SPN: "Affliction," Chapter 6
Chapter 1: Anosmia
Chapter 2: Ageusia
Chapter 3: Anaphia, Part 1
Chapter 3: Anaphia, Part 2
Chapter 4: Anacusis
Chapter 5: Anopia
Aftermath
Eighteen months later
The downstairs is so stuffed with people that Sam can hardly move. Most of them are strangers to him. Dean and Cas are the ones who know the neighbors, because Sam seldom leaves the house (their house, Jesus) except to go to the backyard or over to Bobby's. Dean has his classes at the center, and he's always outside on nice days, indulging his inner twelve-year-old with the local twelve-year-olds. When he's at home, the single moms (and a few of the married ones) among their neighbors flock to their kitchen to exchange recipes with Cas, since that gives them an excuse to ogle Dean.
But before the medical fiasco this past September, when a blood clot nearly cost Sam his leg, hardly anybody outside their inner circle knew he was here. He has to deal with fewer stares when he stays in the backyard. Occasionally, Dean will bully him into taking a walk, the blind threatening the crippled with a leash, but Sam's inability to communicate with normal people makes interaction problematic, to say the least. And after that mess with the social worker who completely misunderstood and assumed that Sam's ability to reply to Dean's conversation meant he was faking his deafness, Dean hasn't even done that much very often.
Now, though, everybody at least knows that Sam is Dean's brother, which means that half the neighbors--the single half--want to use him to get further into Dean's good graces. They all know that something's wrong with him, but only Mrs. Ihle, the widow from across the street, knows all the particulars. The rest think he has some kind of mental problem--a weird kind of autism or some mental deficiency, maybe the result of brain damage, given the awkward way he walks.
Sam doesn't need to hear to read their expressions. For most of them, the gazes have changed from mere appreciation of Dean's looks to blatant hero-worship, because surely only a saint would take care of his idiot brother when he has his own handicap to deal with. They don't realize that that particular attitude is just going to ensure that Dean's never more than nice to them. He doesn't need eyes to sense when people have a negative opinion of Sam, and nothing kills a woman's chances with Dean more quickly than disliking Sam.
Normally, when strangers come over, like Dean's poker group, Sam retreats to his room or the den, but tonight, the house is so packed that it's not an option. Nobody's actually in Sam's room, of course, but it's December and everybody's bundled up, more than the line of hooks by the front door can handle, so it's been commandeered as a cloakroom. The den, which serves as Sam's personal library and research room, is packed full of little kids and videos and games and child-safe beverages, with a rotation of responsible adults so that everybody gets a chance to spend time in the adult gathering in the living room. He doesn't think there's anybody upstairs, but he's not about to risk climbing stairs with this many eyes on him. Hiding in the bathroom would just be temporary--and rude, since there's enough people here that it's hardly ever empty. There's the back porch--except that Cas is employing the weather to keep the beer cold and free up space in the actual fridge, and Sam thinks that might be where the smokers are sneaking out.
The kitchen? Not while Cas is playing mad caterer. Sam still has some survival instinct left. Plus, Dean insisted on Cas inviting friends, and Sam is dead certain that the two men who showed up as Cas's guests are not fully human. For one thing, they were dressed for Bermuda, not Christmas in South Dakota. For another, Cas doesn't know anybody else. Making friends does not figure into his interpretation of his punishment.
Punishment. Right. Michael thinks it is, surely, that he restored "little Castiel's" powers and rank in Heaven--it ultimately wasn't Cas's fault that the Apocalypse got derailed so thoroughly--but then ordered him to Earth to take care of the Winchester brothers until they died, just in case somebody figures out how to undo the damage and the vessels become useful again. Sam's pretty sure Cas thinks he got the better of that deal. He knows he and Dean did. They couldn't manage this without Cas, not five senses short. Dean could, if he was on his own. But Sam can't, and Dean can't take care of Sam without help.
A pack of kids tears through the hall, racing for the kitchen, and Sam automatically throws himself back against the wall to protect himself from getting tripped or trampled. He hits hard enough that his lungs protest and it takes a second to get his breath back. He needs to get out of here. Just for a minute.
He starts edging toward the front door, smiling nervously whenever somebody comes up to chat or offer to help him assemble a plate of snacks. When Dean or Cas is with him, he's okay, they can relay--but Dean's with the rest of the little kids and Cas is busy. Very few of the guests know that Sam's deaf. Dean's always forgetting to tell people.
One or two of the teachers from the center realized it as soon as they tried to talk to him, and tried to sign, but Sam doesn't know ASL. He tried--he spent three months trying--but for the first time in his life, he found something that he literally could not learn. Signing is a full-body exercise, and it requires a certain amount of sensory input from the skin in order to get the correct "feel" of the signs as they're made. Reading signs is difficult, too, though the reasons for that are less clear--maybe some bit of crossed wiring left over from what the goddesses did to him. He's a little better at reading lips, but that requires practice, which requires contact with people, and that he avoids as much as possible.
In those same three months, Dean learned the basics of Braille and echolocation, figured out how to use a collapsible white cane as an emergency weapon, collected enough information to decide that a guide dog would be more trouble than help for their household, and obtained the phone numbers of every attractive-sounding female at the center. Not to mention helping Cas set this place up.
The adults in the living room are at least a little less hazardous to Sam's progress than the kids. About half of them are blind--Dean's poker group and other friends from the center--so they're not staring at Sam, at least. Bobby--no longer in a wheelchair, thanks to the renewal of Cas's powers--Ellen, Jo, and Bobby's sheriff friend are standing in a corner, avoiding the press of civilians, undoubtedly being very careful to keep to normal conversation. Jo waves at him, gesturing him over, but he shakes his head, then jerks his head in the direction of the front door. She nods, understanding, and says something to the others. Bobby pushes himself away from the window, clearly intending to come help, but Sam shakes his head again. He doesn't need to be rescued, he just needs to be alone for a few minutes.
Finally, he escapes. The air is undoubtedly freezing, but Sam was so desperate to get away from people that he didn't think to get his coat. There's a slight breeze--he can tell by the way the lights hanging from the porch eaves move in the wind, and the occasional bob of one of the inflatable monstrosities in their yard. It can't be too bad, though; Jo or Bobby would have stopped him if he were about to walk into dangerous windchill.
It would have been safer to brave the stairs and go into Cas's room--Cas doesn't mind; he's hardly ever in there, since he doesn't need to sleep--and maybe invoke the sanctuary. A nice peaceful trip to the lake would do him good right now. But Dean will come looking for him eventually, and Sam isn't yet ready to tell him that he still has access to it. Dean won't understand.
Some days--like today--Sam thinks he's on the brink of madness. Dean and Cas want the party to be Sam's introduction to the neighborhood, a way for him to meet the neighbors and maybe make some friends, but it's really just a bitter reminder of everything he lost to stop the Apocalypse.
It's been two years since he smelled or tasted anything, nearly that long since he last was able to touch. The silence is made slightly more bearable by the link Cas created so that Sam can hear Dean the way he hears the angel, but those two voices are all he ever hears, and he only hears them when they want him to.
Some days, he just wants to crawl into bed and invoke the sanctuary and never leave. There, at least, he's human again, and if the food and drink are imaginary, who cares? He can taste it. He can walk without fearing that he's going to stumble. He can have conversations that aren't reliant on gestures and notepads, and so what if they're with assorted deities and various long-dead pagans? He can touch, and some of the goddesses are not at all averse to sharing that with him.
But other days, he watches Dean laugh as he explains to Cas why Christmas means there absolutely must be a giant inflatable Frosty on the roof, and it doesn't matter that all his food is tasteless. He watches Dean bring actual honest-to-God friends into the house to listen to a football game or play poker with Braille cards, friends who have never known that ghosts and goblins are real, and it doesn't matter that he can't hear the raucous laughter. He watches Dean flirt with every single mom who sits in the kitchen pretending to be here to swap recipes with Cas, and it doesn't matter that he can't smell their perfume. He listens to Dean gush about the job the occupational therapy center has arranged for him, sees the way Dean's sightless eyes light up when he talks about the kids he'll be helping, and it doesn't matter, not one bit, that Sam's skin is permanently numb.
His brother has a life, a real life. It turns out eyes aren't a necessity for that.
And if the price of that life is that Sam doesn't have one--well, no matter what anybody says, he did set Lucifer on the world. What he has now, limited as it is, is way more than he deserves.
Sam leans against a porch support (checking to make sure he's not smashing a delicate Christmas-light bulb) and looks out into the night. Their neighbors all have Christmas lights, though none of the displays come close to matching the chaos on their own roof. "Tacky" does not begin to describe what happens you mix Dean, an angel, and Christmas lights. With Cas projecting flashes of sight the way he projects his voice into Sam's head, Dean was able to supervise, and Dean's taste is not all that much better for being blind. Sam tried to convince them both to wrestle it back within the bounds of good taste, but Cas--not Dean--resisted. Something about it being the season when light's needed most, though what that has to do with inflatable snowmen on the roof, Sam has no idea. He's reasonably sure their house could be used as a beacon for aircraft, and he thinks at least one of those tacky inflatable things plays music.
(Okay, so maybe he's still a little annoyed that they made him take the sign that said "The blind man did the decorating" out of the arms of the light-up angel on the front lawn. The neighbors thought it was hilarious, even if they didn't get the entire joke. And God knows the Christmas Brigade hadn't let him do anything else.)
It's peaceful here now, the multicolored lights almost as soothing as the sanctuary. A few more minutes, and his jangled nerves will calm down enough that he can go back in. Maybe he can sit down next to Mrs. Ihle. She's eighty if she's a day, but if the way Dean flirts with her is any indication, she sounds fifty years younger and quite attractive. Her husband had MS, so she's used to dealing with somebody with mobility and dexterity issues. Since she met Sam, she's started carrying a notebook, and she not only has neat handwriting, she writes fast, so he can actually manage something approximating a normal conversation with her.
More importantly, she didn't know him before, so her eyes don't have the perpetual sad shadow of what-once-was, the way Bobby's and Ellen's and Jo's and even Cas's do.
"Hello, Sam."
Sam jerks around in sheer reflex, managing to wrap his arm around the porch support at the last minute to keep himself from unbalancing and toppling down the porch steps. There's a woman sitting in the porch swing, a woman who was not there when he stepped outside. The breeze ripples her long silver hair, and she gazes at him with fondness that isn't quite human, a faux-beatific smile he remembers too well. "Lucifer," he says, and thinks he might even hiss the word.
"No joyous welcome?" Lucifer's voice echoes in his head, the same way he hears Cas and Dean. It's been so long since he's heard anything besides those two voices that his instincts are screaming at him the same way they once would have if he walked into a house and smelled sulfur.
But the house is full of civilians, and Lucifer would probably just vanish the way angels do, so Sam grits his teeth and forces himself to stand there rather than sounding an alarm. Lucifer's not a threat. Not yet. "New outfit?" he asks, doing his best to sound snide.
"Oh, this?" Lucifer picks at the front of her dress. "I had to let poor Nick go. He had the bad manners to fall apart on me. Left the worst spot on the carpet." She shrugs. "Plenty more where he came from, though. This is his second cousin four times removed, I think." She gives him a smile that is undoubtedly meant to be flirtatious. It makes Sam shiver in a way that cold never could. "Also some distant relation of yours, I think. It is a bloodline, after all. It's not Nick and Sheila's fault that they weren't properly prepared."
"Is that what you're calling it now?"
"My dear brothers hedged their bets by putting a few limitations on me while they had me tucked away in Hell. And then, of course, they forgot to tell the underlings to undo them. Luckily, I had Azazel to see to that for me." Lucifer gives him that false smile again. "But once I settled in, I had the most remarkable piece of news fall into my new lap about how there was a deed in Sioux Falls that had 'Sam and Dean Winchester' on it, and I just had to come investigate."
Right. Cas had been a little fuzzy on the whole "wanted" thing, plus he doesn't technically exist, so the house is in their names. Their real names. Watching Dean's head explode had been rather amusing, though not half as much as when he realized that they couldn't angel-proof the place if they expected Cas to live here. "So what? You decided to lay off sparking volcanoes just to come see me?"
"I bore quickly."
"I'm sure the people in Reykjavik appreciate it."
"You didn't expect me to just retreat into Hell, did you?"
Sam allows himself a smile. "No, actually, the childish temper tantrum was exactly what we expected. What was it? Two volcanoes and a hurricane?"
"Three volcanoes, a hurricane, and two earthquakes, and I thought about lighting Yellowstone, but I decided I wasn't ready to incinerate you just yet."
Like Pele and Chantico would let him spark Yellowstone. Pele, especially. She's a little temperamental, and like most deities whose people were poorly treated by missionaries, she really hates angels. She only let him get away with the other volcanoes because they were fairly isolated--and because the other goddesses convinced her that a couple of small volcanoes were better than having Lucifer throw a real tantrum. "What do you want, Lucifer?"
"A fallen angel can't just visit?"
"No."
Lucifer sighs dramatically, but his (her?) voice hardens. "What I've always wanted. My vessel." Sam can see his fingers digging into the wood, even if he can't feel it. "But somehow you made it useless to me, didn't you, Sammy? Somehow you and your brother managed to thwart the entire Apocalypse."
"We're the victims here. We had nothing to do with it."
"Someone did, and when I find out who, you're going to be right back where you started, and this time, I will make you say yes. No more Mr. Nice Satan."
The threat would be chilling if he hadn't once spent an hour in the immediate vicinity of Coyolxauhqui and Huitzilopochtli. Those two make the archangels look positively functional. "It can't be undone," Sam says mildly. "Even the people who did this can't reverse it, assuming they wanted to."
"They undid your blindness."
"You know how Dean is. Can't resist a bad deal."
"And sooner or later, he's going to resent you for that. Someday, he's going to go into that garage and pet that car of his and hate you for taking his eyes."
Sam's spent way too much time hanging out with entities far more powerful than Lucifer. He laughs. The reaction stuns Lucifer, whose jaw actually drops. "That's what you're going with? That I ruined Dean's life? No shit, Sherlock. But I didn't do it now. I did it when I was born! When he got stuck as the older brother of Lucifer's true vessel and got damned to be Michael's! This didn't just end the Apocalypse, it gave him what he deserved!"
"Blindness?"
"A life. A decent life. Not the shit we had before."
Lucifer's eyes flick to a spot behind Sam, and she smiles again, a little spitefully. "And does Dean agree with you about that? I seem to recall that Dean was rather fond of his life--the hunting, the boozing, the whoring--"
"Dean's fine with it, and you don't get to talk about--"
"Sam?"
Sam freezes. Damn it. No wonder Lucifer smiled like that, she'd seen the screen door open and Dean come outside looking for him.
"Jo said you'd come out here. Too crowded?"
"A little."
Dean nods. "Make a new friend?" he asks. His voice is wary, like he's not sure if friend should be sarcastic or not.
"Just an old enemy. Lucifer got a new meatsuit."
Dean turns sightless eyes toward Sam's voice. "And he's still sitting on the porch because?"
"Oh, come on," Lucifer protests, and Dean glares in the direction of the swing. "It's Christmas."
"And it's a private party." He turns back to Sam. "Is it just me, or is Lucifer sounding a little low on testosterone?"
"The new meatsuit's a woman."
"Gotcha. Well, then, Luci--" Lucifer's lip curls. "Like I said, private party. Also, I've already got two more angels in the house than I ever wanted, and you weren't invited. So get your ass off my property before Sam has to call in the cavalry."
Lucifer allows the barest hint of confusion to show, but she stands and comes toward them. Sam reaches for Dean's arm, drawing him back, but Lucifer only goes down the steps, not approaching them. "This won't save you forever," she hisses. "Forty generations is nothing to angels."
So word of the prophecy has made it to whatever corner of Hell she's been hiding in. Yet Lucifer clearly doesn't know who wrote that prophecy and put it into half a continent's worth of medieval Bibles. Maybe the demons just didn't want to risk telling her and having her kill the messenger? "It's enough," Sam replies, forcing his voice to stay even.
Lucifer takes the rest of the steps in a rush, but stops and turns around once she's halfway down the walk. "Enjoy your party," she says. "I know where you are now. You may be worthless as vessels, but I can still make your lives hell. And your little guardian angel can't stop me."
Dean chuckles, and Sam lets himself grin. A threat.
Their reaction isn't what Lucifer expected.
Neither is the gigantic owl that swoops out of the night, snatching a few silver hairs as it flies by Lucifer's head before it settles onto the thickest branch of the ancient oak tree in the front yard. Lucifer yells something incoherent--and freezes.
Two ravens sit on the gateposts. More birds circle overhead, glowing faintly in the night. Three cats, sleek and tawny and huge, trot across the yard. Two cobras the size of pythons slither onto the walk and rear up, spreading their hoods and blocking the steps. A scorpion of a species native to Egypt crawls along the porch railing.
Up and down the street, shadows gather--woman-shaped and animal-shaped and some with no shape at all. Moonlight gleams off silver on Mrs. Ihle's roof, never mind that there's no moon tonight, and a rainbow flicker dances up and down the street and along their property lines, ready to summon more if necessary. No myth ever mentioned that Iris is more hyper than a toddler on a sugar high.
"Cas doesn't have to," Sam says. "They will."
Terror flickers across Lucifer's face--only a flicker, before she regains her composure. "These?" She's trying for arrogance, but there's a tremor in her voice. "I can smash these with a thought."
"Try." Lucifer might be able to take on a single goddess, but from here, Sam can count at least twenty. These are not the gentle ones, either; these are goddesses of war and protection and magic. If that much power hits Lucifer at once-- There are actual deities who couldn't survive that. "These are the people who took your vessel away. You might want to keep that in mind."
Lucifer stares at him, caught between shock and horror, looking for words, or maybe something to snap her fingers at. It's long enough for Mafdet, Sekhmet, and Bastet to get to her, and they apparently can't resist the opportunity to do that thing that all cats do: glomming onto the person who plainly hates cats, twining around Lucifer's legs--purring, undoubtedly, just to pour lemon juice on the papercut--until Lucifer makes a strangled sound and vanishes.
"Any of you guys want to come in?" Dean asks. Sam doesn't know if he can somehow see them--the glow of power, maybe--or if he can just feel the power in the air.
Not that it matters. This is Dean, and Dean's not about to be reverent.
The tension in the air eases. The ravens cackle, making sure that Sam can hear it, and fly off. Shadows disperse. The owl remains in the oak, watchful. Mafdet tosses aside her dignity for a butt-wiggle before pouncing on Sekhmet's tail, and then Bastet leaps on her, and the three cats tumble into nothingness. The cobras retreat somewhere under the porch. The scorpion turns around and glares up at Sam with eyes that glow red. "Yes, I know," he says, struggling not to sigh, and she scurries off. Selket doesn't like South Dakota, it's too cold for her.
"Get your ass back inside," Dean orders.
"I'm--"
"What color are your fingers?"
Sam looks down. "Finger-colored?"
"So they're not blue yet. Get inside before you freeze. It's fucking cold out here."
"In December? Really?"
"Yeah, yeah." Dean hesitates. "You know, I heard what you said."
Oh, shit. "Which part?"
"About how you think I might resent you." Dean's hand comes up, seems to be patting him on the back of the neck.
"I was arguing with Satan, Dean, don't--"
The reason for Dean's hand on the back of his neck becomes clear, as Dean smacks the back of his head hard enough for Sam's skull to rattle. "I heard the next part, too, dumbass. You didn't ruin my life. And if you ever say that again, I'll do more than hit you."
"No more NCIS reruns for you," Sam mutters.
"Yeah, yeah. Now get back inside. Besides, Jody's asking where you are. I think she wants to apologize again." He shudders theatrically. "I don't know why she keeps apologizing to you and not me, I heard the whole thing--"
"Do you know where Ellen's anti-possession tattoo is?"
"No."
"Then shut up." There are things Sam never wanted to know about Bobby. Or Ellen. Or the sheriff. Things that are now seared into his memory.
"I doubt--"
"Dean, Cas was catatonic for a week."
"You'd think angels would have a better appreciation for God's creations, wouldn't you?" Dean asks with a chuckle. He gets the door before Sam does, fingers managing the latch as nimbly as if he can still see it. "At least he finally learned to knock. Speaking of, did I tell you that Selene brought her friend to meet you?"
"Dean!" Sam hisses, hoping no one inside heard that. The music is probably loud, but that's no guarantee. Nobody's looking at them, at least, except for a glance or two to see why the door's open. "I told you to stop trying to fix me up!"
"Yeah, yeah. Sooner or later you're going to have to figure something out or you're going to explode, and Selene says her friend's got experience with paraplegics--"
"I doubt she meant--"
"Oh, trust me. She meant." Sam seriously hates that smirk. "Your tongue still works, right? She was asking."
"DEAN!"
the end
Chapter 2: Ageusia
Chapter 3: Anaphia, Part 1
Chapter 3: Anaphia, Part 2
Chapter 4: Anacusis
Chapter 5: Anopia
Aftermath
Eighteen months later
The downstairs is so stuffed with people that Sam can hardly move. Most of them are strangers to him. Dean and Cas are the ones who know the neighbors, because Sam seldom leaves the house (their house, Jesus) except to go to the backyard or over to Bobby's. Dean has his classes at the center, and he's always outside on nice days, indulging his inner twelve-year-old with the local twelve-year-olds. When he's at home, the single moms (and a few of the married ones) among their neighbors flock to their kitchen to exchange recipes with Cas, since that gives them an excuse to ogle Dean.
But before the medical fiasco this past September, when a blood clot nearly cost Sam his leg, hardly anybody outside their inner circle knew he was here. He has to deal with fewer stares when he stays in the backyard. Occasionally, Dean will bully him into taking a walk, the blind threatening the crippled with a leash, but Sam's inability to communicate with normal people makes interaction problematic, to say the least. And after that mess with the social worker who completely misunderstood and assumed that Sam's ability to reply to Dean's conversation meant he was faking his deafness, Dean hasn't even done that much very often.
Now, though, everybody at least knows that Sam is Dean's brother, which means that half the neighbors--the single half--want to use him to get further into Dean's good graces. They all know that something's wrong with him, but only Mrs. Ihle, the widow from across the street, knows all the particulars. The rest think he has some kind of mental problem--a weird kind of autism or some mental deficiency, maybe the result of brain damage, given the awkward way he walks.
Sam doesn't need to hear to read their expressions. For most of them, the gazes have changed from mere appreciation of Dean's looks to blatant hero-worship, because surely only a saint would take care of his idiot brother when he has his own handicap to deal with. They don't realize that that particular attitude is just going to ensure that Dean's never more than nice to them. He doesn't need eyes to sense when people have a negative opinion of Sam, and nothing kills a woman's chances with Dean more quickly than disliking Sam.
Normally, when strangers come over, like Dean's poker group, Sam retreats to his room or the den, but tonight, the house is so packed that it's not an option. Nobody's actually in Sam's room, of course, but it's December and everybody's bundled up, more than the line of hooks by the front door can handle, so it's been commandeered as a cloakroom. The den, which serves as Sam's personal library and research room, is packed full of little kids and videos and games and child-safe beverages, with a rotation of responsible adults so that everybody gets a chance to spend time in the adult gathering in the living room. He doesn't think there's anybody upstairs, but he's not about to risk climbing stairs with this many eyes on him. Hiding in the bathroom would just be temporary--and rude, since there's enough people here that it's hardly ever empty. There's the back porch--except that Cas is employing the weather to keep the beer cold and free up space in the actual fridge, and Sam thinks that might be where the smokers are sneaking out.
The kitchen? Not while Cas is playing mad caterer. Sam still has some survival instinct left. Plus, Dean insisted on Cas inviting friends, and Sam is dead certain that the two men who showed up as Cas's guests are not fully human. For one thing, they were dressed for Bermuda, not Christmas in South Dakota. For another, Cas doesn't know anybody else. Making friends does not figure into his interpretation of his punishment.
Punishment. Right. Michael thinks it is, surely, that he restored "little Castiel's" powers and rank in Heaven--it ultimately wasn't Cas's fault that the Apocalypse got derailed so thoroughly--but then ordered him to Earth to take care of the Winchester brothers until they died, just in case somebody figures out how to undo the damage and the vessels become useful again. Sam's pretty sure Cas thinks he got the better of that deal. He knows he and Dean did. They couldn't manage this without Cas, not five senses short. Dean could, if he was on his own. But Sam can't, and Dean can't take care of Sam without help.
A pack of kids tears through the hall, racing for the kitchen, and Sam automatically throws himself back against the wall to protect himself from getting tripped or trampled. He hits hard enough that his lungs protest and it takes a second to get his breath back. He needs to get out of here. Just for a minute.
He starts edging toward the front door, smiling nervously whenever somebody comes up to chat or offer to help him assemble a plate of snacks. When Dean or Cas is with him, he's okay, they can relay--but Dean's with the rest of the little kids and Cas is busy. Very few of the guests know that Sam's deaf. Dean's always forgetting to tell people.
One or two of the teachers from the center realized it as soon as they tried to talk to him, and tried to sign, but Sam doesn't know ASL. He tried--he spent three months trying--but for the first time in his life, he found something that he literally could not learn. Signing is a full-body exercise, and it requires a certain amount of sensory input from the skin in order to get the correct "feel" of the signs as they're made. Reading signs is difficult, too, though the reasons for that are less clear--maybe some bit of crossed wiring left over from what the goddesses did to him. He's a little better at reading lips, but that requires practice, which requires contact with people, and that he avoids as much as possible.
In those same three months, Dean learned the basics of Braille and echolocation, figured out how to use a collapsible white cane as an emergency weapon, collected enough information to decide that a guide dog would be more trouble than help for their household, and obtained the phone numbers of every attractive-sounding female at the center. Not to mention helping Cas set this place up.
The adults in the living room are at least a little less hazardous to Sam's progress than the kids. About half of them are blind--Dean's poker group and other friends from the center--so they're not staring at Sam, at least. Bobby--no longer in a wheelchair, thanks to the renewal of Cas's powers--Ellen, Jo, and Bobby's sheriff friend are standing in a corner, avoiding the press of civilians, undoubtedly being very careful to keep to normal conversation. Jo waves at him, gesturing him over, but he shakes his head, then jerks his head in the direction of the front door. She nods, understanding, and says something to the others. Bobby pushes himself away from the window, clearly intending to come help, but Sam shakes his head again. He doesn't need to be rescued, he just needs to be alone for a few minutes.
Finally, he escapes. The air is undoubtedly freezing, but Sam was so desperate to get away from people that he didn't think to get his coat. There's a slight breeze--he can tell by the way the lights hanging from the porch eaves move in the wind, and the occasional bob of one of the inflatable monstrosities in their yard. It can't be too bad, though; Jo or Bobby would have stopped him if he were about to walk into dangerous windchill.
It would have been safer to brave the stairs and go into Cas's room--Cas doesn't mind; he's hardly ever in there, since he doesn't need to sleep--and maybe invoke the sanctuary. A nice peaceful trip to the lake would do him good right now. But Dean will come looking for him eventually, and Sam isn't yet ready to tell him that he still has access to it. Dean won't understand.
Some days--like today--Sam thinks he's on the brink of madness. Dean and Cas want the party to be Sam's introduction to the neighborhood, a way for him to meet the neighbors and maybe make some friends, but it's really just a bitter reminder of everything he lost to stop the Apocalypse.
It's been two years since he smelled or tasted anything, nearly that long since he last was able to touch. The silence is made slightly more bearable by the link Cas created so that Sam can hear Dean the way he hears the angel, but those two voices are all he ever hears, and he only hears them when they want him to.
Some days, he just wants to crawl into bed and invoke the sanctuary and never leave. There, at least, he's human again, and if the food and drink are imaginary, who cares? He can taste it. He can walk without fearing that he's going to stumble. He can have conversations that aren't reliant on gestures and notepads, and so what if they're with assorted deities and various long-dead pagans? He can touch, and some of the goddesses are not at all averse to sharing that with him.
But other days, he watches Dean laugh as he explains to Cas why Christmas means there absolutely must be a giant inflatable Frosty on the roof, and it doesn't matter that all his food is tasteless. He watches Dean bring actual honest-to-God friends into the house to listen to a football game or play poker with Braille cards, friends who have never known that ghosts and goblins are real, and it doesn't matter that he can't hear the raucous laughter. He watches Dean flirt with every single mom who sits in the kitchen pretending to be here to swap recipes with Cas, and it doesn't matter that he can't smell their perfume. He listens to Dean gush about the job the occupational therapy center has arranged for him, sees the way Dean's sightless eyes light up when he talks about the kids he'll be helping, and it doesn't matter, not one bit, that Sam's skin is permanently numb.
His brother has a life, a real life. It turns out eyes aren't a necessity for that.
And if the price of that life is that Sam doesn't have one--well, no matter what anybody says, he did set Lucifer on the world. What he has now, limited as it is, is way more than he deserves.
Sam leans against a porch support (checking to make sure he's not smashing a delicate Christmas-light bulb) and looks out into the night. Their neighbors all have Christmas lights, though none of the displays come close to matching the chaos on their own roof. "Tacky" does not begin to describe what happens you mix Dean, an angel, and Christmas lights. With Cas projecting flashes of sight the way he projects his voice into Sam's head, Dean was able to supervise, and Dean's taste is not all that much better for being blind. Sam tried to convince them both to wrestle it back within the bounds of good taste, but Cas--not Dean--resisted. Something about it being the season when light's needed most, though what that has to do with inflatable snowmen on the roof, Sam has no idea. He's reasonably sure their house could be used as a beacon for aircraft, and he thinks at least one of those tacky inflatable things plays music.
(Okay, so maybe he's still a little annoyed that they made him take the sign that said "The blind man did the decorating" out of the arms of the light-up angel on the front lawn. The neighbors thought it was hilarious, even if they didn't get the entire joke. And God knows the Christmas Brigade hadn't let him do anything else.)
It's peaceful here now, the multicolored lights almost as soothing as the sanctuary. A few more minutes, and his jangled nerves will calm down enough that he can go back in. Maybe he can sit down next to Mrs. Ihle. She's eighty if she's a day, but if the way Dean flirts with her is any indication, she sounds fifty years younger and quite attractive. Her husband had MS, so she's used to dealing with somebody with mobility and dexterity issues. Since she met Sam, she's started carrying a notebook, and she not only has neat handwriting, she writes fast, so he can actually manage something approximating a normal conversation with her.
More importantly, she didn't know him before, so her eyes don't have the perpetual sad shadow of what-once-was, the way Bobby's and Ellen's and Jo's and even Cas's do.
"Hello, Sam."
Sam jerks around in sheer reflex, managing to wrap his arm around the porch support at the last minute to keep himself from unbalancing and toppling down the porch steps. There's a woman sitting in the porch swing, a woman who was not there when he stepped outside. The breeze ripples her long silver hair, and she gazes at him with fondness that isn't quite human, a faux-beatific smile he remembers too well. "Lucifer," he says, and thinks he might even hiss the word.
"No joyous welcome?" Lucifer's voice echoes in his head, the same way he hears Cas and Dean. It's been so long since he's heard anything besides those two voices that his instincts are screaming at him the same way they once would have if he walked into a house and smelled sulfur.
But the house is full of civilians, and Lucifer would probably just vanish the way angels do, so Sam grits his teeth and forces himself to stand there rather than sounding an alarm. Lucifer's not a threat. Not yet. "New outfit?" he asks, doing his best to sound snide.
"Oh, this?" Lucifer picks at the front of her dress. "I had to let poor Nick go. He had the bad manners to fall apart on me. Left the worst spot on the carpet." She shrugs. "Plenty more where he came from, though. This is his second cousin four times removed, I think." She gives him a smile that is undoubtedly meant to be flirtatious. It makes Sam shiver in a way that cold never could. "Also some distant relation of yours, I think. It is a bloodline, after all. It's not Nick and Sheila's fault that they weren't properly prepared."
"Is that what you're calling it now?"
"My dear brothers hedged their bets by putting a few limitations on me while they had me tucked away in Hell. And then, of course, they forgot to tell the underlings to undo them. Luckily, I had Azazel to see to that for me." Lucifer gives him that false smile again. "But once I settled in, I had the most remarkable piece of news fall into my new lap about how there was a deed in Sioux Falls that had 'Sam and Dean Winchester' on it, and I just had to come investigate."
Right. Cas had been a little fuzzy on the whole "wanted" thing, plus he doesn't technically exist, so the house is in their names. Their real names. Watching Dean's head explode had been rather amusing, though not half as much as when he realized that they couldn't angel-proof the place if they expected Cas to live here. "So what? You decided to lay off sparking volcanoes just to come see me?"
"I bore quickly."
"I'm sure the people in Reykjavik appreciate it."
"You didn't expect me to just retreat into Hell, did you?"
Sam allows himself a smile. "No, actually, the childish temper tantrum was exactly what we expected. What was it? Two volcanoes and a hurricane?"
"Three volcanoes, a hurricane, and two earthquakes, and I thought about lighting Yellowstone, but I decided I wasn't ready to incinerate you just yet."
Like Pele and Chantico would let him spark Yellowstone. Pele, especially. She's a little temperamental, and like most deities whose people were poorly treated by missionaries, she really hates angels. She only let him get away with the other volcanoes because they were fairly isolated--and because the other goddesses convinced her that a couple of small volcanoes were better than having Lucifer throw a real tantrum. "What do you want, Lucifer?"
"A fallen angel can't just visit?"
"No."
Lucifer sighs dramatically, but his (her?) voice hardens. "What I've always wanted. My vessel." Sam can see his fingers digging into the wood, even if he can't feel it. "But somehow you made it useless to me, didn't you, Sammy? Somehow you and your brother managed to thwart the entire Apocalypse."
"We're the victims here. We had nothing to do with it."
"Someone did, and when I find out who, you're going to be right back where you started, and this time, I will make you say yes. No more Mr. Nice Satan."
The threat would be chilling if he hadn't once spent an hour in the immediate vicinity of Coyolxauhqui and Huitzilopochtli. Those two make the archangels look positively functional. "It can't be undone," Sam says mildly. "Even the people who did this can't reverse it, assuming they wanted to."
"They undid your blindness."
"You know how Dean is. Can't resist a bad deal."
"And sooner or later, he's going to resent you for that. Someday, he's going to go into that garage and pet that car of his and hate you for taking his eyes."
Sam's spent way too much time hanging out with entities far more powerful than Lucifer. He laughs. The reaction stuns Lucifer, whose jaw actually drops. "That's what you're going with? That I ruined Dean's life? No shit, Sherlock. But I didn't do it now. I did it when I was born! When he got stuck as the older brother of Lucifer's true vessel and got damned to be Michael's! This didn't just end the Apocalypse, it gave him what he deserved!"
"Blindness?"
"A life. A decent life. Not the shit we had before."
Lucifer's eyes flick to a spot behind Sam, and she smiles again, a little spitefully. "And does Dean agree with you about that? I seem to recall that Dean was rather fond of his life--the hunting, the boozing, the whoring--"
"Dean's fine with it, and you don't get to talk about--"
"Sam?"
Sam freezes. Damn it. No wonder Lucifer smiled like that, she'd seen the screen door open and Dean come outside looking for him.
"Jo said you'd come out here. Too crowded?"
"A little."
Dean nods. "Make a new friend?" he asks. His voice is wary, like he's not sure if friend should be sarcastic or not.
"Just an old enemy. Lucifer got a new meatsuit."
Dean turns sightless eyes toward Sam's voice. "And he's still sitting on the porch because?"
"Oh, come on," Lucifer protests, and Dean glares in the direction of the swing. "It's Christmas."
"And it's a private party." He turns back to Sam. "Is it just me, or is Lucifer sounding a little low on testosterone?"
"The new meatsuit's a woman."
"Gotcha. Well, then, Luci--" Lucifer's lip curls. "Like I said, private party. Also, I've already got two more angels in the house than I ever wanted, and you weren't invited. So get your ass off my property before Sam has to call in the cavalry."
Lucifer allows the barest hint of confusion to show, but she stands and comes toward them. Sam reaches for Dean's arm, drawing him back, but Lucifer only goes down the steps, not approaching them. "This won't save you forever," she hisses. "Forty generations is nothing to angels."
So word of the prophecy has made it to whatever corner of Hell she's been hiding in. Yet Lucifer clearly doesn't know who wrote that prophecy and put it into half a continent's worth of medieval Bibles. Maybe the demons just didn't want to risk telling her and having her kill the messenger? "It's enough," Sam replies, forcing his voice to stay even.
Lucifer takes the rest of the steps in a rush, but stops and turns around once she's halfway down the walk. "Enjoy your party," she says. "I know where you are now. You may be worthless as vessels, but I can still make your lives hell. And your little guardian angel can't stop me."
Dean chuckles, and Sam lets himself grin. A threat.
Their reaction isn't what Lucifer expected.
Neither is the gigantic owl that swoops out of the night, snatching a few silver hairs as it flies by Lucifer's head before it settles onto the thickest branch of the ancient oak tree in the front yard. Lucifer yells something incoherent--and freezes.
Two ravens sit on the gateposts. More birds circle overhead, glowing faintly in the night. Three cats, sleek and tawny and huge, trot across the yard. Two cobras the size of pythons slither onto the walk and rear up, spreading their hoods and blocking the steps. A scorpion of a species native to Egypt crawls along the porch railing.
Up and down the street, shadows gather--woman-shaped and animal-shaped and some with no shape at all. Moonlight gleams off silver on Mrs. Ihle's roof, never mind that there's no moon tonight, and a rainbow flicker dances up and down the street and along their property lines, ready to summon more if necessary. No myth ever mentioned that Iris is more hyper than a toddler on a sugar high.
"Cas doesn't have to," Sam says. "They will."
Terror flickers across Lucifer's face--only a flicker, before she regains her composure. "These?" She's trying for arrogance, but there's a tremor in her voice. "I can smash these with a thought."
"Try." Lucifer might be able to take on a single goddess, but from here, Sam can count at least twenty. These are not the gentle ones, either; these are goddesses of war and protection and magic. If that much power hits Lucifer at once-- There are actual deities who couldn't survive that. "These are the people who took your vessel away. You might want to keep that in mind."
Lucifer stares at him, caught between shock and horror, looking for words, or maybe something to snap her fingers at. It's long enough for Mafdet, Sekhmet, and Bastet to get to her, and they apparently can't resist the opportunity to do that thing that all cats do: glomming onto the person who plainly hates cats, twining around Lucifer's legs--purring, undoubtedly, just to pour lemon juice on the papercut--until Lucifer makes a strangled sound and vanishes.
"Any of you guys want to come in?" Dean asks. Sam doesn't know if he can somehow see them--the glow of power, maybe--or if he can just feel the power in the air.
Not that it matters. This is Dean, and Dean's not about to be reverent.
The tension in the air eases. The ravens cackle, making sure that Sam can hear it, and fly off. Shadows disperse. The owl remains in the oak, watchful. Mafdet tosses aside her dignity for a butt-wiggle before pouncing on Sekhmet's tail, and then Bastet leaps on her, and the three cats tumble into nothingness. The cobras retreat somewhere under the porch. The scorpion turns around and glares up at Sam with eyes that glow red. "Yes, I know," he says, struggling not to sigh, and she scurries off. Selket doesn't like South Dakota, it's too cold for her.
"Get your ass back inside," Dean orders.
"I'm--"
"What color are your fingers?"
Sam looks down. "Finger-colored?"
"So they're not blue yet. Get inside before you freeze. It's fucking cold out here."
"In December? Really?"
"Yeah, yeah." Dean hesitates. "You know, I heard what you said."
Oh, shit. "Which part?"
"About how you think I might resent you." Dean's hand comes up, seems to be patting him on the back of the neck.
"I was arguing with Satan, Dean, don't--"
The reason for Dean's hand on the back of his neck becomes clear, as Dean smacks the back of his head hard enough for Sam's skull to rattle. "I heard the next part, too, dumbass. You didn't ruin my life. And if you ever say that again, I'll do more than hit you."
"No more NCIS reruns for you," Sam mutters.
"Yeah, yeah. Now get back inside. Besides, Jody's asking where you are. I think she wants to apologize again." He shudders theatrically. "I don't know why she keeps apologizing to you and not me, I heard the whole thing--"
"Do you know where Ellen's anti-possession tattoo is?"
"No."
"Then shut up." There are things Sam never wanted to know about Bobby. Or Ellen. Or the sheriff. Things that are now seared into his memory.
"I doubt--"
"Dean, Cas was catatonic for a week."
"You'd think angels would have a better appreciation for God's creations, wouldn't you?" Dean asks with a chuckle. He gets the door before Sam does, fingers managing the latch as nimbly as if he can still see it. "At least he finally learned to knock. Speaking of, did I tell you that Selene brought her friend to meet you?"
"Dean!" Sam hisses, hoping no one inside heard that. The music is probably loud, but that's no guarantee. Nobody's looking at them, at least, except for a glance or two to see why the door's open. "I told you to stop trying to fix me up!"
"Yeah, yeah. Sooner or later you're going to have to figure something out or you're going to explode, and Selene says her friend's got experience with paraplegics--"
"I doubt she meant--"
"Oh, trust me. She meant." Sam seriously hates that smirk. "Your tongue still works, right? She was asking."
"DEAN!"
the end