Chapter Text
November 24
One second, Sam was in a bar with his brother, waiting to hear about his other brother. Then something flooded through him, twisting his insides the wrong way out. Next thing Sam knew? He was on the floor in some rustic looking cabin, patting himself down for a weapon check.
Revolver was still in his waistband, silver knife in his boot. That was it, too weapons against whatever just - just freaking transported Sam right out from the bar. Sam wasn’t sure, but he thought judging by the light that he was back in the U.S., so it was something powerful. And, if Sam’s headache and the smell of sulfur were any judge, it would be a demon.
Sam picked himself up off the floor and silently backed up when he heard footsteps approaching. He had his revolver in hand, a bullet clicked in place, and the words to the exorcism on the tip of this tongue. When the door of the empty room he was in creaked open, Sam was ready to shoot.
“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus. Exor— Andy?!”
Sam had been preparing for a demon to walk through the door, not Andrew Gallagher - the psychic that Sam met over the summer. Andy looked just as shocked as Sam felt, a little bit more to have a revolver aimed at him.
“Sam?! They got you too?”
Sam had to hastily lower his gun, leaving it loaded and unlocked since something was going on, and he looked Andy over just as quickly as he assessed the room he was in.
The walls were plain, dirty. Sam could see out the window to a forest, so cabin had been a good guess. The floors were nothing more than wooden planks, probably some unused fishing cabin. With the way the sun was shining, it was still early.
If it had been about ten past one in Hogsmeade, then it had to be a little after seven if Sam was back in the U.S.
Andy certainly made that a fair guess, since he probably didn’t get taken on an international demonic-kidnapping. Andy looked frazzled, confused, but visibly relaxed as he moved closer to Sam in the room they were in.
That was a joke, Sam being some beacon of reassurance. Sam didn’t have a freaking clue —
“In three months, one of my human-children will open that gate and lead my army. I’m hoping it’ll be you, Sammy Boy.”
Alright, Sam had a clue of where he might be.
When the twenty-first of November passed without incident, Sam thought that Azazel had been wrong. Why Sam thought three months exactly would be… never mind, it didn’t matter.
Sam didn’t holster his gun, he just swapped hands so he could grab his cell. Sam figured he wouldn’t have service and he still managed to be disappointed when his phone reflected that.
“Tell me everything that’s happened,” Sam ordered Andy. He shoved him behind him, noticing then that Andy was only wearing a pair of sweatpants and a white tank top. “Here.” Sam shed his jacket, offering it to Andy for warmth. “Stay behind me.”
Andy didn’t complain, he just began telling Sam everything he knew - which wasn’t much, actually. Andy had been in the back of his van with a couple of college girls, then he got zapped to the same place Sam was. They must have arrived around the same time, since Andy said he had been looking for an exit when he found Sam.
If the demon only needed one psychic to open the gates, lead his army, Sam didn’t have a good feeling about why he and Andy were both there.
They crept through what did turn out to be a one-bedroom cabin and Sam cleared each room before they made their way outside. Andy was all but clinging to Sam’s back, which would have been funny in any other situation. In their current situation? Not so much. It just showed Sam that Andy, with all of his psychic-mind-mojo, was freaking out. Which meant Sam should be freaking out.
Sam was freaking out some, but Sam took confidence that he was a hunter; trained, ready, prepared. A bullet from an average gun wouldn't take down Azazel or any demons lurking around them, it could buy some time though.
Sam and Dean had gotten out of a lot tighter spots with a lot less.
"Quiet," Sam breathed to Andy as he reached out for the door handle of the front door. Andy went silent immediately and Sam inhaled slowly, held it, then exhaled as he opened the door.
It was quiet out, too quiet.
Sam could see trees surrounding them, they must have been in the forest - the forest around River Grove, if Sam had to guess. So why weren't there any birds chirping? A breeze blowing? The world around them was completely silent.
Andy didn't need another reminder to stay quiet, he moved as silently as Sam did as they cleared the porch and made their way around the house. The leaves crunching under their feet were the only noises; it was putting Sam's teeth on edge. The cabin was rundown, the ground overgrown with weeds and covered in leaves. Sam had his ears peeled for the smallest sound to give him any idea what was going on.
When the sound came, it wasn’t a soft whisper or a shift in the breeze – it was a scream full of terror that immediately had Sam’s blood running twice as hot through his veins.
“What is that?!” Andy cried when the sharp scream cut itself off and they stood in the quiet again.
Sam spun in circles, checking every inch of the forest they were in for any signs of where the echoing scream came from. If Sam was right about where they were, they needed to go west to get out of the forest – find who was screaming, get help.
“Nothing good,” Sam murmured. “Take this,” Sam grabbed the knife from his boot and tried to offer it to Andy, who refused. “Dude, you can’t be unarmed.”
“I’m not unarmed,” Andy protested, eyeing the knife like it was being jabbed at him. “I’ll just, uh, use my brain, ya’know?”
“You’re still doing mind-control?” Sam asked, tucking the knife in his belt. If Andy didn’t want to use it, he wouldn’t be any good with it and Sam didn’t have time to train him any.
They turned toward the west and Sam cleared every tree they passed, every bush. Andy whispered to him about how he stopped using his powers for a while after Ansem, but then he decided that Ansem wasn’t going to take something ‘so badass’ from him.
“So now I can do all sorts of shit,” Andy whispered when they approached the thinning tree-line. “It’s all mind kung-fu, Sam, it’s badass.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Sam said. Sam’s visions were never badass, but Sam had never really tried to see if he could do anything else, he didn’t want to.
Sam could see through the trees then and he saw the postcard town, the Liberty Bell shining in the center of the square. On the far side of the square would be the doctors office where Sam had been quarantined last time he was there, to the south would be the gates that Azazel believed held back the demons of Hell.
“River Grove,” Sam told Andy. “That’s where we are.”
And they were not alone.
It was barely half a second after Sam said that that a scream pierced through the air again, much louder than before. Sam was prepared for it and thought it had to be coming from an old style out-house that sat on the corner of the square, in the middle of a display of colonial era setups.
Sam started running that direction while Andy questioned his sanity – “Why are we running to the scream?!” – but followed him anyway. The screaming was definitely female and Sam used his gun to bust the lock off the outhouse door. The door burst open and –
“Ava?!”
A young woman burst from the wooden outhouse and Sam only had a second to recognize her round-face, long brown hair that was much stringier than it had been the last time Sam saw her, before she flung herself at him and began sobbing on Sam’s chest.
“Sam?!” Ava pulled away just enough for them to confirm that they were both who they said they were before she began crying and babbling in earnest. “Where are we?! What’s going on?! How did you get here so fast? Is your brother okay?!”
“What?” Sam couldn’t even comprehend what she was asking. They hadn’t seen each other in over a month… Sam didn’t even know how she was alive, and… and Harry was fine.
Dear God, let Harry be okay…
“Ava,” Sam had to grab Ava by her shaking shoulders and peel her off him so that he could stare at her, make her understand him. “That crash was weeks ago. How long have you been here? How – how are you alive?”
Sam found her fiancé’s body, he saw the blood. Sam thought Gordon Walker had killed her? He had said he killed ‘one of the freaks’ that were like Sam. Gordon had been bragging, saying that he had killed someone with powers, that Sam was next, then Harry.
Sam had assumed it was Ava, that was why he went to check on her. That was when Sam found the blood, the body… he had asked Ash to keep any feelers out for Ava- Sam just wanted to return her body to her family, make sure she was buried with her fiancé.
“Weeks…?” Ava asked, her lower lip trembling and her eyes welling up with tears. “I don’t understand? Sam, you- you were just in a wreck? But…” Ava squeezed Sam’s left arm, her eyes going wide. “Your arm was broken?”
“Ava, that was over a month ago,” Sam insisted. “You’ve been missing for weeks now, I thought you were dead.”
“I just woke up in there?” Ava said, a lilt that made it a question and not a statement.
Sam really hoped that he had been instantly transported there because if he had been missing for weeks… there was no telling what kind of damage that Dean had wrought on his behalf. Based on the trees, the color of the leaves, the current temperature... Sam didn't think he had been gone long, but then why had Ava?
"What day was it before this happened?" Sam asked Andy.
"Me? Oh, uh... twenty-fourth, maybe?" Andy said, his face screwed up as he tried to think.
It was the twenty-fourth for Sam as well. So why the difference with Ava?
Before Sam could push for more answers from Ava, they heard more voices. Not screams that time, just general calls for help.
"Hello? Is anyone there?"
"Hey! Can someone hear us?!"
It sounded like a man and a woman, on the opposite side of the square from them. Ava whimpered and Andy sighed when Sam started jogging around the large courthouse, but Sam needed answers because he needed to get the hell out of there.
"Hey!" Sam waved his gun, catching the attention of the two others that were there. It looked like they had just escaped from a cellar door that must have led to the basement of the courthouse.
The guy, tall, dark-skinned, wearing standard issue Army regs and rocking a boot camp buzzcut, clocked Sam first and his eyes ticked to the weapon he held. The girl was around the same age the rest of them were and had pale skin, long blonde hair that was streaked with purples and blues, and had on some gothic-style dress that matched her black lipstick.
"You mind putting that down?" the dude asked Sam, his posture defensive as Sam approached. His voice was deep, calm, but there was wariness in his eyes and a tightness of his muscles. "I don't want to start a fight."
Sam made a show of holding the gun up, clicking the safety on, and slowly tucking it back in the band of his jeans.
"I'm Sam," Sam said to them. "This is Ava and Andy."
"Specialist Jake Talley," the guy said.
"Lily," the chick said, her voice soft and her eyes anxious while they flicked around them. She shivered and, despite her fair skin, Sam was sure that she had arrived from somewhere warm.
“What are we doing here, Sam?” Jake asked. He broke eye contact to look around, his face going slack some at the scenery. “And where is here?”
“Oregon,” Sam said. “I’m guessing that’s not where you’re from?”
“My guy, I was in Iraq five minutes ago,” Jake said flatly.
“And I was in Florida,” Lily added.
“Yeah. That sounds about right,” Sam sighed. He looked between them, sure that he knew the answer to his next question. “You’ve both got powers, right? Some sort of psychic thing?”
“Like mind reading? No.” Lily laughed, cold and bitter. “Is that why I’m here?”
“This is about the guy with the yellow eyes, isn’t it?” Jake asked. He nodded to himself when Sam’s face must have confirmed it. “He started showing up in my dreams after my powers started. I thought I was losing my mind, I couldn’t tell anyone or I’d be discharged. He warned me that something was coming, I just didn’t know it was this.”
“So you have powers too?” Sam asked. “I have visions, Ava does too.”
“Mind control,” Andy added brightly. “And I’m getting like super good at it. I can make people see what I want them to see too.”
“That’s cool,” Jake smirked. “Check this out though.”
Ava gasped and Sam tried to not grin when Jake turned to the courthouse beside them and punched a hole clear through the solid cement wall.
“Wow, so cool,” Lily snarled sarcastically. “So you guys get super fun things while I kill anyone I touch. Guess what? No warning on that. One day I hold my girlfriend’s hand and we’re happy, the next day I do it and she’s dead.”
Sam cringed at the horrible story - he also took half a step away from Lily, as did the others.
“Okay, look, the guy with the yellow eyes is a demon,” Sam told them quickly. “We need to get out of here and we need to stick together. Okay?”
“You want us to go traveling through the totally creepy woods to find help?” Ava asked nervously. “Shouldn’t we just stay here? Someone has to be looking for us? My fiancé? Your brothers?”
Sam very carefully schooled his features so that he didn’t give away the truth of the matter. Ava’s fiancé was dead, Sam’s brothers were busy.
“We should try and leave anyway,” Sam said. “Come on, let’s stick together.”
The others fell in a group behind Sam and Jake, who both seemed to naturally take lead. Sam led them in the opposite direction of where the gates were locked away at, no need to get them closer to Azazel’s end goal.
“Iraq, huh?” Sam asked Jake.
Jake raised an eyebrow at him. “Demons, huh?”
Sam huffed a dry laugh and shook his head. When they neared the forest and Sam pulled his gun out, he offered the knife to Jake.
“It won’t stop a demon, but it’s silver,” Sam said. “It’s good for spirits and most other monsters.”
“Oh, good, we’re living in a fantasy novel now,” Lily breathed.
“No way, man, this is like Sam’s life,” Andy said enthusiastically. “He just goes place to place, kicking ass and taking names.”
That was an incredibly generous way to describe hunting and Sam felt a little bashful about Andy’s continuous praise while they made their way through the forest. Sam figured they’d go a couple miles in, turn toward the east, find a service road that connected to the interstate.
It might have worked, if they hadn’t been stopped half a mile in by a group of spirits. Sam barely had time to clock them, just a brief glance that told him they were ancient, long past the time when they remembered their humanity.
Ava screamed first and Sam fired off one bullet - God, he couldn’t afford to waste any - toward the spirits. It caused them to burst in the air, then reform directly in the group’s faces. One of them swiped at Sam, busting his lip. Another cackled at Lily when she reached out with her hands, apparently thinking she could kill the dead.
“Run!” Ava shrieked. She turned around and began running directly back toward the square, the very direction they were trying to escape from.
Sam ran with the group, taking the end with Jake, and kept his gun raised while the spirits chased them. As soon as they made it out of the woods, the spirits disappeared.
Clearly, they had one goal and they achieved it.
“Well,” Jake wasn’t panting like the others, he had a solemn look that told Sam he drew the same conclusion Sam had, “I guess whoever brought us here doesn’t want us to leave.”
“Yeah.” Sam kept an eye on the woods just in case, but the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach said that they were right where the spirits and Azazel wanted them. “I think you’re right.”
Sam knew that Harry needed Dean with him, he knew that. It was an unfair thought to have, selfish, but Sam really wished that Harry didn’t need Dean so badly just then because Sam needed him more than ever.
Demons, a group of psychics, spirits, the gates of Hell.
Something bad - something huge - was going to happen and Sam just wished his brother was there to help him figure it out before he had to face it.
The others tried to hole up in the courthouse, but Sam stopped them. The courthouse had to be the biggest building in the town, too full of unknown areas and spaces for monsters to hide. It would be impossible to defend, but Sam knew the area – he had been in the doctor’s office before and one of the nearby residential houses.
“I know a place we can go,” Sam told them, mentally drawing up memories of the last time he was in the town, trying to decide which would be easier to defend. The doctor’s office would have more tools that could be used to defend themselves with, but there were three exits, maybe nine windows if Sam was counting right. There also wasn’t any salt there, and Sam needed to draw lines around wherever they were, keep the spirits out if nothing else.
The house of the doctor looked the same from the outside as it had a few months ago. The only difference was the overgrown lawn, the same air of disuse that the entire town had. The door wasn’t locked and only Lily mumbled something about breaking and entering before Sam ushered them all inside, doing another visual sweep of the street once they were in.
“You guys stay here,” Sam told the girls. “Jake, stay with them. Andy, come help me.”
“This place is spook-tacular,” Andy whispered while Sam took him to the kitchen to begin looking for salt. “This whole town is like… something out of the Twilight Zone.”
“Demon disease wiped it out, whoever wasn’t infected fled,” Sam explained as he started throwing open cabinets. “Start looking for salt, we need a ton of it.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” Andy quipped. For whatever reason, the first place he checked was the fridge and they both made sounds of disgust when the smell of rotting meat filled the room. “Ugh! Not there…”
Sam found a shaker of salt in the spice cabinet; Andy found a tub of it above the stove. There was another half-filled shaker on the dining table. It wasn’t much, but Sam didn’t need to line the entire house, just the windows and doorways.
“This is weird,” Andy said with a shaky laugh after they finished. They paused on the porch for a minute, just so Sam could collect himself when he went back inside. If Sam looked frustrated or nervous, it would make the others frustrated and the last thing they needed was a bunch of panicked people with powers turning on one another out of fear.
“Yeah,” Sam agreed, wiping his face wearily. “Tell me about it. I just… I wish Dean were here.”
“Where is he anyway?” Andy asked. He grinned and locked his fingers together in front of him. “You and your brothers are usually like this, man.”
Sam stared deadpan at Andy, deciding he didn’t have anything to lose with the truth.
“Harry’s fighting a dragon and Dean’s waiting in a bar in Scotland to find out how he did.”
Andy’s smile slipped and he blinked at Sam for a moment before he chuckled, a grin spread clear across his face that made his eyes light up in amusement.
“Yeah, alright,” Andy snickered. “If Dean weren’t ‘in Scotland’,” Andy used his fingers to make air quotes, “I’d say we might be able to get a message to him.”
“You have a phone?” Sam asked quickly, getting back to business. “Do you have service?”
“Uh… no phone, bro. I meant a mental image.” Andy tapped the side of his head with his finger and wiggled his eyebrows. “I’ve never tried too much of a distance before, but it’s worth a shot, right? I can try and send him like a picture of this house? Show him where we are?”
Sam hesitated, debating it. On the one hand, he didn’t think Dean just took Sam disappearing lightly. On the other hand, Harry needed Dean with him a lot more than Sam did. But if Harry finished up soon… it wouldn’t hurt to give Dean a head start on where he could find Sam.
“Don’t send this house, it looks like every cookie cutter family house in the US,” Sam said, thinking quickly. “Can you try and send him the Liberty Bell? Something that identifies the town itself?”
“Yeah, sure!” Andy seemed excited by the prospect and he sank down to the ground immediately with his legs crossed and eyes closed. Sam sighed when he messed up the salt-line and he fixed the line while Andy concentrated.
“Dean Winchester… your brother wants youuuu…” Andy sang in a totally cliched airy ‘psychic’ voice. Sam rolled his eyes, but Andy really did seem like he was working on getting the message to Dean and so he stayed quiet.
It didn’t take long before Andy was standing back up, rubbing at his forehead like he had a headache.
“Well, either he got the message or he didn’t,” Andy said, still cheerful despite the ominous tone. “Think we can find some canned goods in there or something? I’m starving.”
“How do you do that?” Sam asked, opening the door for Andy and watching to make sure he didn’t break the line.
“Do what?”
“Not let this shit bother you,” Sam explained. “I mean… with Ansem and now?”
“Oh, uh… I dunno.” Andy paused in the living room where the others waited and he scratched his face, like he had never questioned that before. “I guess I figure the good outweighs the bad, every day is a new adventure, insert cliché here?”
Sam wasn’t the only one who stared at Andy like he had lost his mind. Lily scoffed loudly, Jake looked from Andy to Sam.
“That demon pick this one up in the loony bin?” he asked.
Sam nodded as seriously as he could. “Had to have. Either the loony bin or the Lead-Paint Bistro.”
“Har har har,” Andy rolled his eyes. “Just for that, no stale cereal for you two.”
Sam didn’t think he could eat even if he wanted to, not with how twisted up he was on the inside, desperate for answers or the second shoe to just freaking drop.
Everyone seemed to settle down some when Andy returned with the food that hadn’t spoiled from the kitchen. Sam took a chair that he moved around to see both the front door and back, Jake took the chair where Doctor Robin had been killed… the others took the couch. Ava was talking about her visions, how she met Sam. Andy was eating what had to be some nasty and stale cereal by the handfuls while he and Lily listened to Ava talk.
Sam had been watching Andy for a moment, almost begrudgingly respecting of his power to act like a human garbage disposal. That was when Andy froze completely, his mouth still opened, his hand halfway to his mouth, chewed cereal visible.
Ava quit talking. Lily was still curled up in her corner of the couch, her limbs tucked away from the others. Jake was totally still.
Sam stood up, knowing that the shoe he had been waiting on must have just dropped.
“Jake?” Sam went to him first, shook his shoulder. Nothing. He didn’t move, didn’t blink. It was like they were all frozen in time, only Sam –
“Hello, Samuel.”
Sam didn’t jump physically, even if his heart began racing so quickly that he thought it should be bouncing clear out of his chest, like cartoons would show. Sam looked to the doorway that separated the living room from the kitchen and he saw a pair of yellow-eyes glittering with amusement staring back at him.
“You,” Sam hissed, raising his gun to aim it at Azazel. It was useless, a habit. Azazel didn’t look concerned at all, they both knew that Sam couldn’t drop him with any normal bullet. What Sam needed was the –
“Bet you wish you had this, huh?” Azazel opened the denim jacket he wore, showing the Colt tucked in a holster on his hip. Sam started toward it, thinking he could take the demon in a fight, and was thrown backward, his head cracking the wall.
Sam slumped to the floor and held his gun up defensively as Azazel stalked across the room to him.
“I know you wouldn’t be trying to steal my gun, Sammy Boy,” Azazel tsk’d. “It was a gift from your daddy after all.”
“What do you want with us?” Sam asked, knowing he was deadlocked. Sam couldn’t attack Azazel with a revolver, Azazel wasn’t giving that gun up willingly. If Sam could just get it… if Sam could have that gun in his hand for one second… it would all be over.
“World Peace.” Azazel smiled widely for a second before he laughed, cold and sarcastic. “I told you, Sammy, I need one of my kids to open the gates, lead my other children as we take our rightful place in the world.”
“What makes you think any of us would do it?” Sam demanded. “You think any of us are that twisted, that evil, that we’d just do what you say?”
“I think none of you ungrateful little cretins would be here if it weren’t for me,” Azazel hissed, his eyes flashing angrily at Sam’s continuous refusal. “You think you’re special, Sammy? Like little bro? Think again, kiddo. You are what you are because I made you.”
That, more than anything, filled Sam with fear for the first time. Not uncertainty, not worry, but the kind of fear that made his veins flood with ice and his stomach to lurch hard enough that he swallowed down the bile pooling in his mouth.
“What- what do you mean?” Sam asked, trying to stay firm, not show that Azazel hit a nerve. “You gave me the powers? But- how?”
When Azazel smiled then, it was cruel, calculating.
“Here, Sammy… let me show you.”
Azazel snapped his fingers and everything changed.
Sam had been in the living room of the doctor, slumped on the floor and surrounded by sunshine. He was once again instantly transported to a new location, a dark bedroom that smelled like baby powder and soap.
It felt familiar, but Sam couldn’t place why. Sam had never seen that crib before, he had no memories of the mobile that hung above it, showing stars and angels hanging down.
“Recognize anything yet?” Azazel was beside Sam, watching him instead of the room. “No? Don’t worry, you will.”
Sam was struck silent, too unsure of where he was, what was going on. He inched closer to the crib, drawn forward by curiosity, and stared down at a baby boy with big hazel eyes and rounded cheeks.
Was that…?
“Is that me?” Sam asked, thinking it was. He hadn’t seen any baby photos of himself, they had burned up in the fire, but it looked like Sam.
“Sure is!” Azazel said. “Oh, here comes the show, Sammy.”
Sam looked away from the baby, the innocent little boy who had never seen death or monsters, who never knew how bad the world could suck, and he ground his teeth together when he saw Azazel slinking through the door, his eyes shining through the dark.
“Personally? I don’t think I’ve aged a day,” the Azazel of present said. “Handsome bastard, huh?”
Sam didn’t say anything. He might not have a choice about being there, but he wouldn’t feed into Azazel’s shit either. Sam just watched as Azazel approached the crib and knew that screaming for help wouldn’t do anything.
Whatever happened had already happen, Sam just knew he was about to get answers to questions he didn’t think he wanted to ask.
“Hello, Samuel.” The other Azazel stopped by the crib and stared down at Sam like a scientist in a lab. “Are you hungry?”
Sam was shaking while he watched Azazel nip at his own wrist then held it over the baby’s mouth. Sam had to move closer, had to see for himself, and –
“Blood?” Sam gasped, closer to puking than he had ever been before. Sam couldn’t look away as the blood dripped from Azazel’s wrist, directly in the mouth of the baby, of Sam.
“Yup!” The Azazel of present followed Sam up to the crib and his eyes gleamed while he watched Sam process the – it was…
“Demon blood,” Sam whispered. “I have demon blood inside me.”
Sam wasn’t magic, Sam wasn’t a little bit of a wizard. Sam wasn’t even a freak.
Sam was a monster, pure and simple.
Sam knew it, Azazel knew it. Dad must have known it.
“Demon blood,” Azazel said reverently, so satisfied with what he had done that it was sickening. “It makes my children grow big and strong, full of nifty powers that just get better with practice.”
“You did this to all of us?” Sam asked. Sam’s voice sounded faint, like he could barely hear himself speaking. It was the panic and it was unhelpful and he had to breathe because he had to get home to his brothers.
He had to.
Sam couldn’t leave Dean and Harry, not like that. Even if Sam was a monster, even if he was part-demon, his brothers would want him, his death would hurt them…
Right?
“Yup! Ooh!” Azazel rubbed his hands together when footsteps could be heard in the hallway. “Here comes to masterpiece, Sammy… Mama’s coming to check on her baby boy. Remember this plot twist?”
Sam screwed his eyes shut, refusing to watch as the rest of history played out. The soft voice in the doorway had been his mom, the scream was hers as well. Sam knew how the story ended –
Mom died. The rest of them lived.
Sam was a monster.
“So!” Azazel dropped them back in the present, back in the stale-smelling home of a family that was just as dead as Sam’s mom was. Azazel was back in the doorway, Sam was back in his chair. “Now that you know the truth, maybe you’ll stop resisting.”
“Fuck you,” Sam whispered, his eyes closed to keep from crying or throwing up or anything else. If Sam was going to die, he – he just… Sam wanted Dean to know that he wasn’t scared. Sam wasn’t going to beg and he wasn’t going to play Azazel’s games.
Monster or not, Dean taught Sam better.
“Fine.” Azazel didn’t sound disappointed or angry, just amused. Like there was a third shoe waiting to drop, one that would come from nowhere and smack Sam in the head.
“Maybe one of your siblings will win this little Battle Royale,” Azazel said. “Live or die, that’s up to you. Good luck, Sammy Boy.”
A whisper of air and then -
"- you don't want some?" Andy asked, holding his hand of cereal out to Ava. "It's chewy, but not bad."
Sam looked around quickly, paranoid about Azazel, and he only found Jake staring back at him, a quizzical tilt to his head.
“Everything good?” Jake asked.
“Yeah.” Sam wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans and stood up, feeling restless and not liking that they were sitting ducks. “I think I’m going to go try and look around, see if we can’t find any more weapons or something to help us get out of here.”
The police station might have a scanner, something that Sam could try and use to get a message to Bobby. Sam wasn’t sure if it would work, but he couldn’t sit there any longer.
“You can’t leave!” Ava cried. “It’s dangerous out there!”
“I’ll be fine,” Sam said more confidently than he felt. “You guys stay here and, whatever you do, do not break those salt lines.”
“I’ll go with you,” Jake offered, getting to his feet as well. Sam figured they were two sides of a similar coin, soldiers fighting different battles.
“Andy, do not let those lines get broken,” Sam stressed once more. They wouldn’t stop a demon, but Azazel could have killed Sam and he didn’t. If the forests were filled with spirits, the salt would at least protect against them.
Once the other three agreed to stay put, Sam and Jake set off together. Sam considered hot wiring one of the cars that lined the streets, but ultimately decided against it. He would, soon, but he needed to be able to get past the spirits first.
“Did you enlist before or after the super strength?” Sam asked Jake out of the blue, trying to fight off his own thoughts.
Demon blood.
Never in Sam’s worst moments did he consider that he was a true monster. Gordon had been right - Sam should have been put down.
Who knew what else the blood ruined in him? It burned out the parts that connected Sam to his brothers, to humanity. He wasn’t any better than the things he hunted.
Madison had begged for death instead of having to spend her life as a monster, Sam would do the same thing.
He just had to get out of there first.
Jake was a good distraction as he started talking about his little brother that he enlisted for, the family who received his paychecks. They both grinned when Jake said he saved just enough to party with on down-days, but overall Sam felt a sense of camaraderie with Jake. It was strengthened when they discovered that their younger brothers were around the same age; both of them were desperate to get out of the town so they could get back to their brothers.
Sam and Jake made it to the police station where Jake was easily able to break them through the metal doors. There were guns in lockup, ones that Jake began loading up while Sam focused on the radio equipment.
It was freaking pointless and had Sam so frustrated that after he got no signal on a scanner, he threw the whole thing at the wall, busting it.
“GOD DAMN IT!” Sam yelled, a mixture of fear and anger causing him to shake. “Why the fuck are we all here?!”
“My guy, you good?” Jake asked, watching Sam with calm and dark eyes. Jake had the weapons slung over his shoulder, not even causing a hunch to his stance. “We’re getting out of here, you know that, right?”
“Yeah.” Sam ran a hand through his hair, tugging harshly in the back where it couldn’t be seen. Sam hoped they were, but he knew they wouldn’t get out until they played out whatever game the demon set up for them.
Azazel called it a Battle Royale and Sam didn’t like the implications of that at all.
The sun was fully rose in the air on their walk back and Sam couldn’t help but worry about Harry. The task would be over by then, did he do okay? Was he hurt? Did he get the egg? Was Dean with him?
“My brothers are probably freaking out,” Sam admitted, feeling guilty about it.
“My brothers too,” Jake said. “I was with my unit and then disappeared. I dunno how I’m going to explain this to my commanding sergeant when I get back.”
Sam forced a chuckle, admitting that Jake did have it worse there.
They were approaching the house when the hairs on the back of Sam’s neck started prickling, the extra sense he developed over the years alerting him that something was wrong, something changed.
“The door’s open,” Jake said, seamlessly pulling a gun from the PD duffel and holding it up in preparation.
Sam nodded and they were locked in step as they began approaching the house, both with weapons raised and sweeping the area upon entry. It was too quiet, too eerie, then there was a scream.
“Andy,” Sam said just before he began running, rushing the scene to get to Andy. The living room was empty, but the kitchen wasn’t.
There was a spirit, a woman in a colonial-style dress, with her hands inside Andy’s chest, her hollow eyes lit up in triumph. Sam shot a bullet toward her, not even thinking about the waste of a bullet, and Jake pushed past Sam to slash at her with the silver knife.
The second she was gone, Sam dropped to his knees beside Andy and knew, he knew without even checking…
“Andy?” Sam put his hand on the side of Andy’s neck and used his other hand to rip the tank-top Andy wore beneath Sam’s own jacket. On his chest, where the spirit’s hands had been, were bruises… dark… formidable… right over his heart.
Andy’s eyes were clear, wide from his shock, as he stared unblinkingly up at the ceiling.
“I… how?” Sam breathed, tucking Andy’s death away in the small corner of his mind that held ‘demon blood’ and anything else that Sam could not deal with just then.
“Someone broke the lines.” Jake was beside the window and he looked unphased by Andy’s death, probably, like Sam, he had seen it too much to deal just then. Jake was studying the windowsill as he nudged the salt back in place, replacing the line.
It didn’t matter though, because the spirits were already inside and Andy wouldn’t have broken the line. He wouldn’t have.
“Battle Royale,” Sam said, slowly standing up and forcing himself to think and work on autopilot. “That’s the game.”
It made sense then.
Azazel said that he needed one of them to lead his army, he never said he needed all of them. It was some dystopian freaking nightmare, five psychics locked in a town together, trapped by spirits and unable to all leave.
“The game is for us to die?” Jake asked. “I thought Azazel wanted us for a job?”
And Sam… Sam thought that Jake didn’t know anything about demons or Azazel.
“I’m not sure,” Sam prevaricated. He hated to leave Andy there, dead on the floor, but he needed to find the others. One of them, Ava or Lily, had broken that line. One of them knew that Azazel only wanted one of them to survive.
Sam Winchester would never give that yellow-eyed son of a bitch what he wanted though. It would be over Sam’s dead body that Azazel won his freaking game.
“We need to find the girls and we need to be careful,” Sam told Jake in a hushed tone. Sam had been alone with Jake for a few hours, if he wanted to kill Sam he already would have. It was a risk, but not uncalculated. “One of them set Andy up, so watch your back.”
“I’ll watch mine and yours,” Jake said. “No brother left behind.”
Sam nodded, grateful, and they began clearing the house together. It wasn’t as easy as Sam and Dean, there were a few bumped elbows, a few words having to be whispered, but they worked together well enough to get the job done.
“Which one do you think did it?” Jake asked when they left the house and began searching the area around it.
“Hey, what day was it when you left?” Sam murmured, already having an idea but hating himself for it.
“Late November, I don’t know the exact date,” Jake said, just as quietly. “I think it was Friday or Saturday though because I just got paid.”
“Ava has been missing for months, but she said she just got taken,” Sam confided in him. “Either she’s missing all that time, or…”
“Or Ava’s the current reigning champion of this sick game,” Jake said, picking up Sam’s thought easily. “Damn. I was thinking she was cute too.”
Sam grinned again, but when they reached the street corner and found Lily, he quit grinning.
They had returned from the police station from the right of the house, and to the left, hanging on the side of a lamppost, was Lily’s dead body. She was bloody, stabbed, and Sam would wager that she had died before Andy, based on the darkening of the blood on her skin and the way it no longer moved freely.
“Ava’s the champ, but her reign ends now,” Sam said, hating that it had come to that.
Ava had been instrumental in saving Harry’s life, even if she had (seemingly) inadvertently caused the accident that night. She had warned Sam about Gordon’s traps, she had tried to help Sam perform CPR.
But if Ava went dark side – if she let the demon blood twist her and turn her into something evil – then Sam had to stop her. If only because he knew clear to his soul that it was going to be her or him…
And Sam was going home to his brothers.
Sam and Jake spent nearly an hour searching the main area of the town for Ava. If she was hiding, she was doing it superbly. Sam thought about her breaking the salt lines, how she would have gotten Lily’s body up on the lamp post… Ava had been the first one to run back to the town when they had been in the woods earlier, she had been the one to insist they stay together…
If Andy could control people, could Ava control spirits? Did Azazel set those spirits up to attack them, or did Ava do it to make it easier to take them down one-by-one?
“Woods,” Sam told Jake, swinging his eyes to search for the Liberty Bell that marked the pathway to the building that held the gates of Hell. Sam wasn’t sure, but he thought that would be where Ava was, somewhere she thought she would absolutely have the upper hand.
“This way.” Sam checked the barrel of his gun, counted out the six silver bullets he had left. Sam couldn’t waste them on a ghost, not when it would only slow them down. If Ava tried to kill him, Sam… God, he hated it more than anything… but Sam would have to take her down.
The forest was quiet in a way that made Sam’s skin prickle and a throb to build up behind his eyes. It was chilly too, at least fifteen degrees colder than it had been when Sam had been in them last. The sun was still high in the sky though, so it had to be more of a supernatural chill, like the cold that ghosts brought to a room.
Sam had six silver bullets and Jake; his odds weren’t terrible.
Sam would trade all six silver bullets to have Dean by his side though. In a fight, Dean was always Sam’s first choice for a partner.
“Hello, gentlemen.” Ava stood just in front of the chained off building that held the portal Azazel wanted open. Ava had transformed so fully that Sam knew she had been playing him since the second he found her in the outhouse.
There was nothing scared or meek about her then, not with her smirk in place and at least eight spirits standing between her and Sam.
“We don’t need to do this,” Sam said, raising his revolver and aiming it at Ava’s forehead. “We don’t have to play this game, Ava. We can all choose not to.”
“Oh, Sam. Simple, simple, Sam,” Ava cooed. “You know, the last batch of Azazel’s children thought the same thing. They were very kumbaya, peace and love. I thought you would understand more than anyone. When Azazel decides that he only needs one of us, he only needs one.”
“And you think it’ll be you?” Jake had a rifle up and aimed at Ava too, his finger on the trigger.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Ava spread her arms and the spirits matched her, sliding to the side to open a path between them. “I’ve been practicing because I will be the one who gets everything when Azazel takes over.”
“The fuck you will,” Jake muttered just as he squeezed the trigger, sending a bullet directly toward Ava.
One of the spirits jumped between Ava and the bullet, exploding in a burst of light when it hit it and then reformed right back in line.
Then Ava swung her hands toward Sam and Jake and the spirits took their cue to attack.
Sam had to immediately began playing defense, unwilling to waste a bullet when it wouldn’t end anything. The spirits swarmed him and Sam swung the revolver like a knife, slashing at them and keeping their cold hands from taking his life like they had Andy.
Jake was having more luck with the silver knife and he slashed through as many as he could, as quickly as he could, between shots being fired at Ava. Ava stood in front of the gates, her face cold and emotionless, while she waved her hands like a conductor to direct her army.
Sam got one good shot off toward Ava before she waved a hand and sent Sam flying through the air. Sam hit a tree and then landed on his leg wrong, snapping the bone with a short cry of pain. While his head still spun from the heat that radiated up through his body, freezing hands were wrapped around Sam’s neck, squeezing while its face snarled inhumanly directly in Sam’s face. It lifted Sam from the ground and Sam couldn’t breathe- he couldn’t think. Sam still had his revolver, but he couldn’t get the gun up to get the shot off right without risking shooting himself. Sam’s vision was popping, filling with black dots that he tried to blink away quickly enough to think.
“Don’t think first,” Dean told Sam when they were practicing sparring. Sam must have been ten, gangly and easy for Dean to knock down over and over. “Just act, Sam. Thinking too much is gonna get you killed.”
“Don’t overthink it,” Sam told Harry, squaring off across from him in the lot behind Bobby’s house. “Try and take the big picture in as you act, okay? Don’t overthink it.”
Sam raised his hand to act and –
BANG!
It wasn’t the loudest gun shot, but it seemed to be ringing in Sam’s ears, echoing over and over even when the spirit released him and Sam struggled to stay standing, to stay in the fight.
Sam looked for Jake, just as he would always look for Dean, and saw that his gun had a trail of gunsmoke leaking from the end of the barrel that was aimed at…
“Ava.” Sam’s voice was raspy, but he couldn’t help saying Ava’s name when the spirits were gone and left Ava alone on the ground, bleeding from her head.
Sam wasn’t thinking when he dropped his gun and approached Ava, all Sam could think of was how she hadn’t always been like that… Ava had once helped Sam save Dean’s life, she had tried to save Harry…
Ava was barely stirring when Sam crouched down beside her. There was a trickle of tears trailing down from the side of her left eye, mixing with her blood, and Sam felt pity for her when he reached up to wipe it away.
Ava wasn’t a monster; she was a person who had been dropped in a shitty situation and made shitty choices to try and survive.
Sam sat there with her until no more breath puffed from her mouth, until her eyes went fixed and glassy, until Ava was gone and it was just another needlessly dead body laying alone on the floor of the forest.
“I think we should be able to leave now,” Sam said, forcing himself to stay emotionless when he once again struggled to get to his feet. It was going to catch up, as soon as Sam had time to process… but he had to keep it all pushed down until he was home.
“Alright.” Jake helped Sam up and didn’t even strain himself to sling Sam’s arm around his shoulder, letting Sam put almost the entirety of his weight on Jake.
It was agony to walk through the woods with his leg broken, Sam couldn’t even look down at it without feeling sure he was finally going to throw up. Just from the way it shook, wouldn’t hold him, and still sent out sharp waves of pain, Sam was sure it was broken. They headed back toward the town, mutually agreeing that it would be best to get a car then, not to try and walk their way out of the town again.
“What was she saying? That she’ll get everything when Azazel takes over?” Jake asked.
Sam was focused on the pain, on keeping himself from throwing up all over Jake, and didn’t notice the slight change in Jake’s tone, the way he was a little too curious.
“Demons lie,” Sam said, his voice trembling from the physical pain. “Azazel probably promised her all sorts of shit.”
“Like what? Money or something?”
“Probably,” Sam said. “Money and whatever else he thought would get her to kill us all.”
They were near the town, Sam could see the courthouse silhouette through the trees.
“Demons lie, but do they ever tell the truth?” Jake asked.
“I – yeah, sometimes,” Sam said, using the conversation to distract himself. “You can’t trust them though, because even if they don’t lie, they’ll find a loophole.”
“What if…” Jake hesitated, physically and verbally. Sam looked over at him, waiting to see what was going on, and saw that Jake looked thoughtful and… remorseful.
That was when Sam realized that he dropped his fucking gun. Sam dropped it. Sam didn’t have his gun and Jake had his knife and a rifle and he was looking at Sam with an apology in his eyes.
“What if he said its you or my brother?” Jake asked Sam. “Do you think he would mean that?”
“Jake, hey, listen.” Sam took a chance to push himself away from Jake when a crack of noise reached them from the town square. “It doesn’t have to be like –”
Sam had been ready to plead for his life, to convince Jake to work together against Azazel and not give him what he wanted, that the crack of noise didn’t make any sense to him. Not until someone began screaming his name.
“SAM! SAM!!”
A wave of relief hit Sam so strongly that he almost smiled. It was Dean, it was Dean. Dean was there and Sam and Dean had done the impossible a dozen times before; they were a team and they were a damn good one.
Sam opened his mouth to yell back to his brother, tell him where he was, when Jake struck suddenly. Sam hadn’t been expecting a fist to his face, but Jake sent Sam flying through the air once again, striking several trees before he hit the ground hard enough to knock all the air from his lungs.
Sam tried to wheeze for his brother, tell him where he was, but Jake was just as quick as he was fast and was on top of Sam in an instant.
“I’m sorry, man,” Jake said, his fist pulled back again. “I can't lose my brother, I know you get it. I’ll take that demon down though, I swear.”
“Jake, don –”
Jake sent his fist down and Sam had to play through the pain, ignore every part of his body that screamed at him to stop moving, so he could roll and avoid it. Sam started crawling, headed toward the knife that Jake left on the ground by the tree-line.
“SAM!!” Dean’s voice was louder, he had someone with him that he snapped an order at, nothing that Sam could make out. What Sam did hear was Dean yelling again, a moment later. “I’m coming, Sammy!!”
Sam still couldn’t breathe right, something got lodged inside of him when he hit the ground, but Dean was coming and Sam was nearly to the knife. Just when his fingers touched the handle, when he could hear Dean break through the trees, there was a gunshot –
Once.
Twice.
Sam screamed, his voice lost in the sound of the third gunshot.
Someone else screamed too and Sam looked down at himself to see blood soaking his front, spilling to the ground. Shock was making him slow, stupid… was that his blood? Did Jake hit him?
It felt like something had ripped through him and Sam landed face-down on the ground, his face landing in the mud that his own blood was making.
“I’ve got him!” Someone yelled, a female voice, Sam didn’t know…
Things were beginning to blur, nothing as tangible as the searing pain that Sam’s entire body was in, the pain that was making him whimper, just once. If Sam was done, if that was the end, he couldn’t cry. He wouldn’t.
“TONKS!” Sam recognized that voice, it was Dean. It was Sam's big brother and it was too late.
Dean was there but it didn’t matter and Sam couldn’t move, he could barely think…
“STUPEFY! BLOODY RAT –”
“Sammy?” There were hands on the back of Sam’s shoulders, hands that flipped Sam over and heard him cry out. When Sam forced himself to open his eyes, to fight through the pain that tried to take him under, he saw Dean.
Dean was there but it was all wrong, a mistake, because Dean was too pale and there were red shadows creeping over them… trying to hide him from Sam.
“Sammy? Oh, God. Sam.” Dean lifted Sam up, tried to pull him against him until Sam’s low cry made him stop.
A part of Sam’s mind recognized that it was his torso that had been shot, three dead-on shots. Sam tried to focus on Dean though, even while he swayed.
If that was that, if Sam only had a moment, he had to focus on his brother.
“You’re okay,” Dean was saying, quick and frantic. “Tonks is going to be right back, Sammy. She’s got magic and Harry was okay and you’re going to be okay. You’re okay, Sam. You’re okay. I’m here.”
Sam gurgled, blood was in his mouth, choking him. He had to talk though, he had to because Dean had to hear him. Dean had to hear him.
“You’re okay, Sammy, you’re fine.” Dean had his hand cupped on Sam’s face, his other hand on his back, trying to staunch the blood that flowed too fast, too hot. Sam had never heard Dean so scared; Dean didn’t get scared.
Dean was brave, invincible, everything Sam wished he could be.
“De…” Sam’s vision swum as red began to creep in edges. The pain was fading, it was. Sam just needed a moment, he just had to tell Dean, make sure he knew.
“Shh, don’t talk,” Dean said, choking up and betraying the lies he tried to feed Sam. “Tonks is coming, Sammy. Hold on, please. Don’t go, okay? Stay with me.”
“I…” Sam almost couldn’t say it, everything was beginning to fade with the pain and he couldn’t control his tongue, the blood was filling his throat.
“I was coming home, De,” Sam said, a gurgling croak of words that only someone who knew Sam inside and out could comprehend.
Only Dean could understand what he said, what he meant.
Sam had tried, he tried so hard. Sam didn’t mean to leave him, leave Harry, he didn’t.
Sam had only wanted to get back to his brothers because that’s where home was.
Home was the backseat of the Impala, playing tic-tac-toe on a Burger King bag with Dean while Dad drove them across the country to a new job.
Home was Dean’s bedroom when Sam was scared, sick, anxious. If his big brother was there, Sam knew everything would be okay.
Home was Jessica’s arms, her laugh, her smile. Jessica’s love had been the safest home Sam ever knew.
Home was the library where Sam met his little brother for the first time, it was the times when Sam tried to take care of Harry as Dean always had Sam.
Home was the trailer when Sam bickered with his brothers over the movies they watched, who needed to do dishes, who touched Sam’s books.
Home had never been a place - it had been the people that Sam loved and who loved him in return.
And then, when Sam went limp in his brother’s arms, when his heart couldn’t compensate for the damage any longer, when Dean Winchester screamed as if he were being ripped in two…
Home became something so grand, so nearly perfect, that Sam knew his belief in Heaven had never been in vain.