This is just a story I meant to be a small one shot but ended up being a lot longer. The brothers go to a party, drinking happens, demons happen, Sammy using his powers and basically being badass against some evil enemies happens. Very fun to write! Originally posted on fanfiction website, and just trying to reach more supernatural-aholics here, too!
Please let me know what you think!
Rating: PG-13 for language and some violence.
Disclaimer: I obviously do not own Supernatural. (Just a random question, I know its part of fanfic rules, but why do we have to add that?)
Chapter 1
“So, I’ll see you there?” the tall brunette with the deep-set eyes said, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. It was all Dean could to do keep from drooling.
With a grin that attempted cool and confidence, Dean replied, “Babe, if you’re there, not even the hounds of hell could keep me away,” followed by a quiet growl and stare into her eyes.
“You are so…,” the brunette hesitated as if unsure what choice of words could fit this new man on her radar, “…funny!” She felt satisfied.
Dean grinned even wider as his brother rolled his eyes in the seat opposite him. The diner’s normal dinner patrons had begun clearing out, and this later addition, draped in skimpy shirt and short skirt, was all his brother needed to make his meal complete. Great, Sam thought, another night that should be spent finding Lilith, but can’t because of Dean’s “needs.”
Sam clenched his teeth to hold back any bitter comments. The thought of Lilith, the pain she caused, the things he would do if he could get a hold of her, he pinched them back into the farthest recesses of his mind. No, he could not think of that now. It was too much.
If anything, Dean did deserve some fun and if this brunette offered it, who was he to block him?
After memorizing the way that the short skirted brunette walked away from him, Dean turned to face his brother with a smug look of accomplishment. “You see that, Sammy?”
“See what?” Sam asked, unimpressed.
“That, my younger bro,” putting much emphasis on the word ‘younger,’ “is called style, ” at which Sam began to choke with laughter.
“You call that style, Dean?” Sam said between coughs. “No. Getting a girl’s number or even her name after buying her a drink or striking up an interesting conversation is style.” Sam pointed directly between his brother’s eyes, “You, on the other hand, got an invitation to a house party after telling her that you knew Jon Bon Jovi. How was that again?”
“I said I knew of Bon Jovi,” Dean interrupted. “I was very clear about that.”
“Bullsh**! You pretty much gave her a list of the songs you ‘personally helped write,’” Sam continued, emphasizing Dean’s last lie with air quotes.
“Whatever, Sam. I got us an invite, didn’t I?” Dean said crossing his arms. “And last I checked, hunting demons and salting dead bodies didn’t exactly top the list of fun things to do this year!”
For once, Dean actually looked like he was going to pout.
“Come on, Sam. If you’re worried about being too old, it’s being hosted by a grad student. But if there’s grad students like that chick over there? Count me in!”
Sam appeared to think this over as Dean continued, “Dude! A house party’s a cheap way to relax, meet chicks, drink some brews, uh meet chicks,…” as Dean continued to play out whatever visions he had in his head, Sam became lost in his own.
The last time Sam had gone to a house party was with Jessica. They had been celebrating something, but, as was typical of all cherished memories, the reason was forgotten while the subsequent celebrations from victory stayed with him forever. Back in those brighter times with Jessica, it didn’t matter whether one of them aced a paper or found five dollars. It was all just an excuse to be together and toast to another job well done. Another day had gone by, together, and they were happy.
But, one day, that all changed, and, again, Sam chose not to think of that now.
“Fine, we can go. But only for a little while, okay?” Sam finished off his coke.
“Sweet!” Dean replied. “You won’t be disappointed! Just promise me that you’ll try to have a good time.”
“I promise,” Sam said with a sigh. Although he figured that this might not have been the best decision, as the old saying goes, he thought, what’s the worst that could happen?
The brothers were about to find out.
Chapter 2
About thirty minutes later, as the night faded into darker territory, the two brothers pulled up to a house whose lawn had only begun to sprout empty beer cans and discarded trash. Red and green plastic “Solo” cups littered the front porch, as well, and Dean couldn’t resist pointing it out.
“Hey, look Sam, Christmas already!” but Sam ignored his brother to take stock of all that was around him. This definitely was an older crowd, probably mid-twenties, but the atmosphere didn’t show it.
A group of darkly dressed people gathered around a metal container somewhere on one side of the house, while one lone soldier with shifting eyes turned to face the wall on the opposite side. Distracted from the suspicious group, Sam’s attention turned to this lone man and he watched this swaying figure throw his head back and heave a sigh of relief…all over the wall.
“Sick,” the younger hunter said. Even after so many exorcisms, dozens of murders and witnessing the gates of hell itself open before him, Sam still couldn’t get used to the disgusting nature of his own kind. It’s like his brother once said, “Demons I get. People are crazy!” His contention would be reaffirmed as they stepped through the falling doorframe of the party.
“Kegstand! Kegstand! Kegstand!” the chant met the brothers as they walked in. The floorboards would probably have creaked if the partiers’ chorus and blasting hip-hop rock fusion from some invisible iPod docking station didn’t overpower the house’s subtlety.
Sam’s eyes shot to the rather large man being hoisted, literally heels over head, above a keg of beer. Two of his friends held onto his two hundred pound frame while one furiously fired the pump and held the nozzle to the man’s mouth.
“One-one thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand…” the crowd cheered, screaming and jumping to behold the mighty keg-stander break the record for most intake of vertically challenged beer.
“I don’t know about you, Sam!” Dean shouted into Sam’s ear, “But this is awesome!”
Obviously, Dean’s attention had not been on that of the overweight kegstander, but on the brunette from the diner who was now giving Dean less of a “Come-hither” stare than one of “I want to rip your clothes off”.
And with two hard slaps on Sam’s shoulder, Dean was off to answer the call of his ancestors. Sam wasn’t about to stop him. He was too distracted by that same shady group of partiers that had previously been gathered outside of the house. They had now braved the party and Sam’s instincts were going off like crazy.
The leader of the group, Sam noticed, seemed to have watched the movie, The Crow, one too many times. Donning black combat boots, a large black trenchcoat, and wearing eyeliner that was, unsurprisingly, black, the tall guest did not seem as drunk as his minions. The three “friends” surrounding him wore similar dark clothing, but did not have the fierce presence about them that their leader seemed to have. Perhaps it was the multi-colored solo cups that all but the leader had pushed to their lips that drove away any menacing effect they were going for.
Still, despite their choice of clothing, the party did not seem at all disturbed by this group of newcomers.
“Hey, sexy!” a stumbling girl with a side ponytail and spandex shouted. “I love your costume! I’m wearing Cindy Lauper!” and she wrapped herself around the neck of the leader. Taking one look at her, the leader brought the girl’s drunken haze to an immediate halt as she was met with some sobering image, unknown and unseen by anyone but her. As quickly as she had rushed him, Cindy Lauper now cringed and walked as quickly away from this person as possible.
“This isn’t normal,” Sam said to himself. Briefly, he thought he saw a flash of something as the two characters’ eyes met, but he denied it. He didn’t want to give in whatever darkness was trying to pull him in this time.
No, determined to keep his promise to Dean, Sam made an effort to relax and stole a plastic cup from a stack that lay on the coffee table. But with the strange feeling still inside of him, he firmly decided that, tonight, whoever this guy was, Sam would be keeping close tabs on him.
Chapter 3
An hour into the party, the music somehow managed to get louder, the girls’ shirts mysteriously tightened, and Sam’s muscles began to loosen. Dean occasionally dropped by to give him a high five and take a swig of something called “Jungle Juice” from an orange cooler nearby. Currently, Dean was very much enjoying himself, sandwiched between two busty blonds that chose to re-enact the infamous “Night at the Roxbury” dance move upon him.
Giving Sam the thumbs up, Dean had no problem being the middle “victim.”
And Sam was beginning to feel a little better about the night, as well. The Marilyn Manson wannabe had chosen to keep mostly to his posse tonight and Sam was finding it more and more easy to knock back a few and strike up some insightful conversation with a few attractive girls. From Plato to political theory, Sam’s conversations brought him back to his better days in college. Back when his sole purpose was to create and to learn. For these days, it seemed the only purpose he had was to prevent, to cleanse, and to ultimately destroy.
“I just love your hair!” one girl exclaimed, combing her delicately manicured fingers through Sam’s locks, breaking his line of thought. After this many drinks, insightful conversation wasn’t something he was looking for anymore.
Tilting his head back, Sam allowed the alcohol’s warming affects to take hold of his words.
“Really? Uhhh…yours is nice, too.”
“You like it?” she responded. The girl was a little shy, Sam could tell. Buzzed, but shy. The way she held her head down, it seemed the alcohol was what gave her the courage to make the casual eye-contact. She was a petite girl, wearing form fitting dark skinny jeans, a tight black top that accentuated her ‘assets’ quite clearly to Sam, and a single clip in her sandy red hair that kept her bangs falling flirtatiously about her dark brown eyes.
“Well, it was nothing. You know, my cousin’s a hairdresser. What am I talking about? I’m sorry, that’s a weird thing to talk about,” she stammered. She was obviously nervous, but slurred her words were just enough to tip Sam off to her alcohol intake.
Originally dismissing her as another party girl, Sam reconsidered his previous evaluation of this girl. She wasn’t a ditz. As she traced the rim of her plastic cup, there was something there in this girl that Sam couldn’t put his finger on.
“Hey, what’s your name, by the way?” Sam asked.
“Oh, I hate it. What’s yours?”
“Sam,” he said, without missing a beat.
“Oh, nice name,” she giggled, taking another sip of liquid courage. “My cousin’s name is Sam. Short for Samantha, she’s awesome.” Realizing she was stammering, the girl continued, “Oh, but mine’s stupid, so everyone calls me J. It stands for Jessica.”
Sam’s eyes shot open and, at that very moment that she finished her revelation, the overhead lights in the ceiling fan above them exploded, causing the whole party to scream with fright.
Chapter 4
“What the hell was that?” Jessica asked, a question that was reiterated, restated, and rehashed among thirty other party guests. Seconds later, it didn’t seem to hold anyone back from continuing to writhe and drink as they previously were.
“I have…no idea?” Sam said, not even sure of it himself. Could he have done that? His “freaky psychic stuff,” as Dean called it, had happened unexpectedly before, but usually only in self defense. This was a new one.
“Maybe, it’s the beer,” he said under his breath.
“You want some more beer?” Jessica asked, mistaking his mumblings as a request.
“Uhhh…” still in a state of confusion, Sam readjusted himself nervously on the couch, “yeah, sure, that would be great.” As she walked away, Sam’s eyes searched the room for his brother, who had now moved on to smooth talk a girl against the far wall of the “Beerlympics” room.
Wow, they actually have a whole room dedicated to beer games, Sam thought to himself, forgetting the more important subject matter at hand.
Sam also managed to spy the lost member of Depeche Mode hanging out with his goth friends in the corner, but they still didn’t seem to be causing any trouble.
Jessica quickly returned with a couple of beers under one arm while she held onto two shot glasses filled with a tinted, lethal liquid. Sam tried to refocus on something that was nagging in the corner of his mind. What was he thinking about? Something he needed to remember…
“These are called purple nurples, and I think you might like them,” Jessica said, handing him a shot glass.
Somehow, the name seemed vaguely familiar, and something inside Sam wanted to remember, to stop, to think. But like most things this night, he was going to keep his promise and just relax.
Jessica smiled sweetly and, as quickly as that, the nagging feeling left his mind.
“To honor!” Jessica announced, raising her glass.
Confused, but willing, “To honor!” Sam repeated and knocked it back.
“Gross, Jessica!” somebody yelled near the sound station that was set up by the imitation mahogany bar.
“What?” Jessica shouted back, biting her lip and raising her hands innocently.
Somehow, that toast seemed oddly familiar to Sam, too, but he wouldn’t think about that right now.
No, not tonight, he resolved. It was time to party.
Chapter 5
Half past midnight, the full moon cast an eerie light on the party house that landlords never managed. Why did they have to? College students were less tenants and more monkeys with work-study cash to burn. And drink.
The lawn, with its previous budding of plastic trash, had now burst into a full-blown garden of toppled kegs and party-goers. Lining the cement steps that lead to the porch were stacks of couples intertwined in tongues and lips that opened and closed for a lifetime, but would only last the night. Heavy cologne battled with body odor at the entrance while drunk voices joined forces with hip-hop’s continuous hypnotic shuffles.
Within the house’s splintered wood, a décor of paneling and shag carpeting defied all laws of modern design. The dancers paid it no attention. All too much in the rhythm from the speakers, the beat and the bass of the party. And on the yellow couch positioned in one darkly lit room, beneath a ceiling fan that twirled but shed no light, a couple that had met for the first time tonight locked eyes and lips in a heated moment of release.
“Mmm…I’m sorry I’m coming on to you too fast,” Jessica said, pulling back from Sam’s lips, still savoring the taste of coconut, beer, and punch upon them.
“What? What’s wrong?” Sam asked, eyes half closed, now fully feeling the alcohol’s intoxicating effects. “We’re having a…a good time, right?” He closed his lips again about to reach in for another kiss.
“Yeah, it’s good…I just,” Jessica stopped cold, immediately sober.
Picking Sam’s head up so that she could stare into his eyes, “I have a secret.”
Oh f***in’ not again, Sam thought through the fog in his head. Just when everything was going to be normal. Nooooo, I have to find the demon girl, or the witch girl, or the I was a teenage vampire –
“I have a boyfriend….and he just walked in,” she interrupted.
Chapter 6
“Thank GOD!” Sam drunkenly said aloud, a huge sigh of relief coming over him. Immediately taken aback by the statement, Jessica’s jaw dropped at this surprising exclamation.
“Oh! I mean --- dangit!” Sam attempted to dig himself up out of this one. His acting skills were far from polished, but he tried as best as his buzzed self could take him. “Uhhh, sucks! I…I” and finally coming to an inebriated realization, “I don’t know what to say!” throwing his hands up in a defeated, Why bother?
How could Sam explain that hearing that Jessica had a boyfriend was a small problem compared to the multitude of supernatural possibilities and actual histories he’d had with women? More than that, how could he even say it without slurring his words at this point?
“Well, think of something, because here he comes!” Jessica said, taking a stand, albeit with a slight tilt. “Come on, Sam! We need to get out of here!”
Laughing just a little, Sam stopped briefly to count how many times he had heard that statement before with his line of work.
“Quit stalling, let’s go!” and it was all Jessica could do to drag Sam’s blissfully smiling self to the kitchen, out of the back door, and onto the house’s abandoned back porch. Normally, students would have invaded this part of the house, too, but the temperatures had begun to drop dramatically outside, drawing all patrons to the body warmth within.
The man that followed the stumbling couple was hardly a man at all. As Sam struggled to regain his composure, he noticed that the man resembled more of a beast than anything else. As tall as Sam was, the man easily had three inches on him and probably one hundred more pounds. To finish the look, the man wore an appropriately sleeveless black shirt with the words, “New Fu**ing York” boldly standing out in white, clearly as some testament to all onlookers that tested his sincerity. From the looks of this character, hand to hand combat wouldn’t be the wisest choice for the young hunter.
“Excuse me, sir,” the beast directed to Sam, who was doing all he could to maintain his balance in front of him.
“But I believe this is my girlfriend you are trying to ‘mack on’ as the kids say.” By this monster’s speech, Sam had the fleeting notion that this man might not actually want to kick his a**.
“And if that’s the truth,” the monolith continued, “then I will be forced to end you.” Well, there goes that theory.
“Excuse me, what?” Sam attempted to blink sobriety onto himself.
“You heard me,” the man took a gargantuan step forward, closing the precious space between them. “I will kill you,” and began to crack his knuckles.
At that moment, a blinding flash of light seared into Sam’s vision and he was brought to his knees. To both Jessica and her boyfriend’s astonishment, however, no punches had been thrown.
Gripping his head in his hands, Sam was hit with a horrific vision of Dean, chained and hooked throughout his body. Sam instantly knew what this place was…or at least, what it was supposed to be. The hell that Dean had described to him fit this vision perfectly. Somehow, in the darkness of this night, he was receiving an image of evil. However, something was off. The fires were too bright. The sounds of wailing and infinite torture seemed forced, contrived, scripted even. Dean was in pain, there was no doubt about that. But the lines of the visions were corrupted, as if somebody was recreating an image of what hell should look like, not what it actually was.
Immediately, the vision stopped and Sam’s focus cleared again. Looking up at his confused rival, Sam fought back tears and struggled to maintain a clear head through the alcohol and trauma.
“Look, man, I don’t want to start any trouble,” Sam said, attempting to stand fully again to face the ogre, “but there’s something more important –”
Red. Before he knew it, Sam was hit by another vision of bitter crimson. But this was a vision of pain that came from a very angry boyfriend whose fist resembled a freight train.
“Honey, stop! He didn’t do anything!” Sam could hear Jessica wailing in some far distance.
“This peon disrespected your honor!” the burly troll yelled. “I don’t care what freak show he tries to pull to try to get out of this, but I’m going to teach him a lesson!”
Another flash, white this time, striped with crimson as the vicious physical and mental blows began to intertwine. While the troll continued to beat Sam down, causing him to fall to the cold grass below, an image of Dean hurtling backwards through endless space, shredded and reforming only to be torn once more, pierced its way into Sam’s head.
“What the hell is going on?” Sam sputtered the words through blood and confusion, while doubled over from the unending pain unfurled upon him.
Blow after fiendish blow, image after hellish image, Sam finally found himself on the brink of hysteria. He could feel the blood coming down his head, and somewhere, a thousand miles a way, a powerful monster laughed and whispered softly and ever so sweetly, “Look, Sammy, Jessica’s mine again… and now, you little peon, so is Dean.”
Chapter 7
In that instant, all time froze. The breathing of the two grad students standing above him seemed to slow, as Sam felt his heart begin to quicken.
No, not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not ever again. He wasn’t going to think.
Sam felt his blood pumping, slowly at first, but faster as the seconds drew on. With the image of Dean’s body fresh in his mind, an indescribable adrenaline coursed through him, fueling him to embrace the power that was fighting to get out of him.
No, tonight would not allow for civility. Now, it was time to act on instinct.
Clawing his fingers into the grass beneath him, Sam clenched his teeth and focused on the next kick that was coming to his side. As the shoe came down with all the speed and power as its previous kicks, the beast suddenly found his foot frozen about an inch from this peon’s face. Confused, the giant hesitated for a moment before bringing his leg back to take another swing, but completely decided against it, for this was something that might be worth watching.
Standing quite awkwardly, the ogre chose to watch as his weak, and obviously stupid drunk, opponent attempted to stand.
“Look, honey, he’s bipedal again!” the large grad school student mocked.
It wasn’t the smartest thing to say in front of Sam right now.
With a renewed energy behind his eyes, Sam made his earlier offer once more.
“Look, I don’t want any trouble,” he said, stealing a glance at Jessica who stood shivering from the cold, but seemed no stranger to quivering beside this man. Wiping the blood from his nose with his sleeve, Sam stared his opponent straight in the eye without a single blink or stutter, “but you can’t stop me.”
“Oh, I think I c—”
And furiously, the overweight college student was instantly thrown into the wall of the front porch.
Still holding his hand out, Sam turned to Jessica and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t have time for banter,” and ran into the house to find his brother.
Chapter 8
Pushing past an army of college students, Sam scoured the scene before him with military like precision. Throwing courtesy to the wind, he pushed open locked doors and shoved past people to reveal faces that were, like all the others, not Dean. After the onslaught of hellacious visions of his brother reinstated in that fiery death, Sam could feel the levels of fear, anxiety, and somewhere even darker below, an anger rising to the surface.
How could he be so stupid? So selfish? For as long as he remembered, they watched out for each other, even when they weren’t on a case. And now, Dean was missing and probably in the hands of something more powerful than they had ever faced. If this thing was capable of reaching him through his visions, Sam had no doubt that this was an entity (if not linked to yellow-eyed demon than to something worse) for which he’d need all his energy.
Just then, amidst Sam’s frantic searching around the house, as quiet and mockingly sincere as it had once been, the monster’s voice again whispered in Sam’s mind, “I still have Dean. Where are you, Sam? I’m waiting.”
Immediately, Sam stopped his feverish search in the stairwell of the house. Nearly trampling over a pair of vomiting college students in his way, Sam followed the voice’s source down, down, deeper below, into the fires below where sinister screeches and demonic cheers could be heard.
Eventually, Sam would willingly enter a different portal to hell. With each closing step, Sam gathered up every ounce of power within himself, readying himself for battle on the other side of the basement door.
Chapter 9
“Rack ‘em, f***ers!” cackled a woman in a black, lacy gown. Sam instantly recognized the garish girl whose back was turned from him. She had been one member of the darkly clad group whose presence had initially set off his internal alarms.
Apparently, she had just made a shot in beer pong.
Cautiously, Sam descended the beer stained wooden steps into the stifling smell of cheap beer and sweat below.
“I want a diamond! Shape the cups like a diamond!” the girl demanded, completely unaware of the approaching hunter behind her. Oblivious to her opponents’ changed expressions, she dipped the ping pong ball into her water cup to clear off any dirt. “I said diamond, you idiots, let’s go!” and finally looked up to see them pointing fearfully behind her.
“What?” she asked them annoyed, “What is it now?”
Upon turning around and seeing Sam’s face covered with blood and eyes now changed by something else, the woman in black just sucked her teeth. Putting both fish-net covered hands on her hips, she gave a tired sigh and said, “Oh crap.”
“Yep.”
Chapter 10
“Dontallion said you’d eventually come down here,” the goth girl stated coolly, despite her cohorts’ feared expressions. Meanwhile, she cradled the pong ball in her hand as if this encounter were an everyday occurrence.
“Who the hell is Dontallion?” Sam asked, careful to sound in control against the emotions building within him. He still managed to keep the other two roadies in his line of vision.
Tossing the ball playfully up and catching it again, the corpse bride responded, “Tall, pale dude? Sweeney Todd with a little bit of a Neo complex?”
Sam narrowed his eyes. He was growing increasingly impatient with this girl who probably wasn’t a girl at all.
“Yeah, well,” she continued, “he’s my dark lord and master. Soooo, you best be on your way out of here,” and taking special care to choose her next words wisely, she finished with, “ Move along, Sammy.”
Upon hearing Dean’s nickname for him used so casually, something inside Sam snapped.
As the girl threw the ping pong ball up again, it immediately stopped mid-air. Cocking her head to the side in confusion, the girl watched as Sam gave a modicum of energy to this spherical object of his anger, forcing it to shoot wildly in a horizontal direction at lightning speed, directly through the opposite wall, and just barely missing one of her cohort’s head by inches.
“Enough games. Where’s my brother, bitch?”
Chapter 11
At the sight of that supernatural display, the two silent groupies made the wise decision to bound as fast as they could up the stairs, out the door, and to run full pace down the street to the safety of their suburban houses, never to speak of that night again.
Meanwhile, the dark bitch defended her master who had warned her of this boy the weeks before.
“But don’t worry, my pet Prianna,” he had told her, “he can’t take me. I’ll protect those that serve me,” cupping her chin lovingly in his palm. Prianna had seen all the things that her master could do. And with what she had now learned from him, she felt powerful and she would stand ready to defend him, no matter what the cost.
Besides, what other goth could say they had met a real live demon?
Thus, she stood, unflinching at Sam’s display.
“Nice trick,” she noted, callously. “Now, it’s my turn.”
Chapter 12
As Sam readied his stance, clutching a knife in his jacket and fully prepared to go into battle with the demon’s henchwoman, a familiar voice entered into the room.
“Now, that won’t be necessary,” it said. And as quickly as that, the girl who had dreamed of domination rolled her eyes into herself and fell into a lifeless heap of human meat.
Suddenly aware of the new and very dangerous presence in the room, Sam adjusted his stance to face the source of the voice. Gripping the hilt of the knife and summoning the energy within him, he waited for his next move.
“You’d think she would have seen that coming!” the demon chuckled to himself. “I mean, do the bad guys ever keep their promises?” Sam couldn’t tell, but was the demon actually wiping a tear from its eye?
Even though the witch wanted to kill him, Sam still felt the rage surface at seeing a demon take the life of what essentially was, at her bitchy little core, only human. Sam fed off of this realization, using it to his advantage to fuel the flames inside of him once more. He needed all that he could get.
The demon, this Dontallion, or whatever the hell he wanted to be called, approached Sam in the meat suit he’d previously worn upon entering the party. Trenchcoat billowing in an unseen wind, Dontallion lent himself to a truly intimidating presence.
“I’ll spare you the demonic tirade, Sam. I’m here to take only what I need. With such two powerful hunters stumbling into my domain, I couldn’t resist taking a bite.”
From behind the demon, a voice screamed. “Sam! Get out of here!” and with that Sam was once again transported to a place where light suffocates under the pressures of infinite nightmare. A blood-tipped spear flew past Sam’s line of sight, and he ducked just in time to see the spiteful blade cut into delicate flesh. Thousands of bodies swung around him, dripping, helpless rag dolls that hung like so many carcasses upon hooks in a butcher shop. Fires rose around him, painting the walls of the cavernous prison with shadow and ash.
“Sam!” he heard his brother yell.
“Dean?!” Sam called back desperately. “Dean? I hear you! Where are you?”
“It’s not real, Sam!” he heard Dean’s voice echo through the screams. “It’s a trick! Don’t give in to him!”
Spinning around, Sam pushed back flailing arms and moans. He could hear Dean’s voice, the agony inside of it. He could only imagine the pain he was going through, the hooks driving themselves into his brother’s flesh again. How could he have let this happen?
“He feeds off of it, Sam! I can fight it,” Dean’s voice called out, “but you need to fight, too!”
Sam fell to his knees, pushing his own blood stained palm against his pounding forehead. Whatever Dontallion was doing to him, it was working. This illusion, the nightmare he had set in place, was becoming too real. Whatever realm he had entered, Sam knew that his life and, more importantly, his brother’s life depended on keeping a firm grip on reality.
“I can’t…I can’t…see you, Dean” Sam cried out to the blackness that had begun to close around him.
“I can’t…” Sam couldn’t finish the sentence. He felt the darkness completely consume him, his lungs filling with sulfur and smoke. The demon, still standing above his weak opponent’s convulsing body spread his black-lined lips into a toothy grin, while the party-goers above remained unaware of the epic battle that was taking place beneath their feet.
Chapter 13
“Wake up, Sammy,” a deep voice cooed inside Sam’s head. Sam could feel the cool trickle of water against his forehead, tapping him gently to open his eyes. Sam struggled to blink his eyes into focus, hoping that it might alleviate the pounding in his head, as well.
Staring down at him were the bone-white, empty eye sockets of a girl on the ceiling. Her sandy red hair dripped coppery liquid onto his forehead and into his mouth, and Sam could only stare, paralyzed at the corpse that hung above him. Suddenly, an intense fire exploded all around her limp form and Sam could feel bony fingers, sharpened to a point, grip hard and fast to hold his arms down. Struggling to rise, the claws only dug deeper, drawing Sam’s blood and soaking the carpet around him.
“It’s a trick, Sammy!” Dean’s words rung as a distant memory in his head. Or perhaps Dean was calling out to Sam from his own private hell.
“He’s feeding, Sam, fight it!” Sam fought with every muscle in his body. The images before him were being created for him, fabricated by this demon for one purpose: to feed. Somehow, the demon could recreate a trauma, twist it, mold it to his own fiendish whims and force his victims to relive it.
Dontallion chose Jessica’s memory to fire Sam’s fear. After watching this great Sam Winchester writhe on the floor beneath him, the demon decided to get a closer look. Bending down, he took one finger and traced a single line down Sam’s cheek, knowing that Sam was probably too deep in his trance to feel it.
Still, these were the moment Dontallion savored. Crouched on his hind legs, the demon smiled again, satisfied with his choice of hell for Sam.
“You look so weak,” he hissed to Sam’s convulsing body. “So tender. You and your brother’s pain only make me stronger.”
He lifted his head back and turned to see the older brother in the back room that was hidden to most eyes. But beyond the curtain, upon the bloodstained bed lay the older sibling, re-experiencing all the decadence of tortures available within Dontallion’s imagination.
So very often, Dontallion had feasted on the torments of humans, which is why the quiet college town was perfect for him. What better place to hunt for trauma victims than within the insecure, self-injuring and medicating community of college students? However, this fortunate night, the demon had stumbled upon a gift from Lucifer himself. Not one, but two of the most tortured hunters in history.
“This must be what Thanksgiving feels like,” the creature said to himself, a black tongue slithering out and wiping off the remainder of his black lip-liner off. His white eyes seemed to glow against his pale-white make-up, and for the first time, the demon felt shivers at the mere thought of this meal. Distracted by his feeding ecstasy, Dontallion did not notice the changes happening before his very eyes. Although Sam still shuddered and shook beneath him, it was no longer caused by the nightmare that had previously entrapped him.
“Dean!” Sam called out in his mind for his brother. He forcibly pushed Jessica’s rotting artifice from his mind, and tore free from the hands that bound him. Crawling on the floor in his mind, Sam shouted even louder for his brother.
“Dean! I’m going to find you!” Balling his hands into fists against the floor, Sam focused his entire mind and being on the image of his brother, on the hooks that had previously surrounded him before the darkness engulfed him. Reaching out into the farthest corners of hell, Sam pushed once more against the armies of evil for a small glimmer of hope.
“I can feel you, Dean. Hang on!” Sam sent his mental energies farther still, past the blood and the spears, through the rusty chains and, ultimately, shooting straight into the heart of his target.
At that moment, Dean’s entire body arced on the bed as he gasped for breath. Although he had been alone in this dark room for hours, he felt a powerful force suddenly enter. Physically and mentally beaten by the demon’s ravenous tortures, Dean struggled to keep his grip on reality, just as he had tried to warn Sam. But the ropes that held him on the bed were far too often morphing into the familiar chains of hell. The fan above him melded more and more frequently with an image of blades, growing larger and faster each time he opened his eyes.
Thus, he closed his eyes, and he thought to himself, Sam, if you’re out there, I can’t hold on much longer.
Dontallion had been preparing himself for the banquet when all of a sudden he noticed a distinct change in his meal’s disposition.
“What the hell?” he said, leaning in close to analyze Sam’s body that no longer twitched, but appeared to soften and relax. The demon sniffed the air around Sam and placed a hand onto his prey’s head. He did not want to venture into his head anymore, as the nightmare had already been set like clockwork, but something was not right. No, something, indeed, did not feel normal. What was it?
The answer sent Dontallion into a fury. Upon realizing the change, the dark monster gnashed his teeth and made a quick decision.
The demon allowed his head to fall back as he looked to the sky to assume a ritual that was not as easy as inserting a simple nightmare. When the nightmare had been breached, the image torn apart, the repair took much more effort. No, this involved careful, needle-like precision, and if he was going to fix it, he would have to do what he hadn’t done in two thousand years, and that was to step into Sam Winchester’s head and find whatever hell the piece of sh** had stumbled upon.
Chapter 14
Honed in on Dean’s location, Sam had done the impossible and stepped out of his personal hell and into the one created for his brother. And although the two brothers’ bodies still lay seemingly lifeless in a forgotten basement, Sam was fully prepared to war inside this realm of chaos and decay.
Taking careful steps forward in the void, a nightmarish vision unfolded before him. Lucid now, clearer than any vision he ever had, Sam witnessed what he thought he’d never see first hand.
Before him lay an unending wasteland. Fires blazed wherever skin appeared, from a single lost soul crawling on red-stained rock to the hundreds of bodies that clawed futilely against the walls, reaching upward for saving grace. The rotting smell of blood and bile invaded his nostrils, and Sam did all he could to cover his face from the rising heat and smell around him. From the charred visage of the thundering sky above him, a torrent of salt water fell.
“Embrace the tears of the first Fallen,” a thousand voices echoed and wailed, “entrapped in ice above.” Sam covered his ears and fell to his knees, gnashing his teeth and fighting with everything he could against the pain around him. But nothing he did could stifle the sounds.
“It’s not real!” he screamed to the air around him, still covering his ears, eyes barely staying open from the dry heat that rushed everywhere.
“Show yourself, Dontallion!” Sam shouted to the chaos. Pushing himself to his feet, Sam grabbed a rock beside a lake of damned souls and heaved it with all his strength to the sky. “Where are you?!” he cried out. He felt frustrated, scared, and despite what he’d already been able to do, he felt ultimately powerless.
This was not his world anymore. This was the invented world of that demon, Dontallion, and it looked like he would never see his brother again. Running his fingers through his hair and scouring the area around him for his enemy one last time, Sam almost gave up. In a voice barely above a whisper, Sam said the only thing that made sense at the time, “F***in coward.”
Just like that, the entire hellish illusion went dead. The thunder and rain stopped. The demonic moans ceased and the landscape changed to pure darkness. Nothing remained. No sound, no bodies, no damned. All but Sam existed, along with a solitary voice that hissed out from the distance.
“SSSSSam…I’m no coward. But your brother is,” and as quickly as the words were created, Sam felt his entire body thrust backwards a thousand miles through space and time. Suddenly, there was Dean. Strapped, hooked, beaten… and still screaming.
“Dean!” Sam cried and attempted to run towards him, but found himself trapped.
Somehow, Sam was tied down into a chair that was oddly shaped like it had come out of a movie theater. Wrists and legs manacled to the seat, the only thing Sam could move was his head, just enough to see the demon standing to the right of him. No longer donning the goth-persona of the real world, now the demon had chosen what Sam realized was his true form. Despite standing on two legs, the demon looked more beast-like than anything else. His muscular body hunched over while his wings beat triumphantly behind him. His face was surrounded by fur and his fangs, all four of them, dripped hungrily with venom. His whole body was drowning in sweat and he seemed to be growing.
Staring into Sam with his red eyes, the creature roared, “Behold, my poor pathetic Sammy, what you have only been able to glimpse in your wildest nightmares! Time to have a little fun.” With a laugh, the demon leaped into the air, and beating his wings powerfully, he hovered over Sam’s brother whose cries had ceased for the moment.
Landing next to the small prison that held Dean, the demon opened its claws and appearing inside of it was a sharpened dagger.
“Look familiar, Sammy?” the demon hissed. Sam watched in horror as the demon brought up an exact replica of Ruby’s knife and stabbed Dean in the leg with it.
“Stop it!” Sam screamed. He still couldn’t move, but once again, he felt the familiar rage rising up inside of him.
“You’re in my world, now, Sammy. You can’t do anything,” the creature howled. “Get used to it!” and pausing for just a moment, he continued, “although I am impressed. How did you break out of the hell I created for you anyway?” And with that, he brought the knife up again, and stabbed Dean in the other leg.
Dean screamed in agony, unable to find any words, and throwing his head back, screamed through his clenched teeth. The demon laughed maniacally, his form growing even larger because of Dean’s terror.
“You twisted piece of sh**! I’ll kill you!” Sam screamed, wishing he could leap out of the confines of his chair and tear out the demon’s neck with his hands. He wanted to feel his blood on his hands, to twist his heart out and shove it back in the demon’s mouth. Sam’s white hot fury rose to the point that he felt his skin would burst into flames. For a split second, the demon caught wind of this emotion in Sam’s eyes and hesitated, ever so briefly, before shoving the knife into Dean’s left side.
“You can’t kill me, here, Sam!” the demon laughed. “The boy wonder can do a lot of tricks upstairs, but down here, you’re powerless, and you and your brother’s fear is the best I’ve tasted in centuries!”
With lightning speed, the demon slithered across the floor, placing his face just inches away from Sam so that his hot breath fired against his skin.
“But I’ve dug deep into your brain, Sam. It seems, I chose the wrong nightmare for you. You see, maybe the trauma of seeing that little bitch girlfriend die wasn’t your biggest fear.” The demon nearly hopped in excitement at this epiphany.
“No, that wasn’t it, was it? Which is why you were able to break free from my nightmare!”
Sam squeezed his eyes shut, attempting to block out the demon’s unholy facial expressions from his line of sight.
“You’re no boy wonder at all. All this talk of good ol’ Sammy Winchester, the boy who would be king of the demons, and all it takes to trap you is…your brother?”
Sam could feel the excitement radiating off of this demon’s body as it cackled and cried. And his own blood continued to boil.
The demon slowly turned his head around to face Dean’s broken body on the altar, hooks delving deep into his flesh.
Returning his gaze to meet Sam, the demon whispered, “Well, now I know your fear, Sammy.” The demon paused to lick his lips, “and trust me, I won’t make this quick.”
Rising up into the air, the demon unsheathed a new weapon of carnage, his own fangs that doubled in size. He fell next to Dean with tremendous force and opened his mouth wide, revealing rows and rows of additional teeth that glistened with saliva. Releasing an ear-splitting sound that combined a lion’s roar with an apelike shriek, the demon brought its jaws down onto Dean’s neck and ripped out the tenuous tissue.
“No!” Sam yelled and he could feel the fires inside him suddenly igniting into something real, something he could use here, something he could control.
Watching the image of his brother die again before his eyes flipped the switch that he had previously felt outside at the party, but this time it was one hundred times greater. Again, time seemed to freeze as it had outside. Somewhere at the end of a dark tunnel, Sam could still see the monster leering over his brother’s body, slowly ripping his vital organs out, frame by brutal frame. The sounds were muffled, but Sam could faintly make out the cries of his brother’s plea for the terror to stop.
Slowly looking down at his hands, Sam opened and closed them to test that he indeed existed. The power, however, teetered just beneath his skin, scratching at his every being to be let out, to see the lights in the demon’s red eyes and to destroy the thing that had killed his brother.
Noticing the change in the air around him, the demon instantly stopped his feast.
Sam ignored him. The feeling inside of him was too great. Lifting his head back, Sam clenched his teeth as he felt his muscles harden at the power coursing through his veins.
Entranced by this show, the demon dropped Dean’s lifeless body to fall limp on the hooks once more, curiously stepping towards Sam who still remained tied in the chair.
“What do you think you’re doing, Sam?” the demon inquired, nervously. “You can’t do anything here. Give up!”
Laughing more out of apprehension at this impossibility in his world, the demon came even closer to Sam’s face to observe him.
“You’re, you’re…powerless here! You can’t…you can’t do anything!” the demon assured himself, fearing what might actually be true. The monster, then, reached up with his claw around Sam’s neck and decided not to chance it, attempting to squeeze the life itself out of this pathetic human – the meal that was rightly his.
Finally bringing his head down once more to meet the demon face to face, Sam narrowed his now fire-white eyes. “I’ll show you what I can do.”
In an explosion of light, Dontallion found himself hurtled backwards into hooks that suddenly appeared around him. I didn’t cast those! he thought. How is he doing this? Taking on a sinister life of their own, the chains wrapped themselves around the demon’s exposed neck, twisting slowly and tightening menacingly all around his body.
Gripping the chains that held him around his neck, gasping for breath that would never come, the demon’s vision began to fade. As he snarled and writhed, he watched a lone figure walk towards him, a halo of relentless fury surrounding his body.
Sam could no longer see or hear the horrific illusion around him. Instead, he could sense things as he never could before. Listening to the creature cry against his metal captors, Sam’s anger was momentarily soothed. Raising his hand in front of him, he willed the chains to loosen around Dontallion’s neck, allowing enough breath to escape for him to speak.
As he came nearer, the monster whose fangs still brandished his brother’s blood widened his eyes in utter terror.
“This isn’t possible!” it shrieked. “I am God in this world!” he breathed rapidly, attempting breath. His wings flapped helplessly against the chains that held him, but it was no use. He felt impotent against the power of this abomination before him. Who could do such a thing? How could this human exist? How could Dontallion, god and eater of fear, actually feel terror?
With a speed that defied human ability, Sam forced himself directly in Dontallion’s face just as the demon had done with him. With a very human smile and medium-cut hair falling in front of his unnaturally piercing white eyes, Sam said exactly what the demon, in all his immortality, had never heard before.
“Get used to it.”
Instantly, the serpentine chains glided through the air, the ends curving ever so delicately like snakes about to attack their prey. They changed, sharpened to points, and became the very hooks and spears that had scarred Sam’s brother so deeply for so many decades.
This Dontallion now stood for the evil that had torn at Sam’s older brother. He was the yellow-eyed arbiter of evil in their household. He had murdered his mother, his father, and his girlfriend. He had sent the hellhounds to Dean’s doorstep and removed his brother from his life. No longer would he be powerless and watch these demonic creatures steal the things that he loved. Today, Sam would have revenge.
The demon choked and screamed as Sam controlled the rusty spears to tear through his hardened flesh. Fighting through thousands of years of layered skin, they eventually found their target. Deep within the creature’s internal structure that likened more to steel than bone, the blades foraged for his blackened heart and spooned it out, holding it at the tip of a bloody spear.
Raising their prize to Sam’s eye level as if in offering, the spears and hooks immediately dropped lifelessly as soon as he removed the heart from the spear’s tip.
“How…how…can…you?” the demon sputtered as his life seeped out of him.
With eyes that no longer bled white, but had returned to their hazel hue, Sam took one look at the demon that now shriveled at his feet. Letting out an inhuman smile, Sam inspected the heart in his hands closely. With a small laugh that added to the demon’s increasing horror, Sam shrugged, quietly adding the last words that the demon would ever hear.
“How can you still be alive?” Sam said, crushing the blackened heart in his fist.
Chapter 15
Still feeling the crackle of electric-like power around him, Sam breathed in the empty air around him. In the void, he meditated, factoring, deciding. After witnessing the trauma of his brother dying again before his eyes, he was suddenly hit with the realization of what he came here to do.
His mission had not been only to kill. His purpose in this life was not to obliterate the evils of the world. No, Sam had a power, and with that power came the choice – both to destroy and to create. Right now, he knew his answer. He could feel what needed to be done and, most importantly, what he was capable of.
With quiet determination, the hunter raised his head to the blackened sky above him. If this were all truly an illusion, then the scars that the monster inflicted may only exist in Dean’s mind. He might be able to save him still.
With every deep breath he took, Sam could feel the delicate push and pull of the fabricated universe around him. Although the demon had been destroyed, the universe still survived. Looking around him, the dark mass seemed to pulsate with need, a canvas in search of a painter. As easily as a thought could be created, this universe would bend to his wishes now. But Sam had a job to do.
Space and time did not exist in this reality, and now that he had control of it, it was the easiest thing in the world to instantly appear at Dean’s side.
“You’re not dying, today, Dean,” Sam said, crouching down reverently beside his limp body. Carefully positioning him on his back, Sam searched his brother’s beaten face for any last signs of life.
There were none.
Giving in to his instincts, Sam did not allow emotion to overcome him, but instead did something that came as naturally as walking. As if guided by an inner force, Sam placed his hands over Dean’s head and closed his eyes.
Releasing a breath that seemed to be held forever, Sam suddenly felt a distinct rush of energy similar yet somehow different to what he felt before. Whereas the previous energy raced out with discordant sound and fury, this feeling overtook his body as quietly as a cool drink of water. Originating in his mind and flowing down through his shoulders, arms, and finally his hands, this feeling gentle force found its way into Dean.
Yet no lights, nor fire, nor raging winds accompanied this experience. One minute, Dean lay lifelessly in a shadowy realm and the next, he awakened to see his dorky little brother Sam slumped over him in the bedroom of a really creepy basement.
“Dude?” Dean said, waking from what felt like the worst hangover in history. Upon realizing his little brother was passed out on top of him in a bed clearly not his own, Dean shouted, “DUDE!”
“What?!” Sam shot up, bleary eyed, with drool coming out of the side of his mouth. His hair looked as if he’d gotten in a fight with a blow-dryer with the blow-dryer the obvious victor.
“Get off --” Dean stammered, still confused “get off me!” he repeated, furiously jumping off the bed to adjust his leather jacket, at the same time attempting to adjust his masculinity.
“Dean, you’re okay!” Sam proclaimed, standing in front of his brother as if he couldn’t believe it. Raising his arms up, Sam gripped both of Dean’s soldiers and stared into his eyes to assure himself that this was, in fact, reality.
After an awkward stare down, Dean broke his little brother’s gaze.
“Of course, I’m okay! I just had a little too much to drink, is all.”
Sam stared at his brother dumbfounded.
“Hey, how did I end up in the basement?”
“You mean, you don’t remember?” Sam’s eyes went wide with disbelief.
“Don’t remember what? How you crashed and burned with, like, every girl that came on to you tonight? Dude, you need to learn from the masta!”
With that, as if he never had a scratch on him, Dean turned around to stare in the dusty vanity mirror inside the vacated bedroom of the basement. Giving his reflection the once-over and shooting himself a little wink, Dean punched his speechless brother in the arm and walked away with confidence.
“You know, I told you this would be a good time. You just have to learn to relax and let it all go, sometimes. It’s not like demons are everywhere we end up, Sam.”
Throwing his hands in the air, Sam motioned the desire to strangle the brother that was walking away from him now, the brother who had gone to hell and back more than once, and the brother who still managed to have only one thing on his mind.
“Hey, you know if that brunette is still around?”
THE END.
A House Party, Gotta love powerful sammy! :)
