "Is everything--"
Memory rushes back. "You ass, if you said yes--"
"To Michael?" Cas yelps.
"No, to Frigg!"
"Frigg? The goddess?"
"No, Frigg the porn star," Sam snaps. Dean is still beside him, still asleep. The bruises Sam left on his hands earlier fade as Sam watches. A goodbye present from the goddesses?
"What are you talking about, Sam?"
"We found out who's doing this. I'll explain later. Dean!" He reaches over and gives his brother a shake, not caring if his fingers dig into Dean's skin too hard. Serves him right if they do, if he said yes, if he gave in to this stupid plan-- "Wake up!"
Dean shoves his arms away, but it's sleep-instinct; his eyes are still closed. He might mumble something, but Sam still can't hear him.
Sam weighs his options for a second, then decides his brother will live with a black eye and slaps him.
Dean comes wide awake with a yell, sitting up so fast that he nearly collides with Sam. Sam guesses that the initial stream of words is probably cussing, but he doesn't care, he needs to see Dean's eyes--
Dean's pupils dilate, contract. His eyes move just as they normally would if he was looking around the room. Are they a little unfocused? He doesn't look blind, but would he? Every indication is that the problem with Sam's senses is in the brain, not the sensory organs themselves. Nobody said anything about a difference in Sam's eyes, and it's not like Cas is known for his manners. Dean says something, but Sam still can't hear--
"He's asking if you can see," Cas says, moving around the bed to Dean's side.
"Can I see?" Sam repeats incredulously. Is the angel stupid? "Can he see?" Cas just stares at him. "Dean!" Sam shouts, not caring if the whole of Sioux Falls hears him. "Can you see?"
Dean swallows hard. "No," he says, shaking his head, and Sam wants to scream. Dean says something else--clearly an order to Cas, since Cas goes to the bedroom door and speaks into the hall. Probably giving Bobby an update on all the yelling.
"Dammit, Dean, I told you not to!"
Dean's hands come up. He's feeling around, searching for something--and then his hands find Sam's shirt. One clenches in the fabric while the other pats its way up Sam's chest and neck to his face, then his hair. He smiles. "Sammy," Sam lip-reads, and then there's too much too quick for him to catch.
"He says he'd know that brick wall that needs a haircut anywhere," Cas says, looking confused. "He says-- What? Dean, slow down."
Dean must be babbling if Cas can't keep up. Sam knows why. He's desperate to make Sam understand, as if Sam needs an explanation. "I asked you not to," he says, and the words probably come out sullen, but he doesn't care. Just once....
Dean stops, looking stunned and faintly hurt.
"He's not explaining why, Sam," Cas says gently. "He says he's sorry he couldn't get it all back for you."
Chapter 6