Forget the Dragon for lyryk, part four
Aug. 27th, 2017 10:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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spn_summergenTitle: Forget the Dragon
Recipient: lyryk
Part Three
Sam's hands cramped from clinging so tightly to the steering wheel, and his arms burned. His back had locked up and his leg ached. He was breathing too hard, the sound loud in his ears, bounced back to him in the too large, too empty cab, and he couldn't stop. He was losing it, he could hear it, and he couldn’t stop. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't stop.
The world rushed by, blurred and stretching like a picture taken with a long exposure, there and gone before Sam could grasp it. Then he'd blink and it'd stand still, dark and empty, the store fronts and trees and empty highway picked out in sharp relief, quiet and empty like a graveyard, bare and decayed like a skeleton.
He glanced in the rear view and saw angry, yellow eyes, beak sharp and gaping, nails-on-chalkboard screech tearing at his eardrums. He whirled, hands catching at the seat backs and saw nothing but black blacktop and black sky and black shadows.
It's not real, he told himself, but maybe that wasn't true. Maybe he was the lie, a ghost walking in a dead world ruled by monsters. Maybe he hadn't ever been real.
Dropped back in the seat, he scooted forward to get his foot back on the gas, his hands on the wheel, his eyes on the road. He didn't know anything else to do but keep going. Dean would fix it. He just had to find Dean.
*
First, he had to find Tori. Tori knew where Dean was and, besides, it was his responsibility to take care of Victoria. She wouldn't be out here if it wasn't for him.
He'd passed the motel before he saw it, so he pulled into the next driveway. All of the lights were off in the building, so he didn't worry about finding a parking place, just stopped where he was and put the car in Park.
The motel had been blocked off with yellow crime scene tape, the parking lot emptied. Sam fingered the tape, feeling reluctant to pass it. He wasn't supposed to pass it, no one was. They were supposed to preserve the crime scene so the police could do their job and put the bad guys away.
There were some bad guys the police didn’t recognize, though. Some that they couldn’t do anything about. Dad helped with those, and Dad crossed the crime scene tape all the time. But he wasn't Dad.
He was going to be like him, though.
It still felt like pulling off part of his skin, pushing the tape up and ducking under it. Blood dripped down his arm.
He moved carefully, putting each foot down like the ground would crack and fall away. Don't step on the cracks or you'll break your mother's back, but his mother was gone, burned up on the ceiling in his nursey.
He tasted blood in the back of his throat, saw a clown staring at him that vanished when he turned to look at it head-on. His breath sawed in and out of his lungs. Maybe that was where the blood came from, the air barbed, except it felt thin. He couldn't seem to pull enough of it into his lungs.
"Think it's time for you to lie down, kiddo."
"No." He shook his head, and the ground swayed under his feet. The parking lot telescoped, stretching away to infinity. He took another step.
"I'm just looking out for you here, Sammy-boy. You don't look so good."
He didn't feel so good, either. Pieces were missing. Dean was missing. That couldn’t stop him, though. He just had to keeping putting one foot in front of the other. That was what Dean always said. You've got this, Sammy. Just keep going. One foot in front of the other. That's it.
When he looked up, he found the office in front of him, the opaque glass reflecting his face back at him. His eyes were dark. He pulled the door open. The lights were off. Light still streamed in from outside, tracing the outlines of the rack of brochures, the desk. The ledger was missing, but the bell was there.
So was Victoria.
He rounded the desk and found her sprawled on the floor, face clear of makeup, pale eyes staring blindly at the ceiling. Her fingers curled gently by her hips. Her throat gaped open, red and raw, like the clerk's had.
For long minutes he couldn't look away, couldn’t move, couldn't breathe. He'd done this to her. He'd killed her. Tears filled his chest, burned his throat, flooded his eyes. Gasping in a breath, he stumbled back—
And saw Dean. His legs went out from under him.
Arms wrapped around his chest, hauled him back. Between one blink and then next, he was outside, his own shocked face reflected back to him in the glass. He forgot to breathe. No. He couldn't see Dean. "No!"
"Sam!"
"Dean!" He squirmed, trying to force the arms holding him up and his body down, trying to twist, trying to thrash free. Trying to get free.
"Sam, stop!"
"Let me go! Dean!" He kicked back, again and again, doubling his efforts when he hit something solid.
"Dean's not here!" He got in an especially good kick, heard a curse, and then the world tilted. His feet hit nothing but air. "—Sam! ThunderCats! Ok? ThunderCats!"
It took a minute for the words to register. For the voice to match up. For him to remember telling his dad he wanted a secret password, too, like Dean had, when he was littler. For him to remember telling his dad that he wanted the password to be ThunderCats. Then his feet slowed.
"Dean's not in there, Sam," his dad said, voice rough. "Ok? He's not in there, Sammy."
His breath shuddered out. His heart pounded. He remembered Dean—still and bloody and expressionless. Dean was never expressionless.
"I know you think you saw him," Dad said. His forehead pressed into the back of Sam's head, his voice close and warm. "But I promise you, he's not here, Sammy. Ok? He’s not here. Can you believe me?"
Sam's throat clicked when he swallowed. His voice came out small. "He's really not here? Really not—" His throat closed around the word dead. Saying it would make it real, more real than the body he couldn't see any more that Dad said wasn't there. If he didn't say it, maybe Dad could unmake it. Bring Dean back.
"Really, really," Dad said. "You ready to get out of here, buddy?"
Sam nodded.
Dad put him down, got him turned around and walking with an arm around his shoulders. He couldn't get Dean out of his head, though. He'd been so still. Even when Dean slept, he wasn't that still. His chest would rise and fall, and his fingers would twitch, and if Sam looked really close, he could see his eyeballs moving behind his lids like he was reading really fast.
But that Dean hadn't done any of that. His eyes had been open and his hands hadn't moved, and Sam's chest had ached waiting for Dean's to expand, to contract, so he could breathe, too.
"Dad?" he asked, twisting around in his dad's grip. "Are you sure that wasn't Dean?" It had looked like Dean.
"I'm sure," Dad answered.
Sam locked out his knee stumbling down the curb, when the ground was further down than he'd expected, too busy looking over his shoulder to watch where he was going. He couldn't shake the idea that Dean was there. That they were leaving without him. "But maybe you should go check? I mean, what if he's there? We can't leave him, Dad. You didn't see."
"I saw." Dad gripped his shoulder, lifting him up the curb on the other side, then turned him and knelt. His hands held Sam in place, braced him. "I checked, Sammy. That wasn't Dean. I promise, that wasn't Dean."
Then Dad just keep watching him, serious and still holding Sam steady, making the promise stick. Dad was here and real and the dead-Dean got further and further away, until he was just hovering around the edges and hard to see, like after a nightmare, and Sam nodded.
Dad clapped his shoulder, pushed up, shepherded Sam the remaining feet to the Impala, held open the back door. Sam slowed, seeing the empty front seat. "But what about Dean? Are we going to get him?"
"Yeah, Sam. We'll get him."
Dad pushed, trying to get him in the car, but Sam set his feet. "Where is he, Dad?"
A beat. Sam looked up in time to catch an odd look on Dad's face. "Bobby's," Dad answered. "Faster you get in, kiddo, faster we can get there." Which made sense. They called Uncle Bobby, sometimes, when they needed an adult and Dad wasn't available.
Except Uncle Bobby would’ve gotten him, too.
Except Dean would’ve insisted on calling Sam as soon as he got out.
Except Dad's eyes flashed yellow just as Sam was turning to climb into the car.
Sam flung himself back. "You're not my dad!"
The demon was fast. He snatched Sam around the middle, hauled him up to his chest. But this time, he missed Sam's arms. Sam made fists and pounded the arm holding him, flung his body side-to-side like an eel when the demon tried to grab his arms. He kicked and screamed and scratched and told the demon he wasn't Dad until it got one of Dad's arms around his neck.
Then his body was pressed to Dad's and Dad's other hand pressed his head forward and he wasn't holding Sam's middle and his feet could brush the floor but not enough and he couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe and darkness ate at the edges of his vision, at the edges of his brain, and his hands pried and grabbed and dragged against Dad's arm but the demon was stronger than he was. It was stronger and it wasn't long before the darkness ate him all.
*
He hadn't expected to wake up. He especially hadn't expected to wake up with his arms and legs free in the back seat of the Impala. But maybe the demon didn't have to worry about him trying to escape. Maybe it could pin him to the leather and cut him open without touching him. He shivered at the thought.
"Sammy?" He held himself carefully still at the sound of his father's rough voice. It sounded like him, like he'd been up too long worrying and not talking, but that didn't mean it was really Dad.
And if it's not? You gonna play opossum until the end of the world, squirt?
"You with me, buddy?"
Reluctantly, Sam rolled on to his back and tipped his head toward his father. "Yeah," he croaked. He could still remember his dad's arm banded across his neck. The hard line of it. The phantom touch made his throat feel tight, his lungs ache.
"You think you can tell me what happened?"
His father, yeah—he didn't want to tell the demon. "Wraith," he murmured.
"What's that, buddy?"
With a sigh, he pushed up onto his elbows. Dad's eyes watched him in the rear view, normal and worried, but it was the flash of pale in the foot well that drew his eye, even as his hand touched something that wasn't leather. He looked.
Dean.
His fixed eyes stared straight at Sam, his body crunched into the foot well like a broken doll. Horror held Sam for a breathless moment, then bile rushed up his throat.
He threw himself at the door, numb fingers scrambling at the release. Distantly, he heard Dad yelling but the words weren't important. His body jolted against seat in front of him. Liquid spilled out of his mouth, bathing his lap. He didn't care. The the latch gave. His body fell against the door, forcing it open and dumping him to the ground.
Rocks and twigs bit at his face and arms, barked against his knees and elbows. Pain flashed across his body, but it didn't matter. Dean was dead. Nothing mattered.
The Impala had stopped ahead of him, skewed almost sideways off the shoulder, three wheels in the grass, but Dean didn't get out to see what was wrong with Sam. He didn’t get out. Dad did. Dad hit the ground running, face twisted with anger. "What the hell is wrong with you? Don't ever jump out of the car when it's moving, Sammy. Do you hear me? Don’t ever!"
As if that mattered. As if anything mattered with Dean dead. Dean, who'd been stuffed into the back of the Impala, limbs twisted haphazardly like he didn't matter, like he was garbage, only Dad never let them throw their fast food wrappers on the floor. He made them put them in the proper place, and he hadn't put Dean in his proper place.
"Sam—"
Dad's face was in front of him, and Sam swung. He heard bone crunch, felt pain explode through his hand, saw blood gush from his father's nose, and didn't care. "You killed Dean," he raged, and swung again. Again. Again. He couldn't consider that Dad was bigger, stronger, faster, better trained. He couldn't differentiate between his father and the demon. Dean was dead and it was his fault.
He swung and missed, found empty highway in front of him. "I didn't kill Dean! Sam, stop it! Listen to me!"
He didn't want to listen. He wanted to feel bone break under his fists, wanted blood to run warm under his hands, wanted to break and rend and tear and hurt like he was broken and rended and torn and hurting, and Dad didn't get it. He blocked and blocked, but Sam needed—
Hand suddenly caught, Sam was spun, his arm twisted up behind his back. He threw his weight against it to break free, ignoring the pain that burned through his shoulder.
"Sam, cut it out!"
He heaved, felt something tear, and then strong arms caught him around his waist, pulled him back into his Dad's chest, and Sam remembered this. He remembered what came next. He dropped his chin, startled when his dad's weight suddenly bore him to the ground. Pinned him. He strained and struggled but he couldn't move him arms, couldn't move his legs. A large hand pressed his head down, ground his face into the earth, and he tasted dirt.
He barely registered the prick through the surge of panic, the rush of rage that Dad wouldn't let him avenge Dean, so the wave of lethargy took him by surprise, washing him under before he realized it was there.
*
It left him in the Impala. He could feel the engine rumble in his bones, the cool-warm hug of the leather against his back, the groove of it too large from Dean always sitting in the front seat—dwarfing him, but some day he'd be bigger than Dean. His feet fell short of the glove compartment, his hands of the wheel. And Dad wasn't there.
"Bet you wish you'd taken my offer now, hmm, Sammy, m'boy."
He twisted toward the female voice, back to the window, and recognized the woman from the Police Station. Her eyes were yellow. "You killed my mom," he told it, the anger the wave had quenched flaring bright.
The demon smiled. "Is that your grievance? Poor little Sammy, growing up without his Mommy. Daddy doesn't love him, but at least he always has Dean—oh."
Rage flushed his body hot. In his mind, his heart, he pushed off the seat and wiped that stupid smile off the demon's face with his bare hands, but his arms and legs didn't move. He put all his effort into it, and his body never budged.
"That's right," the demons sing-songed. "He doesn't. Not anymore."
"Shut up!"
The demon lifted her eyebrows in polite surprise. "I'm sorry. Did you think you were in control of our little tete-a-tete? Hate to break it to you, Sammy, but you're just not strong enough." He gritted his teeth against her sympathetic moue, strained against the air. "Now, if you'd taken my offer. . . ."
"You don't have anything I want!"
"No?" Her lips twisted in a sly smile. "You sure about that?"
The woman was gone before he could respond, and so was the Impala. He turned in place, but there was nothing there except blackness. Then his stomach swooped and it felt like he was turned on his head.
"Run, Sammy," a low, rasping voice called from the shadows. "Run, run, as fast as you can—"
A clown face lunged at him, suddenly close, and Sam ran. He couldn't hear footsteps behind him, couldn't hear his own footsteps or feel the ground beneath his feet or the air pushing past his face, but he could feel the creature behind him and he couldn't stop running. If he stopped, it would—
”I need answers, Bobby!”
The ground dropped out from under him. His heart jumped into his throat.
Growls surrounded him. He crouched, hand brushing the ground he couldn't see, and strained to hear which direction they were coming from. They edged closer from the left, so he went right. Hot breath hit his face. Long, white teeth snapped in front of his face.
"Dean!" he yelped, dodging right. They snapped at his heels, their hot, wet breath just behind him. He could feel it, crawling along his skin, close and too close and closer and—
He bounced on Dean's bed, suddenly staring at water-stained popcorn ceiling flat on his back.
"—don’t know what to tell you, John. He’s not—”
Dean burst through the door. "Get up, Sammy! Hurry! We have to move!"
He disappeared as quick as he’d come, moving down the hall. Sam's stomach cramped with dread, but he rolled off the bed and charged after him, breath caught in his throat every second he couldn't see Dean. The hall was a blur, so was the living room, but he caught up with Dean in the foyer, running into his back when the front door stopped him. Dean pulled the door open.
Frantic barking filled the air, flash of fur and gnashing jaws and blood red eyes.
Dean slammed the door, pushed Sam back the way they'd come, gasping go, go, go in his ear, his hand an insistent prod against Sam’s back. Sam struggled to move faster, to run harder, but his legs felt heavy and impossible to move. Time seemed to drag forever.
They reached the back door and Sam twisted both hands around the handle, got it open. Dean bundled them outside, frantic gaze bouncing back and forth, but the yard was empty. They were clear—
”Listen. I found something in Sam’s pocket. A microfiche—”
A solid weight slammed into his back, bore him to the ground. Wet breath hissed by his ear, a long tongue whisping by his cheek. He scrambled forward on his elbows, head down to avoid the tongue, every muscle in his body cringing away.
He felt the weight fall away and rolled onto his back.
Dean's eyes stared down at him, stark and impossibly green in his white face, drawn and scared and young-looking. Blood dripped from the side of his mouth. His mouth opened in a scream. Sam couldn't hear it. He couldn't hear anything. But as he watched, something clawed open Dean's leg, then his chest, his stomach. Blood flowed like a river and Sam couldn't reach him, he couldn't—
"What the fuck is your problem, Sammy?"
He whirled.
”What’s wrong with him?
Found Dean just behind him, seated at a round table, his feet kicked up and textbook in his lap. "Dean?' he gasped.
”How the hell should I know? Killing the wriath should’ve done the trick”
"Man," Dean groused. "I know math is scary, but you need to know this shit."
"But you—you—" He'd been dead. He was dead, good as dead. Sam hadn't saved him. "This isn't real."
He backed away.
Dean watched him go, amused, expectant expression unwavering. He didn't ask what was wrong or come after Sam, and Sam didn't look away until he bumped into the wall. He checked where he was going, then looked back—
A clown stared back at him. A clown with Dean's face and Dean's eyes, but horrible and blank, washed white and red and unnatural and Sam drew breath to scream—
Darkness swirled down his throat, a black throat, a black tornado that felt like a punch to the gut, like being thrown in the air and slammed to the ground and everything went blank.
"How could you, Sammy?" Dean demanded, tears in his voice. But Dean didn't cry.
Sam opened his eyes. There was a gun in his hand. Dean was on the ground, staring up at Sam, braced to run but he didn't, and he didn't look away. "Dean?"
"You're a monster, Sam. You think I could let you live after what you've done?"
The gun barked. A neat, red hole bloomed in the center of Dean's head. His face drained of animation. Sam's blood drained right along with it. His arm dropped like his strings had been cut. "This isn't real," he repeated, feeling the desperation swell in his chest, in his gut, feeling it pull his arms and legs. "This isn't real."
"It's real, Sam," his dad's voice said, and Sam's eyes were drawn to his father, standing square and solemn bare feet away. "It's your fault Dean's dead."
"No." He shook his head, backing away—from Dad, from Dean, from the couple he’d killed that stared at him from over Dad’s shoulder, from these things that couldn't be happening. "No, you're lying. Dean's not dead!"
"Are you sure," the woman at his back asked.
Sam whirled. "You're not real."
"Oh, I'm very real, Sammy-boy. Your mind is wide open. I can do anything I want to you.”
She pressed her thumb to his forehead—through his forehead—and pain exploded through his mind. He screamed, loud and long and silent, like he could force everything inside out.
Then everything went black.
We have all the time in the world, Sam. Just you and me.
*
"He can't remember any of this, Bobby."
"I hear you, John. Lord knows Sam's had it bad as I've ever seen but—wiping his memory? You sure that's the right play here?”
"Dammit, Bobby! It's the only option we have."
"Well, all right, then."
Black.
Recipient: lyryk
Part Three
Sam's hands cramped from clinging so tightly to the steering wheel, and his arms burned. His back had locked up and his leg ached. He was breathing too hard, the sound loud in his ears, bounced back to him in the too large, too empty cab, and he couldn't stop. He was losing it, he could hear it, and he couldn’t stop. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't stop.
The world rushed by, blurred and stretching like a picture taken with a long exposure, there and gone before Sam could grasp it. Then he'd blink and it'd stand still, dark and empty, the store fronts and trees and empty highway picked out in sharp relief, quiet and empty like a graveyard, bare and decayed like a skeleton.
He glanced in the rear view and saw angry, yellow eyes, beak sharp and gaping, nails-on-chalkboard screech tearing at his eardrums. He whirled, hands catching at the seat backs and saw nothing but black blacktop and black sky and black shadows.
It's not real, he told himself, but maybe that wasn't true. Maybe he was the lie, a ghost walking in a dead world ruled by monsters. Maybe he hadn't ever been real.
Dropped back in the seat, he scooted forward to get his foot back on the gas, his hands on the wheel, his eyes on the road. He didn't know anything else to do but keep going. Dean would fix it. He just had to find Dean.
*
First, he had to find Tori. Tori knew where Dean was and, besides, it was his responsibility to take care of Victoria. She wouldn't be out here if it wasn't for him.
He'd passed the motel before he saw it, so he pulled into the next driveway. All of the lights were off in the building, so he didn't worry about finding a parking place, just stopped where he was and put the car in Park.
The motel had been blocked off with yellow crime scene tape, the parking lot emptied. Sam fingered the tape, feeling reluctant to pass it. He wasn't supposed to pass it, no one was. They were supposed to preserve the crime scene so the police could do their job and put the bad guys away.
There were some bad guys the police didn’t recognize, though. Some that they couldn’t do anything about. Dad helped with those, and Dad crossed the crime scene tape all the time. But he wasn't Dad.
He was going to be like him, though.
It still felt like pulling off part of his skin, pushing the tape up and ducking under it. Blood dripped down his arm.
He moved carefully, putting each foot down like the ground would crack and fall away. Don't step on the cracks or you'll break your mother's back, but his mother was gone, burned up on the ceiling in his nursey.
He tasted blood in the back of his throat, saw a clown staring at him that vanished when he turned to look at it head-on. His breath sawed in and out of his lungs. Maybe that was where the blood came from, the air barbed, except it felt thin. He couldn't seem to pull enough of it into his lungs.
"Think it's time for you to lie down, kiddo."
"No." He shook his head, and the ground swayed under his feet. The parking lot telescoped, stretching away to infinity. He took another step.
"I'm just looking out for you here, Sammy-boy. You don't look so good."
He didn't feel so good, either. Pieces were missing. Dean was missing. That couldn’t stop him, though. He just had to keeping putting one foot in front of the other. That was what Dean always said. You've got this, Sammy. Just keep going. One foot in front of the other. That's it.
When he looked up, he found the office in front of him, the opaque glass reflecting his face back at him. His eyes were dark. He pulled the door open. The lights were off. Light still streamed in from outside, tracing the outlines of the rack of brochures, the desk. The ledger was missing, but the bell was there.
So was Victoria.
He rounded the desk and found her sprawled on the floor, face clear of makeup, pale eyes staring blindly at the ceiling. Her fingers curled gently by her hips. Her throat gaped open, red and raw, like the clerk's had.
For long minutes he couldn't look away, couldn’t move, couldn't breathe. He'd done this to her. He'd killed her. Tears filled his chest, burned his throat, flooded his eyes. Gasping in a breath, he stumbled back—
And saw Dean. His legs went out from under him.
Arms wrapped around his chest, hauled him back. Between one blink and then next, he was outside, his own shocked face reflected back to him in the glass. He forgot to breathe. No. He couldn't see Dean. "No!"
"Sam!"
"Dean!" He squirmed, trying to force the arms holding him up and his body down, trying to twist, trying to thrash free. Trying to get free.
"Sam, stop!"
"Let me go! Dean!" He kicked back, again and again, doubling his efforts when he hit something solid.
"Dean's not here!" He got in an especially good kick, heard a curse, and then the world tilted. His feet hit nothing but air. "—Sam! ThunderCats! Ok? ThunderCats!"
It took a minute for the words to register. For the voice to match up. For him to remember telling his dad he wanted a secret password, too, like Dean had, when he was littler. For him to remember telling his dad that he wanted the password to be ThunderCats. Then his feet slowed.
"Dean's not in there, Sam," his dad said, voice rough. "Ok? He's not in there, Sammy."
His breath shuddered out. His heart pounded. He remembered Dean—still and bloody and expressionless. Dean was never expressionless.
"I know you think you saw him," Dad said. His forehead pressed into the back of Sam's head, his voice close and warm. "But I promise you, he's not here, Sammy. Ok? He’s not here. Can you believe me?"
Sam's throat clicked when he swallowed. His voice came out small. "He's really not here? Really not—" His throat closed around the word dead. Saying it would make it real, more real than the body he couldn't see any more that Dad said wasn't there. If he didn't say it, maybe Dad could unmake it. Bring Dean back.
"Really, really," Dad said. "You ready to get out of here, buddy?"
Sam nodded.
Dad put him down, got him turned around and walking with an arm around his shoulders. He couldn't get Dean out of his head, though. He'd been so still. Even when Dean slept, he wasn't that still. His chest would rise and fall, and his fingers would twitch, and if Sam looked really close, he could see his eyeballs moving behind his lids like he was reading really fast.
But that Dean hadn't done any of that. His eyes had been open and his hands hadn't moved, and Sam's chest had ached waiting for Dean's to expand, to contract, so he could breathe, too.
"Dad?" he asked, twisting around in his dad's grip. "Are you sure that wasn't Dean?" It had looked like Dean.
"I'm sure," Dad answered.
Sam locked out his knee stumbling down the curb, when the ground was further down than he'd expected, too busy looking over his shoulder to watch where he was going. He couldn't shake the idea that Dean was there. That they were leaving without him. "But maybe you should go check? I mean, what if he's there? We can't leave him, Dad. You didn't see."
"I saw." Dad gripped his shoulder, lifting him up the curb on the other side, then turned him and knelt. His hands held Sam in place, braced him. "I checked, Sammy. That wasn't Dean. I promise, that wasn't Dean."
Then Dad just keep watching him, serious and still holding Sam steady, making the promise stick. Dad was here and real and the dead-Dean got further and further away, until he was just hovering around the edges and hard to see, like after a nightmare, and Sam nodded.
Dad clapped his shoulder, pushed up, shepherded Sam the remaining feet to the Impala, held open the back door. Sam slowed, seeing the empty front seat. "But what about Dean? Are we going to get him?"
"Yeah, Sam. We'll get him."
Dad pushed, trying to get him in the car, but Sam set his feet. "Where is he, Dad?"
A beat. Sam looked up in time to catch an odd look on Dad's face. "Bobby's," Dad answered. "Faster you get in, kiddo, faster we can get there." Which made sense. They called Uncle Bobby, sometimes, when they needed an adult and Dad wasn't available.
Except Uncle Bobby would’ve gotten him, too.
Except Dean would’ve insisted on calling Sam as soon as he got out.
Except Dad's eyes flashed yellow just as Sam was turning to climb into the car.
Sam flung himself back. "You're not my dad!"
The demon was fast. He snatched Sam around the middle, hauled him up to his chest. But this time, he missed Sam's arms. Sam made fists and pounded the arm holding him, flung his body side-to-side like an eel when the demon tried to grab his arms. He kicked and screamed and scratched and told the demon he wasn't Dad until it got one of Dad's arms around his neck.
Then his body was pressed to Dad's and Dad's other hand pressed his head forward and he wasn't holding Sam's middle and his feet could brush the floor but not enough and he couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe and darkness ate at the edges of his vision, at the edges of his brain, and his hands pried and grabbed and dragged against Dad's arm but the demon was stronger than he was. It was stronger and it wasn't long before the darkness ate him all.
*
He hadn't expected to wake up. He especially hadn't expected to wake up with his arms and legs free in the back seat of the Impala. But maybe the demon didn't have to worry about him trying to escape. Maybe it could pin him to the leather and cut him open without touching him. He shivered at the thought.
"Sammy?" He held himself carefully still at the sound of his father's rough voice. It sounded like him, like he'd been up too long worrying and not talking, but that didn't mean it was really Dad.
And if it's not? You gonna play opossum until the end of the world, squirt?
"You with me, buddy?"
Reluctantly, Sam rolled on to his back and tipped his head toward his father. "Yeah," he croaked. He could still remember his dad's arm banded across his neck. The hard line of it. The phantom touch made his throat feel tight, his lungs ache.
"You think you can tell me what happened?"
His father, yeah—he didn't want to tell the demon. "Wraith," he murmured.
"What's that, buddy?"
With a sigh, he pushed up onto his elbows. Dad's eyes watched him in the rear view, normal and worried, but it was the flash of pale in the foot well that drew his eye, even as his hand touched something that wasn't leather. He looked.
Dean.
His fixed eyes stared straight at Sam, his body crunched into the foot well like a broken doll. Horror held Sam for a breathless moment, then bile rushed up his throat.
He threw himself at the door, numb fingers scrambling at the release. Distantly, he heard Dad yelling but the words weren't important. His body jolted against seat in front of him. Liquid spilled out of his mouth, bathing his lap. He didn't care. The the latch gave. His body fell against the door, forcing it open and dumping him to the ground.
Rocks and twigs bit at his face and arms, barked against his knees and elbows. Pain flashed across his body, but it didn't matter. Dean was dead. Nothing mattered.
The Impala had stopped ahead of him, skewed almost sideways off the shoulder, three wheels in the grass, but Dean didn't get out to see what was wrong with Sam. He didn’t get out. Dad did. Dad hit the ground running, face twisted with anger. "What the hell is wrong with you? Don't ever jump out of the car when it's moving, Sammy. Do you hear me? Don’t ever!"
As if that mattered. As if anything mattered with Dean dead. Dean, who'd been stuffed into the back of the Impala, limbs twisted haphazardly like he didn't matter, like he was garbage, only Dad never let them throw their fast food wrappers on the floor. He made them put them in the proper place, and he hadn't put Dean in his proper place.
"Sam—"
Dad's face was in front of him, and Sam swung. He heard bone crunch, felt pain explode through his hand, saw blood gush from his father's nose, and didn't care. "You killed Dean," he raged, and swung again. Again. Again. He couldn't consider that Dad was bigger, stronger, faster, better trained. He couldn't differentiate between his father and the demon. Dean was dead and it was his fault.
He swung and missed, found empty highway in front of him. "I didn't kill Dean! Sam, stop it! Listen to me!"
He didn't want to listen. He wanted to feel bone break under his fists, wanted blood to run warm under his hands, wanted to break and rend and tear and hurt like he was broken and rended and torn and hurting, and Dad didn't get it. He blocked and blocked, but Sam needed—
Hand suddenly caught, Sam was spun, his arm twisted up behind his back. He threw his weight against it to break free, ignoring the pain that burned through his shoulder.
"Sam, cut it out!"
He heaved, felt something tear, and then strong arms caught him around his waist, pulled him back into his Dad's chest, and Sam remembered this. He remembered what came next. He dropped his chin, startled when his dad's weight suddenly bore him to the ground. Pinned him. He strained and struggled but he couldn't move him arms, couldn't move his legs. A large hand pressed his head down, ground his face into the earth, and he tasted dirt.
He barely registered the prick through the surge of panic, the rush of rage that Dad wouldn't let him avenge Dean, so the wave of lethargy took him by surprise, washing him under before he realized it was there.
*
It left him in the Impala. He could feel the engine rumble in his bones, the cool-warm hug of the leather against his back, the groove of it too large from Dean always sitting in the front seat—dwarfing him, but some day he'd be bigger than Dean. His feet fell short of the glove compartment, his hands of the wheel. And Dad wasn't there.
"Bet you wish you'd taken my offer now, hmm, Sammy, m'boy."
He twisted toward the female voice, back to the window, and recognized the woman from the Police Station. Her eyes were yellow. "You killed my mom," he told it, the anger the wave had quenched flaring bright.
The demon smiled. "Is that your grievance? Poor little Sammy, growing up without his Mommy. Daddy doesn't love him, but at least he always has Dean—oh."
Rage flushed his body hot. In his mind, his heart, he pushed off the seat and wiped that stupid smile off the demon's face with his bare hands, but his arms and legs didn't move. He put all his effort into it, and his body never budged.
"That's right," the demons sing-songed. "He doesn't. Not anymore."
"Shut up!"
The demon lifted her eyebrows in polite surprise. "I'm sorry. Did you think you were in control of our little tete-a-tete? Hate to break it to you, Sammy, but you're just not strong enough." He gritted his teeth against her sympathetic moue, strained against the air. "Now, if you'd taken my offer. . . ."
"You don't have anything I want!"
"No?" Her lips twisted in a sly smile. "You sure about that?"
The woman was gone before he could respond, and so was the Impala. He turned in place, but there was nothing there except blackness. Then his stomach swooped and it felt like he was turned on his head.
"Run, Sammy," a low, rasping voice called from the shadows. "Run, run, as fast as you can—"
A clown face lunged at him, suddenly close, and Sam ran. He couldn't hear footsteps behind him, couldn't hear his own footsteps or feel the ground beneath his feet or the air pushing past his face, but he could feel the creature behind him and he couldn't stop running. If he stopped, it would—
”I need answers, Bobby!”
The ground dropped out from under him. His heart jumped into his throat.
Growls surrounded him. He crouched, hand brushing the ground he couldn't see, and strained to hear which direction they were coming from. They edged closer from the left, so he went right. Hot breath hit his face. Long, white teeth snapped in front of his face.
"Dean!" he yelped, dodging right. They snapped at his heels, their hot, wet breath just behind him. He could feel it, crawling along his skin, close and too close and closer and—
He bounced on Dean's bed, suddenly staring at water-stained popcorn ceiling flat on his back.
"—don’t know what to tell you, John. He’s not—”
Dean burst through the door. "Get up, Sammy! Hurry! We have to move!"
He disappeared as quick as he’d come, moving down the hall. Sam's stomach cramped with dread, but he rolled off the bed and charged after him, breath caught in his throat every second he couldn't see Dean. The hall was a blur, so was the living room, but he caught up with Dean in the foyer, running into his back when the front door stopped him. Dean pulled the door open.
Frantic barking filled the air, flash of fur and gnashing jaws and blood red eyes.
Dean slammed the door, pushed Sam back the way they'd come, gasping go, go, go in his ear, his hand an insistent prod against Sam’s back. Sam struggled to move faster, to run harder, but his legs felt heavy and impossible to move. Time seemed to drag forever.
They reached the back door and Sam twisted both hands around the handle, got it open. Dean bundled them outside, frantic gaze bouncing back and forth, but the yard was empty. They were clear—
”Listen. I found something in Sam’s pocket. A microfiche—”
A solid weight slammed into his back, bore him to the ground. Wet breath hissed by his ear, a long tongue whisping by his cheek. He scrambled forward on his elbows, head down to avoid the tongue, every muscle in his body cringing away.
He felt the weight fall away and rolled onto his back.
Dean's eyes stared down at him, stark and impossibly green in his white face, drawn and scared and young-looking. Blood dripped from the side of his mouth. His mouth opened in a scream. Sam couldn't hear it. He couldn't hear anything. But as he watched, something clawed open Dean's leg, then his chest, his stomach. Blood flowed like a river and Sam couldn't reach him, he couldn't—
"What the fuck is your problem, Sammy?"
He whirled.
”What’s wrong with him?
Found Dean just behind him, seated at a round table, his feet kicked up and textbook in his lap. "Dean?' he gasped.
”How the hell should I know? Killing the wriath should’ve done the trick”
"Man," Dean groused. "I know math is scary, but you need to know this shit."
"But you—you—" He'd been dead. He was dead, good as dead. Sam hadn't saved him. "This isn't real."
He backed away.
Dean watched him go, amused, expectant expression unwavering. He didn't ask what was wrong or come after Sam, and Sam didn't look away until he bumped into the wall. He checked where he was going, then looked back—
A clown stared back at him. A clown with Dean's face and Dean's eyes, but horrible and blank, washed white and red and unnatural and Sam drew breath to scream—
Darkness swirled down his throat, a black throat, a black tornado that felt like a punch to the gut, like being thrown in the air and slammed to the ground and everything went blank.
"How could you, Sammy?" Dean demanded, tears in his voice. But Dean didn't cry.
Sam opened his eyes. There was a gun in his hand. Dean was on the ground, staring up at Sam, braced to run but he didn't, and he didn't look away. "Dean?"
"You're a monster, Sam. You think I could let you live after what you've done?"
The gun barked. A neat, red hole bloomed in the center of Dean's head. His face drained of animation. Sam's blood drained right along with it. His arm dropped like his strings had been cut. "This isn't real," he repeated, feeling the desperation swell in his chest, in his gut, feeling it pull his arms and legs. "This isn't real."
"It's real, Sam," his dad's voice said, and Sam's eyes were drawn to his father, standing square and solemn bare feet away. "It's your fault Dean's dead."
"No." He shook his head, backing away—from Dad, from Dean, from the couple he’d killed that stared at him from over Dad’s shoulder, from these things that couldn't be happening. "No, you're lying. Dean's not dead!"
"Are you sure," the woman at his back asked.
Sam whirled. "You're not real."
"Oh, I'm very real, Sammy-boy. Your mind is wide open. I can do anything I want to you.”
She pressed her thumb to his forehead—through his forehead—and pain exploded through his mind. He screamed, loud and long and silent, like he could force everything inside out.
Then everything went black.
We have all the time in the world, Sam. Just you and me.
*
"He can't remember any of this, Bobby."
"I hear you, John. Lord knows Sam's had it bad as I've ever seen but—wiping his memory? You sure that's the right play here?”
"Dammit, Bobby! It's the only option we have."
"Well, all right, then."
Black.