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In the end, there was darkness.
They were oblivious,
Obliterated in moments, giving way to an eternal obsidian oblivion.
And I brushed ash from my lips,
Breathed out the smoke
Of civilizations
Cremated between my clenched teeth.
At first, Sam wasn’t even sure what had happened. If something had happened, even, because there didn’t seem to be any indication. There wasn’t a flash of light, or a puff of smoke. His laptop hadn’t glitched out, his notes hadn’t fluttered in a strange wind, the bunker’s library seemed completely intact. There wasn’t any pain, other than the prickle in his finger from the badly timed paper cut. The only evidence that he had fucked up at all was the tiny little smear of blood on the mirror’s back, three unfamiliar runes scratched only inches above.
He had to stop, try to calm down, feeling his heart pumping overtime in his chest. He glanced around, finding nothing, and it only marginally helped him catch his breath.
He shouldn’t be freaking out right now. He should be ready to fight. And, he was, he was. Just, fighting one battle at a time. Sam took a final deep breath, and switched hands, using his left, non-bloodied hand to slowly turn the mirror over.
Just his reflection. “Nothing,” he sighed in relief, and let the mirror clatter to the desk.
Sam hunched back over his laptop. The artifact must be depowered or warded somehow to keep it from going off, because he was pretty sure that blood was supposed to activate something.
“Lucky,” he muttered, typing in a new search and staunchly ignoring the creaks of the old building around him. The damn floor couldn’t hurt him. He would keep reminding himself there was nothing to fear. Even if it was a lie.
…
“You’re on edge,” Dean commented over dinner.
Almost killed myself on a damn mirror, Sam didn’t say. “Yeah, sorry,” he replied instead. He poked a piece of lettuce with his fork.
Dean had made spaghetti and garlic bread. The afterthought salad he’d served on the side had clearly seen better days. But it was a thought, a silent apology for all the carbs, Sam guessed. Or maybe for all the silence.
His brother accepted the deflection without prying. “Meatballs are good, you sure you don’t want any?”
They had a conversation about the merits and demerits of ground meat, which evolved into Dean complaining about the hundred-year-old stain on the kitchen tile, and Sam nodded along.
It had only been a little streak of red, not even enough to consider it a drop. Sam was never so careless. But the timing had been bad, his hands had been shaking —
The dishes all clattered at once as Dean banged his knee on the table, as tiny droplets of spaghetti sauce littered the wood. Probably just trying to cross his legs. They both ignored Sam’s flinch. They’d been ignoring it for years now.
Dean muttered something, some excuse to collect their plates, something to fill in the blank where his dishes were empty and Sam’s were only picked at. The clock ticked too loudly, the rush of dishwater couldn’t cover it. Sam blew out a breath and rubbed his temples.
“You’re fucking pathetic.”
Sam whirled so fast his chair tipped. He had a moment of brief and blinding panic before one of his bare feet caught the hardwood floor and stuck the landing. He had an unsteady moment before he was standing, staring back at a man who was familiar and yet nothing like he should be.
He was used to that voice, those words, but most of the time it didn’t come from outside of his own head.
Cruel set of his mouth, twisted up on one side in a strange smirking grimace. Clothes like Sam had never seen, not in person, fucking Armani jeans and a watch you’d find on Fifth Avenue, and those, those Sam could believe. In some other life, those might be possibilities. It didn’t even surprise him when he met a pair of cold, yellow eyes. It was really the set of those broad shoulders that got him, the sheer presence of the man. His spine straight without any indication of a hunch, his arms loose with an easy confidence. This other man, this other Sam, held himself like a king.
“You don’t even know what I am,” the man sneered, looking him up and down distastefully, “and you’re already scared of your own shadow?”
Sam swallowed and said, “I think I might have an idea.” A hesitation. “Maybe you can help us.”
“Doubt it,” the other said immediately. Then there was a slight narrowing of his wolf-like eyes. “Who’s us?”
As if on cue, a call from Dean: “Hey, Sammy? You want any dessert?”
The man recoiled like it was a blow, pulling himself to his full height. “You still have him around?” It was a hiss, a snarl.
“Stop it,” Sam said, and surprised himself by grabbing the man’s wrist. His skin was strangely warm, feverish. “Leave him alone. I’m the one who called you here.”
Those cold eyes were fastened on him, suddenly sharp with intrigue, and Sam had to dig his toes into the floor to stand his ground.
“No thanks,” he called back to Dean. And then, “Come with me. We can sit down and talk about it.” His knees were trembling, his voice wasn’t as steady as he wished it would be, but he was still standing, still holding on. “Come on,” he maintained, taking a step back toward the great room, a tug on the other’s arm.
The stranger wearing his face scoffed, leveling a glare over his shoulder. “Only if that stays out of the way.” But he followed, he followed Sam through the next room, and the hallway, past the library and the map room and Dean’s room and Sam’s room, and down the stairs into the maze of artifacts, cursed objects, tomes, and spells. Sam had a moment of maybe regretting that, but he quickly dismissed it as stupid when the other man shook him off with a simple twist of his wrist. Strength, a lot of it. More than just demonic. There wasn’t much more damage the King could do wielding any of these than he could do just as easily on his own, Sam figured. He wasn’t entirely sure if he’d dragged the man into the basement out of worry for Dean’s safety, or worry about what Dean might say.
“Who are you?” Sam demanded when they were alone. “What are you?”
The other Sam snorted, turning his back and digging a hand into a box labelled DO NOT TOUCH in Dean’s no-nonsense caps. “If you haven’t figured it out by now, you’re stupider than I thought.” He pulled out a wooden fetish.
“Hey, don’t —” Sam began, before realizing the figurine, which should have been releasing a deadly spell by now, was doing absolutely nothing.
“I’m a demon,” the man said flippantly. “The kind that rules Hell.” He turned over the wooden man in his hands for a couple of seconds with a bored expression, before tossing it over his shoulder.
Sam took a step towards it before remembering himself and letting it fall with a disappointed clunk. Contact with bare human skin was the trigger. That proved one part of the King’s story, anyway.
The mirror was the key. Sam was going to have to go up and get it at some point. But he couldn’t just leave this strange version of himself to dig into these archives with thousands of cursed objects like it was some kind of toy box.
Quickly the yellow-eyed king seemed to lose interest in the items, because suddenly he was staring back. Sam couldn’t recall seeing him turn around. “You didn’t bring me here on purpose.”
“No.” Did he deduce it from the sheer amount of chaos down here or did he pluck the information right out of Sam’s gray matter? “There was a mirror,” he began, but his voice faded when he met the other’s eyes again.
A slow smirk grew on the other man’s face. “So you think this is some Star Trek shit, huh?” A chuckle, a step forward, chilled Sam to the bone. “You think you caused this? No. I found you.”
There was a moment where he backpedalled, frantically trying to debunk the idea that this other Sam had somehow cut his finger from another world. “That’s impossible,” he breathed.
“And yet I’m here.” Another step, too close. His eyes were oddly all-encompassing, drawing him in the way Azazel’s sickly poison had. Stranger still, now that Sam was getting a good look at the man, he seemed older than Sam had pinned him at. Well, physically he was younger, fresh-faced even. If he had to wager, he wouldn’t put him over 25, maybe younger with the way he was carelessly tossing artifacts around. Sam had smatters of gray hair and crow’s feet by now, but there was something in the King’s manner that seemed … ancient. The sort of thing you found in angels and demons, not in humans.
“Yeah. You’re here. Which means I’ve got to send you back to, uh,” he stumbled over his words. Hell. Your throne. Your world. It belonged to the King, that much was clear. Sam wasn’t sure he liked that idea very much. He shook his head, and started pilfering around the shelves for tools. He needed to work fast if he wanted to get to the mirror at some point tonight.
“I don’t think so,” returned the other, and Sam glanced back at him. The King’s cocksure smirk seemed as firm and unyielding as a mask. The King was hiding something, some part of himself that Sam was certain he didn’t want to meet. “I just got here. I think I’d like to take a look around. Where are we, anyway?” he continued. His golden eyes flicked away as he looked around thoughtfully. “Some kind of bunker?”
Sam figured there was no time like the present, and focused on pouring a salt line. “Yeah. Kansas. Place is pretty well warded against just about everything.”
“Should’ve figured you the kind to live in a hole in the ground,” the King said, in the wrong ear, and Sam jumped.
“You can teleport?” It was a stupid question, the guy was five feet away from where he’d been just a moment ago, on the wrong side of the salt.
The King rolled his eyes. “If you hadn’t been such a prick your whole life, maybe you’d be able to do it too.”
Somehow the response struck Sam as odd. It didn’t cut like some of the other remarks. Actually the other seemed almost eager, like he was waiting for a further line of questioning. In spite of himself, Sam was curious. He’d wondered how far his powers went for a long time. Ava said with practice she’d been able to move from her visions to actually summoning and commanding demons herself. There was no telling how much more was out there.
“So how far did you get?” the King asked, studying his nails with a faux casualness. It was almost cartoonish, and it irked Sam a little.
“After Dean’s death, I drank enough blood to kill Lilith,” he said without breaking eye contact. He would have considered it a victory if a little wobble hadn’t cut through his voice. “And more.” He wasn’t interested in doing a deep dive about Lucifer and the apocalypse right now.
Now the King glanced at him with a vague air of confusion. “Dean’s death? What, did he fall dramatically on Jake’s knife and ugly choke?”
The reference to Cold Oak tickled Sam’s brain. It had been a long time before he’d gotten the nightmarish memory out of his head. Lilly dangling over the ramshackle ghost town like a mouse over the cat’s mouth. Andy’s nearly unrecognizable body. Ava’s false tears on her suddenly dead-eyed face, and then the sound of vertebrate being popped and a trachea cracking in half. The cold determination, the lust for power that had overwhelmed Jake. The way he’d felt standing over the prone body, knife aloft. It had been his first real taste of power. It might have been his only taste, if things had been different.
Sam blinked to dislodge the images, pinching his palm between finger and thumb to ground himself. “No, I … He made a demon deal.”
“A deal?” the King asked with a scoff. “A deal for what, a bigger dick?”
“No. For my life.” He was surprised in spite of himself to find a world where Dean wasn’t the stubborn martyr he always was. Better for Dean, to be free of Sam.
Well. Except for the part where they apparently hated each others’ guts.
The King rolled his eyes. “Typical. You couldn’t deal the killing blow, could you? And now you live like the coward you are. In a fucking bunker. Are you expecting the world to fall in on your head?”
Sam decided to skip over the part where he was being baited. “So, at Cold Oak, what happened for you?”
“Same thing I guess,” the King sighed, collapsing with a flop into a nearby armchair. It was a youthful movement full of smooth grace that left Sam aching. For what once was, yeah, but damn that made his back twinge just watching.
“Jake killed you too,” Sam surmised.
The King tipped his head, eyes glittering. “Yeah. But he wasn’t alive to enjoy it for long.”
He averted his eyes. Was Jake crushed by something heavy in a cruel irony? Shattered with power wrapped around his head? Sam didn’t want to know. And yet he couldn’t stop picturing it. The sight of blood and brains trickling out of his eyes. The sound of a final crack and then the thud of a body. The taste of iron and sulfur on his tongue. Triumph. Sam wasn’t sure why that knotted a lump of something akin to disappointment in his throat.
“So, you won that round. What did you win?”
“My throne,” the King returned, and even there in the uncomfortable, dusty old chair, he gave off an air of something regal, otherworldly. “‘Course, it took work. And blood. Lots of that.”
Sam frowned slightly, glanced away. Instantly, terrifyingly, the man was there again. Close, eyes bright and smile cloying. Sam bit back a scream.
“You liked the blood too, didn’t you?” A whisper. “You liked the power it gave you. The things you could do.” A hand crept up to his shoulder, his bad shoulder, and Sam froze in place.
“Don’t touch me,” he said, too softly.
“What’s this? A sore spot?” A thumb brushed under his shirt, finding the bandage. Then nails bit into his skin. “You don’t get to ignore your past, Sam. The things you’ve done. I’m you, after all. Wouldn’t you like to know how far I went? The things I did?” The King’s teeth were his, undeniably his, the one crooked tooth that would never be corrected by the braces he could never afford. One of the many things he lost in the fire.
“Are you going to tell me anyway?” Sam was gripping his palm tighter with every moment. He was afraid to move his thumb for fear of losing touch. Pain, pain was good if he could keep a lid on it. He could feel his fingers shaking.
The man gave a soft chuckle, pinched Sam’s chin between two fingers and forced him to raise his gaze. Most demons were cold, corpse-like. Not the King. This close, it was like standing next to a bonfire, heat radiating from the demon’s skin. His eyes glinted sharp, golden blade to Sam’s stuttering heart.
“Most people who get a knife to their spine don’t come back,” the King murmured, lips twisted in a strangely smug smile. “Most humans don’t choose the ol’ fire and brimstone after death.” There was a moment where Sam thought he was going to stop there, but then he gave an amused huff of breath. “I killed Dean Winchester,” he said casually, and something icy dropped into Sam’s stomach. “It was one of the first things I did after I crawled out of Hell. And damn, did it feel good. By then all it took was —” he slowly tipped his head to one side — “a thought. I got to be a pain in his neck one last time.”
“Why?” It was barely there, dull and trembling, but it was the only thing on Sam’s mind. “Why would you kill him?” He’d been wondering since the dream. Dean, who sacrificed everything for him, his whole life. Dean, who raised him. Didn’t he owe Dean more respect than that?
Suddenly Sam was being flung against the wall. His toes barely grazed the floor as he was held up with psychic power.
“Because he fucking deserved it,” the King hissed. “You should have seen the disgust in his eyes when he learned what I was. He begged me to stop, to somehow change back. All so he didn’t have to kill me. How touching. There’s no going back, I told him, and he looked like he’d fucking swallowed a lemon. I was a monster to him. Nothing more. Not his brother, just a creature to fear and to put down like any other.”
“You’re not the only one who had his moments,” Sam returned. He gritted his teeth as his punctured shoulder ground deeper into the plaster. “You have to know that it wasn’t about you. We were just kids. He was scared.”
“Scared of what? His own brother?” It was a sneer, aimed to hurt, not to argue the point.
This was getting out of hand. “Put me down,” Sam said, trying to have some modicum of authority.
The King bared his teeth in some kind of bitter smile. “Who are you to give me orders? You’re weak. Pathetic. Nothing.”
He clamped down on his fear as realization dawned on him. “You’re right. I can’t control what you do, where you go. I get it. You’ll kill me, easily. But humor me. If I didn’t cause this, if you came looking for me … why? What was the point? Just to torment me?”
There was a pause. Sam slowly felt himself released, and he let out a soft, relieved gasp as his bare feet touched tile floor. He gripped the wall with both hands, unwilling to leave its solidity for a moment.
The King turned away. “Got bored,” he said. “Thought I’d come wreak havoc somewhere else.”
Even while catching his breath, Sam frowned. Why would the King of Hell jump universes? Then a thought struck him. “Is it because of Chuck?”
“No. Whoever the fuck Chuck is,” the King hummed, turning enough to send a furrowed expression towards Sam before starting to stride away.
“Hey. Hey.” Sam scrambled to his feet and moved to block the way. “We’re not done here.”
“I am,” the other returned with some mixture of amusement and annoyance. He moved his hand like he was brushing aside a fly, and there was a matching pressure on Sam’s chest.
He held his ground. “Look, I really think you can help us out here. You’re not going to have much time to play whatever chaotic game you’re trying to start, not now. This universe is ending.”
That got the King’s attention. His head snapped up sharp enough to remind Sam of a predator. “What?”
“Yeah. God decided we fucked things up for the last time. He’s pulling the plug.”
There was a moment of stillness. Suddenly the King looked very … human, his posture softened with surprise. “God? There’s a God here?”
“And in every other universe,” Sam said, holding up his hands in an attempt to keep the King at bay, in case he suddenly changed his mind and started throwing people again. “At least, there was at some point. Apparently he’s been serial abandoning his worlds for a very long time.”
The King let out a strange coughlike laugh, running a hand through his hair. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” He blew out a breath, shaking his head, and gave another bitter chuckle. “You want me to help save your world. Well, that’s just typical.”
Sam didn’t understand. “Why is that typical?” he asked cautiously.
Sulfuric yellow eyes narrowed at him, his body coiled like a spring. “Because I destroyed my world,” the King gritted out. “And God left me to rot.”
Sam swallowed. He was shaking so badly he wasn’t sure he could stay upright. Thumb against his palm, firm pressure, heart beating overtime. “Why?” The question seemed to be recurring today.
The King shook his head, a sharp movement, a huff of breath. “Because I’d done it all. It was the only thing left to do.” He pushed past Sam and stalked away, farther into the archives.
Sam sunk to his knees and tried to catch his breath.
God. There was a God.
The King had given up praying long ago. He’d taken over all of it, destroyed it all with an impulsive flick of his hand.
He’d just wanted eternity to be over.
He’d opened the gate to Hell, watched the black smoke pour forth for hours, days. There wasn’t much left of humanity by the end of the week. The world had been reduced to a gray wasteland, a landscape rutted with clawmarks, riddled with graves, and still Sam had endured. He’d learned of angels next, and annihilated them. He still remembered the last angel: the eerie blue eyes and solemn face, and the black wingmarks that had scorched the ground. The angel probably had a name. Sam hadn’t bothered to listen.
The demons worshipped Sam, and he hated them for it. There was nothing left in this barren universe. Heaven had collapsed, Earth was a ruin, Purgatory was devoid of life, and Hell …
Hell had been alright, for a while. He’d had the pleasure of killing Azazel, eventually, and many more followed suit. All was power, and the world was hazy with heat and unreality. Sam thought if he finished it, it would be done. He would be gone. So he’d swallowed everything that was left, let it overwhelm him.
When he came to, he was alone in an empty universe. No matter, no mass, no time or space. No heaven or hell. No life or death. Nothing.
Nothing but Sam.
The King stalked through the rows of artifacts, feeling the occasional pull of spellwork or energy tug at him. The memories of the centuries he’d lived alone in an endless void, screaming for forgiveness. To learn that it was simply because he had been abandoned …
He stopped at the end of the long hallway, seeing an open door. Curious. He didn’t know where this Sam, the one who’d taken the high road, had gotten a bunker that looked like it could have doubled as a speakeasy at one point. It seemed he and Dean were still hunting, years and years later.
Stairs. He took a glance backwards, smirking. Old man Sammy was still somewhere in the vast maze of cursed objects. The King hummed. Too bad he’d lost his tour guide, he’d just have to take a look around by himself.
His shoes were silent on the stone steps, and he emerged in a narrow hallway. The clatter of dishes had stopped at some point, replaced by the buzz of a TV somewhere nearby. Dean was oblivious. The other Dean, he’d never expected Sam to be back, not like this, not life after death.
The King went in the opposite way of the noise. He found himself soon in one of the halls he’d seen before, one Sam had led him down. He knew which one was Dean’s, guns displayed on the wall and bed unmade. The next bedroom must be Sam’s. He slowly stepped inside. The desk had neat stacks of printed articles and spiral notebooks, a space heater in the corner, books on a shelf, a jacket thrown over a chair. It was lived in, but it wasn’t homey. There were no pictures on the blank walls, and most of the furniture was the same as what was in Dean’s room — the lamp, the dresser, right down to the ancient tape dispenser on the desk.
The King sat on the military-made bed and frowned at his folded hands. Why was God trying to destroy this world? What made it too special to be abandoned? Or, more likely, what had happened to make it such a blot in the Big One’s eyes?
He wasn’t all that surprised when the other, weaker Sam appeared in the doorway, or when the man’s body sagged in relief. He was surprised to hear himself ask, quietly, “What happened to your shoulder?”
Sam awkwardly moved a hand up toward the wound, but didn’t touch it. The bandage stayed hidden under cloth. “I shot Chuck, er, God. It sort of ricocheted back on me.”
He snorted. “Sounds like judgment,” he said without mirth. There was a pause, and there was a creak as Sam shifted on the threshold. “What do you think I can do against fucking God, huh?” the King asked eventually. “If you’ve got a hit out on your entire universe, I can’t change that.”
Sam fiddled with his hands, not really looking at him. “He’s weakened. He can’t destroy the universe all at once, not like you’re thinking. He set all the monsters loose, pulled them out of Hell to do the job for him.”
“So you’re trying to hunt every son of a bitch out there? That sounds exhausting.”
It pulled a tiny sardonic smile out of Sam. “Yeah, well. I’m used to it.”
That was interesting. Not we, but I. The King made a note of that. “I would guess you’ve made a decent amount of headway by now, or else the world would be in chaos.” Suddenly his brow furrowed as he reconsidered. “Wait, is the world in chaos?” They were in a bunker, after all.
“No, not really. Not yet,” Sam amended himself. “They’ve been hiding in plain sight, in a lot of cases. We’ve gotten rid of some of them.”
“But they’re all going back to where they came from,” the King said. “Couldn’t he just set them all loose again?”
Sam sighed, finally coming inside and sitting at his desk. “Yeah, I’ve thought about that. He’s low on power, but it’s only a matter of time before he finds more.” He gestured to his shoulder. “This wound is sapping his power, I think.”
“So what’s it doing to you?” the King asked next, leaning in closer. He ignored Sam’s flinch. “Do you think we could use it to purposefully siphon his power into something else, or someone else?”
Sam looked suddenly horrified. “No,” he said firmly, drawing back. “We’re not doing that.”
“Why not?” An easy smirk slid onto his face. “Scared it’ll hurt?”
It would hurt, Sam seemed pretty sure of that. But more than that, he looked determined. “You don’t think I can see through that? A human can’t hold that kind of power. Or a demon, not even an angel,” he added before the King could refute it. “No one can.”
The King hummed dubiously, but shrugged it off. “What did Dean think about your little mishap?”
Sam looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“Shooting God. Did he praise you for your little act of bravery or did he yell at you for fucking it up?”
“What’s wrong with you?” Sam muttered, standing back up. “Look, I get your Dean wasn’t the nicest guy in the world —”
“Do you think you don’t have the same brother?” the King flung back. “What do you think your Dean would do if you turned into a monster?” His eyes narrowed. “You don’t have to guess, do you? You know exactly what would happen, because it’s happened before, and you slid right back into submission.”
Sam looked quietly stunned, and then ashamed, and the King thought, good.
“I bet you don’t even talk to him anymore. He uses you like the tool you are to him, and you take it. You take his bullshit, you take his crap. What kind of a little bitch are you, huh?”
“I’m trying to do the right thing,” Sam said, and the King scoffed. It prompted a glare. “That’s more than what you ever did!”
The King tipped his head, and suddenly seemed powerful and dangerous again. “You know what the right thing to do would be? To get out from under Dean’s shadow.”
Sam shook his head. “Dean cares about me —”
“He doesn’t give a shit about you,” the King growled. “When will you get that through your thick head? He never cared about you. You were his responsibility, then his pet brother, something to play with, until you wanted a life of your own. John wasn’t the only one who disowned you that night. Dad said don’t come back, and Dean stood by and said nothing.”
“You’re wrong.” he said. “He came back for me. He’s still my brother.” He was the only one Sam really had left anymore. The only one willing to risk it all for him, to die for him.
“He treats you like a dog on a leash,” the King snapped. “And he deserves to die a painful death.” Then he paused, his eyes suddenly growing cold. “In fact …”
Sam saw what that look meant immediately. “No, no no, don’t —”
But the King simply tipped his head, slamming Sam into the nearest wall. He smirked. “Try to stop me. I dare you.”
“Dean!” Sam shouted, but he was choked off, shoved hard to the ground. He groaned, laying limp, before trying to push himself up.
The King stepped over his prone body and strode out of the room.
...
Dean had his sock feet propped up next to his empty plate. It’d had a slice of cherry pie on it a few minutes ago. Now there was nothing left but the few scant crumbs Dean hadn’t been able to scrape up with his fork. He was flicking idly through channels. Sam had been cataloguing artifacts, looking for anything they might be able to use to stop the bigger problem. But this was their first down time in a month, and Dean figured he deserved a little self care. They’d get back around to hunting sooner rather than later. The urgency was weighing on his mind, but he tried to push it aside as best he could.
Right now, he just needed to focus on relaxing. They’d earned it. Even if Sam was spending all his time in the nerd lab, that was just his way of coping. Dean knew that. He had ceased trying to coax Sam out of the library, out of his room, out of the basement. It was fine. Everything was fine.
Until he heard a faint yell from Sam, and then a thump. “Shit,” he said, standing quickly and glancing around. He drew his sawed-off out from under the couch, teeth gritted, and took about two running steps towards the noise before he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Sam?”
It was the wrong Sam, the wrong face, the wrong expressions. He was too young, wearing the wrong clothes, and he laughed the wrong way. “Wow, you didn’t age well.” The wrong Sam looked him up and down critically, smirking. “You look like one of those guys still stuck reliving high school.” Reptilian yellow eyes narrowed his way.
Dean took those two steps back again. “What the fuck are you?” he growled, lifting his gun threateningly. “How did you get in here?”
The other seemed unconcerned. “Your brother let me in.” He flicked his fingers and Dean felt the gun rip from his hands. It skittered across the floor and into the kitchen.
A swallow. Sam must have accidentally done something with one of those spells, to get another Sam. Was it really an accident? Dean gave a tight sneer. “Welcome to Earth, I assume you didn’t come in peace.” He was stalling, they both knew it. The other Sam gave a little scoff, like it was too familiar for him. So he threw out a tidbit of bait. “Did Sammy tell you he was dreaming about you?” The other Sam suddenly paused, and Dean figured he’d hit jackpot. “Er, some of you anyway. He didn’t tell me all of it but it shook him up pretty good.”
“Doesn’t seem like it would take much,” the other Sam said lightly.
Dean felt his feet leave the ground. He had that much warning before he was slammed into the tile, hard enough to dizzy him. “Wow, you really got the whole Sith Lord thing going on,” he managed with a cough. It was the wrong thing to say, because he got another good thump against the floor for it.
“Pretty good deal, huh?” the wrong Sam hummed. “I got these powers, and Hell to boot, and all I had to do was plop your bloody head on a plate. More of a bonus, really.” His smile suddenly tightened, and Dean felt something in his chest squeeze and pop. He gasped. “Nothing to it, after you pretty much disowned me.”
“Wasn’t me, buddy,” Dean ground out. “But from what I’ve seen, I’d disown your ungrateful ass too.” There was no redemption here. This guy was out for blood, and he obviously didn’t care who he went through to get it. There was another snap, that felt like a rib.
“I just bet you fucking would,” the King growled, stalking forward. The heat in those long fingers was unreal against Dean’s throat. He was dragged upwards easily, even as he wrapped a fist around the huge mitt choking him. “I bet you already have me classified as a grade A monster. You gonna write me out in Dad’s journal, give me a personal entry? All hail the Boy King, beware the damned one.”
“A little too badass for you, chump,” Dean wheezed out.
It earned him a bitter chuckle. “You did write that, once upon a time. I was your hunt. The moment you could get to me, you were ready to kill me. But I got to you first.” The King looked positively gleeful. “You begged for your life. Please, Sammy, please. I’m your brother, don’t you love me? As if you weren’t ready to slaughter me like an animal.”
Dean was shaken like a rag doll in emphasis. Even if he had breath, what was there to say to that? This version of Sam was so far off the reservation Dean wasn’t surprised he had wanted to put him down. It would be a mercy kill, far as he was concerned. This wasn’t Sam. His brother had made some mistakes, but this? This was a whole new fucking level of freaky.
There were black flies at the edge of his vision. Hell, maybe he deserved this. If he let Sam become this thing then maybe this was what he got. Poor bastard in the other universe, but it almost seemed fair. It was his fault Sam became a monster.
“W-Wait, stop. Please.” A familiar voice.
“Sammy,” Dean managed. His eyes were wet with the effort of breathing, but he could see the silhouette of his brother in the doorway. He was holding something — a hand mirror?
The King paused, and then there was impact. Dean’s shoulder got the brunt of it. It took two deep breaths before he realized he had been loosed. He scrambled backwards to the wall and stayed there.
“You’re a resilient thing,” the King said.
“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “We are.” He looked like he was still catching his breath from whatever the King had done.
Dean caught his eye carefully, and he got a tiny nod in return. His brother was alright, or at least he wasn’t telling if he wasn’t.
“Look,” said Sam, slowly raising his arms. The mirror caught the light, ornate and sharp. “I get it. Dean was a real dick to you. This isn’t that guy.”
The King narrowed his eyes. “You don’t think he’s still a dick? He’s fucked in the head, thinks because Mommy died the world owes him something special.”
“You know, you might consider therapy,” Dean put in.
“Shut up, Dean,” both Sams said at once.
It made the King smirk. “So you do have a backbone. I was beginning to wonder.”
“It’s time for you to go back to where you came from,” Sam told him firmly.
“Back? Back where?” The King leaned in, too close, gleeful expression and dark eyes. “There’s nowhere for me to go back to, Sam.”
“Then I’ll put you in the hole you crawled out of.”
“Really?” The King leaned back, still as amused as ever. It was fucking infuriating, Dean wanted to punch him in the nose. “You’ll have to figure out your mirror to do that. Draw my blood. How long would that take you?” Striding closer, the heaviness of not-Sam’s body made the floor creak, and Dean shot to his feet. “Probably just a touch too long, considering how easy it would be to just —“ A hand darted out and caught Dean around the neck.
“Get your hands off of him,” Sam ordered, His voice was hard, and his expression, but his eyes were vulnerable. Fear.
Dean knew then that he was going to die.
The King chuckled. “Or what? What can you do? You’re human, weak and powerless.” He raised a brow. “Your only source of power might be,” he glanced back and forth, “me, I believe. But you said you were past the whole sucking-a-vein-dry thing.”
Dean blew out a breath and tried to relax, tried to say, “It’s okay, Sammy.” He barely got a word out before the hand on his throat was tight enough that he couldn’t breathe at all, could barely hear the awful noise of labored not-breathing over the pounding in his ears. He was choking.
“Let him go!” Sam threw himself at the King, weaponless and defenseless, and he was easily shaken off. The mirror clattered to the floor, somewhere.
Tighter, tighter, Dean couldn’t see. Someone was yelling, it was getting fainter. He squinted long enough to get a glimpse of the smirking yellow eyes above him. Yellow was death. Took Mom, took Dad, now Sammy was in danger too.
His hands fought weakly at the grip, until the fist squeezed, and something popped —
…
“No!” Sam shouted as Dean went limp in the King’s grasp. His body was dropped, loose and useless and heavy. There was blood on Sam’s palm. Fuck. No, this couldn’t be real. The King let out a breath, throwing back his head with a smug smile.
Then — clapping.
“Sam Winchester. Look at you, hopping universes just for kicks.” A paternal sort of chuckle, as the sarcastic applause slowed and then stopped. “I thought maybe you’d gotten used to living in the dark. You know, alone, no brother to hold you back anymore?”
Even the King knew better than to judge Chuck by his appearance. The other was at his full height, shoulders broadened in a sort of threat, his teeth were bared. But he didn’t make a move. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“I am who I am,” Chuck replied, and the words fell like dead weight. Angels carried power in the room, and demons too, but Chuck only ever felt like just a man. In Sam’s opinion, it was worse. He shuffled back a step, and too-sharp brown eyes alighted on him.
A wide smirk. “Learn anything today, Sam?”
He didn’t answer. Dean was dead on the floor, his head on wrong, his body lopsided, his eyes still open, wide with fear.
The King was staring. “You’re not him,” he bit out. “This is a fucking joke.”
Chuck’s eyes flashed as he turned to look. His voice was calm. “A joke, Sam?” A smile, sharp as ice, slid onto his face. “The real joke here is you. You finally get that second chance you’ve been begging for, and what do you do? Kill your brother. It’s not even been, oh,” a glance at his watch, “four hours?” A nod, a sigh. “Of course, I should have expected that. It’s not the first time you’ve killed your brother. No, not by a long shot.”
Sam gritted his teeth. “You didn’t give him that second chance.”
“No, you just so happened to be careless enough to bring it upon yourself,” Chuck agreed. Sam regretted his outburst when it meant the full, detached attention of the Almighty was directed to him. He knew how he looked. Bruised, broken, trembling, a swirl of emotion inside, the remnants of unshed tears hanging in his eyes. He looked pathetic.
Chuck smiled, like he knew what Sam was thinking, and said nothing. His gaze swung back to the King. “And after all those prayers. I was beginning to think you were a changed man.”
“You were there. All that fucking time,” the King snarled, fists curled like claws.
“I was,” Chuck agreed. “I watched you die. I watched you go to Hell. I watched your brother dig hole after hole to try to bury himself with you. No one would take the deal, they had the King-in-training.” By the stunned expression on the other’s face, Sam assumed he hadn’t realized that part. “I watched you track Dean down for his imagined crimes and destroy him, watched you do it a few more times downstairs just for kicks. You have quite the well of emotion built up inside.” A chuckle, and a shake of his head. “It’s funny. Here, they were fighting me so hard to keep my plan from coming to fruition. And there you were ending the world all on your own. Treating my creation like a used condom. Did you really think I would leap to your rescue, Sam?”
For once, the King was stiff and silent, his jaw clenched.
The God of the universe approached the King of Hell with a smirk. “Feeling a bit guilty?”
Sam took another step back, thinking to flee, but instead Chuck simply waved a hand. He had time for a gasp before he was somehow sitting on the couch. An attempt to shove himself up and out did nothing.
“Consider this a warning,” he said, moving in close, too close, hard gaze trained on Sam’s face. He smelled like some douchey hipster cologne. “This,” he squeezed Sam’s shoulder until he was shouting in pain, “is what happens when you play God. My stories may not always have happy endings, but they have meaning. This?” He gestured to the King. “A miserable existence.”
And the King wasn’t denying it. He looked pissed, but he still hadn’t said a word.
Chuck seemed almost gleeful at the silence that suffused the room. “After he went to all that trouble, he decided he didn’t like it. Wanted to take it all back.” He stepped over Dean’s fallen body and Sam averted his gaze. “There wasn’t anything left. Just dust. A gray wasteland as far as you could see. No life, unless you count the buzzards picking at the skin of the corpses left behind on Earth. That was when he decided, what the hell.” A broad smile. “Why not kill myself while I’m at it?”
“You shut the fuck up,” the King growled, reaching out a hand like he thought his power would do anything. And when Chuck took half a step backwards, Sam suddenly realized maybe it could.
“You did it to yourself, Sam. There is no afterlife, nothing beyond Heaven or Hell. Where does an eternal being go when they cease to exist? Nowhere.” He shook his head. “You wanted to be a god, and you got it. You got everything you ever wanted, and it landed you in the void.” Chuck sighed, a disappointed father. In the next moment he cracked a smile, and laughed. “Did you really think I would waste time and energy plucking you out of the pisspuddle you put yourself in?”
Sam closed his eyes. His shoulder was still throbbing. He knew he shouldn’t be able to do this, Chuck had wiped him clean of any remnants of demon blood. He’d once seen it as a chance for redemption. Now he knew better.
“I’ll kill you,” the King was saying, his eyes practically glowing with rage. “I swear I’ll kill you.”
Chuck’s face slackened, dead-eyed and unamused. “No,” he said shortly. “You won’t. Not only are you woefully short of the power you need to get rid of me, you can’t kill me. I’m the one on which every universe depends. Your very existence would disappear without me to keep it going.” A mirthless smile. “But then again, none of that bothered you too much in the past.”
A void in place of everything, every universe, every Sam and Dean out there. It was hard to imagine everything simply ceasing to exist. It follows basic physics, some traitorously logical part of Sam’s mind piped up.
“So, what? You’re here to have me do penance? Give my confessions?” the King flung back at him, tone venomous and words bitter.
“Oh, no, Sam,” Chuck said softly. “If I wanted your repentance, I would have stepped in long ago, when you were screaming at the top of your lungs for me. No, I’m here to gloat.”
Sam could see all the remaining wind go out of the King’s sails at that. Suddenly he had lost all the grandeur, the sadism, the hatred. Instead, his shoulders dropped, and he stared with eyes devoid of hope. He looked like a little boy in a costume. “To gloat?”
“Finally the man who fucked up my plan so badly he flushed it all away gets to see the truth. It was never about Dean. It was always you, Sam. You were the one who killed, who destroyed, who played with life like it was nothing. You brought it upon yourself. And this,” he gestured to Dean’s broken body. “This is the proof. Two universes now you’ve fixated on your brother’s death.” Chuck gave a thin smile. “Do you feel better?”
His shoulder was throbbing. Strangely, Sam thought of possession, of the way it felt to be pushed down, held underwater, how it felt to watch your own body walk and talk and move without your input. The bullet felt warm in his flesh. “You’re one to talk.” His voice was steadier than he was expecting it to be. “How many universes have you gone through again?”
Chuck tipped his head, smirked. “I’ve lost count.”
“But you, you’re fixated on us.” Sam was beginning to see things clearly, too clearly. “Everything, every universe, it always comes down to Dean and I, somehow. What is it about us? It’s not just the vessel thing. There’s something else.”
“You’re trying to fathom a fathomless God.”
The King threw back almost childishly, “It’s not hard to understand something like you.”
And that was the thing. Vicious, pointless sadism, all aimed at one point. Sam looked up sharply. “You’re afraid of us.”
Chuck laughed, loud and disbelieving. “Afraid? Of you?! Come on, Sam. Why in the world would I be afraid of you?”
“Because you know the possibilities. I’ve seen those dreams. I know how many ways we failed. Killed each other, died horribly, broke under the strain. You loaded so much on top of us, that had to be deliberate. You wanted to weigh us down.” And that realization made Sam feel suddenly free, almost reckless. None of that was his fault, none of it was his to shoulder. “You knew Dean and I were going to kill you. Didn’t you?”
A beat, a telling one, and Sam started to laugh. Dean’s body was crooked on the floor, sightless gaze staring up at the ceiling, and Sam was laughing helplessly, tears in his eyes, power wrapped harshly around his ribs until he was hissing out half-formed wheezes. His face hurt.
Chuck was frighteningly expressionless. “You’re going to have to live without your brother for a long time, Sam. Nothing you say is going to change that.”
“You’re — delusional,” Sam managed, still grinning. “You still think you’re — in charge.” He felt full of energy, buzzing with something heady and sharp. His shoulder was flaring bright and hot, the bullet was burning.
“Stand up, Sam.”
He had no choice, his body moving of its own accord. But he nodded towards the King. “You left him alone in that universe because you knew he could overthrow you.”
The King himself had seemed oddly distracted until he was indicated. Then he looked up with a sneer, confidence seemingly reinstated. But it was hollow, rang false with fear. “I would say you might want to pray, but you don’t have anyone to pray to.” The golden gaze caught Sam’s — a glance downward, to his right foot.
Sam frowned, scooting his right foot back until it brushed against something. Metal?
“I was wondering where that had gone to,” Chuck said. “Would you get that for me?”
Sam jerkily leaned down to pick up the mirror. He fought it, shivered through another flash of heat and pain. It didn’t matter so much, did it? This wasn’t punishment, this wasn’t about Sam at all. Chuck was a bully, a vengeful child raising a magnifying glass to burn the ant that bit back.
Sam watched his own hand hold out the artifact, and Chuck took it. There was vague curiosity, but then only a dismissive shrug. “All these pathways between worlds, none of you stay where you’re put. It’s annoying.” A thin smile, and he glanced at the King.
His eyes widened. “No,” he said sharply. “You can’t put me back.”
“Can’t I?” Chuck hummed. “All we need is a little prick of your blood. Not even any power on my part.”
An unsteady, unwanted step, Sam gritted his teeth as his feet brought him closer to the King. His shoulder was white-hot. “Run,” he managed. “Go.”
But the King took a breath, only adjusted his posture and stood his ground.
“What are you doing?” Sam hissed out. They were too close, his left hand closing around the King’s wrist and his right unsheathing a knife. A line of blood welled up, and Sam thought it might be too late. Then the smell got to him, metallic and too familiar. A shared glance, and Sam understood. The King smirked, gripping the back of Sam’s head and jamming his mouth down on the wound. He could have closed his lips, refused, but he was still held stiff with Chuck’s power, and he had a feeling this was the only way out. So he closed his eyes tightly, and drank.
Sam sucked in a hard gasp as his sight went suddenly gold. The knife clattered to the ground. He looked up, saw through a haze the face of God Almighty contort with terror. The fire in his shoulder had spread, licking along his veins, pooling in his stomach where the blood burned like acid. His lips tingled, as if sparks were alighting. All was sensation, all was heat. He tried to narrow his attention down to a single point. Ending this.
Chuck’s hand slowly lifted the mirror. “No!” the Author yelped. “Stop this!” His body was trembling violently, rebelling against the motion. The mirror sent shaky fragments of light against the walls, over the furniture.
“What? Can’t look yourself in the eyes?” the King taunted, but Sam could barely hear him. The world was underwater, his lungs soaked in light. He could feel his soul beginning to rend under the pressure. It was like holding a metric ton of leaden, buzzing energy in his throat.
There was a strange, charged moment as Chuck was forced to turn the mirror and regard his own reflection.
Then the King was there, looming over the smaller form. In seconds, he had yanked Chuck’s arm up and broken it at the elbow with clinical accuracy. The man howled aloud with pain. Because he was just a man, now.
There was no more resistance as the Hand of God descended for the last time, to touch the mirror to his exposed, bloody bone.
Then he was gone, and it was Sam, the King, a body, and a wave of overwhelming power.
Sam was vaguely aware of himself on some level — a low groan left his throat, his knees gave out, there was a dull thump as his body hit the tile. His brain rattled in his skull, but it was faint. Faraway. His soul was burning, immolating through sheer exposure to holiness, shekhinah, crumpling under the strain. He felt like he’d swallowed the sun.
The mirror clattered to the ground, clinking in something like slow motion.
Then the King was kneeling at his side. “It’s okay. You can’t hold it, I’ll take it. I’ll take it,” and he was in no position to say a word. The power leached out of Sam slowly. It made him want to retch because it felt like his guts were slowly unspooling. A gag, a hacking pair of coughs, and then it was gone. Sam felt hollowed out. He expected blood to be dribbling down his chin, but a wipe of his sleeve confirmed it was only saliva.
The room was still suffused with that golden haze, but not just metaphysical anymore. The glow was emanating from the King. He was shaking violently, twin golden orbs of swirling power where his eyes should be. He looked inhuman. He looked like a god.
With what seemed like immense effort, the King turned his gaze on Sam and said, “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Sam was focusing on breathing, but he took the chance and looked up at the other. “You did want to hurt me.”
“I-I, I didn’t,” the King insisted. “I was stupid. I’m sorry.” And then, “I’m going to make it right. I can make it right.”
“You’re holding the energy of about a million nukes inside you,” he cautioned. “If you tap into that —”
“I’ll probably die. Yeah.” A wry laugh, wrung from a tight throat. “Figured.” He was hunched over, gripping his own arms, almost hugging himself in an attempt to hold himself together. Blinding light pulsed through his veins, leaving them ridged and bloated with divinity.
Sam sat up slowly, looking the other in his glowing, golden eyes. “Okay,” he said after a beat.
The King — no, not just a king, but Sam, Sammy, broken and small and hurt and born out of the bitter poison of resentment — Sammy reached out a hand towards Dean.
There was a gasp, harsh and sudden, and then Dean was coughing. Sam forgot his aching body and ripped soul for a moment, scrambling up and throwing himself into a hard hug. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Dean.”
His brother hugged him back, hard.
Sam closed his eyes.
…
He knows it’s morning when he slowly blinks awake in his bed. But Sam isn’t sure what morning. He sits up, swallowing hard and swinging his legs out of bed. The floor is cold on his bare feet, so he takes the time to put on some socks. It’s beginning to bother him how normal it is to wake up from a nightmare and find everything’s business as usual.
Dean’s bowl of cereal is left forgotten and soggy in the kitchen. He’s at the table, the phone pressed against his ear. “What do you mean, they’re gone? All of them?”
“What’s gone?” Sam’s voice is hoarse, thick with sleep.
His brother looks up, gives him a nod. There’s concern in his eyes, but Sam knows he won’t say a word. Dean puts the phone on speaker and says, “Sam’s here too. But run that by me again. You’re saying all the monsters are gone?”
“All the bad ones.” It’s Jody. She sounds about as flatfooted as Sam feels. “And only the bad ones. There seem to be a few still left kicking. Everything from vegetarian vamps to good-hearted ghosts. I’m getting calls from all over the country.”
Dean shares a look with him, and then he sighs. “Right. So where does that leave us on our wrath of God problem?”
“I don’t know, Dean. Maybe it’s the calm before the storm,” Jody suggests, but Sam shakes his head.
“No, Chuck wanted us weak. He wanted us surrounded on all sides. This is the opposite of what he was going for.” He’s rubbing at his chest. It feels strange, like he was sunburnt, but on the inside.
“Guess he changed his tune,” Dean says.
Sam still isn’t satisfied. That dream … there’s something there. “I’m going to see if I can find anything that might be helpful,” he replies.
“At nine in the fucking morning?” Dean asks incredulously, but by then his voice is echoing down the hallway, and it’s safe to ignore it.
The library is just as he left it, papers scattered and laptop closed, a box of artifacts to go through on the right hand side of the table. In front of that is the mirror.
Sam puts his sleeve over his hand, then picks the mirror up to peer at it. It looks the same as in the dream, sans the smear of blood on the back. He’s about to put it back down when he catches a glimpse of something. A closer look at the runes makes him swallow hard. In each seam is a line of yellow powder. Sulfur.
He very quickly and quietly sets the mirror back down.
“No fucking way,” he says out loud. And then again, “No fucking way that happened.”
Was Chuck really …?
A giddy smile overtakes him, and something buoyant lands in his chest, and he’s laughing, laughing so hard that tears run down his face, because it’s over.
God is dead and Sam has never felt more alive.