Chapter Text
Castiel had been helpless but to watch as their weapon failed and Dick Roman ate Dean Winchester bit by bit. The prophet had managed to get away, but Sam hadn’t the Winchester worried about getting Kevin out. Sam had faced the Leviathan with a brave face, eyes hard. Castiel had not seen any fear in those hazel eyes even as they locked onto Castiel.
Run Cas, please. Run I don’t want you to die either. Castiel’s blue eyes showed regret before he nodded even as Dick tore into Sam, Sam not making a sound as he died, refusing to give Dick the satisfaction as he bought time for Castiel to flee back to Heaven. Heaven which was now empty of angels save for one, Joshuah. However Castiel didn’t dare go to him, he let the other angel be and started searching for any souls he recognized…yet he could not find any of them. For twenty five years he searched Heaven, even Hell (very discreetly) but he could not find the souls of the Winchesters or their allies… Until one day, on October 3rd 2037… He finally found two of the souls he had spent so long looking for, and he found one in one of the most unlikely places.
**
Lawrence, Kansas: Livestock Center. October 3rd 2037
A tall heavyset figure stood by one of the outer fences staring out at the wild lands beyond, at what used to be civilization. Human civilization. The Masters had taken the civilization down easily…their downfall had been the need to eat…They became complacent and now…now humanity is mere livestock. Any that could have helped had been struck down.
Sam Padaki had once believed in another force, one that could save them from the Masters…or Leviathan as they are called. For some reason he believed in angels ever since he was a child. He used to have dreams of a man who would help him and he…
I am an angel of the Lord. The words echoed through his mind again like they always had when he younger. Sam pushed his hair out of his eyes, long brown hair. He never let the Leviathan touch it, swatting them away and glaring at them. He never spoke to them but they seemed to think it wasn’t worth it, cutting his hair so they let him have it the way he wanted it. His hazel eyes took in the landscape. He had never been taught how to read, write or speak really. He had just…known it from the moment he started believing in angels and a higher power. The Leviathan, the Masters, had actually hunted angels, and he would hear about it from his cell, Leviathan bragging about their newest kills.
He started to turn away from the fence when he paused and looked back out over the landscape. He saw a figure standing out there. He guessed the figure was smaller in height than him, definitely in mass… He saw the shadow of wings, six of them before the angel, clearly, was gone. Sam’s eyes were wide, heart pounding as he looked around frantically for the angel…
Yet the angel had left, a smart move on it’s part. Sam contemplated running, simply climbing the fence and running…but he had heard about those who had tried to escape, how they either got caught or died of starvation. Not to mention if Sam did not have any of the food for several hours…he’d suffer terrible withdrawal. The food in itself is addictive; they have to eat it…
He is unique in that the part of the food that is supposed to make him dull and stupid and slow…it does not work on him, it never had. He never let on that it didn’t, he went with the crowd…but now he’s getting desperate. He has one week before he goes to the slaughterhouse and is made into food for The Masters…
As he walked back to the living quarters he looked up at the sky and prayed for help, from someone, anyone…
Sam sighed and went into the cafeteria and grabbed a premade meal and went to his quarters and started to eat his dinner, eyes downcast and shoulders slumped. He wanted nothing more than to get away from this hell…
Three days later he found his chance to escape. It had been a careless mistake by one of the Leviathan…they’d left a gate unlocked, right by where Sam liked to stand and look out at the lands that used to be occupied by humans. Sam knew for a fact that many of these cities are abandoned from what he’d seen back and forth between different facilities. In fact the Leviathan were all centered down by the slaughterhouses save for those running the other facilities, where they lived in housing on the grounds. Sam took this rare chance and simply walked off the grounds and closed and locked the gate behind him, and using knowledge he doesn’t know how he got, he hacks into the system and changes the passcode before walking off towards the highway, Sam humming a song to himself, a song that used to be Kansas: Carry on my Wayword Son.
**
Sam manages to survive much longer than many had. He lasted two weeks out there before finding a car in the forests that had bordered the facility, Sam staying near the edge to make sure he was still going towards what was once an occupied town called Lawrence. Instincts from years ago that the Leviathan had tried to domesticate out of them had kicked in, helping him with hunting the local wildlife, and knowledge of what could sustain him seemed to come from a buried part of his mind…and while he didn’t starve he still suffered withdrawal from his lack of eating the drugged food. Many days his travelling was hindered because of the withdrawal. Sam would wake and suffer through terrible bought of vomiting and hunger pains he knew didn’t exist. Then after three or four hours of this, he would force himself upright and hang onto a tree and force his eyes closed and wait until he felt he could manage and go on for the rest of the day.
What Sam didn’t know was that the longer he went without the poisoned food, the more his system was returning to its natural state, the way that God wanted it, and his body was now rejecting what it could of the poisoned food still in his body, seeming to finally get that this was not what the human body needed. In those first few weeks Sam dropped fifty pounds both from the vomiting and from the exercise he was getting trying to get to Lawrence and to hunt and gather food and water…
**
Dick Roman let out a growl as he stood.
“So you’re telling me a…Sam Padaki escaped and you have found no corpse at all and your people have yet to find him?” Dick growled into his phone a picture of said Sam Padaki on his screen, along with his livestock number. Dick of course was furious. He remembered eating the man the face belonged to and he knew that Sam Winchester had no other siblings. So how was this possible?
“We have not found him yet sir…it is possible he wandered into the woods and died, sir.” The Leviathan on the other end said with clear nervousness.
“You also have yet to explain HOW not only he WALKED out of the facility, but how it was hacked into and that gate reprogrammed. Not to mention how you idiots never noticed he was far more intelligent than he was supposed to be?!” Dick slammed his hand on the desk, glaring at the face that mocked him, remembering how the Winchester had used his death to let that damn angel get away and the Leviathan felt rage boil like a fire in his gut.
“Sir we…we don’t know how he managed all this, but he looked as…mentally incapable of all this as the rest. He never spoke he always obeyed it…it was unexpected.”
“It’s…how the humans used to say…It’s always the quiet ones,” Dick growled before looking down at his phone, “Find him and when you do, bring him to me,” Dick hung up the phone, then trashed the computers on his desk, and called in one of the lower level Leviathans and promptly ate her, tearing her apart in a vicious rage.
**
On the 39th day, a Monday, Sam finds a fully functional car. He smiled when he found it and paced around the sleek black car, unsure of why such a beautiful old 67 impala would be out there in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere out there someone had a sick sense of humor, but this Sam didn’t think of, he just knew that it may have gas in it, and that he needed it to get to a town.
Sam bit his lip and tried the door handle and the car opened easily without so much as a creak, it was almost as if time had preserved the car the way it had been when it was last used. Hell the keys were still in the ignition..it was as if the last owner had simply vanished. Sam slid into the seat and let out a sigh. Home. That’s what he felt here. Home. Something inside him settled at that idea and Sam looked into the back seat and frowned when he saw a leather jacket and a trench coat. Now curious, Sam got out of the car and checked the trunk. His eyes widened when he saw bags of clothes and he checked under the first section for a spare wheel, only to find weapons of all sorts…guns, stakes, salt, water bottles with crosses on them…machetes…He smiled and took a gun with a white handle and experimentally cocked it and aimed at a tree and squeezed the trigger. The loud report and the sound of cracked wood had Sam grinning. He put the safety back on the gun and put it in the car before grabbing one of the bags of clothes and unzipping it and changing right there into clean boxers, jeans and a flannel shirt. That sense of settling and home seemed to deepen and he leaned against the Impala and just…listened for a moment and felt something tugging at his mind, almost like he’d forgotten someone important but he just could not remember…
Shrugging, Sam closed the trunk and went into the car and grabbed the leather jacket and put it on. He let out a growl of sorts as flashes of two men went across his vision…one with short hair and yelling something, shooting at some sort of creature…then another man, who wore the coat as the together did, but this man was older and had black hair and a black beard.
“Sammy,” The men both said and Sam was brought back to himself at the sound of the horn honking and he shook his head, swallowing and looking around again and belting himself in with shaking hands and driving off in the impala and AC DC for company playing from the radio.
That night when he stopped for rest, his dreams were haunted by the two men from earlier… Yet one thing stood out among the rest…
He and the man with short hair stood in a room with another man in a trenchcoat and scrubs…the short haired man was backing away from a suited man who suddenly lunged at the short haired man, the suit was a Leviathan, that much his teeth showed even as he..ate the man in front of him. His horror and anguish are what woke him, Sam screaming.
“DEAN!”
**
Meanwhile a silent observer lounged on top of the impala, smiling at the scream. All that poking and prodding at Sam’s subconscious finally paid off…Sam was starting to remember his past life. Six wings flared out to catch a breeze, but he stayed on the car, he didn’t want to leave Sam’s side.
He frowned though when Sam got out of the car to vomit yet again, the Archangel didn’t like seeing Sam still suffering from the effects of the vile poison…
The Archangel hopped off the car and pressed two fingers to Sam’s forehead and Sam stilled and let out a breath as the vomiting ceased and he felt himself cool off. Satisfied the Archangel hopped onto the top of the impala again to get ready for another long drive, today would be the day that Sam would get into Lawrence and back to his old home.
**
“Hello Balthazar,” The Archangel said as Sam arrived at what was once his old home. The Archangel had needed to wait as Sam went into a abandoned WAl-Mart and got out as many non perishable foods as he could, mostly canned food and flour and sugar along with other random things. The Archangel had gone over every object and removed the drug from them, making the food safe to eat.
“I can’t believe your plan worked,” Balthazar said with a chuckle as Sam poked his head into the house and went exploring before pulling the car into the garage after opening it of course.
“So have you seen Castiel poking around looking for him? Or is he busy with the other one? Hell does he even know you’re alive?”
Balthazar shook his head, “Nope. I’ve been alive for about as long as you have been. I just cant face him after what Cas did to me.” The Archangel sighed and shook his head.
“I hear ya, really…but let’s not think about depressing pasts until after we get all the people we need in one place alright?” The Archangel asked as Balthazar sighed and nodded.
“Fine, you have fun with this one since he knows you’re out there. I’ve got to find Singer, I felt his soul a while ago. I think he was just brought back. I’m going to check his old place, for all we know it was suddenly rebuilt. Dad must be giving us a helping hand.”
“Yeah, be better damn well be after twenty five years of letting the planet rot under the rule of the asshats.” The Archangel grumbled, “And if Singer is indeed at his home, let me know so I can get Sam over there, comprende?” The Archangel said as Balthazar rolled his eyes and nodded before vanishing.
**
Sam nodded as he went through the old house and started cleaning up what was left of the old owners. It is fully furnished but all the food had gone bad, so he had to toss it out before bringing his in. He tested the electricity and everything. It all worked fine so he heated up a bowl of the chicken noodle soup, ate it and went upstairs and started showering, only to pause when he went past a mirror, staring at himself and stripping, looking down at himself. Nearly all his flap is gone and he’s a lean mean no fat machine and he let out a happy chuckle. The Leviathan had hated when he got his growth spurt, but they had been glad he still put on poundage. Though now…now he liked this. His hair is long, he looks like the pictures on the badges in the back of the impala. Happy with this new knowledge, he got in the shower and cleaned himself up.
When he went downstairs after, in casual pajamas from his bag of clothes he froze when he saw someone at the table, feet on it and leaned back in the chair he’s sitting in, sit wings spreading from his back. With the light on, Sam could see his face…and when he did, he doubled over, crying out as he saw images of this man, this angel that ended with the angel screaming and light coming from him…and later Sam coming back to find the angel well and truly dead. The angel is…
“Gabriel…” Sam whispered as he looked up and a smile broke across Gabriel’s face.
“Hey Sammy,” The Archangel’s voice was light but he let out a oof as Sam tackled him and pulled him into a hard hug. Gabriel smiled as he pet Sam’s hair and the Winchester snuggled close.
“Okay okay I get it, you’re glad I’m alive,” Gabriel said as Sam started to get up.
“That was you I saw outside the camp…” He said softly as Gabriel nodded, the Archangel patting Sam’s head. Sam was content to hug Gabriel and Gabriel smiled at him and looked him over.
“Well, who knew a Month and eight days out in the woods would get you to lose all that fat? You still got a ways to go before you’re a lean mean monster killing machine but damn Sammy.”
Sam smiled and stretched before yawning, “Gonna get some sleep in a real bed,” He mumbles and Gabriel nods and stays downstairs, happy.