In Your Shadow (I Am Reborn)
Title: In Your Shadow (I Am Reborn)
Author: emmram
Artist: amber1960
Rating: R
Warnings: SPOILERS till 5.22: Swan Song; AU afterwards; vaguely spoilery for s6. Violence, blood and gore, major character death, insanity, implied Sam/Lucifer.
Words: ~3,200
Summary: "Freedom became punishment became love became life a long, long time ago: Sam understands this now, and he will live this life the only way he knows how."
After two years-decades-centuries, Sam Winchester returns, irrevocably changed, a perversion of what he once was. He does not mind; he will not have it any other way.
Notes: This was written for this year's spn_reversebang. My heartfelt thanks to amber1960 for her gorgeous artwork that inspired this story, and ienablu for doing a fantastic job of betaing this fic.
Art Master-Post
(amber1960 was lovely enough to create a PDF of this story with the art. You can download it here.)
In Your Shadow (I Am Reborn)
It takes Sam about two hundred years to stop feeling pain.
At first he resisted it-he flinched and sobbed and screamed as Lucifer tore him apart as casually as pulling apart an insect. He would tear Sam’s limbs out of their sockets almost effortlessly, cut him open from neck to groin and plunge his hand in and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and would say, “this was supposed to hold me? This fetid sack of organs?” He would do this until a welcome darkness consumed Sam, but those periods of rest would never last very long. Sam would always come back whole, and it would start all over again.
It only took him a few decades to stop resisting and start accepting. He clung to the pain like it was his only remaining identity-when he couldn’t remember where or who he was, the agony would remind him. Lucifer wasn’t quite as angry as he was when he first started; he only gave what Sam neededneededwanted and both of them revelled in the symbiosis.
(you were made for me, sammy)
Then the need for identity vanishes, and Sam just... is. He stops thinking about the whys and the wheres and the whens, stops wanting, stops every last part of him that clung to humanity-and when Lucifer comes for him again (sammy, he’ll say, in between kisses and evisceration, sammy, do you know how much i love you?) he doesn’t love-hate-love him back. The devil grows tired of his impassivity (you cannot hold me anymore-you cannot even hold yourself anymore, he says with undisguised disgust as he tears Sam open and heals him at a furious pace; Sam agrees, and finds that he doesn’t really care).
Lucifer leaves, and Sam floats.
There comes a decade-year-day when everything changes. He’s surrounded by a blinding white light, and even as his eyes disintegrate and leave burning trails down his cheeks, a warm hand takes his, and a voice whispers in his ear, “It’s okay, Sam. You are saved.”
Sam doesn’t respond. He allows the hand to lift him up and away from the Cage. He hears the screams and chitters of a billion beings as he passes them by; feels their hands clutching at him, claws tearing new scars into his skin; tastes sulphur and blood and the indescribable stench of an eternity of suffering in the air. The hand keeps pulling, and Sam feels himself unravel as Hell (the only home he’s ever known) makes one last attempt to keep him. The sensation overload is too much as Sam breaks at both ends, and for the first time in decades-centuries-millennia, Sam opens his mouth to scream-
(please let me go back PLEASE)
-and sucks in a mouthful of fresh air. He’s lying on his back on what feels like wet grass, the blades pressing into bare skin. He opens his eyes to a vast, clear blue sky, the sun blazing high above him. A gentle breeze picks up, caressing him, bringing with it so many exotic smells-
Sam understands. Lucifer does this, sometimes-gives him a brief, tantalising taste of life outside of the Cage, then destroys the illusion just as hope begins to build in Sam’s chest. At first, Sam thought it was the worst kind of torture; then he began to relish it for the reward that it was.
Now, though-Sam only closes his eyes and waits.
He hears voices.
At first, it’s just a confused jumble of noises-words pitched high and low, dragging and distorting and melding into each other. He has to concentrate to make any sense from them, and even then he only catches phrases, bits and pieces of thought.
“-can you hear-”
“-obviously not, John, can’t you see-”
“-out of nowhere-”
“-at least get a goddamned blanket-”
“-excuse me? Sir, can you hear us? Sir?”
Someone is tapping his cheek incessantly, and Sam figures that he might as well go along with the charade. He opens his eyes to see a young girl crouched next to him, blonde hair falling in soft waves past her shoulders. Her face is plump and freckled, and when he blinks at her, she smiles warmly. It reminds Sam of Lucifer (everything reminds Sam of Lucifer). “Hey,” she says. “Are you okay?”
Sam only stares.
Her smile falters, and she looks uncertainly at her companion. It’s a man, a tall silhouette against the noon sun behind him, looming over Sam. “He’s probably in shock, or something, Cara,” he says. “I mean, look at him.”
The girl-Cara-shakes her head and pulls the blanket she’s draped over Sam higher. The cloth is rough against tender skin, and the action awakens a burning pain along his legs and chest, like his skin is blistering and peeling off. Sam relaxes a bit; he knows this is where Lucifer loses his patience and shatters the illusion. He wonders if he should feel proud that he’s managed to weary a being that’s older than time itself.
He wonders if he should feel anything at all.
“Don’t worry,” Cara says, getting up. “We’re taking you to a hospital. You’ll be fine.” She looks at the man again. “You take the shoulders, I take the feet?”
When the man doesn’t respond, Cara rolls her eyes. “Come on, John. We can’t just leave him like this. Look-we’ll come back as soon as we get him to the hospital and make sure he’s okay, all right?”
John sighs, but he comes around, crouches behind Sam’s head and hooks his hands under his shoulders. The touch is sure and warm, but not gentle-the man moves like he does not want to cause Sam pain, but has no idea how to do so. Sam’s confusion escalates. Lucifer never hovers uncertainly between pain and comfort; he conflates the two in a perverse sort of reasoning.
I know, Sam says. You can stop. I know.
Cara’s eyes widen, while John almost drops him in surprise. “What-what language is that?” John sputters.
Cara shrugs. “It’s going to be okay,” she articulates carefully. “Can you tell us your name?”
(sammy do you see do you hear feel sammy sammy SAMMY)
Sammy, he says.
She smiles. “Okay, Sammy-we’re just going to-”
She breaks off as within a split hour-minute-second, Sam springs to his feet and closes his hands around Cara’s throat. She bats at his hands fruitlessly, her face already turning red. John tackles him from behind with an angry cry, but Sam only has to jerk his head slightly to send John flying back, slamming into a tree. There is a loud crack and a thud as he falls, and then remains silent.
Cara’s struggles are slowing down, the red turning into blue, and as she makes one last feeble attempt to dislodge his grip, Sam understands. This is another charade, another challenge. Freedom became punishment became love became life a long, long time ago: Sam understands this now, and he will live this life the only way he knows.
I hope you’re watching, Sam says (but of course he’s watching; he’s always watching), and tears Cara’s throat out. He lets her fall and bleed into the ground. He tastes the blood on his fingers and smiles.
I knew a Cara once, he says conversationally. She tasted a whole lot better than you.
He looks down at his own body-it’s criss-crossed by raised ridges of scar tissue, long, winding wounds that have been brutally cauterised. His shins are covered in ulcers on the verge of healing, filled with red slough (he remembers the horrible stench when Lucifer would allow insects and worms to literally devour his legs from the inside-out-natural maintenance, he’d call it, and sometimes Sam would laugh with him), and the burns on his hands are barely scabbed over. His skin is so sensitive that even the cool breeze stings. The only part of him that’s escaped unscathed is the anti-possession mark on his chest-an ancient brand of magic that’s even managed to survive centuries in the Cage. Lucifer has been uncharacteristically clumsy in putting him together this time, and-
There is a peculiar burn on the back of his left hand-it is shaped like a hand itself, fingers curling over the edge of his palm. He frowns; this cannot be Lucifer’s, never has had to be Lucifer’s: his mark of ownership over Sam runs much, much deeper than some petty physical marking.
(you are saved)
Can there possibly be-
-no. There is no place for hope in his reality. His reality is whatever Lucifer makes it to be; to entertain any other possibility is to undermine the very fundamentals of his existence. There may be a world beyond the Cage, but Sam has never belonged in it. He understands that now.
Sam walks over to John and crouches by him. John is still, his head twisted at an unnatural angle, gazing unseeingly at Sam through half-closed eyes. He quickly strips John of his clothes and puts them on. They pull at some places and hang off him at others, but they cover most of his wounds and that’s all Sam needs.
He digs into John’s (his) pockets, finds a wallet and a ring with car keys and some fuzzy green toy hanging off it. If this truly is another one of Lucifer’s games (and it is), then he knows the next step:
He has to find Dean.
The first time he looks into a mirror is almost a year-week-day later, when the car begins to run out of fuel, and he realises that the rumbling in his stomach is not maggots crawling through his intestines, but hunger. He stops at a gas station, uses the money in John’s wallet to pay for the gas and some food. The cashier stares at him with an amusing mixture of fear and sympathy, and completes his transaction as quickly as possible, without saying a word.
Sam looks at the large mirror above the cashier’s head. His face has a long, barely-healed scar running from his right temple, across his cheek, ending just short of his lips. The scar’s contracture has pulled out his right lower lid slightly, and there is a near-constant, slow trickle of tears down that side of his face. The left side is extensively burned, and his scalp is covered in bristles of newly-regrowing hair.
Sam smiles, watches the movement turn the wasted landscape of his face into something splendidly grotesque.
Do you know that he tells me, he says to the cashier, that in a world full of abominations, I am the most beautiful? He lifts a finger and traces a slow, lazy line in the air. He watches as a corresponding line appears on the cashier’s throat, red and gaping and beautiful. I never understood what he meant by that. Not until now.
The man gurgles blood in response, his hands flying to his throat. Sam flicks his fingers, lets him fall. He picks up his food, and as an afterthought, grabs a couple of newspapers from the counter.
I am the most beautiful, he says, and walks out the door.
The world is full of lights, flashing red and blue and white. Sam is surrounded by voices asking him to step forward, put his hands above his head, kneel, surrender. Sam only raises his arms and laughs at the dozen guns pointing at him, at the dozen children behind those guns. You can have John’s car, he says. I’m where I need to be. I don’t need it anymore.
He feels their unease like the air is charged with it: it drips from them in great viscous strands, stilling their hands, tethering them to where they stand. Lucifer loves detail.
He clenches his raised hands into fists; feels every one of those dozen hearts stutter, skip and fail. They fall one by one, clutching at their chests and writhing comically. One of them manages to shoot; the bullet clips his shoulder, but Sam barely feels it.
When all of them are finally still, Sam crouches and turns one of the men around. He peers at the badge, makes out Cicero, Indiana, and smiles.
He’s finally made it. Lucifer would be proud.
Sam sees his photograph in the newspapers. It’s in full colour, and occupies nearly one quarter of the front page. Serial killer on the rampage, it says underneath in big bold letters, and the article goes on to talk about how the fingerprints and DNA samples obtained from the crime scenes has led to the identification of the killer: Sam Winchester, one half of a notorious duo of killers who’d supposedly died in police custody nearly four years ago.
Sam wants to roll his eyes at it. For all of his love for detail, Lucifer seems to have lost his imagination. You can do better than that, Sam says to the room in general. We’re going to have to talk about this once I get back, you know.
A couple dozen pairs of lifeless eyes stare back at him. He gets no response.
When the moment Sam’s been waiting for finally arrives, he’s not prepared.
It’s late evening, twilight just darkening into night. He’s walking down to Lisa (Dean)’s house when somebody accosts him from behind, pulls him back with a strong arm across his chest, pinning his upper arms. He feels the cold barrel of a gun pushing against the side of his neck, warm breath tickling the sensitive skin below his hairline. “You stop here, you son of a bitch,” comes the voice of the man holding him at gunpoint, and Sam feels a thrill of pleasure shoot down his spine.
It’s Dean-it’s Dean, and never before has Lucifer achieved such perfection. The voice, the touch, the greeting-hell, the amount of pressure behind the gun-everything. He thinks the beauty of the re-creation lies in how it was set up-for the Winchesters, violence has always been the language of love, where every punch, every harsh word, every cocked gun and brandished knife is another way of saying I am terrified of being without you. Sam wonders if his current relationship with Lucifer isn’t the same; wonders how, at some point over the last one hundred years, Lucifer became Dean.
Dean, he says. It’s so good to see you, man.
The barrel digs further into his neck. “Stop this,” Dean says. “Whatever the hell you are, you will stop using my brother’s body.”
Sam thinks that’s an interesting way to phrase it. None of the illusory Deans have ever told him that before. Sure, he says, and with minimal effort, breaks out of Dean’s hold. It only takes another thought to knock the gun out of Dean’s hand and send it skittering across the tarmac. I know what’s coming. It’s been fun, but-Sam turns, spreads his arms-it ends here, like it always does. Give me your best shot.
This is the part he’s learned to look forward to. It only takes a Dean a moment to kill him, but in that moment is a microcosm of their entire goddamned lives-it shows in Dean’s hesitation just before he pulls the trigger (unconditional love, devotion, grief), the sureness of his aim (betrayal, anger, a cold, sure desperation), when he gently closes Sam’s eyes afterwards (absolution in blood and death). When Sam wakes up in the Cage later, he’s always grateful.
This time, however-Dean doesn’t move; he only stares at Sam, his gun hanging loosely at his side. “Dammit, Sammy,” he says thickly, “Cas told me, but I didn’t expect-”
Sam frowns, tilts his head to the side. He wonders if Lucifer thinks he’s gotten too used to the routine. What’re you waiting for, Dean? he ventures.
Dean’s eyes are still skipping over his form, gleaming with tears, and Sam smiles, because he’s finally got it. It’s me, he says, reaches up and pulls down the collar of his shirt, revealing the anti-possession tattoo. See?
The tears spill over as Dean swallows convulsively. “I’m sorry, Sam,” he says. “You shouldn’t have-you shouldn’t have come back. Not like this.”
Sam laughs. Kill me, then. Get this charade over with.
Dean doesn’t, however. Dean only strides forward and embraces him, and some part of Sam’s mind tells him: only his brother can make a death threat and a hug with the same fierceness, the same flavour of desperation. Sam thinks of the strangely-shaped burn on his hand, thinks of what he has seen so far, thinks of-
Dean? he says with wonder. Dean laughs against his chest, then pulls back. “Sammy,” he says fervently, like the name is a prayer that’s been running through his mind for the past two (hundred) years. “Sam.”
“Castiel?” Sam asks carefully.
Dean nods. “He got you out, Sammy. I mean, he just-he couldn’t fix you, but we can. We’ll get through this together. We will.”
The words tumble out like he’s been rehearsing them, and all Sam can think is he’s not going to kill me. I’m not in the Cage anymore. The longer Sam stays silent, stewing in confusion, the more confident Dean gets, the more hopeful. Sam can practically see him glowing with it, building in his chest like a cancer.
However, for Sam-
Every Sammy feels like a death knoll for a beautiful dream. Sam is staggered at the magnitude of the betrayal that’s washing through him; at the abandonment.
He’s out. He’s escaped.
And Lucifer let him.
I don’t understand, Sam says, batting away Dean’s hands, stepping back. I don’t-
“Please,” Dean says. “Come on, man, just-please.” He steps forward, arm outstretched, and for the first time in decades-centuries-millennia, Sam feels a moment of sharp panic. Dean goes flying back, head slamming against a lamp-post with a dull, metallic thud. As Dean slides to the ground, dazed, Sam thinks he finally gets it.
(because he does. because he has to.)
He spent a lifetime in fear of Lucifer and another in love with him. Now, though-Sam has become him. It feels right-like the final step of a process, the answer to a riddle spanning the existence of the universe itself.
This freedom is Lucifer’s one last token of love.
Dean rises slowly, unsteadily, blood coating one side of his face, but his hope burns as bright as ever. Sam reaches with his mind for that hope and crushes it. He sees Dean convulse, more blood bubbling from between his lips, before he collapses to the ground, lifeless.
Sam crouches next to his brother, gently closes his eyes. The final enactment of the Winchester Swan Song. Thank you, Dean. He smiles, then turns and walks away.
The world awaits him.
Finis
Author: emmram
Artist: amber1960
Rating: R
Warnings: SPOILERS till 5.22: Swan Song; AU afterwards; vaguely spoilery for s6. Violence, blood and gore, major character death, insanity, implied Sam/Lucifer.
Words: ~3,200
Summary: "Freedom became punishment became love became life a long, long time ago: Sam understands this now, and he will live this life the only way he knows how."
After two years-decades-centuries, Sam Winchester returns, irrevocably changed, a perversion of what he once was. He does not mind; he will not have it any other way.
Notes: This was written for this year's spn_reversebang. My heartfelt thanks to amber1960 for her gorgeous artwork that inspired this story, and ienablu for doing a fantastic job of betaing this fic.
Art Master-Post
(amber1960 was lovely enough to create a PDF of this story with the art. You can download it here.)
In Your Shadow (I Am Reborn)
It takes Sam about two hundred years to stop feeling pain.
At first he resisted it-he flinched and sobbed and screamed as Lucifer tore him apart as casually as pulling apart an insect. He would tear Sam’s limbs out of their sockets almost effortlessly, cut him open from neck to groin and plunge his hand in and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and would say, “this was supposed to hold me? This fetid sack of organs?” He would do this until a welcome darkness consumed Sam, but those periods of rest would never last very long. Sam would always come back whole, and it would start all over again.
It only took him a few decades to stop resisting and start accepting. He clung to the pain like it was his only remaining identity-when he couldn’t remember where or who he was, the agony would remind him. Lucifer wasn’t quite as angry as he was when he first started; he only gave what Sam neededneededwanted and both of them revelled in the symbiosis.
(you were made for me, sammy)
Then the need for identity vanishes, and Sam just... is. He stops thinking about the whys and the wheres and the whens, stops wanting, stops every last part of him that clung to humanity-and when Lucifer comes for him again (sammy, he’ll say, in between kisses and evisceration, sammy, do you know how much i love you?) he doesn’t love-hate-love him back. The devil grows tired of his impassivity (you cannot hold me anymore-you cannot even hold yourself anymore, he says with undisguised disgust as he tears Sam open and heals him at a furious pace; Sam agrees, and finds that he doesn’t really care).
Lucifer leaves, and Sam floats.
There comes a decade-year-day when everything changes. He’s surrounded by a blinding white light, and even as his eyes disintegrate and leave burning trails down his cheeks, a warm hand takes his, and a voice whispers in his ear, “It’s okay, Sam. You are saved.”
Sam doesn’t respond. He allows the hand to lift him up and away from the Cage. He hears the screams and chitters of a billion beings as he passes them by; feels their hands clutching at him, claws tearing new scars into his skin; tastes sulphur and blood and the indescribable stench of an eternity of suffering in the air. The hand keeps pulling, and Sam feels himself unravel as Hell (the only home he’s ever known) makes one last attempt to keep him. The sensation overload is too much as Sam breaks at both ends, and for the first time in decades-centuries-millennia, Sam opens his mouth to scream-
(please let me go back PLEASE)
-and sucks in a mouthful of fresh air. He’s lying on his back on what feels like wet grass, the blades pressing into bare skin. He opens his eyes to a vast, clear blue sky, the sun blazing high above him. A gentle breeze picks up, caressing him, bringing with it so many exotic smells-
Sam understands. Lucifer does this, sometimes-gives him a brief, tantalising taste of life outside of the Cage, then destroys the illusion just as hope begins to build in Sam’s chest. At first, Sam thought it was the worst kind of torture; then he began to relish it for the reward that it was.
Now, though-Sam only closes his eyes and waits.
He hears voices.
At first, it’s just a confused jumble of noises-words pitched high and low, dragging and distorting and melding into each other. He has to concentrate to make any sense from them, and even then he only catches phrases, bits and pieces of thought.
“-can you hear-”
“-obviously not, John, can’t you see-”
“-out of nowhere-”
“-at least get a goddamned blanket-”
“-excuse me? Sir, can you hear us? Sir?”
Someone is tapping his cheek incessantly, and Sam figures that he might as well go along with the charade. He opens his eyes to see a young girl crouched next to him, blonde hair falling in soft waves past her shoulders. Her face is plump and freckled, and when he blinks at her, she smiles warmly. It reminds Sam of Lucifer (everything reminds Sam of Lucifer). “Hey,” she says. “Are you okay?”
Sam only stares.
Her smile falters, and she looks uncertainly at her companion. It’s a man, a tall silhouette against the noon sun behind him, looming over Sam. “He’s probably in shock, or something, Cara,” he says. “I mean, look at him.”
The girl-Cara-shakes her head and pulls the blanket she’s draped over Sam higher. The cloth is rough against tender skin, and the action awakens a burning pain along his legs and chest, like his skin is blistering and peeling off. Sam relaxes a bit; he knows this is where Lucifer loses his patience and shatters the illusion. He wonders if he should feel proud that he’s managed to weary a being that’s older than time itself.
He wonders if he should feel anything at all.
“Don’t worry,” Cara says, getting up. “We’re taking you to a hospital. You’ll be fine.” She looks at the man again. “You take the shoulders, I take the feet?”
When the man doesn’t respond, Cara rolls her eyes. “Come on, John. We can’t just leave him like this. Look-we’ll come back as soon as we get him to the hospital and make sure he’s okay, all right?”
John sighs, but he comes around, crouches behind Sam’s head and hooks his hands under his shoulders. The touch is sure and warm, but not gentle-the man moves like he does not want to cause Sam pain, but has no idea how to do so. Sam’s confusion escalates. Lucifer never hovers uncertainly between pain and comfort; he conflates the two in a perverse sort of reasoning.
I know, Sam says. You can stop. I know.
Cara’s eyes widen, while John almost drops him in surprise. “What-what language is that?” John sputters.
Cara shrugs. “It’s going to be okay,” she articulates carefully. “Can you tell us your name?”
(sammy do you see do you hear feel sammy sammy SAMMY)
Sammy, he says.
She smiles. “Okay, Sammy-we’re just going to-”
She breaks off as within a split hour-minute-second, Sam springs to his feet and closes his hands around Cara’s throat. She bats at his hands fruitlessly, her face already turning red. John tackles him from behind with an angry cry, but Sam only has to jerk his head slightly to send John flying back, slamming into a tree. There is a loud crack and a thud as he falls, and then remains silent.
Cara’s struggles are slowing down, the red turning into blue, and as she makes one last feeble attempt to dislodge his grip, Sam understands. This is another charade, another challenge. Freedom became punishment became love became life a long, long time ago: Sam understands this now, and he will live this life the only way he knows.
I hope you’re watching, Sam says (but of course he’s watching; he’s always watching), and tears Cara’s throat out. He lets her fall and bleed into the ground. He tastes the blood on his fingers and smiles.
I knew a Cara once, he says conversationally. She tasted a whole lot better than you.
He looks down at his own body-it’s criss-crossed by raised ridges of scar tissue, long, winding wounds that have been brutally cauterised. His shins are covered in ulcers on the verge of healing, filled with red slough (he remembers the horrible stench when Lucifer would allow insects and worms to literally devour his legs from the inside-out-natural maintenance, he’d call it, and sometimes Sam would laugh with him), and the burns on his hands are barely scabbed over. His skin is so sensitive that even the cool breeze stings. The only part of him that’s escaped unscathed is the anti-possession mark on his chest-an ancient brand of magic that’s even managed to survive centuries in the Cage. Lucifer has been uncharacteristically clumsy in putting him together this time, and-
There is a peculiar burn on the back of his left hand-it is shaped like a hand itself, fingers curling over the edge of his palm. He frowns; this cannot be Lucifer’s, never has had to be Lucifer’s: his mark of ownership over Sam runs much, much deeper than some petty physical marking.
(you are saved)
Can there possibly be-
-no. There is no place for hope in his reality. His reality is whatever Lucifer makes it to be; to entertain any other possibility is to undermine the very fundamentals of his existence. There may be a world beyond the Cage, but Sam has never belonged in it. He understands that now.
Sam walks over to John and crouches by him. John is still, his head twisted at an unnatural angle, gazing unseeingly at Sam through half-closed eyes. He quickly strips John of his clothes and puts them on. They pull at some places and hang off him at others, but they cover most of his wounds and that’s all Sam needs.
He digs into John’s (his) pockets, finds a wallet and a ring with car keys and some fuzzy green toy hanging off it. If this truly is another one of Lucifer’s games (and it is), then he knows the next step:
He has to find Dean.
The first time he looks into a mirror is almost a year-week-day later, when the car begins to run out of fuel, and he realises that the rumbling in his stomach is not maggots crawling through his intestines, but hunger. He stops at a gas station, uses the money in John’s wallet to pay for the gas and some food. The cashier stares at him with an amusing mixture of fear and sympathy, and completes his transaction as quickly as possible, without saying a word.
Sam looks at the large mirror above the cashier’s head. His face has a long, barely-healed scar running from his right temple, across his cheek, ending just short of his lips. The scar’s contracture has pulled out his right lower lid slightly, and there is a near-constant, slow trickle of tears down that side of his face. The left side is extensively burned, and his scalp is covered in bristles of newly-regrowing hair.
Sam smiles, watches the movement turn the wasted landscape of his face into something splendidly grotesque.
Do you know that he tells me, he says to the cashier, that in a world full of abominations, I am the most beautiful? He lifts a finger and traces a slow, lazy line in the air. He watches as a corresponding line appears on the cashier’s throat, red and gaping and beautiful. I never understood what he meant by that. Not until now.
The man gurgles blood in response, his hands flying to his throat. Sam flicks his fingers, lets him fall. He picks up his food, and as an afterthought, grabs a couple of newspapers from the counter.
I am the most beautiful, he says, and walks out the door.
The world is full of lights, flashing red and blue and white. Sam is surrounded by voices asking him to step forward, put his hands above his head, kneel, surrender. Sam only raises his arms and laughs at the dozen guns pointing at him, at the dozen children behind those guns. You can have John’s car, he says. I’m where I need to be. I don’t need it anymore.
He feels their unease like the air is charged with it: it drips from them in great viscous strands, stilling their hands, tethering them to where they stand. Lucifer loves detail.
He clenches his raised hands into fists; feels every one of those dozen hearts stutter, skip and fail. They fall one by one, clutching at their chests and writhing comically. One of them manages to shoot; the bullet clips his shoulder, but Sam barely feels it.
When all of them are finally still, Sam crouches and turns one of the men around. He peers at the badge, makes out Cicero, Indiana, and smiles.
He’s finally made it. Lucifer would be proud.
Sam sees his photograph in the newspapers. It’s in full colour, and occupies nearly one quarter of the front page. Serial killer on the rampage, it says underneath in big bold letters, and the article goes on to talk about how the fingerprints and DNA samples obtained from the crime scenes has led to the identification of the killer: Sam Winchester, one half of a notorious duo of killers who’d supposedly died in police custody nearly four years ago.
Sam wants to roll his eyes at it. For all of his love for detail, Lucifer seems to have lost his imagination. You can do better than that, Sam says to the room in general. We’re going to have to talk about this once I get back, you know.
A couple dozen pairs of lifeless eyes stare back at him. He gets no response.
When the moment Sam’s been waiting for finally arrives, he’s not prepared.
It’s late evening, twilight just darkening into night. He’s walking down to Lisa (Dean)’s house when somebody accosts him from behind, pulls him back with a strong arm across his chest, pinning his upper arms. He feels the cold barrel of a gun pushing against the side of his neck, warm breath tickling the sensitive skin below his hairline. “You stop here, you son of a bitch,” comes the voice of the man holding him at gunpoint, and Sam feels a thrill of pleasure shoot down his spine.
It’s Dean-it’s Dean, and never before has Lucifer achieved such perfection. The voice, the touch, the greeting-hell, the amount of pressure behind the gun-everything. He thinks the beauty of the re-creation lies in how it was set up-for the Winchesters, violence has always been the language of love, where every punch, every harsh word, every cocked gun and brandished knife is another way of saying I am terrified of being without you. Sam wonders if his current relationship with Lucifer isn’t the same; wonders how, at some point over the last one hundred years, Lucifer became Dean.
Dean, he says. It’s so good to see you, man.
The barrel digs further into his neck. “Stop this,” Dean says. “Whatever the hell you are, you will stop using my brother’s body.”
Sam thinks that’s an interesting way to phrase it. None of the illusory Deans have ever told him that before. Sure, he says, and with minimal effort, breaks out of Dean’s hold. It only takes another thought to knock the gun out of Dean’s hand and send it skittering across the tarmac. I know what’s coming. It’s been fun, but-Sam turns, spreads his arms-it ends here, like it always does. Give me your best shot.
This is the part he’s learned to look forward to. It only takes a Dean a moment to kill him, but in that moment is a microcosm of their entire goddamned lives-it shows in Dean’s hesitation just before he pulls the trigger (unconditional love, devotion, grief), the sureness of his aim (betrayal, anger, a cold, sure desperation), when he gently closes Sam’s eyes afterwards (absolution in blood and death). When Sam wakes up in the Cage later, he’s always grateful.
This time, however-Dean doesn’t move; he only stares at Sam, his gun hanging loosely at his side. “Dammit, Sammy,” he says thickly, “Cas told me, but I didn’t expect-”
Sam frowns, tilts his head to the side. He wonders if Lucifer thinks he’s gotten too used to the routine. What’re you waiting for, Dean? he ventures.
Dean’s eyes are still skipping over his form, gleaming with tears, and Sam smiles, because he’s finally got it. It’s me, he says, reaches up and pulls down the collar of his shirt, revealing the anti-possession tattoo. See?
The tears spill over as Dean swallows convulsively. “I’m sorry, Sam,” he says. “You shouldn’t have-you shouldn’t have come back. Not like this.”
Sam laughs. Kill me, then. Get this charade over with.
Dean doesn’t, however. Dean only strides forward and embraces him, and some part of Sam’s mind tells him: only his brother can make a death threat and a hug with the same fierceness, the same flavour of desperation. Sam thinks of the strangely-shaped burn on his hand, thinks of what he has seen so far, thinks of-
Dean? he says with wonder. Dean laughs against his chest, then pulls back. “Sammy,” he says fervently, like the name is a prayer that’s been running through his mind for the past two (hundred) years. “Sam.”
“Castiel?” Sam asks carefully.
Dean nods. “He got you out, Sammy. I mean, he just-he couldn’t fix you, but we can. We’ll get through this together. We will.”
The words tumble out like he’s been rehearsing them, and all Sam can think is he’s not going to kill me. I’m not in the Cage anymore. The longer Sam stays silent, stewing in confusion, the more confident Dean gets, the more hopeful. Sam can practically see him glowing with it, building in his chest like a cancer.
However, for Sam-
Every Sammy feels like a death knoll for a beautiful dream. Sam is staggered at the magnitude of the betrayal that’s washing through him; at the abandonment.
He’s out. He’s escaped.
And Lucifer let him.
I don’t understand, Sam says, batting away Dean’s hands, stepping back. I don’t-
“Please,” Dean says. “Come on, man, just-please.” He steps forward, arm outstretched, and for the first time in decades-centuries-millennia, Sam feels a moment of sharp panic. Dean goes flying back, head slamming against a lamp-post with a dull, metallic thud. As Dean slides to the ground, dazed, Sam thinks he finally gets it.
(because he does. because he has to.)
He spent a lifetime in fear of Lucifer and another in love with him. Now, though-Sam has become him. It feels right-like the final step of a process, the answer to a riddle spanning the existence of the universe itself.
This freedom is Lucifer’s one last token of love.
Dean rises slowly, unsteadily, blood coating one side of his face, but his hope burns as bright as ever. Sam reaches with his mind for that hope and crushes it. He sees Dean convulse, more blood bubbling from between his lips, before he collapses to the ground, lifeless.
Sam crouches next to his brother, gently closes his eyes. The final enactment of the Winchester Swan Song. Thank you, Dean. He smiles, then turns and walks away.
The world awaits him.
Finis