Where the Shadows Lie, Chapter Two
Title: Where the Shadows Lie
Author: JALover7
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sam+Dean gen
Spoilers: 7.23 “Survival of the Fittest”
Genre: angst, hurt/comfort
Disclaimer: Supernatural isn’t mine, but you already know that.
Summary: Coda to the season 7 finale, so major spoilers. In his quest to rescue Dean from Purgatory, Sam gets help from an unexpected source, and something that’s been missing for a long time comes back. Multiple chapters, WIP.
AN: This chapter comes with a warning for gore/violence. I don’t think it’s anything too drastic, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Also, I can’t believe I didn’t spell-check Jody’s name. Opps. It’ll be spelled right from now on.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Where the Shadows Lie
Chapter Two: Where I Can't Follow
Sam wakes in the middle of the night, jerking up in bed, panting heavily, tears drying on his face. He can still hear it. The screams. The roars.
Dean calling his name in fear.
Sam? Sammy? SAM!
Sam closes his eyes and it’s all he can hear. His brother calling out for him, like a plea, a cry for help, and Sam feels utterly powerless.
He climbs out of bed and heads to the bathroom. Splashes cold water on his face. He glances in the mirror, noting that he looks like crap. He’s pale, hasn’t shaved in two weeks, and there are dark circles under his eyes.
He hasn’t been sleeping well lately. Every time he falls asleep, his mind plagues him with images of Dean in Purgatory. Dean fleeing in terror. Dean fighting off all kinds of creatures. Some of them are new. Huge, scaly, horrible monsters that Sam can’t name and never wants to.
Most of them are familiar. A wendigo. A rakshasa. The shtriga that tried to kill him. The vampire that turned Dean while Sam stood by and watched. A nasty werewolf that tried to kill Dean on his sixteenth birthday. A shapeshifter wearing Sam’s face.
Ruby.
Lilith.
Old Yellow Eyes himself.
Tonight, it had been Alastair. Tonight, he had watched as Alastair tortured Dean in Purgatory, just like he must have tortured him in Hell. Watched as Alastair reminded Dean of all the things he did to those souls in Hell. Sam watched Dean break, watched him call out to his brother, begging for help.
Sam shakes his head, trying to rid his mind of the images from the dream. He’s not sure if these are visions, or simply nightmares his sick, anxious, guilt-ridden mind is torturing him with. Either way, he just wants them to stop.
He sighs and heads back to his room. He’s been hitting the books for two weeks, and he hasn’t found anything. He’s been to countless libraries, surfed the Internet, called John’s old contacts and even tried some of Bobby’s. Nothing.
The sleeping pills Jody gave him haven’t really helped. Sam’s beginning to think they’re only making the nightmares worse.
He climbs back into bed and closes his eyes. As he starts to drift back to sleep, he thinks of something.
He pulls on his shoes and heads out to the car. He can’t believe it’s taken him this long to remember it.
Sam digs around in the glove box and pulls out a battered copy of “The Hobbit,” something Dean would never be caught dead reading. Shoved between the pages is an old leather pouch. He opens it and dumps the contents out into his palm.
Dean’s amulet.
Sam feels himself smile, the first smile he’s worn since his brother was sucked into Purgatory.
When Dean dropped it in the trashcan of that motel room, Sam couldn’t bear to leave it behind. He still isn’t sure why he took it. Maybe because he thought Dean might want it again someday, or that for whatever reason he might need it. Maybe because Sam had grown more attached to it than he’d realized. Regardless, Sam had held onto it all these years.
He’d hid it in the Impala’s glove box before he’d let Lucifer possess him, not knowing if he would ever get it back, but feeling hopeful at the idea that Dean might find it someday.
When Sam had finally gotten his soul back, he’d checked to make sure it was still there. He’d thought about taking it out, but he knew it’d be safer with the car. Dean would never let anything happen to his baby.
Back in his room, Sam sits down on the edge of the bed and gently slides the necklace on. The last time he wore this, Dean was in Hell. It feels…right, somehow.
Sam lies down and closes his eyes.
He’s asleep within minutes.
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“Samuel? Sam?”
He’s dreaming, he knows he’s dreaming. He’s lost in a dark fog, can’t see anything around him, but he knows that there’s nothing to see anyway. He can feel, though. There’s an energy in the room with him. Strong. Powerful. And kind. It wants to help him.
“Sam.”
“Dad? Dad, is that you?”
He knows it’s not his father, but it sounds like him. Or at least…it feels like him. It’s hard to describe. Sam’s never had a dream like this before. Or a vision. Or whatever the hell this is. It feels different.
“No, my son,” the voice answers. “I do not have much time, so you must listen to me carefully. Purgatory was created to hold monsters, to keep them from Earth, that is true. But there is a way in. A loophole, created to retrieve soldiers lost in battle, to rescue those who do not belong.”
“Dean. You…you can help me save Dean?”
“I will tell you how to get in, Sam. I will help you save your brother.”
Sam feels tears spring to his eyes. The tiniest part of him, the logical part of his brain, thinks he shouldn’t trust this. It’s just a dream, after all. His dreams have never helped him. But Sam knows he can trust this…whoever this is. In his heart he knows that this being will help him find Dean.
“Who are you?” Sam asks, and as soon as the words leave his mouth, he knows he will not get an answer.
“I am sorry, Samuel, for what you and your brother have been through. I truly am.”
“I don’t-”
Suddenly, the air around him is on fire. Light flares up out of nothing, and everything is so bright Sam knows his eyes should be burning out of his head.
“Soon you will understand….”
And just like that-
Sam sits bolt upright in bed, gasping, body and sheets soaked with sweat.
“Sam? Sam, are you all right?”
Jody’s sitting next to him, hands on his shoulders, concern evident on her face.
Sam pants, forces his breathing to slow down.
“I heard you screaming. It’s okay now, Sam. You’re-”
“I know how to save Dean.”
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He can’t write it down.
Every time he tries to write it down - the ingredients, the symbol, the incantations - he ends up writing down something else. A grocery list. The Pledge of Allegiance. The lyrics to “Stairway to Heaven.”
He can’t talk about it, either. Every time he tries to say the steps out loud, he finds himself inexplicably mute.
But it’s okay, because it’s all branded into his brain. Every step of the ritual to rescue Dean from Purgatory. It’s all right there in his head, and somehow he knows that he will never forget it.
The difficult part is explaining to Jody how a ritual that he can neither write down nor tell her about is going to save Dean.
“Sam…I don’t understand. You can’t write it down, and you can’t tell me about it. How do you know it’s going to work?”
“I’m sorry,” Sam apologizes. “I know it sounds crazy, but…when you’ve been doing this kind of thing for as long as I have, you know when to trust a feeling. This is going to work. I know it.”
She smiles at him, tells him that if he’s so sure, she’s not going to try and stop him. But the smile doesn’t reach her eyes, and Sam knows she’s lying. She’s humoring him, maybe pities him, but Sam doesn’t care.
He takes the next day to gather all the ingredients he needs. It’s a fairly simple ritual. Everything he needs he can find in his supplies.
Once he’s gathered the ingredients, he’s ready to leave. Jody’s worried about him going to the middle of nowhere to do this, but Sam isn’t sure what the ritual will do, and he doesn’t really want to open a door to Purgatory in the middle of her living room. So she lets him go, but not before giving him a hug, telling him to be safe, and reminding him to call her as soon as he gets back.
She’s still worried about him. She hugs him like she’s afraid she’ll never see him again. Sam wishes he could reassure her; that she could understand just how sure he is that this is going to work. But he can’t.
So he drives a few miles down the road to an old abandoned farmhouse.
The ritual requires a symbol: small and simple, drawn with the blood of the rescuer who intends to enter Purgatory. Sam doesn’t even flinch as his blood drips into a wooden bowl, as he carefully paints the symbol on the farmhouse floor.
The ritual requires an object that belongs to the person you’re searching for. The object will be used to help find the lost person: the more powerful the connection between object and person, the easier it will be to find them. Sam places Dean’s amulet in the center of the symbol. It’s been a long time since his brother has seen it, but Sam knows he’s making the right choice. It used to mean a great deal to Dean. And after everything that has happened…Sam trusts that the amulet will help him find his brother.
Finally, the ritual requires a sacrifice. A small bowl of herbs, sprinkled with the rescuer’s blood…and a piece of the rescuer himself. Sam trusts that this will work, more than he’s trusted anything before, but he’s human, and he can’t help but flinch as he brings a knife up to his left arm, whispers a few words in Latin, and cuts his hand off at the wrist.
Sam closes his eyes as he screams. But it’s just a reflex, because there is no pain.
Sam opens his eyes. His stomach does somersaults at the sight of his left hand sitting on top of the bowl of herbs. But when he looks down at his arm, the wound is sealed tight in fresh new skin. It’s like his hand was never there.
No blood, no pain. Nothing.
Sam allows himself a moment to wonder before he continues the ritual.
He whispers the next few words of the incantation as he sets the bowl on fire. The blood and bone are a link, binding him to Earth. The sacrifice proves the intent of the rescuer. True, noble, willing to sacrifice anything to save the person who has been lost.
Sam is more than willing.
As he continues to chant, the ground quakes beneath him. Sam gets to his feet and steps back as the symbol begins to glow white. Soon the amulet and the bowl are glowing as well. The glow begins to spread, rising up from the floor to the ceiling, forming a perfectly circular door. As he utters the last words, the portal begins to pulsate. Sam takes a step closer, and he can just make out dark woods within. He can feel the energy of the place from where he stands. It’s sickly, dark…evil.
He steps into the void without a second thought.
tbc...