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“I’m gonna have to, have to sit this one out,” Sam says, and the familiar shame creeps up like ants pushing their party line for the bloody bandage in the empty wastebasket. They pretend a lot now, that Sam doesn’t have this polluted thing under his skin. Like it’s not obvious with every way he flinches or the unreal terror that makes the day-to-day look like a blurry underwater mosaic because of the consequences of what he is.
He’s jonesing.
“Really, Sam?” Dean says, and his anger is expected, but for some reason, it still hurts. For some reason, Sam still has to duck his head, and feel it all over. Of course, he’s angry. Of course, Sam shouldn’t just sit this curse out. But Dean explained it. Similar to Famine. Repressed urges. Losing control, gradually worse, of your underlying inhibitions. The creeping terror was unmistakable.
“Why?” Cas asks, and Sam hadn’t noticed, how close to him Cas was standing. Sam swallows heavily.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Dean asks, and as acerbic as it sounds, it’s still better than Sam having to admit it. “Once a demon-blood junkie, always a demon-blood junkie.”
Castiel frowns, and he touches Sam’s shoulder gently. Sam isn’t used to the casual touch.
“Is that true, Sam? Are you craving demon blood?”
Dean’s mockery was easier than Sam’s minuscule nod. He clears his throat. After all this time, it still comes back to this.
“Yeah, so uh,” he takes a deep breath. It could be worse. There are worse things Dean and Cas could find out about him. This is just a reminder. This is something they should already know. Even if at one point Dean wanted to kill him for it. “We should, y’know. Probably lock me down. While you guys figure out how to undo the curse.”
“Or I could watch over you,” Cas suggests. “I could ensure you don’t drink demon blood, if what you’re scared of is relapsing.”
Sam wasn’t expecting that. For some reason, it makes his heart clench. But he shakes his head.
“No, better for you two to get on it. It’s fine. Maybe leave a few books on similar curses with me so I’m not totally useless.”
Dean scoffs loudly. It makes something twist inside Sam.
“Fine. Whatever. We can do that. Sam can sit tight, but we obviously can’t just babysit him and hope he doesn’t go darkside again,” Dean says. It hurts, worse than Sam expects, how Dean’s responding to this.
“What, uh, what about you guys? Are you gonna be okay?” Sam asks.
“I still have enough grace I hope I won’t be severely impacted. But I’m not really sure what I could do to protect myself or what to expect,” Cas says. “Do you think I should stay in the dungeon too, since I was so easily affected by Famine?”
“We need all hands on deck if Sam’s not doing shit. And you know me. Famine couldn’t touch me.”
Sam wants to argue, that he thinks maybe Dean is impacted as they speak. That maybe times have changed. That maybe this isn’t the exact same thing. But it catches in his throat. After all, he’s the one who’s weak to the whims of his body.
After all, it’s not just demon blood he’s craving right now. He’s been corrupted even further than that. There’s more depravity in him than anyone else could even imagine.
He’s also craving Lucifer.
Dean goes to the library to oblige Sam’s unnecessary book requests, and Cas asks if he can hug Sam before he goes into the dungeon. Sam’s a little taken aback, since Cas and he usually hug in more dire circumstances, and right now, it seems kind of absurd that Cas would want to touch him. But Sam obliges, and it settles something, soft, in Sam’s stomach.
Cas holds onto him, longer than platonically acceptable, and Sam knows that’s just Cas. It doesn’t mean anything. But Sam’s scared of the suppressed desires swirling in him. Scared of how good it feels. Scared that he yearns. So he clears his throat, and tries to pull away, but Cas doesn’t let go easily.
“I need to, uhm, tell Dean, I’ll be in the dungeon,” Sam says, trying to get an excuse to get away. He’s starting to feel like he’s suffocating. Cas reluctantly lets go.
For some reason, weird hope flutters in Sam’s chest. Like maybe Cas just wants him. But that’s stupid, and if anything’s being brought to light, it’s that Cas is craving human contact. Not him specifically.
“It won’t be the same as when you’re having to go through the withdrawals,” Cas says. “I’ll try to end this curse as soon as possible. For all of us.”
“Thanks, Cas,” Sam says. He gives him a little smile. It’s kind of sweet, that the first loss of Cas’s inhibitions results in him wanting to hug and reassure Sam. But Sam’s still worried, for both Dean and Cas. At least Sam knows intimately what to expect from himself. He’s worried they’re underprepared.
But Cas doesn’t follow him when he goes to the dungeon. They have it under control. Sam paces until Dean gets there, and then lets Dean chain his hands. It seems like overkill, when Dean’s locking the door behind him anyway. Makes Sam feel so small. But Sam doesn’t argue. He’s the one who asked for this.
Sam’s rotating around in his head, how fucking sick he must be, that he wants to pray to Lucifer right now, when Dean returns. But Sam hasn’t felt any better. Famine isn’t sending demons to him as a gift, though. It’s just Dean. And his hard eyes.
“You think I don’t know what you actually are,” Dean says. For a second, Sam thinks maybe he’s hallucinating this. But Dean had explained this. How the curse revealed things about people’s true nature and desires. Dean probably would have just left him alone, under normal circumstances.
Right?
“Let me guess, a freak?” Sam says humourlessly. It seems he can’t prevent the lack of filter on himself, either. Maybe it’s masochism, bitter fucked up self destruction, that’s really being revealed. Demon blood, dreaming of the person who tortured him. Sam’s addicted to contamination, isn’t he? Above all else.
Dean leaves for a moment, and when he returns, Sam knows what he has before the vial even enters the room.
“Dean, get that away from me,” Sam says, and he’s starting to panic for real now. He pulls at the manacles holding him. He hadn’t expected to need to try to escape. They’re heavy. Sam feels the world closing in.
“Why? I’m not going to let you out. This is a controlled environment, Sammy. I just don’t think you get a free pass by hiding under the covers like a coward.”
It doesn’t make sense. Why would Dean secretly want Sam to have demon blood? What’s the play? It has to be a test. Sam feels his body tremble. God, he wants it. But he can do this. He’ll stay clean. He will.
“I’m not trying to hide. I know what I am,” Sam says. It’s embarrassing.
Dean walks towards him, carrying the blood. Sam is tied up to a wall, and he doesn’t have more than a foot of leverage. The metal clanks. The sound, mixed with the fear, washes over something terrible in Sam’s mind.
He’s really scared right now, of his brother. He never wants to judge Dean for what he did in Hell. God knows, Sam compromised himself. But right now, all Sam feels is the fact Dean’s a well-practised torturer, and Sam’s his trapped animal.
Dean crosses the room, and to Sam, he seems like a predator.
Sam’s whole body thirsts, as Dean removes the cap. His senses are hyper-attuned right now. Sam was born to be ravenous. A slut, so to speak. Lucifer may have been the first to say it, but not the first to show it. Weak-willed, to the consuming black hole of his being.
Sam pierces his mouth shut, and determinedly looks away. He wants it so bad he aches.
“You’re going to do exactly what I say,” Dean says. “‘Cause I know you. And you want it. And I need to show you exactly what happens when you want it. Maybe then, you’ll learn.”
“Just go.”
Dean holds a blade, right against the sensitive skin of Sam’s lower eyelid, and ever since the curse hit, the flashbacks have been too intense. Sam freezes, and feels himself blur between time. Is this another one of Lucifer’s tricks?
“You’re gonna open your mouth, Sam,” Dean says. And Sam does, automatically, at the request. He isn’t even thinking about the blood. He doesn’t even think he’s thinking about the knife. His body has taken over. The pressure of the blade pressing into his lower eyelid against his eye makes his left eye go blurry. It only stings a bit. Dean hasn’t injured him in any real way. But every muscle in Sam’s body is lax. He’s swallowed up by fog. “That’s what I thought.”
Dean pours the blood into Sam’s mouth, but the second the taste hits his tongue, Sam’s brain boots back on, and he tries to move away, helplessly, forcing the knife to nick open his skin and push Dean away. Dean cuts, sharp, across Sam’s face, then punches him in the jaw. Sam’s head hits the wall, and his tongue is trying to clear the blood out, but he’s choking, and he can’t manage to spit.
He swallows about half of it, before he can right himself enough to spit the rest on the floor.
It’s done. Something bitter in Sam laughs. He really thought there was nothing left of him to ruin.
Maybe he can make himself throw up--
“Move your hand, and I cut it off,” Dean says, when Sam tries to pull up his bound hand. Whether or not it’s an empty threat is inconsequential. Sam’s hand hangs by his side. Empty or not, it hasn’t always been.
Sam wants to apologise, but he finds himself copper tongue-tied. He feels sick.
A part of him finds it oh so unfair. He took every precaution. He admitted his shame and let himself get locked up despite every muscle in his body begging him to ignore both Dean and Cas and go drain a demon. But it didn’t matter, did it? And how can he say, that he didn’t want it? He let Dean do this to him. And he does want it. He always does.
“See, Sam, I almost wish you’d just not done it,” Dean says. But Sam knows that’s a lie. Sure, he’s sure Dean will hate him for it when Dean’s in his right mind. But Dean wouldn’t have poured the blood into his mouth if he didn’t get satisfaction out of watching Sam drink. “You always fail these moral tests don’t you. But no worries. No Apocalypse you’re starting this time. It’s just you,” he says, and he makes a slice up Sam’s cheek with his blade, causing Sam to give out a stifled cry. “And me. And the consequences of your actions.”
Sam hates the history resurfaced. He hates that he’s weaker now, even than he was back then. Like years of sobriety should have given him strength. But instead, he became Lucifer’s bitch, and he got ruined, somehow, even worse.
“Just get it over with.”
He doesn’t like being in this room, and barely even feels Dean. Like it’s Lucifer in Dean’s skin, even though Lucifer rarely did that because Sam wasn’t “paying enough attention to him”.
But it isn’t Lucifer. It’s Dean. And that’s worse.
“It’s just punishment. Gotta keep the evil in you at bay somehow, right? I mean. Maybe, this is what it takes to get you to learn.”
It’s scary, though. How much his brother really does sound like Lucifer. Maybe Lucifer was justified all along.
But Sam still hears Dean. Files away, the fact that Dean still sees Sam as something evil. Something he wants to torture Sam for, if he weren’t in control.
Dean walks away for a second, and it makes Sam have this burst of hope, but he returns from the cupboard with a handheld blow torch.
“It would have been better, wouldn’t it? If I hadn’t kept saving you from the fire.”
Sam swallows thickly. Lucifer also found it poetic.
Sam really hates it. When he burns.
He gets tortured a lot, so it’s embarrassing, how much when it’s Dean doing it, he can’t stop begging.
There’s just some part of him that’s still always waiting for his big brother to save him. And Dean’s right there. Dean’s supposed to care. He’s supposed to be able to reach Dean, right? If Dean knows, sees, if Dean.
Sam can’t stop pleading, apologising. Admitting how wrong he is, how sorry. As he gets covered in burns and cuts.
This is nothing. Sam’s pathetic. But it’s Dean.
Dean’s so adamant he’s in the right, to do this. And who’s to say he isn’t?
This is what’s always lying underneath the surface, isn’t it? The loss of Dean’s self-control doesn’t mean this isn’t what Sam deserves. He should be more grateful, that he can have relationships that don’t always feel like this second right now. That Dean cares enough, to not do this.
It’s just punishment. Why is Sam sobbing and crying? He can endure punishment, can’t he?
“Are you gonna kill me?” Sam eventually asks, while Dean is holding up a plain matchstick, just watching the fire burn out. It’s a nice break, from the flame on his skin. “Is that part of it? You want to kill me.”
For the first time since Dean entered the room, he looks perturbed.
“What, are you trying to get away from me? Leave me all alone?” Dean demands, sounding enraged.
“No, that’s not what--”
“No, Sam. No I wanna. Keep you here forever. Or hell, maybe. Maybe we should but not. If you die, I die. That’s. That’s how this ends, doesn’t it? That’s how it’s always supposed to end.”
Fuck. Now, the terror goes into overdrive. Sam shouldn’t be giving in, to his stupid fucking conditioning. Dean’s life is at stake.
“No. No, Dean. Dean look at me. Look at me. You and me. You don’t need to do this.”
“You know, it embarrasses me that you’re my brother. That I’m tied to you of all people.”
It’s hard to think, through the haze of pain. But it still hurts, to hear Dean say things like that.
“You need to find Cas. You’re cursed. You remember that, right? We need to--”
“No one could burn the evil out of you, could they? What’s the friggin’ point?”
“Dean, you’re gonna kill me,” Sam says, trying to cut through. He already knows, God, everything Dean has to say to him. He knows. Fine, it hurts, the raw festering wound, out in the open. Sam’s a monster, Sam’s a freak. Sam’s an unclean evil thing. Sam needs to be caged and hurt. Mantra over mantra. Dean always said he’d kill Sam. But he never seemed happy about it. Besides, maybe, when he had the mark.
“Kill you? No, I’m--” Dean falters, and he takes a double look, at Sam, at where they are. “We’re supposed to die together.”
“You’re gonna kill me,” Sam says. He’s not sure if it’s useful, feeding into Sam’s murder-suicide complex. But it’s the first thing he’s said that actually has made Dean falter.
“No. I’m punishing you.”
“Get more creative then. Didn’t, didn’t, didn’t,” Sam fumbles. Plows through. “Didn’t Alastair teach you anything? You’re going to kill me like this.”
Dean fumbles, backwards.
“Sammy, I want to kill you,” Dean says, tone changing, and oh, Sam knows. But he can’t stop the tears that burn at his eyes. It really hurts to hear. But Dean sounds scared.
“Look, you need to get out of here. You need to get away from me. You can still, still punish me. You’ll find a way.”
Dean nods, looking disturbed. Glancing up and down at Sam. Dean’s hands, so steady, as they sliced repeatedly into Sam’s skin, start to shake.
It’s just like the blade. He wants to kill. He wants to kill Sam. Sam’s been here before, though. And Dean didn’t. That matters, right? Right?
Dean takes another look at Sam, then leaves, abruptly, closing the door behind him.
And all the tension in Sam’s body drops, a cord being cut, and he collapses on the ground, some of his wounds crying out at the movement, and sobs.
The worst part is, it takes all his strength. Not to lick the dried glob of blood and spit. Off the dungeon floor.