The Voice of Rage and Ruin (Sam PG-13)
This was me forcing myself to write 2k today, so I apologize if it sucks. It took, like, 7 hours to get out with a break in between to make and eat dinner, but I'm kind of ashamed of my rusty muses. Although in their defense, this house is not my ideal writing environment at all.
Title: The Voice of Rage and Ruin
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,070
Warnings: Spoilers for the S3 finale and S4 speculation
Summary: 10_inspirations prompt an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth - Sam exacts revenge.
+++
Sam Winchester refused to die.
One moment the light was filling the room, Lilith's power drawing nearer as Sam was held pinned in place. The next it was receding, and he could move. Sam stood slowly, uncertainly, seeing naked fear on Lilith's face as she shakily told him to back off, to stay away. Sam picked the knife off the floor, thinking of nothing but this demon that owned his brother's soul, a soul that wasn't hers to own, no matter the deal that was made. He was about to deliver the blow, aiming the blade right for her throat, when Lilith's head shot back, the cloud of demon spewing forth, returning to Hell or wherever ejected demons go.
It was then that Sam noticed his brother, unmoving on the floor, and realized, even if he had killed Lilith, it still would've been too late. Dean was dead, and Lilith would have to pay.
+
He hadn't been able to recognize it at first, but as the days passed and the numbness took over, Sam was able to notice that something about him had changed. The giveaway was when Sam, in a fit of blind rage, pushed against the desk at Bobby's house and ended up shoving it across the room, slamming into the wall with a force that shook the house.
Sam had promised his brother that he wouldn't use his powers, but whatever had happened during Lilith's attack, whatever had changed in him, seemed to have forced his powers to the forefront. Sam couldn't control them anymore than he could his heartbeat. He had to ignore the sideways glance he got from Bobby when he changed the oil in the Impala and slammed the hood shut, accidentally breaking the hinges.
One week after Dean died, the visions returned.
When they first started, they had all been connected to the Yellow-Eyed Demon, who he had been connected to by blood. Now it was Lilith - she was back, tormenting a family in Fall Rock, Kentucky. Either she'd gotten her strength back or toying with humans was her way of recuperating. Sam wasn't blind to the fact that in a way he and Lilith were connected by blood, as well - Dean's.
The visions were from Lilith's perspective - baby dolls and birthday cakes from a terrified family that wasn't allowed to leave. She held them ensnared until killing them all, which seemed to be something she had a knack for. It ran like nightmares, day and night, whether he was awake or not. Lilith torturing, brutally killing farm animals, squirrels, then eventually moving on to the family, one after the other once they betrayed that they couldn't hold up the charade any longer, could no longer take pretending that she was still the daughter, granddaughter, niece in there. When she got to the third family in as many weeks, Sam knew he had to step in. It was more than revenge - his sanity was also at stake. With his supernatural strength, the visions that told him exactly where she was, and her unexplained fear of him, Sam had no reason not to hunt her.
The Colt was gone, but he still had the knife. That fucking bitch was going down.
+
Bobby didn't know how to talk to him anymore, so it was just as well the day Sam decided it was time to head back onto the road. He had needed to wait for Lilith to start with a new family - that gave him a week, at least, and that was assuming other demons weren't looking for Sam, watching out for him, posting warnings to each other as to where he was heading. It would take him twelve hours to get to Vernon, Utah if he stuck to major roads, which was, as always, completely out of the question. It felt strange heading out on his own, but it wasn't as if he'd never done it before. He'd had weeks of practice of living with Dean dead thanks to the Trickster.
Whenever he felt the pain of a vision coming on, Sam pulled over before it got too unbearable so he didn't drive his brother's car into a tree, and let the images, Lilith's cruel thoughts and desires, wash over him.
The vision left him sweaty and exhausted, stopping in the next motel he drove by. It was gaudy like they always were - this one in Scottsbluff, Nebraska going on an Oregon Trail theme complete with a canopy bed that was meant to feel like a covered wagon. Out of habit, Sam took the bed farthest from the door, feeling his eyes start to water as he contemplated the empty bed, picturing Dean cleaning their weapons or eating gravy fries in it. He thought of Lilith, the families she had destroyed, including his own, letting vengeance force his grief away.
Sam awoke the next morning to his phone ringing on the nightstand. He frowned at the screen, opting to ignore it. He would talk to Ellen after the job at hand - right now he needed no distractions, no cliche words about the pain of losing family. Sam had been too young to remember his mother's death, but he had always felt its effect on his family, and he all too clearly remembered Jess.. Dad... Dean...
The closer he got to Vernon, the stronger, more frequent the visions became.
"Happy Birthday to me!" Lilith was singing, clapping with a childish joy that mocked the body she was possessing. The terrified father was carrying in the cake, the candles glimmering brightly in the darkened room, as the mother set out plates, her hands shaking as much as her voice was while singing along. There were dead cats and kittens strewn throughout the house, some of them missing teeth or claws as Lilith had seen fit. They finished singing, the father picking up a much larger knife than necessary for cutting a cake. He looked at the mother pointedly, her eyes wide and urging, his scared but hesitant.
Lilith's gaze went from joyful to cross in an instant, the wrath focused on the father as she used her powers to lift him into the air and shove him against the wall, hands hitting the wall hard enough that his hands tightened and released in pain, sending the butcher's knife clattering to the floor. "Daddy, what's wrong?" Her voice turned dark. "Don't you love me, Daddy?"
"You're not my daughter," he spat. "You're a monster!"
Her eyes went white - Sam had seen this before. "No!" he cried out, watching but feeling helpless, trying to push against the invisible force that was holding him back like in a dream. "Stop!"
Lilith released the father, dropping him to the ground, and screamed, a sound so chilling Sam could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on ends. She continued to shriek, a keening, terrified wail as the mother ran to the father, seeking safety in numbers from this unpredictable demon with its claws in their daughter. They didn't know what was going to happen next, and neither did Sam. He had never seen this happen before. She stopped screaming suddenly, looking up and seeming to be looking at Sam with such fear and such hatred, jolting Sam out of the vision so hard he hit his head on the roof of the Impala.
She knew that he was on his way.
+
It took another two days for him to get to Vernon. Sam felt like he was functioning on automatic - one foot in front of the other, sleep, eat, drive. He did what he needed to do to keep on surviving, but Sam didn't feel like living. He thought about going into some seedy bar, drinking cheap beer and hustling locals at pool, but it all just reminded him too much of Dean. He needed to get to Lilith before she fled to a different body in the opposite corner of the country. She had somehow been able to sense that he was coming, which normally would have made Sam nervous, but instead it had peaked his interest. She had been about to kill the father and then just stopped when he yelled out. Had Sam actually stopped her? And he been the one that interfered somehow? And why was she still in Vernon when she easily could jump bodies or just go back to Hell where Sam wouldn't be able to touch her?
He ran into his first demon the next town over. Sam had stopped at a convenience store for a sandwich and a Red Bull when the clerk jumped him, eyes black as night. The clerk was a teenager, much shorter and lankier than Sam, who had no problem picking the demon up by its shirt and throwing it against the shelves. Sam had only pulled the knife out of the sheath he had fashioned for it on his lower leg when the demon escaped the body, leaving the clerk slumped on the floor, but by the time he regained consciousness, Sam had already taken off down the street in the Impala, not sticking around to offer up an explanation or to make sure he was okay.
A small town with a population under three hundred people, it didn't take Sam very long to find the house. Sam left the Impala parked on the side of the road five miles away and walked in with a duffle bag filled with rock salt rounds, the sawed off shotgun, and the knife. The town was eerily silent, nobody around, but when Sam walked by houses he noticed the curtains swinging like someone had been standing there, watching him, waiting for him, but none came out to stop him - possessed - like they had the night Dean died.
There was a swing hanging from a tree in the front yard that Lilith was playing on. Sam watched her, withdrawing the knife from its leather sheath and dropping the duffle bag. She stopped when she saw him, face blank, but Sam remembered her fear. He saw the parents peeking out through the lace curtains on the second floor. They weren't the best people, Sam decided. Better people would have tried to warn him about her, but they were too afraid of what might happen if Sam failed. Luckily for them, he wasn't there to fail.
"How did you do it?" she seethed. "I couldn't kill you, and then you stopped me from killing them." Lilith tilted her head back towards the house. "Why won't you let me play?"
"You need to be stopped." Sam raised the blade, tentatively walking forward, willing her with his mind to stay in the girl.
"Killing me won't get you anything. There are much stronger demons with me that want you dead." She backed up slowly as he advanced, voice starting to tremble.
"I'm not afraid," Sam replied, waiting for the right moment to pounce, muscles tight with anticipation.
Lilith smiled, twisting the girl's face into something horrible, before tilting her head back, the cloud visible in her mouth like cigar smoke, but it didn't erupt forth. Sam watched Lilith's eyes narrow, confused, clenching her fists in concentration, but nothing was happening. Lilith couldn't leave, and when this realization dawned on her, she started to scream for help, but nobody came. Sam jumped into action, reaching out with his long arms to stab the demon in the stomach and then again in the throat, the blue lightning pulsing through the body before going still.
It was too quick, too easy. There was no sense of righteousness or satisfaction. Time didn't reverse, go back to that night only a version of it where Dean didn't die. Sam hadn't expected it to, but he had been silently praying in the back of his mind. Now his last hope was gone, and he felt even more empty than he had before.
The family came rushing outside, gratitudes rushing out of their mouths as their eyes betrayed mixed emotions - tears of joy that they made it out alive but grief over the loss of their daughter. They watched uncomfortably as Sam collapsed to his knees in the grass, the bloody knife still clutched in his fist, as he let his own tears come for his brother, his best friend, that he had failed to save.
Title: The Voice of Rage and Ruin
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,070
Warnings: Spoilers for the S3 finale and S4 speculation
Summary: 10_inspirations prompt an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth - Sam exacts revenge.
+++
Sam Winchester refused to die.
One moment the light was filling the room, Lilith's power drawing nearer as Sam was held pinned in place. The next it was receding, and he could move. Sam stood slowly, uncertainly, seeing naked fear on Lilith's face as she shakily told him to back off, to stay away. Sam picked the knife off the floor, thinking of nothing but this demon that owned his brother's soul, a soul that wasn't hers to own, no matter the deal that was made. He was about to deliver the blow, aiming the blade right for her throat, when Lilith's head shot back, the cloud of demon spewing forth, returning to Hell or wherever ejected demons go.
It was then that Sam noticed his brother, unmoving on the floor, and realized, even if he had killed Lilith, it still would've been too late. Dean was dead, and Lilith would have to pay.
+
He hadn't been able to recognize it at first, but as the days passed and the numbness took over, Sam was able to notice that something about him had changed. The giveaway was when Sam, in a fit of blind rage, pushed against the desk at Bobby's house and ended up shoving it across the room, slamming into the wall with a force that shook the house.
Sam had promised his brother that he wouldn't use his powers, but whatever had happened during Lilith's attack, whatever had changed in him, seemed to have forced his powers to the forefront. Sam couldn't control them anymore than he could his heartbeat. He had to ignore the sideways glance he got from Bobby when he changed the oil in the Impala and slammed the hood shut, accidentally breaking the hinges.
One week after Dean died, the visions returned.
When they first started, they had all been connected to the Yellow-Eyed Demon, who he had been connected to by blood. Now it was Lilith - she was back, tormenting a family in Fall Rock, Kentucky. Either she'd gotten her strength back or toying with humans was her way of recuperating. Sam wasn't blind to the fact that in a way he and Lilith were connected by blood, as well - Dean's.
The visions were from Lilith's perspective - baby dolls and birthday cakes from a terrified family that wasn't allowed to leave. She held them ensnared until killing them all, which seemed to be something she had a knack for. It ran like nightmares, day and night, whether he was awake or not. Lilith torturing, brutally killing farm animals, squirrels, then eventually moving on to the family, one after the other once they betrayed that they couldn't hold up the charade any longer, could no longer take pretending that she was still the daughter, granddaughter, niece in there. When she got to the third family in as many weeks, Sam knew he had to step in. It was more than revenge - his sanity was also at stake. With his supernatural strength, the visions that told him exactly where she was, and her unexplained fear of him, Sam had no reason not to hunt her.
The Colt was gone, but he still had the knife. That fucking bitch was going down.
+
Bobby didn't know how to talk to him anymore, so it was just as well the day Sam decided it was time to head back onto the road. He had needed to wait for Lilith to start with a new family - that gave him a week, at least, and that was assuming other demons weren't looking for Sam, watching out for him, posting warnings to each other as to where he was heading. It would take him twelve hours to get to Vernon, Utah if he stuck to major roads, which was, as always, completely out of the question. It felt strange heading out on his own, but it wasn't as if he'd never done it before. He'd had weeks of practice of living with Dean dead thanks to the Trickster.
Whenever he felt the pain of a vision coming on, Sam pulled over before it got too unbearable so he didn't drive his brother's car into a tree, and let the images, Lilith's cruel thoughts and desires, wash over him.
The vision left him sweaty and exhausted, stopping in the next motel he drove by. It was gaudy like they always were - this one in Scottsbluff, Nebraska going on an Oregon Trail theme complete with a canopy bed that was meant to feel like a covered wagon. Out of habit, Sam took the bed farthest from the door, feeling his eyes start to water as he contemplated the empty bed, picturing Dean cleaning their weapons or eating gravy fries in it. He thought of Lilith, the families she had destroyed, including his own, letting vengeance force his grief away.
Sam awoke the next morning to his phone ringing on the nightstand. He frowned at the screen, opting to ignore it. He would talk to Ellen after the job at hand - right now he needed no distractions, no cliche words about the pain of losing family. Sam had been too young to remember his mother's death, but he had always felt its effect on his family, and he all too clearly remembered Jess.. Dad... Dean...
The closer he got to Vernon, the stronger, more frequent the visions became.
"Happy Birthday to me!" Lilith was singing, clapping with a childish joy that mocked the body she was possessing. The terrified father was carrying in the cake, the candles glimmering brightly in the darkened room, as the mother set out plates, her hands shaking as much as her voice was while singing along. There were dead cats and kittens strewn throughout the house, some of them missing teeth or claws as Lilith had seen fit. They finished singing, the father picking up a much larger knife than necessary for cutting a cake. He looked at the mother pointedly, her eyes wide and urging, his scared but hesitant.
Lilith's gaze went from joyful to cross in an instant, the wrath focused on the father as she used her powers to lift him into the air and shove him against the wall, hands hitting the wall hard enough that his hands tightened and released in pain, sending the butcher's knife clattering to the floor. "Daddy, what's wrong?" Her voice turned dark. "Don't you love me, Daddy?"
"You're not my daughter," he spat. "You're a monster!"
Her eyes went white - Sam had seen this before. "No!" he cried out, watching but feeling helpless, trying to push against the invisible force that was holding him back like in a dream. "Stop!"
Lilith released the father, dropping him to the ground, and screamed, a sound so chilling Sam could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on ends. She continued to shriek, a keening, terrified wail as the mother ran to the father, seeking safety in numbers from this unpredictable demon with its claws in their daughter. They didn't know what was going to happen next, and neither did Sam. He had never seen this happen before. She stopped screaming suddenly, looking up and seeming to be looking at Sam with such fear and such hatred, jolting Sam out of the vision so hard he hit his head on the roof of the Impala.
She knew that he was on his way.
+
It took another two days for him to get to Vernon. Sam felt like he was functioning on automatic - one foot in front of the other, sleep, eat, drive. He did what he needed to do to keep on surviving, but Sam didn't feel like living. He thought about going into some seedy bar, drinking cheap beer and hustling locals at pool, but it all just reminded him too much of Dean. He needed to get to Lilith before she fled to a different body in the opposite corner of the country. She had somehow been able to sense that he was coming, which normally would have made Sam nervous, but instead it had peaked his interest. She had been about to kill the father and then just stopped when he yelled out. Had Sam actually stopped her? And he been the one that interfered somehow? And why was she still in Vernon when she easily could jump bodies or just go back to Hell where Sam wouldn't be able to touch her?
He ran into his first demon the next town over. Sam had stopped at a convenience store for a sandwich and a Red Bull when the clerk jumped him, eyes black as night. The clerk was a teenager, much shorter and lankier than Sam, who had no problem picking the demon up by its shirt and throwing it against the shelves. Sam had only pulled the knife out of the sheath he had fashioned for it on his lower leg when the demon escaped the body, leaving the clerk slumped on the floor, but by the time he regained consciousness, Sam had already taken off down the street in the Impala, not sticking around to offer up an explanation or to make sure he was okay.
A small town with a population under three hundred people, it didn't take Sam very long to find the house. Sam left the Impala parked on the side of the road five miles away and walked in with a duffle bag filled with rock salt rounds, the sawed off shotgun, and the knife. The town was eerily silent, nobody around, but when Sam walked by houses he noticed the curtains swinging like someone had been standing there, watching him, waiting for him, but none came out to stop him - possessed - like they had the night Dean died.
There was a swing hanging from a tree in the front yard that Lilith was playing on. Sam watched her, withdrawing the knife from its leather sheath and dropping the duffle bag. She stopped when she saw him, face blank, but Sam remembered her fear. He saw the parents peeking out through the lace curtains on the second floor. They weren't the best people, Sam decided. Better people would have tried to warn him about her, but they were too afraid of what might happen if Sam failed. Luckily for them, he wasn't there to fail.
"How did you do it?" she seethed. "I couldn't kill you, and then you stopped me from killing them." Lilith tilted her head back towards the house. "Why won't you let me play?"
"You need to be stopped." Sam raised the blade, tentatively walking forward, willing her with his mind to stay in the girl.
"Killing me won't get you anything. There are much stronger demons with me that want you dead." She backed up slowly as he advanced, voice starting to tremble.
"I'm not afraid," Sam replied, waiting for the right moment to pounce, muscles tight with anticipation.
Lilith smiled, twisting the girl's face into something horrible, before tilting her head back, the cloud visible in her mouth like cigar smoke, but it didn't erupt forth. Sam watched Lilith's eyes narrow, confused, clenching her fists in concentration, but nothing was happening. Lilith couldn't leave, and when this realization dawned on her, she started to scream for help, but nobody came. Sam jumped into action, reaching out with his long arms to stab the demon in the stomach and then again in the throat, the blue lightning pulsing through the body before going still.
It was too quick, too easy. There was no sense of righteousness or satisfaction. Time didn't reverse, go back to that night only a version of it where Dean didn't die. Sam hadn't expected it to, but he had been silently praying in the back of his mind. Now his last hope was gone, and he felt even more empty than he had before.
The family came rushing outside, gratitudes rushing out of their mouths as their eyes betrayed mixed emotions - tears of joy that they made it out alive but grief over the loss of their daughter. They watched uncomfortably as Sam collapsed to his knees in the grass, the bloody knife still clutched in his fist, as he let his own tears come for his brother, his best friend, that he had failed to save.