Work Text:
‘Disoriented’ didn’t even begin to cover what it was like to come out of whatever sleep Sam had been in, but that’s the only word Sam could think of once he shot up off the cot he was lying on in what he recognized as Bobby’s basement.
What the…?
Sam flung his legs over the side of the tiny bed, his head swimming. He pulled his hands up to the sides of his forehead, squeezing his eyes tight as he tried to steady himself. His heart rate jumped. What had happened? How had he ended up here? Was the world still in tact or … ?
What the hell happened?!
The inside of his brain actually felt like it was burning. It was a sensation he had never felt before. He couldn’t remember anything except the sound of Bobby’s neck snapping, the way Castiel had turned into debris before his eyes, and the bloody, pulp-like way Dean’s face was swelling under Sam’s own fists…
Sam jumped off the bed. He expected to sway on his feet but he was slightly surprise at his own agility. He must have not been out for as long as he had initially thought. He rushed up the stairs and down the hall until he heard voices. He could make out Dean’s and his heart leapt.
Suddenly, a brace of strange images flooded Sam’s mind. The force of them made Sam stagger back against the wall before he could enter the room in front of him. The visions were tattered and blurred and barely made sense as they flashed through his mind, consuming his reality: Sam was standing under a street light staring at a house he only slightly remembered, a man Sam recognized as his mother’s father was talking to a group of strangers in a weird warehouse, Sam was driving an unfamiliar car, he was chasing a dog through the streets of a small town…
And as suddenly as they began, they faded and he was returned back the hallway in Bobby’s house.
No, seriously what the hell?
He squeezed his eyes shut trying to steady himself. Dean was just around the corner. He didn’t have time to deal with a clip show of visions right now. Sam shook his head as if to clear it then trudged through the door.
“Sam?” he heard Dean exclaim.
Sam threw both arms around his brother without a word. He gripped him tight and securely, as if the harder he held Dean, the less true it might be that it was his own hands that had once broken his brother’s face. It took a second or two for Sam to even realize Bobby was in the room.
“Good to see you,” Bobby said as Sam gripped him with the same fervor as he had Dean.
“I saw you—” Sam pulled Bobby back. “I saw Lucifer snap your neck!” The sound echoed in his ears again. He worked hard not to flinch.
“Well, Cas kind of—”
“Cas is alive?” Sam turned, searching the room for Cas so he could give one more crushing hug away.
“Yeah,” Dean began.
Unfortunately, another flood of images flashed through his brain. There were loads of vampires, then a tiny teacup in a camper decorated with lots of tacky fairy statues, then there was a prison-like cell and a devil’s trap made of blood dripping from the ceiling… Sam’s hand came up to his temple.
“Cas is fine but…”
They were in a stone room and Dean punched him and punched him and punched him again—
Dean came to Sam’s side to help steady him as he staggered through the images.
—over and over until there were cuts on his face—
“Sam, are you okay?”
—and he blacked out completely.
Concerned, Dean put his arm around Sam’s shoulder. As the images subsided, Sam came back to reality once again as the visions faded and he was aware of his surroundings again. At the sight of Dean so near, Sam jolted away in a start, the most recent visions of his brother attacking him causing an icing wave of fear to ripple through his body.
Dean’s face twisted into an expression of hurt. The brothers stared at each other in uncertainty.
"What’s the matter, Sammy?”
Sam tried to soften his wide-eyes and frightened expression, regulating his breathing and hoping the color was returning to his face. He shook his head again to clear his brain. ”Noth— nothing….” he assured Dean.
Sam did not take a step back towards him.