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caranfindelCome lay bones on the alabaster stones
Genre: Horror, gen
Length: about 11700 words
Rating: R for language and subject matter
Warnings: Torture
Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Hallucifer
Spoilers: Through S7
Synopsis: A season 7 AU that takes place after Sam gets his memories of Hell back. At night, Sam dreams of being tortured in Hell. During the day, his dreams start coming true, except they're happening to other people.
Also available on AO3.
Notes:
Written for the 2016![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
spnhorrorbang. The awesomely creepy art is by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stormbrite - please check out the art master post on LJ or AO3 and show some love!
Thanks to my wonderful and ever-so-helpful beta readers,celtic_forest and firesign10.
The song Lucifer sings is Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby.
Sam's laid flat, pinned to the rack, arms and legs spread wide, iron spikes thrust through his wrists and ankles, and they're unnecessary, Lucifer can hold him motionless with his mind alone, they're simply decorative, the same way Sam is decorative.
Because I'm a very visual creature, Lucifer explains, over the sound of Sam's bones splintering as the spikes are hammered into his flesh, I like beautiful things, and you're so beautiful like this.
Lucifer runs a hand through Sam's hair, familiar caress that makes his blood run cold, picks up a knife and starts the cut on Sam's right wrist, just above the bloody wound gouged by the spike, pretty bracelet of blood curling around his wrist, isn't that nice, Sam, don't you like that.
He makes his way up Sam's arm, along his shoulder, and across his throat, carving a warm line of pain all along the way, down Sam's left arm, slicing a matching circle around that wrist, so beautiful.
Sings as he cuts, go to sleep little baby, go to sleep little baby, your mama's gone away and your daddy's gone to stay, didn't leave nobody but the baby.
Glides the blade further, cutting a trail down Sam's torso, splitting into a Y just above his navel, continues the cut down each leg, ending with circles of blood around both ankles.
Hold still, Lucifer murmurs, I think I can get it all off in one piece this time, shoves his fingers into the cuts, forcing his hand inside, and Sam doesn't want to scream, doesn't want to give Lucifer the pleasure of hearing him scream, but it's ripped from his throat as the skin is ripped from his body, and Sam's shrieks don't quite drown out the horrible wet tearing sound of skin separating from muscle.
As he lies gasping and whimpering, bloody flaps of skin folded on top of bare muscle and bone, he feels the knife again, this time tracing along his forehead, down the side of his face, around his chin and back up again, and Lucifer grasps the edge of the laceration and pulls and peels as Sam screams -
Sam wakes with a shout and sits up, gasping for air.
Dean is sitting on the other bed, leaning forward, feet on the floor and elbows on his knees. Staring at him. "You okay?" he says quietly.
"Fantastic," Sam mutters. He looks away, but in the other corner of the room, Lucifer is staring at him just as intently, although he looks amused rather than concerned. Well, fuck. Sam puts his head in his hands and tries to ignore both sets of eyes.
{Lucifer sits on the bed next to him. Sleep well? he asks, his voice dripping with faux concern.}
"What were you dreaming about?" Dean asks.
"The usual." Sam runs his hands up his face (blood and exposed muscle and raw nerves), pushing his sweaty hair back. "Rainbows and unicorns."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
"Come on, man. I'm just worried about you. I could tell it was pretty bad. I need to know what's going on in that big freaky brain of yours."
"You don't, Dean. You really don't." Sam has been dreaming about Hell ever since the wall in his head came down, but this is the first time Dean has pressed him so hard to talk about it. And he definitely doesn't want to talk about it.
{I don't blame you, Lucifer says. It's our special time together. He doesn't believe in you and me, Sam.}
"Sam, I just think..." Dean sighs. "You're hallucinating, and you're having nightmares every time you go to sleep, and I just..." He pauses to run a hand down his face. "Look. You've already pointed a gun at me once over this Lucifer crap, okay? And I'm sorry, I know you don't wanna talk about it, but I need to know what we're dealing with."
Fuck. Fuck. Sam stands up, looming over his brother, hoping it's not too obvious that he's still trembling. "You really want to know," he says evenly. "Fine. I was in Hell. Lucifer put me on a rack. He held me down with iron spikes through my wrists and my ankles. Right here, and here. And then he flayed me." He traces the path of the archangel's knife with a shaky finger. "He cut me here, and along here, and down my body like this, and then stuck his hands in there, under the skin, and he peeled my skin off. Slowly. And then he cut me along here and peeled my face off. My fucking face, Dean. Does that help you understand what's going on in my freaky brain? Is that enough for you? You want me to describe the knife? You want to know how much it hurt, on a scale of one to a billion? Or do you think you know what we're dealing with now?"
Dean doesn't answer, he just stares at Sam and swallows hard.
{Lucifer chuckles. You're cute when you're angry.}
Sam digs his thumbnail into his injured palm until he sees red, until he hears ringing in his ears instead of the Devil laughing. Then he heads for the bathroom, slams the door, and starts his shower.
///
They don't talk about it, of course. The rest of the day is business as usual, where "business" means whatever awful thing happened, we're going to pretend it didn't. Instead, they continue their research into the case that brought them to Colorado in the first place. Sam spends most of the day in front of his laptop. Lucifer continues to heckle him from the sidelines, but Sam finds that pushing his thumbnail into the tender skin of his wrist is usually enough to make him shut up. When that stops working he uses the tip of his pocketknife, until he feels Dean watching him and realizes he has pricked a series of notches that form a bloody circle around his wrist.
"Fuck. Sorry." (Bracelet of blood around each wrist; a place for Lucifer to slip his fingers inside and pull.) Sam drops both hands into his lap, wiping his bloodstained wrist against his jeans.
Dean's eyes flick away quickly, almost guiltily, as if he witnessed something intimate. "You know, I'm beat," he announces. "It's almost midnight. Let's hit the sack. We can go talk to the coroner in the morning, find out what he didn't put in the report."
"You go ahead," Sam replies, blinking at his laptop. Hidden below the table, his arm is still sluggishly weeping blood. "I'm gonna poke around a little bit more."
Dean kicks off his boots. "You need to sleep, Sam."
He might need to sleep, but he sure as fuck doesn't need to dream, and right now he can't have one without the other.
{Lucifer shakes his head sadly. He really does think he's the expert on what you need to do, doesn't he? Bossy son of a bitch.}
Sam may agree, but he resolutely refuses to acknowledge Lucifer's presence because yeah, giving Dean one more reason to freak out... that always makes things better, doesn't it?
But Dean's not even watching him. He's digging through his duffle.
"Look. When you were... when I was with Lisa, I was having trouble sleeping. Friend of hers took a trip to Mexico and brought me back some sleeping pills." He pulls a small amber bottle out of his bag and shakes out a single pale yellow pill. "It's good stuff, man. It'll knock you on your ass for like ten solid hours, but I promise, you will not dream. Or if you do, you won't know it."
Sam eyes the pill in Dean's outstretched hand. He's been dealing with Lucifer, waking and sleeping, ever since he woke up in the panic room and found Cas had torn down his wall. Ten hours without the Devil would be bliss.
As Sam hesitantly reaches for the pill, Dean's attention is drawn again to the bloody circle of cuts around his wrist. He looks up and meets Sam's gaze with a weak smile. "C'mon, Sammy. It's gonna be okay. When have I steered you wrong?"
Sam swallows it with the last of his lukewarm beer. "Plenty of times." But if this works, he'll forgive all of them. He hastily wraps gauze around his bleeding wrist {Aw, Lucifer complains, I like it when you're a little bloody}, undresses, crawls under the covers, and falls asleep with his fingers crossed.
///
When he wakes to sunlight bleeding through the thin curtains and the sound of Dean showering, it's only been eight hours. But it was eight Lucifer-free hours, and it was fucking beautiful.
Dean comes out of the bathroom in boxers, rubbing at his hair with a towel. "Hey, Sleeping Beauty. Was I right, or was I right?"
"You were right." Sam stretches and yawns, still in a post-medicated haze. For the first time in weeks, he doesn't feel like he's in a constant state of fight-or-flight; doesn't feel something creeping up behind him. He feels calm and loose. "I'm groggy as hell, but it was worth it."
"Go get a shower," Dean says, pulling on his suit pants. "I'll get us some coffee and we'll hit up the coroner's office."
///
The coroner doesn't even bother to look at their fake badges. "Feds, huh? Figured you guys would show up, but I didn't think it would be so soon."
Dean flashes Sam a confused look, and Sam shrugs his eyebrows in response. The vic's been dead for at least a week. "Soon?" Dean asks.
"Well, yeah. Guy's barely cold. He's only been here an hour."
"That's not -" Dean starts, but Sam stops him with a tap on his arm. If the coroner actually expected someone to come look at this other body, there must be something special about him. This victim could be related to their case too. Dean looks at him for a second, then shrugs. "Yeah, well, here we are. Let's take a look."
The coroner leads them to a bank of steel drawers. "I've got to warn you, this was an unusually brutal death," he says, as he slides a drawer open. "But I guess you already know that. That's why you're here, right?"
"Right. Nothing we haven't seen before, I'm sure," Dean says.
"Okay. Well. It was a first for me." The coroner whisks the cover away, and Sam's heart stops.
The victim's skin lies in loose folds on his body, detached below the neck except for his hands and feet. Ragged puncture wounds stand out dark red against the pale skin of his wrists and ankles. His face is a bloody wasteland of exposed muscle.
"We get a lot of industrial accidents in here," the coroner continues casually. "I've seen guys degloved and scalped, but I've never seen someone who was completely skinned like this. I mean, his face, too. I think he was alive through most of it. Judging by the amount of blood he lost, his heart was still pumping. Maybe he was lucky enough to be unconscious. And you see these wounds? Looks like he was pinned down. Nailed to something. Wood, probably."
Sam's vision starts to go dark around the edges and he hears Lucifer softly instructing him to hold still as he peels the skin back and Sam screams and screams and skin ripping god please stop please please please no...
{Hey, Sammy, Lucifer stage-whispers, that looks a lot like our little game, doesn't it?}
Sam backs away from the corpse (nailed down flayed face torn off) and lurches out into the hall. He leans against the wall, trying to catch his breath. Someone follows him, but he doesn't register who it is or what they're saying until he feels a firm hand on his shoulder.
"Jesus, Sam. What the hell?"
"I'm sorry," Sam gasps. "I can't. I'll meet you outside."
As he stumbles toward the exit, he hears Dean excuse his retreat with a laugh. "Sorry, guess he's not as experienced as I thought."
{Lucifer smiles knowingly. But Sam, you're so experienced. So very experienced.}
Once outside, he leans against the Impala and takes deep breaths, trying to control his rising panic and nausea, until he hears Dean again.
"What the hell, man? What got into you? You've seen a lot worse than this."
{What the hell, Lucifer chuckles. Pun intended?}
Sam stands up straight. Breathe in, breathe out. "Dean. Was I hallucinating, or was that guy... he was skinned, right? That guy, that's - that's exactly what Lucifer did to me in my dream."
"Yeah, okay, that was weird." Dean looks nervously back toward the coroner's office. "But it's got to be a coincidence."
"Coincidence? He was skinned alive!" Sam is flailing, on the edge of hysteria, and he can't pull back. "You remember me telling you where Lucifer cut me? How he pinned me down? Didn't you see the holes in his wrists and ankles? His face? It was exactly like my dream!"
Dean rubs the back of his head and studies Sam's face, searching for something. "Okay," he finally says. "Okay. So you're having visions again. Is this the first one?"
"No, it was a dream. I know the difference between a dream and a vision."
Dean doesn't respond.
{But Lucifer does. You sure, Sammy? Because before the pretty little girlfriend got flame-broiled, seems like you had some visions that you thought were dreams. Just sayin'.}
"Fuck." Sam runs his hands through his hair and works on regulating his breathing. Concentrate, concentrate. "It's not a vision. When I had visions, I saw the person who was going to die. But in the dream, it was all happening to me. It's not a vision. I haven't had a vision since... since the demon. Why would I be having them again?"
"Maybe things are different now," Dean says carefully. "You've been in Hell. Maybe it's got something to do with the wall coming down. Maybe your Lucifer hallucinations are fucking with your brain."
{Lucifer smiles broadly over Dean's shoulder. Oh, I can assure you they're fucking with your brain, he agrees gleefully.}
"Either way," Dean continues, "it's something new. But we'll deal with it, okay? We'll finish our hunt, and then we'll figure out why you're having..." he trails off and waves his hand vaguely toward Sam's head. "Visiony dream things."
"Visiony dream things." Sam huffs a little laugh.
"Yeah, till we think of a better name. But it's gonna be okay, Sam. I promise."
{Spoiler alert, Lucifer says, I don't think it's gonna be okay.}
Sam's a little off for the rest of the day, which might be why he fucks up on the hunt, why the thing that turns out to be a poltergeist tosses him into a brick wall, why he's now sitting on the edge of the grungy motel bathtub with a torn, bloodstained shirt and a still-oozing head wound. Dean carefully cleans and stitches his injury and hands him a couple of aspirin. "No magic beans for you tonight, Jack. You're on concussion watch."
Shit. "I'm fine, Dean. My head doesn't even hurt," Sam lies.
Dean laughs humorlessly. "Yeah, no. Head injury plus sleeping pills equals comatose Sammy, and we're not going there."
{Come on, Sam, Lucifer purrs in his ear, don't you wanna have some fun together? Don't shut me out.}
Sam tries to stay awake, but eventually the dream comes.
Lucifer approaches him with arms full of heavy chains, a shadowy form crouches in a dim corner, it must be Adam, barely visible, just a silhouette, featureless but for hungry eyes glittering in the dark.
Sam begs him, please don't watch, look away, but if this is Adam, it isn't the one who screamed in horror when Lucifer made him watch; this is the one who came to blame Sam for his eternity in Hell, the one who craved any glimpse of Sam's torment, little brother unknown unseen unloved who lost more than Sam because he had more to lose.
Sam can't see Adam's face but he hears his breath hitch in anticipation as Lucifer hefts the chains, wraps them tightly around Sam's body, lifts him swinging in the air.
Whaddya think, Lucifer asks, what should we do with ol' Sam here, oil or water, and Adam is silent but a cauldron of bubbling oil appears under Sam's dangling feet and Lucifer smiles, good choice, I always did prefer deep-fried over boiled, and Sam is slowly lowered into the oil, riding waves of pain, writhing and screaming, Adam's dark form standing as silent judge, and he knows Sam deserves this -
He wakes with a muffled gasp and he can't move, his arms and legs still bound tightly. He struggles to free himself but he can't; he can't speak and he can't breathe and his heart races with panic. He hears cursing as Dean grabs at the bedding that's tightly wound around him.
"Shit, Sammy, it's okay, it's okay." When his arms are finally freed, Sam lurches into a sitting position, gasping for air. "You're okay, man. You just got tangled up in your sheets. You're fine. It's okay." Sam kicks the bedding off his legs, narrowly missing Dean, and slides to the floor.
Dean sits on the floor across from him, next to his own bed. Wearing a parody of Dean's concerned look, Lucifer slides down to sit at his side. Sam presses his thumb into his palm, and when that's not enough, drags his thumbnail over his scabbed wrist until Lucifer fades out.
"You wanna tell me?"
No. Oh, fuck, no. But Dean's giving him that I don't trust you not to pull a gun on me again look, and it's only going to get worse if Sam doesn't answer. "It was... he, uh... he wrapped me up in chains, and dipped me in this cauldron of... of hot oil..." He runs a shaky hand over his face.
Dean's eyes flick away. "Was there someone else there? Cause you were, ah. You were talking to someone. Someone who wasn't Lucifer. Sounded like you were saying don't look."
Oh, god, that's something Sam would rather not share. But it's too late. "Adam was there."
"Adam? You saw Adam?" Dean's eyes are locked on Sam again. "Is that something that really happened? I mean, when you were... when you were down there?"
Sam closes his eyes. He can't look at Dean right now. Adam is a wound that won't ever heal. It's their fault (Sam's fault) he was in Hell in the first place. "He would watch sometimes."
"He just watched you?"
"Yeah." Sam looks around the room; looks at anything but Dean. "At first Lucifer made him watch, because he didn't like it. And then... then he did like it. And Lucifer liked that he liked it." He tips his head back against the bed, staring at the ceiling. "Can we not do this? I need to not do this."
"Sure, man," Dean answers quickly. "Of course." He stands and holds out a hand. Sam takes it, a little embarrassed at how jittery his own hand is, and lets Dean pull him to his feet. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have slept through that." Dean reaches toward his head and Sam flinches, then immediately feels like shit for it when Dean just moves his hair aside to check the stitched-up wound.
"It's fine, Dean." Sam feels like shit again for snapping at him, but Dean doesn't seem bothered.
"Yeah. It looks pretty good." His hand sides down to pat Sam's shoulder. "Listen. I'm gonna go get us some breakfast. You just... hang. Relax. Stay off the computer; give your head a rest, okay?"
Sam sinks back onto the bed but doesn't lay down because he's not going to sleep, he's absolutely fucking not going to sleep.
///
They finish the poltergeist hunt that evening, but with the specter of Sam's visiony dream things hanging over them, neither of them are able to take any pleasure in a job well done. Dean wants to stay put until they get it figured out, and Sam doesn't argue.
Sam showers first, dragging his thumbnail across his scabbed wrist as many times as it takes to make sure he doesn't have to do it under Lucifer's watchful eye. Afterward he puts on sweats and a t-shirt, picks at the pizza Dean ordered, and digs through Dean's bag for a sleeping pill.
Dean comes out of the bathroom just as Sam snaps the lid back on the bottle. "You took a pill," he frowns.
"And? I'm fine, Dean. My head is fine."
Dean shrugs, and it's almost convincing. "Okay. Whatever. Just need to be careful, is all."
"Careful?" Sam laughs, because really, coming from someone who hunts monsters and lives on deep-fried cholesterol and cheap whiskey? "I wasn't sure you actually knew that word."
Dean's expression is unreadable. "They're habit-forming, okay?"
Oh. That.
He starts fussing with something in his bag, like he needs an excuse not to look at Sam. "I just don't want you to get to a point where you can't sleep without them. That's all."
{Habit-forming, Lucifer murmurs in his ear. Because you're an addict. You know that's what he's really worried about, right? You know he thinks you're going to get addicted to the magic pills just like you got addicted to demon blood. And you know he's not wrong.}
Sam turns away and crawls into bed without saying a word, because he can't tell his brother he'd rather be addicted to sleeping pills than spend every night being tortured in Hell, and there's nothing else he can really say.
///
It's noon before he surfaces from a deep dreamless sleep, awakened by Dean's phone. He lies there in a pleasant sunny daze, barely listening to one side of the conversation until Dean's voice drops, low and concerned.
"Hot oil? Damn."
Sam's immediately wide awake, upright, stomach churning, adrenaline spiking (twisting, screaming, wrapped in chains). Dean flicks his eyes toward him for a second, then turns to the desk and jots a few notes. "Yeah. Thanks for letting me know." He slips the phone into his pocket and doesn't meet Sam's eyes. "That was the coroner's office. There's another one... they found him at a Biggerson's down the road. Up to his waist in the deep fryer."
Sam shudders. {Don't ask, Lucifer warns, you don't want to know.}
He asks anyway. "Wrapped in a chain?"
Dean runs a hand down his face, still not looking at Sam. "Yeah, he was."
"This is... there's no way this is a coincidence."
"I know, all right? I know."
{Two in a row, Lucifer offers. Just like you described. Doesn't it make you wonder if someone's listening, Sam? How else they would know?}
"Dean? Do you think maybe..." He doesn't want to say it out loud. If someone is eavesdropping somehow, he doesn't want them to know he suspects. He types someone spying? listening when i tell you about the dream? on his phone and shows it to Dean.
Dean frowns at the phone, then taps out a word and hands it back to Sam. cas?
Ah, shit. Sam's mind hadn't even turned down that road. He types again. anyone, angel, demon, leviathan.
Dean sighs in frustration, then says, for the benefit of whoever might be listening, "Do I think maybe what, Sam? Do I think maybe you're having visions again? Don't be afraid to say it." As he speaks, he quietly goes through the contents of his duffle, checking the pockets of his clothing. He draws an X in the air with his finger and then points to Sam's bag. Hex bag. Maybe.
"Never mind, I don't want to talk about it," Sam says, in what he hopes is a convincing manner. He silently unzips his own bag and carefully pulls out each piece of clothing, turning the pockets inside out, patting the hems and linings. Then he pats down the interior of the bag while Dean goes through their jackets.
"Whatever," Dean says, pointing into the bathroom. It only takes Sam a minute to check the belongings in there. When he comes out empty-handed, Dean turns the television on, puts a finger to his lips, and silently packs his bag. As Sam packs his own bag, Dean pulls the trashbag out of the trashcan, the one with Sam's bloody shirt stuffed in it, and tucks it into his duffle. A few minutes later they slip out of the room, leaving the television on to camouflage their exit. Dean closes the door so slowly and carefully that it doesn't click. He opens the Impala's door with equal care and shifts it into neutral; they push it as far as they can from the door of the hotel room before putting their bags in the back and driving away.
A few blocks from the hotel, Dean pulls over and taps out a message on his phone. don't think there could be any hex bags on us. check again to make sure before we find new hotel. do not talk about it. Their second, more thorough search of their bags and the clothes they're wearing still reveals nothing. They check into another hotel on the opposite side of town, paying cash and using different names. Sam scans the parking lot before they enter their room, even though he doesn't know what he's looking for. Even though the scariest monster he's ever fought is right there next to him. Always.
{Lucifer gestures to the open door. After you.}
"Okay," Dean says, plopping onto one of the beds and toeing off his boots. "We're not personally bugged, as far as we can tell, and if anything was in our room, we left it behind. They can't hear us now." He picks up the remote and turns on the television.
Right now Sam doesn't care who can hear him, he's not going to talk about his dream. Instead he plots the deaths on a map and scours the internet for news of the latest victim. When he finds a photo, he takes a sharp breath - the man in the photo is in his early 20s, tall and athletic, with broad shoulders and chin-length brown hair.
{Lucifer bends over to peer at the laptop. Aw, look. A younger version of you. What a little cutie pie.}
Sam stabs at his shaky palm until Lucifer flickers out. "Dean?" His voice is unexpectedly shaky too. He takes a deep breath. "What did the guy at the morgue look like? The first victim?"
Dean gives him a puzzled look. "You saw him, Sam. He looked like he was tortured. Skinned."
"No, I mean. Before that. How would you describe him? Young, old? Short, tall? Hair color?"
Dean shrugs and turns back to the TV. "I don't know. Didn't really notice. Kinda distracted by the missing face and all. Why?"
"What was his name?"
"They hadn't identified him yet. You were freaking the fuck out and I wanted to get out of there, so I just gave the guy my card and split. Why does it matter?"
Sam flips the laptop toward him. "Because look at victim number two. Doesn't he kind of look like me?"
Dean's face falls. "Oh. Yeah. Okay."
"Yeah. So depending on what victim number one looks like, someone might be going after guys who resemble me."
"Or it could be a coincidence," Dean says, without much confidence.
{Lucifer leans back against the headboard of Sam's bed, arms folded casually behind his head. I'm sure it's a coincidence. Couldn't possibly be related. Everything is fine.}
Sam spends a couple of hours hacking into the police department's database, but he can't find any information about the first death, not even a preliminary report with the barest details. And he needs get away from the fucking Devil for a while. He stands up and stretches, then paws through Dean's bag, looking for the little amber bottle but finding nothing. "Dude. Where are the sleeping pills?"
"They're not in my bag? Check yours."
"I would know if I put them in my bag. They're not in here. Are they in your pocket?"
"I just searched every inch of my clothes for hex bags. I think I'd know if there was a pill bottle on me." But Dean pats at his pockets anyway. "Did we leave them at the other hotel?"
"Shit. Shit." Sam empties Dean's bag on the bed and spreads the contents out, checking every pocket, every crevice. He opens the trash bag from the other hotel, stuffed with his stiff, bloodstained shirt and a bloody washcloth. "Why did you even bring this?"
"In case it's a blood spell. Doesn't seem like we ought to leave your blood lying around where anyone can get at it."
Sam runs his trembling hands through his hair. "So you thought to grab a bloody old shirt, but you couldn't remember the goddamn sleeping pills?"
"Well, forgive me for trying to protect your ass," Dean snaps.
Sam sags heavily against the wall. Yeah, he should have thought of the possibility of a blood spell. He should care about how this is happening. He should be very concerned about how someone, or something, is apparently slipping into his brain. That's a self-preservation instinct that should have kicked in long ago; he recognizes this. But right now he's more concerned with the what than the why. Right now, wondering how it's happening is like wondering what type of knife is sticking out of his back. "No, you're, I'm sorry," he stutters. "I'm just... I just really didn't want to do it tonight." He plucks Dean's keys off the nightstand. "Maybe they fell out in the car."
"I'll search the car." Dean stands up and holds out his hand for the keys. "You look through your bag again, just in case."
{She's long gone with her red shoes on, Lucifer sings.}
Sam empties his duffel on the bed and combs through the small pile of stuff that represents everything he owns, knowing he'd trade it all for one pill. But the bottle isn't there, and Dean returns to the room empty-handed, and all Sam can do is drink way too much whiskey and hope it will at least make everything a little blurrier.
It doesn't work.
Sam is back on the rack, arms outstretched, palms up, held down with thick leather straps this time, don't bother to struggle, it's pointless and Lucifer loves it, so beautiful.
He lies still and waits, waits while he listens to the scrape of a blade against a sharpening stone, the sound of Lucifer softly singing, she's long gone with her red shoes on, didn't leave nobody but the baby, then footsteps, slow and heavy, boots scuffing against a rough floor, not one pair of boots, but two, and Sam knows what that means, shudders and closes his eyes.
Warm hand on his shoulder, look at me Sammy, and Sam mutters you're not really him, then an icy hand lands on his other shoulder, you're always so sure it's not him, so why do you care, why do you not want to watch, a chilly finger running down Sam's torso, burning a line of cold fire, your brother's an artist, you know, you need to appreciate his work, cold hands grip his head, holding him motionless and Sam stares helplessly as Dean (not Dean) attaches metal clips to his eyelids to hold them open, Lucifer forces his head forward, tipping his chin to his chest, so he can watch.
Not Dean smiles at him, wolfish grin, barely contained glee behind carefully sharpened eyeballs, takes up a long blade and plunges it into Sam's chest, slices from sternum to groin, snaps off ribs and tosses them aside, dry clatter of his bones on the stone floor, plunges further into Sam's body, carefully cutting out organs and placing them gently in Sam's hands, and as he writhes in pain Sam's fingers curl around the warm bleeding tissue of his liver, the heavy slick mass of his intestines, the still-quivering weight of his heart, Lucifer sighs, gorgeous.
Dean starts working the knife along his spinal column, digging, prying, finally finds the spot that makes everything disappear in a white-hot burst of agony, and Sam hears himself shrieking and gibbering but he can't stop, he can't control anything, every fiber of his being is wrapped around the tip of Dean's (no, not Dean's) blade and all he can do is shudder and gasp and scream oh god, oh god, but Lucifer laughs god has left the building and the blade takes him apart and finally, finally it's over, his organs squeezed into a bloody pulp between his fingers.
Dean scoops the mess out of his hands and drops it back into his body while Sam twitches and weeps, Lucifer runs a hand down his torso, rebuilds him, grins at Dean (not Dean) and says that was beautiful, do it again.
But Dean (not Dean) carefully unbuckles the leather straps, removes the clips from Sam's eyelids, pulls him off the rack, sinks down to the floor with him, eases Sam's head into his lap and strokes his hair, hands sticky with cooling blood, soft murmur, you did good Sammy, you did so good, as Sam sobs -
Sam is still crying when he wakes. He sits up, takes one giant hitching sob, then hides his face in trembling hands and tries to pull it all in, shove it all down. He feels a hand on his shoulder and jumps, attempting to scoot away. Another hand grabs his other shoulder and holds him tight and oh, god, he doesn't want to be held down, please. He tries to slap the hands away.
"Hey, hey, Sammy, it's okay. It's me, Sam. You're okay. You're not in Hell, you're just in a crappy hotel room with me."
{And me, Lucifer adds. But then, you're always with me.}
Breathe in. Breathe out. It's just Dean (hands dark with cooling blood, sticky on Sam's shoulders). His Dean, the real Dean. Stone number one.
"I'm okay, I'm okay," he gasps.
"Bad one?" Dean sinks onto the bed next to him, but Sam can't look at him just yet.
"Yeah." His voice is raspy, as if he's been screaming. "You. You were there."
He's still not looking, but he can feel Dean staring at him. "There, watching? Like Adam?"
Sam swallows. "No. There... participating."
Dean's very quiet for a minute, then lets out a soft sigh. "I'm sorry, Sam."
"Don't be," Sam says quickly. "It's not your fault. Lucifer liked to do that. To make me think you were... " His voice trails off as he finally looks up and sees tears pooling in his brother's eyes. "Dean, it's not your fault. It's okay, really."
"No, it's not okay." Dean turns away to wipe his eyes. "It's actually pretty fucked up."
///
By lunchtime Dean's in a fairly good mood, or at least content to fake it. He chows down cheerfully on Chinese take-out and doesn't mention that Sam is only picking at his food. He keeps stealing glances at Sam's wrist, ringed with angry red attempts to make Lucifer shut the fuck up, but doesn't say anything, for which Sam is grateful.
"So, there's two possibilities," Dean mumbles around a mouthful of eggroll. "Maybe they're just dreams. And someone, or something, is listening to you describe them, and then recreating them. So we don't talk about them any more, okay? Don't tell me anything."
Sam resists the urge to point out that he wouldn't have talked about them at all if Dean hadn't pushed.
"And the other option is that they're visions," Dean says. "Just like you used to have, when you'd see someone's death. But they're, like, mixed up in your Hell memories and the Lucifer shit, so you don't see the actual victim, you see it happening to you, as a Lucifer hallucination."
"If they are visions, they're warning me about something that hasn't happened yet." Sam slumps in his chair. "Except they're hiding all the actual details, so they're pretty useless as a warning."
"Maybe. Or maybe you just need to think about them a little harder. Try to remember details. Maybe there are actual clues. Like, the last one... did you have any impression of where it was happening?"
"Jesus, Dean. It's not like that. I don't get that kind of information."
{Come on, Sammy. Tell the truth. You know exactly where it was happening. Our own little playroom.}
Sam puts his elbows on the table and drops his face in his hands. "And anyway, what happened to not talking about them?"
"Crap. Okay." Dean opens Sam's laptop and turns it toward him. "Write it down. Everything you can remember. Where you were, who was there, what you could hear, what you could smell... anything you can think of."
{Go on, little buddy. Tell him about the sound of your bones shattering, and your skin being peeled from your flesh. Tell him how you sound when you've screamed so hard for so long that your throat is completely shredded. Tell him about the smell of blood and your own intestines. Tell him about the smell of deep-fried Sammy. Tell him how it feels when he's the one holding the knife. Tell him all of it.}
Sam lurches to the bathroom and drops to his knees in front of the toilet, heaving up the small amount of food he's managed to eat. He stands in front of the sink for a minute, splashing water on his face. When he looks up, Dean is standing behind him (blood up to his elbows), meeting his eyes in the mirror.
Sam quickly looks away. "I can't do it, Dean. And there's nothing helpful anyway. Trust me."
"Okay. I get it." Dean's hand lands lightly on his back, a brief expression of sympathy and apology. "We'll think of something."
///
Sam digs into the police database again that afternoon, and finds what he's looking for. The first victim (pinned down, flayed alive) is a John Doe in his mid to late 20s. He's 6' 3" and weighs 190 lbs, and Dean insists it could still be a coincidence, but when he's matched up with a missing person's report a few hours later and Sam finds his photo online, they both stare at victim number one, with his athletic build and his shaggy brown hair and his hazel eyes {nice looking kid before someone peeled his face off, Lucifer muses}, and Sam silently closes the laptop and makes a pot of coffee that turns out to be incapable of keeping sleep at bay.
///
Lucifer stretches Sam out on a rough wooden cross, sings under his breath, don't you weep pretty baby, as he wraps razor wire around Sam's arms, strapping him to the wood, Dean (not Dean) at his feet, wrapping the wire around his lower legs, barbs biting into his skin as Lucifer and Dean pull them tight.
Dean moves up to Sam's head, I want to make sure you can see what's going on, places his hands on either side of Sam's face, thumbs against his eyes, presses in hard, and Sam can't move, held too tightly, can only cry out in pain as Dean pushes his eyes out of his skull, sharp stabbing pain and then throbbing and then his field of vision makes a long stomach-churning swoop as his eyes are placed up high, somewhere on the wall, sees his body now, bound and bloodied, can see his brother (not his brother) patting his face, softly, can you see, I want you to see.
Lucifer bends down, cold breath on his ear, I told you, he's an artist, so fucking beautiful, as Dean (not Dean) pulls down a huge chain from the ceiling, snags it on a hook set into the foot of the cross, turns a wheel and the cross is lifted upright, razor wire sinking further into Sam's flesh as the base of the cross raises off the floor, Sam is dangling upside down, hair dragging on the floor.
From a distance he watches Dean pick up a huge knife, feels the prick as the point is placed against his abdomen, watches Dean look down at his bloody, eyeless face, then look up to meet his unblinking disembodied gaze as he plunges the knife into Sam's belly.
Sam watches because he has no way to stop watching as the knife cuts a line of agony down his torso, screams and arches and watches himself scream and arch, watches the huge, heavy cross start to swing from the motion, watches Dean (not Dean) slap a booted foot over his hair as it drags along the floor to stop the swinging, watches blood erupt from the wound and cascade down his body, watches it form a puddle on the floor, feels it flooding his mouth and nose, gasps and sputters and tries to turn his head but it's unmovable, still pinned down by Dean's foot on his hair, watches his organs spill out of the wound.
Dean pulls the knife out and wipes it clean on Sam's quivering leg, Sam's face is covered in blood but from across the room his clear lidless eyes watch Dean (not Dean) go down on one knee, gently cup his bloodied face, you know why I'm doing this, don't you, and Sam spits a mouthful of blood, chokes out an answer, because I deserve it, but Dean frowns and looks disappointed and oh god, oh god, he got it wrong, he's so sorry, please Dean, ask me again, I'll get it right this time, please Dean please, but Dean has a pair of pliers in his hand and he holds Sam's mouth open, strong rough fingers on blood-slicked skin, don't say that, Sammy, don't ever say that again, and grabs his tongue and pulls -
Sam jolts awake {mornin' sunshine, Lucifer smiles, how'd you sleep?} and stays in bed just long enough to catch his breath. Then he slips on his socks and running shoes, quietly closes the door behind him - Dean is still asleep, and his peaceful expression indicates his dreams must be a lot more pleasant than Sam's - and runs. He runs east along miles of silent pre-dawn streets, ignoring the sound of Lucifer running alongside, singing in time to the pounding of Sam's feet {you and me and the Devil makes three, don't need no other lovin' baby} until the rising sun pierces his eyes (pushed out of his head while Dean held him motionless). Then he stops and leans against a building, waiting for his shaking legs to calm down.
{Riddle me this, Sammy. If I'm not real, why are you so afraid of what I have to say? Isn't it all coming out of your own head? I know everything you know. And you know everything I know.}
Sam presses a thumbnail into his palm, scrapes it across his wrist, but Lucifer is still there, casually stretching his quads, balancing himself with one hand against the brick wall.
{Or is that why you're afraid of it? Because it's all in your head? Which makes sense, cause your head's kind of a scary place, kiddo.}
Sam bites his tongue until it bleeds (spits out a mouthful of blood, warm and slick cascading down his body into his mouth and nose, spits it out before he chokes, before Dean rips his tongue out), watches out of the corner of his eye as Lucifer fizzles out (doesn't matter, he's still in his head, always in his head, two of them now, Lucifer and Dean, working together, you and me and the Devil makes three) and runs back to the hotel.
Dean is outside, leaning against the door with (a pair of pliers) a cup of coffee in his hand, trying to look like he's not watching for Sam. Sam leans over (don't look, it's a pair of bloody pliers, don't look), hands braced on his knees, and watches droplets of sweat fall to the concrete (like drops of blood running down his torso, down his face, falling onto a stone floor).
This is new, Dean being involved in his daytime hallucinations. This is new and not good at all.
{You and me and the Devil makes three, Lucifer sings.}
Oh. Oh.
"Two of them," Sam pants. "There are two people in my dreams, other than - other than the victim. You and Lucifer. So maybe, if it's a vision, that means there's two killers."
When he looks up, Dean is grinning, as if that's good news (as if he wasn't holding a pair of pliers, as if Sam's tongue wasn't clenched in their grasp, as if little droplets of blood weren't pattering down onto the concrete at his feet). "See? That's what I'm talking about. That's a clue. We'll get this."
{Sure you will, Lucifer chuckles. How hard can it be to find two people? You've certainly narrowed it down.}
///
Sam goes out to pick up dinner later, scraping his palm and wrist raw to keep Lucifer from riding shotgun. Juggling styrofoam trays and a drink carrier, he almost misses a tiny flash of amber and white peeking out from under the back seat. Thank god, he whispers, as he carefully puts the small treasure in his pocket.
He taps the door of the hotel room with his boot until Dean finally opens it, piles their food onto the table, then triumphantly withdraws the bottle. "Check it out! They were rolling around under the back seat."
Dean frowns at the pill bottle and takes it out of his hand. "Huh. Guess I didn't look as good as I thought. Sorry." He continues examining the little bottle, turning it over in his hand, as if it's going to reveal a secret.
"Look," he finally says, "I don't think it's a good idea for you to keep taking them."
Sam rolls his eyes. "I know. Habit-forming. It's fine, really."
"It's not fine. I got a hell of a lot of warning with these. This shit isn't even legal in the U.S. And they mess you up the next day, too, in case you haven't noticed. I just don't think -"
"Jesus Christ, Dean," Sam snaps. "Then why'd you even give them to me? You realize the only time I don't have Lucifer in my face is when I take a sleeping pill, right? He's yapping at me all day, and at night I'm back in Hell, and I just can't do it any more, okay? I need a fucking break!"
He watches Dean's resolve collapse. "Shit, Sam. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're right. You shouldn't have to... you shouldn't have to deal with this all the time. I mean, it's just a dream, but it's still Hell. You're still re-living Hell. It's not fair." He holds out the bottle of pills. "I shouldn't do this to you."
Sam gratefully accepts it and enjoys two nights of Lucifer-free sleep before Dean gets another phone call.
///
When they pull up at the police station, Dean turns to Sam. "Really. You don't have to do this."
"I know. But I'm going to."
"It's not just a body this time. We're talking crime scene photos."
{Nothing you haven't seen before, Lucifer says with a wink.}
"It's okay. I can handle it."
Inside, they're shown to a small table by a police officer, young and earnest and obviously shaken up. "This kind of thing doesn't happen here," he says, as he offers a file of photos. "We have our share of murders, but people getting tortured? Mutilated? It just doesn't happen here."
It doesn't happen anywhere but in Hell, Sam thinks.
{In Hell and in your head, which are basically the same place, says Lucifer.}
Dean opens the folder, grimaces, and slides a photo across the table. The first thing Sam notices about the victim is that he's split open, a garish red chasm cut down the center of his chest and abdomen. Then the details start to fill in - the wooden pallets piled into a crude rack, the leather straps holding the victim down (don't struggle, he loves to watch you struggle), the trails of blood across the floor where organs were lifted from his body and placed in his outstretched hands, the broad shoulders and long brown hair.
Something icy settles in his chest, wraps around his lungs and catches his breath, squeezes his heart like a vise.
{Oh, I remember that one, Lucifer whispers cold into his ear. That was a good time.}
Sam silently slides the photo back to Dean and gives him a brief, stiff nod. Dean holds eye contact for a second - are you okay? - and Sam answers with a quick one-sided smile. Dean drops the photo into the file and hands it back to the officer.
"Yeah," he says. "Looks like it's related." He pulls a card from his pocket and hands it to the young officer as they leave. "Keep us updated, if you don't mind." Sam has to hold back a laugh, because it should be the other way around. He should be the one telling the police that someone's going to be brutally murdered. But I had a dream that some guy who looks like me is going to be tortured to death and you've got to stop it is going to accomplish absolutely fucking zero.
Sam sits silent in the car, trying to ignore Dean's frequent concerned glances, trying to ignore Lucifer in the back seat {Say it, Sammy, tell him what you're thinking, you know you need to tell him}, and failing at both.
"I did this. I killed that guy."
Dean startles (almost drops the bloody knife in his hand). "What? No. No, Sam. You didn't do this."
"Oh, come on. When I stop dreaming, the dreams start coming true. You know I'm right. That guy is dead because I took a sleeping pill."
The Impala lurches onto a side street and comes to a hard stop. Dean turns to glare at Sam. "That's bullshit."
Sam looks out the window, away from Dean, away from Lucifer. "It's not. I may not have pulled the trigger (not a gun, not a trigger, it was a knife, a knife that ripped him open, sliced out his guts, trailing drips of blood as they were placed in his hands) but it's my fault."
"No, goddammit," Dean growls. "This is not your fault. Do you hear me? Someone else killed him. It may be related to you somehow, he may be using you or playing with you, but none of this is your fault. You understand?"
Sam leans his head against the window. He doesn't want to look at Dean (doesn't want to see the blade dripping with blood). "Okay." He wishes he believed it.
He tries to suppress a flinch when he feels Dean's hand land lightly on his shoulder. "But still. If someone's playing some kind of game with you, we need to... it's not your fault, but I think..."
"Yeah." Sam sighs. He's suddenly so, so tired. "No more sleeping pills."
"Just until we figure this out," Dean says.
{Mmmmm, Lucifer purrs. Playtime tonight. What should we do, Sammy?}
////
On to Part 2
Genre: Horror, gen
Length: about 11700 words
Rating: R for language and subject matter
Warnings: Torture
Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Hallucifer
Spoilers: Through S7
Synopsis: A season 7 AU that takes place after Sam gets his memories of Hell back. At night, Sam dreams of being tortured in Hell. During the day, his dreams start coming true, except they're happening to other people.
Also available on AO3.
Notes:
Written for the 2016
spnhorrorbang. The awesomely creepy art is by stormbrite - please check out the art master post on LJ or AO3 and show some love!Thanks to my wonderful and ever-so-helpful beta readers,
celtic_forest and firesign10. The song Lucifer sings is Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby.
Sam's laid flat, pinned to the rack, arms and legs spread wide, iron spikes thrust through his wrists and ankles, and they're unnecessary, Lucifer can hold him motionless with his mind alone, they're simply decorative, the same way Sam is decorative.
Because I'm a very visual creature, Lucifer explains, over the sound of Sam's bones splintering as the spikes are hammered into his flesh, I like beautiful things, and you're so beautiful like this.
Lucifer runs a hand through Sam's hair, familiar caress that makes his blood run cold, picks up a knife and starts the cut on Sam's right wrist, just above the bloody wound gouged by the spike, pretty bracelet of blood curling around his wrist, isn't that nice, Sam, don't you like that.
He makes his way up Sam's arm, along his shoulder, and across his throat, carving a warm line of pain all along the way, down Sam's left arm, slicing a matching circle around that wrist, so beautiful.
Sings as he cuts, go to sleep little baby, go to sleep little baby, your mama's gone away and your daddy's gone to stay, didn't leave nobody but the baby.
Glides the blade further, cutting a trail down Sam's torso, splitting into a Y just above his navel, continues the cut down each leg, ending with circles of blood around both ankles.
Hold still, Lucifer murmurs, I think I can get it all off in one piece this time, shoves his fingers into the cuts, forcing his hand inside, and Sam doesn't want to scream, doesn't want to give Lucifer the pleasure of hearing him scream, but it's ripped from his throat as the skin is ripped from his body, and Sam's shrieks don't quite drown out the horrible wet tearing sound of skin separating from muscle.
As he lies gasping and whimpering, bloody flaps of skin folded on top of bare muscle and bone, he feels the knife again, this time tracing along his forehead, down the side of his face, around his chin and back up again, and Lucifer grasps the edge of the laceration and pulls and peels as Sam screams -
Sam wakes with a shout and sits up, gasping for air.
Dean is sitting on the other bed, leaning forward, feet on the floor and elbows on his knees. Staring at him. "You okay?" he says quietly.
"Fantastic," Sam mutters. He looks away, but in the other corner of the room, Lucifer is staring at him just as intently, although he looks amused rather than concerned. Well, fuck. Sam puts his head in his hands and tries to ignore both sets of eyes.
{Lucifer sits on the bed next to him. Sleep well? he asks, his voice dripping with faux concern.}
"What were you dreaming about?" Dean asks.
"The usual." Sam runs his hands up his face (blood and exposed muscle and raw nerves), pushing his sweaty hair back. "Rainbows and unicorns."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
"Come on, man. I'm just worried about you. I could tell it was pretty bad. I need to know what's going on in that big freaky brain of yours."
"You don't, Dean. You really don't." Sam has been dreaming about Hell ever since the wall in his head came down, but this is the first time Dean has pressed him so hard to talk about it. And he definitely doesn't want to talk about it.
{I don't blame you, Lucifer says. It's our special time together. He doesn't believe in you and me, Sam.}
"Sam, I just think..." Dean sighs. "You're hallucinating, and you're having nightmares every time you go to sleep, and I just..." He pauses to run a hand down his face. "Look. You've already pointed a gun at me once over this Lucifer crap, okay? And I'm sorry, I know you don't wanna talk about it, but I need to know what we're dealing with."
Fuck. Fuck. Sam stands up, looming over his brother, hoping it's not too obvious that he's still trembling. "You really want to know," he says evenly. "Fine. I was in Hell. Lucifer put me on a rack. He held me down with iron spikes through my wrists and my ankles. Right here, and here. And then he flayed me." He traces the path of the archangel's knife with a shaky finger. "He cut me here, and along here, and down my body like this, and then stuck his hands in there, under the skin, and he peeled my skin off. Slowly. And then he cut me along here and peeled my face off. My fucking face, Dean. Does that help you understand what's going on in my freaky brain? Is that enough for you? You want me to describe the knife? You want to know how much it hurt, on a scale of one to a billion? Or do you think you know what we're dealing with now?"
Dean doesn't answer, he just stares at Sam and swallows hard.
{Lucifer chuckles. You're cute when you're angry.}
Sam digs his thumbnail into his injured palm until he sees red, until he hears ringing in his ears instead of the Devil laughing. Then he heads for the bathroom, slams the door, and starts his shower.
///
They don't talk about it, of course. The rest of the day is business as usual, where "business" means whatever awful thing happened, we're going to pretend it didn't. Instead, they continue their research into the case that brought them to Colorado in the first place. Sam spends most of the day in front of his laptop. Lucifer continues to heckle him from the sidelines, but Sam finds that pushing his thumbnail into the tender skin of his wrist is usually enough to make him shut up. When that stops working he uses the tip of his pocketknife, until he feels Dean watching him and realizes he has pricked a series of notches that form a bloody circle around his wrist.
"Fuck. Sorry." (Bracelet of blood around each wrist; a place for Lucifer to slip his fingers inside and pull.) Sam drops both hands into his lap, wiping his bloodstained wrist against his jeans.
Dean's eyes flick away quickly, almost guiltily, as if he witnessed something intimate. "You know, I'm beat," he announces. "It's almost midnight. Let's hit the sack. We can go talk to the coroner in the morning, find out what he didn't put in the report."
"You go ahead," Sam replies, blinking at his laptop. Hidden below the table, his arm is still sluggishly weeping blood. "I'm gonna poke around a little bit more."
Dean kicks off his boots. "You need to sleep, Sam."
He might need to sleep, but he sure as fuck doesn't need to dream, and right now he can't have one without the other.
{Lucifer shakes his head sadly. He really does think he's the expert on what you need to do, doesn't he? Bossy son of a bitch.}
Sam may agree, but he resolutely refuses to acknowledge Lucifer's presence because yeah, giving Dean one more reason to freak out... that always makes things better, doesn't it?
But Dean's not even watching him. He's digging through his duffle.
"Look. When you were... when I was with Lisa, I was having trouble sleeping. Friend of hers took a trip to Mexico and brought me back some sleeping pills." He pulls a small amber bottle out of his bag and shakes out a single pale yellow pill. "It's good stuff, man. It'll knock you on your ass for like ten solid hours, but I promise, you will not dream. Or if you do, you won't know it."
Sam eyes the pill in Dean's outstretched hand. He's been dealing with Lucifer, waking and sleeping, ever since he woke up in the panic room and found Cas had torn down his wall. Ten hours without the Devil would be bliss.
As Sam hesitantly reaches for the pill, Dean's attention is drawn again to the bloody circle of cuts around his wrist. He looks up and meets Sam's gaze with a weak smile. "C'mon, Sammy. It's gonna be okay. When have I steered you wrong?"
Sam swallows it with the last of his lukewarm beer. "Plenty of times." But if this works, he'll forgive all of them. He hastily wraps gauze around his bleeding wrist {Aw, Lucifer complains, I like it when you're a little bloody}, undresses, crawls under the covers, and falls asleep with his fingers crossed.
///
When he wakes to sunlight bleeding through the thin curtains and the sound of Dean showering, it's only been eight hours. But it was eight Lucifer-free hours, and it was fucking beautiful.
Dean comes out of the bathroom in boxers, rubbing at his hair with a towel. "Hey, Sleeping Beauty. Was I right, or was I right?"
"You were right." Sam stretches and yawns, still in a post-medicated haze. For the first time in weeks, he doesn't feel like he's in a constant state of fight-or-flight; doesn't feel something creeping up behind him. He feels calm and loose. "I'm groggy as hell, but it was worth it."
"Go get a shower," Dean says, pulling on his suit pants. "I'll get us some coffee and we'll hit up the coroner's office."
///
The coroner doesn't even bother to look at their fake badges. "Feds, huh? Figured you guys would show up, but I didn't think it would be so soon."
Dean flashes Sam a confused look, and Sam shrugs his eyebrows in response. The vic's been dead for at least a week. "Soon?" Dean asks.
"Well, yeah. Guy's barely cold. He's only been here an hour."
"That's not -" Dean starts, but Sam stops him with a tap on his arm. If the coroner actually expected someone to come look at this other body, there must be something special about him. This victim could be related to their case too. Dean looks at him for a second, then shrugs. "Yeah, well, here we are. Let's take a look."
The coroner leads them to a bank of steel drawers. "I've got to warn you, this was an unusually brutal death," he says, as he slides a drawer open. "But I guess you already know that. That's why you're here, right?"
"Right. Nothing we haven't seen before, I'm sure," Dean says.
"Okay. Well. It was a first for me." The coroner whisks the cover away, and Sam's heart stops.
The victim's skin lies in loose folds on his body, detached below the neck except for his hands and feet. Ragged puncture wounds stand out dark red against the pale skin of his wrists and ankles. His face is a bloody wasteland of exposed muscle.
"We get a lot of industrial accidents in here," the coroner continues casually. "I've seen guys degloved and scalped, but I've never seen someone who was completely skinned like this. I mean, his face, too. I think he was alive through most of it. Judging by the amount of blood he lost, his heart was still pumping. Maybe he was lucky enough to be unconscious. And you see these wounds? Looks like he was pinned down. Nailed to something. Wood, probably."
Sam's vision starts to go dark around the edges and he hears Lucifer softly instructing him to hold still as he peels the skin back and Sam screams and screams and skin ripping god please stop please please please no...
{Hey, Sammy, Lucifer stage-whispers, that looks a lot like our little game, doesn't it?}
Sam backs away from the corpse (nailed down flayed face torn off) and lurches out into the hall. He leans against the wall, trying to catch his breath. Someone follows him, but he doesn't register who it is or what they're saying until he feels a firm hand on his shoulder.
"Jesus, Sam. What the hell?"
"I'm sorry," Sam gasps. "I can't. I'll meet you outside."
As he stumbles toward the exit, he hears Dean excuse his retreat with a laugh. "Sorry, guess he's not as experienced as I thought."
{Lucifer smiles knowingly. But Sam, you're so experienced. So very experienced.}
Once outside, he leans against the Impala and takes deep breaths, trying to control his rising panic and nausea, until he hears Dean again.
"What the hell, man? What got into you? You've seen a lot worse than this."
{What the hell, Lucifer chuckles. Pun intended?}
Sam stands up straight. Breathe in, breathe out. "Dean. Was I hallucinating, or was that guy... he was skinned, right? That guy, that's - that's exactly what Lucifer did to me in my dream."
"Yeah, okay, that was weird." Dean looks nervously back toward the coroner's office. "But it's got to be a coincidence."
"Coincidence? He was skinned alive!" Sam is flailing, on the edge of hysteria, and he can't pull back. "You remember me telling you where Lucifer cut me? How he pinned me down? Didn't you see the holes in his wrists and ankles? His face? It was exactly like my dream!"
Dean rubs the back of his head and studies Sam's face, searching for something. "Okay," he finally says. "Okay. So you're having visions again. Is this the first one?"
"No, it was a dream. I know the difference between a dream and a vision."
Dean doesn't respond.
{But Lucifer does. You sure, Sammy? Because before the pretty little girlfriend got flame-broiled, seems like you had some visions that you thought were dreams. Just sayin'.}
"Fuck." Sam runs his hands through his hair and works on regulating his breathing. Concentrate, concentrate. "It's not a vision. When I had visions, I saw the person who was going to die. But in the dream, it was all happening to me. It's not a vision. I haven't had a vision since... since the demon. Why would I be having them again?"
"Maybe things are different now," Dean says carefully. "You've been in Hell. Maybe it's got something to do with the wall coming down. Maybe your Lucifer hallucinations are fucking with your brain."
{Lucifer smiles broadly over Dean's shoulder. Oh, I can assure you they're fucking with your brain, he agrees gleefully.}
"Either way," Dean continues, "it's something new. But we'll deal with it, okay? We'll finish our hunt, and then we'll figure out why you're having..." he trails off and waves his hand vaguely toward Sam's head. "Visiony dream things."
"Visiony dream things." Sam huffs a little laugh.
"Yeah, till we think of a better name. But it's gonna be okay, Sam. I promise."
{Spoiler alert, Lucifer says, I don't think it's gonna be okay.}
Sam's a little off for the rest of the day, which might be why he fucks up on the hunt, why the thing that turns out to be a poltergeist tosses him into a brick wall, why he's now sitting on the edge of the grungy motel bathtub with a torn, bloodstained shirt and a still-oozing head wound. Dean carefully cleans and stitches his injury and hands him a couple of aspirin. "No magic beans for you tonight, Jack. You're on concussion watch."
Shit. "I'm fine, Dean. My head doesn't even hurt," Sam lies.
Dean laughs humorlessly. "Yeah, no. Head injury plus sleeping pills equals comatose Sammy, and we're not going there."
{Come on, Sam, Lucifer purrs in his ear, don't you wanna have some fun together? Don't shut me out.}
Sam tries to stay awake, but eventually the dream comes.
Lucifer approaches him with arms full of heavy chains, a shadowy form crouches in a dim corner, it must be Adam, barely visible, just a silhouette, featureless but for hungry eyes glittering in the dark.
Sam begs him, please don't watch, look away, but if this is Adam, it isn't the one who screamed in horror when Lucifer made him watch; this is the one who came to blame Sam for his eternity in Hell, the one who craved any glimpse of Sam's torment, little brother unknown unseen unloved who lost more than Sam because he had more to lose.
Sam can't see Adam's face but he hears his breath hitch in anticipation as Lucifer hefts the chains, wraps them tightly around Sam's body, lifts him swinging in the air.
Whaddya think, Lucifer asks, what should we do with ol' Sam here, oil or water, and Adam is silent but a cauldron of bubbling oil appears under Sam's dangling feet and Lucifer smiles, good choice, I always did prefer deep-fried over boiled, and Sam is slowly lowered into the oil, riding waves of pain, writhing and screaming, Adam's dark form standing as silent judge, and he knows Sam deserves this -
He wakes with a muffled gasp and he can't move, his arms and legs still bound tightly. He struggles to free himself but he can't; he can't speak and he can't breathe and his heart races with panic. He hears cursing as Dean grabs at the bedding that's tightly wound around him.
"Shit, Sammy, it's okay, it's okay." When his arms are finally freed, Sam lurches into a sitting position, gasping for air. "You're okay, man. You just got tangled up in your sheets. You're fine. It's okay." Sam kicks the bedding off his legs, narrowly missing Dean, and slides to the floor.
Dean sits on the floor across from him, next to his own bed. Wearing a parody of Dean's concerned look, Lucifer slides down to sit at his side. Sam presses his thumb into his palm, and when that's not enough, drags his thumbnail over his scabbed wrist until Lucifer fades out.
"You wanna tell me?"
No. Oh, fuck, no. But Dean's giving him that I don't trust you not to pull a gun on me again look, and it's only going to get worse if Sam doesn't answer. "It was... he, uh... he wrapped me up in chains, and dipped me in this cauldron of... of hot oil..." He runs a shaky hand over his face.
Dean's eyes flick away. "Was there someone else there? Cause you were, ah. You were talking to someone. Someone who wasn't Lucifer. Sounded like you were saying don't look."
Oh, god, that's something Sam would rather not share. But it's too late. "Adam was there."
"Adam? You saw Adam?" Dean's eyes are locked on Sam again. "Is that something that really happened? I mean, when you were... when you were down there?"
Sam closes his eyes. He can't look at Dean right now. Adam is a wound that won't ever heal. It's their fault (Sam's fault) he was in Hell in the first place. "He would watch sometimes."
"He just watched you?"
"Yeah." Sam looks around the room; looks at anything but Dean. "At first Lucifer made him watch, because he didn't like it. And then... then he did like it. And Lucifer liked that he liked it." He tips his head back against the bed, staring at the ceiling. "Can we not do this? I need to not do this."
"Sure, man," Dean answers quickly. "Of course." He stands and holds out a hand. Sam takes it, a little embarrassed at how jittery his own hand is, and lets Dean pull him to his feet. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have slept through that." Dean reaches toward his head and Sam flinches, then immediately feels like shit for it when Dean just moves his hair aside to check the stitched-up wound.
"It's fine, Dean." Sam feels like shit again for snapping at him, but Dean doesn't seem bothered.
"Yeah. It looks pretty good." His hand sides down to pat Sam's shoulder. "Listen. I'm gonna go get us some breakfast. You just... hang. Relax. Stay off the computer; give your head a rest, okay?"
Sam sinks back onto the bed but doesn't lay down because he's not going to sleep, he's absolutely fucking not going to sleep.
///
They finish the poltergeist hunt that evening, but with the specter of Sam's visiony dream things hanging over them, neither of them are able to take any pleasure in a job well done. Dean wants to stay put until they get it figured out, and Sam doesn't argue.
Sam showers first, dragging his thumbnail across his scabbed wrist as many times as it takes to make sure he doesn't have to do it under Lucifer's watchful eye. Afterward he puts on sweats and a t-shirt, picks at the pizza Dean ordered, and digs through Dean's bag for a sleeping pill.
Dean comes out of the bathroom just as Sam snaps the lid back on the bottle. "You took a pill," he frowns.
"And? I'm fine, Dean. My head is fine."
Dean shrugs, and it's almost convincing. "Okay. Whatever. Just need to be careful, is all."
"Careful?" Sam laughs, because really, coming from someone who hunts monsters and lives on deep-fried cholesterol and cheap whiskey? "I wasn't sure you actually knew that word."
Dean's expression is unreadable. "They're habit-forming, okay?"
Oh. That.
He starts fussing with something in his bag, like he needs an excuse not to look at Sam. "I just don't want you to get to a point where you can't sleep without them. That's all."
{Habit-forming, Lucifer murmurs in his ear. Because you're an addict. You know that's what he's really worried about, right? You know he thinks you're going to get addicted to the magic pills just like you got addicted to demon blood. And you know he's not wrong.}
Sam turns away and crawls into bed without saying a word, because he can't tell his brother he'd rather be addicted to sleeping pills than spend every night being tortured in Hell, and there's nothing else he can really say.
///
It's noon before he surfaces from a deep dreamless sleep, awakened by Dean's phone. He lies there in a pleasant sunny daze, barely listening to one side of the conversation until Dean's voice drops, low and concerned.
"Hot oil? Damn."
Sam's immediately wide awake, upright, stomach churning, adrenaline spiking (twisting, screaming, wrapped in chains). Dean flicks his eyes toward him for a second, then turns to the desk and jots a few notes. "Yeah. Thanks for letting me know." He slips the phone into his pocket and doesn't meet Sam's eyes. "That was the coroner's office. There's another one... they found him at a Biggerson's down the road. Up to his waist in the deep fryer."
Sam shudders. {Don't ask, Lucifer warns, you don't want to know.}
He asks anyway. "Wrapped in a chain?"
Dean runs a hand down his face, still not looking at Sam. "Yeah, he was."
"This is... there's no way this is a coincidence."
"I know, all right? I know."
{Two in a row, Lucifer offers. Just like you described. Doesn't it make you wonder if someone's listening, Sam? How else they would know?}
"Dean? Do you think maybe..." He doesn't want to say it out loud. If someone is eavesdropping somehow, he doesn't want them to know he suspects. He types someone spying? listening when i tell you about the dream? on his phone and shows it to Dean.
Dean frowns at the phone, then taps out a word and hands it back to Sam. cas?
Ah, shit. Sam's mind hadn't even turned down that road. He types again. anyone, angel, demon, leviathan.
Dean sighs in frustration, then says, for the benefit of whoever might be listening, "Do I think maybe what, Sam? Do I think maybe you're having visions again? Don't be afraid to say it." As he speaks, he quietly goes through the contents of his duffle, checking the pockets of his clothing. He draws an X in the air with his finger and then points to Sam's bag. Hex bag. Maybe.
"Never mind, I don't want to talk about it," Sam says, in what he hopes is a convincing manner. He silently unzips his own bag and carefully pulls out each piece of clothing, turning the pockets inside out, patting the hems and linings. Then he pats down the interior of the bag while Dean goes through their jackets.
"Whatever," Dean says, pointing into the bathroom. It only takes Sam a minute to check the belongings in there. When he comes out empty-handed, Dean turns the television on, puts a finger to his lips, and silently packs his bag. As Sam packs his own bag, Dean pulls the trashbag out of the trashcan, the one with Sam's bloody shirt stuffed in it, and tucks it into his duffle. A few minutes later they slip out of the room, leaving the television on to camouflage their exit. Dean closes the door so slowly and carefully that it doesn't click. He opens the Impala's door with equal care and shifts it into neutral; they push it as far as they can from the door of the hotel room before putting their bags in the back and driving away.
A few blocks from the hotel, Dean pulls over and taps out a message on his phone. don't think there could be any hex bags on us. check again to make sure before we find new hotel. do not talk about it. Their second, more thorough search of their bags and the clothes they're wearing still reveals nothing. They check into another hotel on the opposite side of town, paying cash and using different names. Sam scans the parking lot before they enter their room, even though he doesn't know what he's looking for. Even though the scariest monster he's ever fought is right there next to him. Always.
{Lucifer gestures to the open door. After you.}
"Okay," Dean says, plopping onto one of the beds and toeing off his boots. "We're not personally bugged, as far as we can tell, and if anything was in our room, we left it behind. They can't hear us now." He picks up the remote and turns on the television.
Right now Sam doesn't care who can hear him, he's not going to talk about his dream. Instead he plots the deaths on a map and scours the internet for news of the latest victim. When he finds a photo, he takes a sharp breath - the man in the photo is in his early 20s, tall and athletic, with broad shoulders and chin-length brown hair.
{Lucifer bends over to peer at the laptop. Aw, look. A younger version of you. What a little cutie pie.}
Sam stabs at his shaky palm until Lucifer flickers out. "Dean?" His voice is unexpectedly shaky too. He takes a deep breath. "What did the guy at the morgue look like? The first victim?"
Dean gives him a puzzled look. "You saw him, Sam. He looked like he was tortured. Skinned."
"No, I mean. Before that. How would you describe him? Young, old? Short, tall? Hair color?"
Dean shrugs and turns back to the TV. "I don't know. Didn't really notice. Kinda distracted by the missing face and all. Why?"
"What was his name?"
"They hadn't identified him yet. You were freaking the fuck out and I wanted to get out of there, so I just gave the guy my card and split. Why does it matter?"
Sam flips the laptop toward him. "Because look at victim number two. Doesn't he kind of look like me?"
Dean's face falls. "Oh. Yeah. Okay."
"Yeah. So depending on what victim number one looks like, someone might be going after guys who resemble me."
"Or it could be a coincidence," Dean says, without much confidence.
{Lucifer leans back against the headboard of Sam's bed, arms folded casually behind his head. I'm sure it's a coincidence. Couldn't possibly be related. Everything is fine.}
Sam spends a couple of hours hacking into the police department's database, but he can't find any information about the first death, not even a preliminary report with the barest details. And he needs get away from the fucking Devil for a while. He stands up and stretches, then paws through Dean's bag, looking for the little amber bottle but finding nothing. "Dude. Where are the sleeping pills?"
"They're not in my bag? Check yours."
"I would know if I put them in my bag. They're not in here. Are they in your pocket?"
"I just searched every inch of my clothes for hex bags. I think I'd know if there was a pill bottle on me." But Dean pats at his pockets anyway. "Did we leave them at the other hotel?"
"Shit. Shit." Sam empties Dean's bag on the bed and spreads the contents out, checking every pocket, every crevice. He opens the trash bag from the other hotel, stuffed with his stiff, bloodstained shirt and a bloody washcloth. "Why did you even bring this?"
"In case it's a blood spell. Doesn't seem like we ought to leave your blood lying around where anyone can get at it."
Sam runs his trembling hands through his hair. "So you thought to grab a bloody old shirt, but you couldn't remember the goddamn sleeping pills?"
"Well, forgive me for trying to protect your ass," Dean snaps.
Sam sags heavily against the wall. Yeah, he should have thought of the possibility of a blood spell. He should care about how this is happening. He should be very concerned about how someone, or something, is apparently slipping into his brain. That's a self-preservation instinct that should have kicked in long ago; he recognizes this. But right now he's more concerned with the what than the why. Right now, wondering how it's happening is like wondering what type of knife is sticking out of his back. "No, you're, I'm sorry," he stutters. "I'm just... I just really didn't want to do it tonight." He plucks Dean's keys off the nightstand. "Maybe they fell out in the car."
"I'll search the car." Dean stands up and holds out his hand for the keys. "You look through your bag again, just in case."
{She's long gone with her red shoes on, Lucifer sings.}
Sam empties his duffel on the bed and combs through the small pile of stuff that represents everything he owns, knowing he'd trade it all for one pill. But the bottle isn't there, and Dean returns to the room empty-handed, and all Sam can do is drink way too much whiskey and hope it will at least make everything a little blurrier.
It doesn't work.
Sam is back on the rack, arms outstretched, palms up, held down with thick leather straps this time, don't bother to struggle, it's pointless and Lucifer loves it, so beautiful.
He lies still and waits, waits while he listens to the scrape of a blade against a sharpening stone, the sound of Lucifer softly singing, she's long gone with her red shoes on, didn't leave nobody but the baby, then footsteps, slow and heavy, boots scuffing against a rough floor, not one pair of boots, but two, and Sam knows what that means, shudders and closes his eyes.
Warm hand on his shoulder, look at me Sammy, and Sam mutters you're not really him, then an icy hand lands on his other shoulder, you're always so sure it's not him, so why do you care, why do you not want to watch, a chilly finger running down Sam's torso, burning a line of cold fire, your brother's an artist, you know, you need to appreciate his work, cold hands grip his head, holding him motionless and Sam stares helplessly as Dean (not Dean) attaches metal clips to his eyelids to hold them open, Lucifer forces his head forward, tipping his chin to his chest, so he can watch.
Not Dean smiles at him, wolfish grin, barely contained glee behind carefully sharpened eyeballs, takes up a long blade and plunges it into Sam's chest, slices from sternum to groin, snaps off ribs and tosses them aside, dry clatter of his bones on the stone floor, plunges further into Sam's body, carefully cutting out organs and placing them gently in Sam's hands, and as he writhes in pain Sam's fingers curl around the warm bleeding tissue of his liver, the heavy slick mass of his intestines, the still-quivering weight of his heart, Lucifer sighs, gorgeous.
Dean starts working the knife along his spinal column, digging, prying, finally finds the spot that makes everything disappear in a white-hot burst of agony, and Sam hears himself shrieking and gibbering but he can't stop, he can't control anything, every fiber of his being is wrapped around the tip of Dean's (no, not Dean's) blade and all he can do is shudder and gasp and scream oh god, oh god, but Lucifer laughs god has left the building and the blade takes him apart and finally, finally it's over, his organs squeezed into a bloody pulp between his fingers.
Dean scoops the mess out of his hands and drops it back into his body while Sam twitches and weeps, Lucifer runs a hand down his torso, rebuilds him, grins at Dean (not Dean) and says that was beautiful, do it again.
But Dean (not Dean) carefully unbuckles the leather straps, removes the clips from Sam's eyelids, pulls him off the rack, sinks down to the floor with him, eases Sam's head into his lap and strokes his hair, hands sticky with cooling blood, soft murmur, you did good Sammy, you did so good, as Sam sobs -
Sam is still crying when he wakes. He sits up, takes one giant hitching sob, then hides his face in trembling hands and tries to pull it all in, shove it all down. He feels a hand on his shoulder and jumps, attempting to scoot away. Another hand grabs his other shoulder and holds him tight and oh, god, he doesn't want to be held down, please. He tries to slap the hands away.
"Hey, hey, Sammy, it's okay. It's me, Sam. You're okay. You're not in Hell, you're just in a crappy hotel room with me."
{And me, Lucifer adds. But then, you're always with me.}
Breathe in. Breathe out. It's just Dean (hands dark with cooling blood, sticky on Sam's shoulders). His Dean, the real Dean. Stone number one.
"I'm okay, I'm okay," he gasps.
"Bad one?" Dean sinks onto the bed next to him, but Sam can't look at him just yet.
"Yeah." His voice is raspy, as if he's been screaming. "You. You were there."
He's still not looking, but he can feel Dean staring at him. "There, watching? Like Adam?"
Sam swallows. "No. There... participating."
Dean's very quiet for a minute, then lets out a soft sigh. "I'm sorry, Sam."
"Don't be," Sam says quickly. "It's not your fault. Lucifer liked to do that. To make me think you were... " His voice trails off as he finally looks up and sees tears pooling in his brother's eyes. "Dean, it's not your fault. It's okay, really."
"No, it's not okay." Dean turns away to wipe his eyes. "It's actually pretty fucked up."
///
By lunchtime Dean's in a fairly good mood, or at least content to fake it. He chows down cheerfully on Chinese take-out and doesn't mention that Sam is only picking at his food. He keeps stealing glances at Sam's wrist, ringed with angry red attempts to make Lucifer shut the fuck up, but doesn't say anything, for which Sam is grateful.
"So, there's two possibilities," Dean mumbles around a mouthful of eggroll. "Maybe they're just dreams. And someone, or something, is listening to you describe them, and then recreating them. So we don't talk about them any more, okay? Don't tell me anything."
Sam resists the urge to point out that he wouldn't have talked about them at all if Dean hadn't pushed.
"And the other option is that they're visions," Dean says. "Just like you used to have, when you'd see someone's death. But they're, like, mixed up in your Hell memories and the Lucifer shit, so you don't see the actual victim, you see it happening to you, as a Lucifer hallucination."
"If they are visions, they're warning me about something that hasn't happened yet." Sam slumps in his chair. "Except they're hiding all the actual details, so they're pretty useless as a warning."
"Maybe. Or maybe you just need to think about them a little harder. Try to remember details. Maybe there are actual clues. Like, the last one... did you have any impression of where it was happening?"
"Jesus, Dean. It's not like that. I don't get that kind of information."
{Come on, Sammy. Tell the truth. You know exactly where it was happening. Our own little playroom.}
Sam puts his elbows on the table and drops his face in his hands. "And anyway, what happened to not talking about them?"
"Crap. Okay." Dean opens Sam's laptop and turns it toward him. "Write it down. Everything you can remember. Where you were, who was there, what you could hear, what you could smell... anything you can think of."
{Go on, little buddy. Tell him about the sound of your bones shattering, and your skin being peeled from your flesh. Tell him how you sound when you've screamed so hard for so long that your throat is completely shredded. Tell him about the smell of blood and your own intestines. Tell him about the smell of deep-fried Sammy. Tell him how it feels when he's the one holding the knife. Tell him all of it.}
Sam lurches to the bathroom and drops to his knees in front of the toilet, heaving up the small amount of food he's managed to eat. He stands in front of the sink for a minute, splashing water on his face. When he looks up, Dean is standing behind him (blood up to his elbows), meeting his eyes in the mirror.
Sam quickly looks away. "I can't do it, Dean. And there's nothing helpful anyway. Trust me."
"Okay. I get it." Dean's hand lands lightly on his back, a brief expression of sympathy and apology. "We'll think of something."
///
Sam digs into the police database again that afternoon, and finds what he's looking for. The first victim (pinned down, flayed alive) is a John Doe in his mid to late 20s. He's 6' 3" and weighs 190 lbs, and Dean insists it could still be a coincidence, but when he's matched up with a missing person's report a few hours later and Sam finds his photo online, they both stare at victim number one, with his athletic build and his shaggy brown hair and his hazel eyes {nice looking kid before someone peeled his face off, Lucifer muses}, and Sam silently closes the laptop and makes a pot of coffee that turns out to be incapable of keeping sleep at bay.
///
Lucifer stretches Sam out on a rough wooden cross, sings under his breath, don't you weep pretty baby, as he wraps razor wire around Sam's arms, strapping him to the wood, Dean (not Dean) at his feet, wrapping the wire around his lower legs, barbs biting into his skin as Lucifer and Dean pull them tight.
Dean moves up to Sam's head, I want to make sure you can see what's going on, places his hands on either side of Sam's face, thumbs against his eyes, presses in hard, and Sam can't move, held too tightly, can only cry out in pain as Dean pushes his eyes out of his skull, sharp stabbing pain and then throbbing and then his field of vision makes a long stomach-churning swoop as his eyes are placed up high, somewhere on the wall, sees his body now, bound and bloodied, can see his brother (not his brother) patting his face, softly, can you see, I want you to see.
Lucifer bends down, cold breath on his ear, I told you, he's an artist, so fucking beautiful, as Dean (not Dean) pulls down a huge chain from the ceiling, snags it on a hook set into the foot of the cross, turns a wheel and the cross is lifted upright, razor wire sinking further into Sam's flesh as the base of the cross raises off the floor, Sam is dangling upside down, hair dragging on the floor.
From a distance he watches Dean pick up a huge knife, feels the prick as the point is placed against his abdomen, watches Dean look down at his bloody, eyeless face, then look up to meet his unblinking disembodied gaze as he plunges the knife into Sam's belly.
Sam watches because he has no way to stop watching as the knife cuts a line of agony down his torso, screams and arches and watches himself scream and arch, watches the huge, heavy cross start to swing from the motion, watches Dean (not Dean) slap a booted foot over his hair as it drags along the floor to stop the swinging, watches blood erupt from the wound and cascade down his body, watches it form a puddle on the floor, feels it flooding his mouth and nose, gasps and sputters and tries to turn his head but it's unmovable, still pinned down by Dean's foot on his hair, watches his organs spill out of the wound.
Dean pulls the knife out and wipes it clean on Sam's quivering leg, Sam's face is covered in blood but from across the room his clear lidless eyes watch Dean (not Dean) go down on one knee, gently cup his bloodied face, you know why I'm doing this, don't you, and Sam spits a mouthful of blood, chokes out an answer, because I deserve it, but Dean frowns and looks disappointed and oh god, oh god, he got it wrong, he's so sorry, please Dean, ask me again, I'll get it right this time, please Dean please, but Dean has a pair of pliers in his hand and he holds Sam's mouth open, strong rough fingers on blood-slicked skin, don't say that, Sammy, don't ever say that again, and grabs his tongue and pulls -
Sam jolts awake {mornin' sunshine, Lucifer smiles, how'd you sleep?} and stays in bed just long enough to catch his breath. Then he slips on his socks and running shoes, quietly closes the door behind him - Dean is still asleep, and his peaceful expression indicates his dreams must be a lot more pleasant than Sam's - and runs. He runs east along miles of silent pre-dawn streets, ignoring the sound of Lucifer running alongside, singing in time to the pounding of Sam's feet {you and me and the Devil makes three, don't need no other lovin' baby} until the rising sun pierces his eyes (pushed out of his head while Dean held him motionless). Then he stops and leans against a building, waiting for his shaking legs to calm down.
{Riddle me this, Sammy. If I'm not real, why are you so afraid of what I have to say? Isn't it all coming out of your own head? I know everything you know. And you know everything I know.}
Sam presses a thumbnail into his palm, scrapes it across his wrist, but Lucifer is still there, casually stretching his quads, balancing himself with one hand against the brick wall.
{Or is that why you're afraid of it? Because it's all in your head? Which makes sense, cause your head's kind of a scary place, kiddo.}
Sam bites his tongue until it bleeds (spits out a mouthful of blood, warm and slick cascading down his body into his mouth and nose, spits it out before he chokes, before Dean rips his tongue out), watches out of the corner of his eye as Lucifer fizzles out (doesn't matter, he's still in his head, always in his head, two of them now, Lucifer and Dean, working together, you and me and the Devil makes three) and runs back to the hotel.
Dean is outside, leaning against the door with (a pair of pliers) a cup of coffee in his hand, trying to look like he's not watching for Sam. Sam leans over (don't look, it's a pair of bloody pliers, don't look), hands braced on his knees, and watches droplets of sweat fall to the concrete (like drops of blood running down his torso, down his face, falling onto a stone floor).
This is new, Dean being involved in his daytime hallucinations. This is new and not good at all.
{You and me and the Devil makes three, Lucifer sings.}
Oh. Oh.
"Two of them," Sam pants. "There are two people in my dreams, other than - other than the victim. You and Lucifer. So maybe, if it's a vision, that means there's two killers."
When he looks up, Dean is grinning, as if that's good news (as if he wasn't holding a pair of pliers, as if Sam's tongue wasn't clenched in their grasp, as if little droplets of blood weren't pattering down onto the concrete at his feet). "See? That's what I'm talking about. That's a clue. We'll get this."
{Sure you will, Lucifer chuckles. How hard can it be to find two people? You've certainly narrowed it down.}
///
Sam goes out to pick up dinner later, scraping his palm and wrist raw to keep Lucifer from riding shotgun. Juggling styrofoam trays and a drink carrier, he almost misses a tiny flash of amber and white peeking out from under the back seat. Thank god, he whispers, as he carefully puts the small treasure in his pocket.
He taps the door of the hotel room with his boot until Dean finally opens it, piles their food onto the table, then triumphantly withdraws the bottle. "Check it out! They were rolling around under the back seat."
Dean frowns at the pill bottle and takes it out of his hand. "Huh. Guess I didn't look as good as I thought. Sorry." He continues examining the little bottle, turning it over in his hand, as if it's going to reveal a secret.
"Look," he finally says, "I don't think it's a good idea for you to keep taking them."
Sam rolls his eyes. "I know. Habit-forming. It's fine, really."
"It's not fine. I got a hell of a lot of warning with these. This shit isn't even legal in the U.S. And they mess you up the next day, too, in case you haven't noticed. I just don't think -"
"Jesus Christ, Dean," Sam snaps. "Then why'd you even give them to me? You realize the only time I don't have Lucifer in my face is when I take a sleeping pill, right? He's yapping at me all day, and at night I'm back in Hell, and I just can't do it any more, okay? I need a fucking break!"
He watches Dean's resolve collapse. "Shit, Sam. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're right. You shouldn't have to... you shouldn't have to deal with this all the time. I mean, it's just a dream, but it's still Hell. You're still re-living Hell. It's not fair." He holds out the bottle of pills. "I shouldn't do this to you."
Sam gratefully accepts it and enjoys two nights of Lucifer-free sleep before Dean gets another phone call.
///
When they pull up at the police station, Dean turns to Sam. "Really. You don't have to do this."
"I know. But I'm going to."
"It's not just a body this time. We're talking crime scene photos."
{Nothing you haven't seen before, Lucifer says with a wink.}
"It's okay. I can handle it."
Inside, they're shown to a small table by a police officer, young and earnest and obviously shaken up. "This kind of thing doesn't happen here," he says, as he offers a file of photos. "We have our share of murders, but people getting tortured? Mutilated? It just doesn't happen here."
It doesn't happen anywhere but in Hell, Sam thinks.
{In Hell and in your head, which are basically the same place, says Lucifer.}
Dean opens the folder, grimaces, and slides a photo across the table. The first thing Sam notices about the victim is that he's split open, a garish red chasm cut down the center of his chest and abdomen. Then the details start to fill in - the wooden pallets piled into a crude rack, the leather straps holding the victim down (don't struggle, he loves to watch you struggle), the trails of blood across the floor where organs were lifted from his body and placed in his outstretched hands, the broad shoulders and long brown hair.
Something icy settles in his chest, wraps around his lungs and catches his breath, squeezes his heart like a vise.
{Oh, I remember that one, Lucifer whispers cold into his ear. That was a good time.}
Sam silently slides the photo back to Dean and gives him a brief, stiff nod. Dean holds eye contact for a second - are you okay? - and Sam answers with a quick one-sided smile. Dean drops the photo into the file and hands it back to the officer.
"Yeah," he says. "Looks like it's related." He pulls a card from his pocket and hands it to the young officer as they leave. "Keep us updated, if you don't mind." Sam has to hold back a laugh, because it should be the other way around. He should be the one telling the police that someone's going to be brutally murdered. But I had a dream that some guy who looks like me is going to be tortured to death and you've got to stop it is going to accomplish absolutely fucking zero.
Sam sits silent in the car, trying to ignore Dean's frequent concerned glances, trying to ignore Lucifer in the back seat {Say it, Sammy, tell him what you're thinking, you know you need to tell him}, and failing at both.
"I did this. I killed that guy."
Dean startles (almost drops the bloody knife in his hand). "What? No. No, Sam. You didn't do this."
"Oh, come on. When I stop dreaming, the dreams start coming true. You know I'm right. That guy is dead because I took a sleeping pill."
The Impala lurches onto a side street and comes to a hard stop. Dean turns to glare at Sam. "That's bullshit."
Sam looks out the window, away from Dean, away from Lucifer. "It's not. I may not have pulled the trigger (not a gun, not a trigger, it was a knife, a knife that ripped him open, sliced out his guts, trailing drips of blood as they were placed in his hands) but it's my fault."
"No, goddammit," Dean growls. "This is not your fault. Do you hear me? Someone else killed him. It may be related to you somehow, he may be using you or playing with you, but none of this is your fault. You understand?"
Sam leans his head against the window. He doesn't want to look at Dean (doesn't want to see the blade dripping with blood). "Okay." He wishes he believed it.
He tries to suppress a flinch when he feels Dean's hand land lightly on his shoulder. "But still. If someone's playing some kind of game with you, we need to... it's not your fault, but I think..."
"Yeah." Sam sighs. He's suddenly so, so tired. "No more sleeping pills."
"Just until we figure this out," Dean says.
{Mmmmm, Lucifer purrs. Playtime tonight. What should we do, Sammy?}
////
On to Part 2
