SPN FIC: Vetis (is my tempter)
Mar. 16th, 2010 02:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snowdarkredTitle: Vetis (is my tempter)
Author:
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snowdarkred Word Count: 2,400
Characters/Pairings: Sam, Dean, a demon
Rating/Warnings: PG-13/R
Spoilers: Up to season 4, maybe a little of five
Warnings: Violence, blood, some swearing, and a tiny hint at past non-con
Author's Note: This is fucked up, and I'm not sure that it makes since. I had fun though, which is what counts. I wanted to do a story where Sam spent time in Hell, but he lied to Dean about it, and then Vetis (one of my fav old school demons) shows up. Once again, x-posted no where, nada, none.
Summery: No angel had gripped him tight and raised him from perdition. Demons had thrown him out, laughing all the way.
Vetis (is my tempter)
Sam doesn't remember being dead. That's what he told Dean, and to his credit, at the time it was true. But it doesn't stay true for long, and Sam never tells Dean about his latest dreams. He wants to save Dean from Hell so, so bad, but he doesn't know how to do it. He doesn't want his brother to worry more than he already was, worrying about Sam, about the world, worrying about demons and death and what's left of the people they care about. Sam.... Sam doesn't want his brother to worry.
So he doesn't tell him about Hell.
It's not like he just woke up one day and remembered. No, it came to him slowly, creeping into his brain, stealing up on him like a murderer in the shadows. He wakes up with screams strangling him from the inside out, with phantom blood running down his face and under his nails and through his hair and between his legs.
Dean doesn't notice, and Sam stops eating breakfast in the mornings. Starts mainlining coffee instead.
Sam's always been practical, in his own way.
He lets Dean do whatever, because Hell sucks, and he should have fun while he can. Sam doesn't like to examine that thought or what's behind it, so he shoves it away, back into the dark crawling corners of his mind. He doesn't think about it.
He finds a spell, one that would make him forget. He almost does it, but then he can hear it, just like when he was back there. He can hear it talking to him, taunting him with that sick, sick smile on its face.
One little slip, Sammy m'boy. One little slip. And then you'll make another one, and another one. Next thing you know, you'll be up on your throne. Won't that be nice?
The spell calls for human blood, just a few drops. He knows that his won't do, that it'll have to be someone else's blood. He stays up all night thinking about it, staring at the book open in his lap, while Dean's inside the motel room, fucking some woman from the local bar. Sam doesn't know what it would be like to not remember. To wake up in the morning with just his usual nightmares, with Jess burning on the ceiling or John on the floor.
But there's a sick, sick thought in his head, one that wraps itself up in his pain and expands. What if...
What if he forgets, and when the time comes, he doesn't fight for Dean, because he doesn't remember how horrible Hell is? Would he do that, is he capable of it? Of letting his brother go, just because it's the easier option? He does think so, but he doesn't want to risk it. Better a few nightmares than Dean living it. Of Dean going through what Sam had or worse.
And besides, its voice is purring in his ear again, whispering, One little slip. It's only a little human blood. Just a few drops will do.....
Because if he uses a few drops here, it'll be a few more. Then it'll be something else, like a hand. Then it will be a heart.
Sam doesn't want to go down that road. He'd rather give of pieces of his own body than take someone else's. He would rather be the sacrifice than sacrifice someone's mother or son or lover.
So Sam rips the spell out of the book and burns it, just to be sure that he wouldn't wake up one day with phantom blood under his skin, thinking that it would be worth it. He continues fighting for a way to save Dean, no matter what. By then end of it, he's ready to slice his own wrists if he thought it would help.
Then, the day comes, and Dean is...gone.
---
Sam continues to dream, and it's even more horrible. He's not sure if the dreams are real or not. He thinks that they are, but he wishes they weren't. He prays, with what's left of his faith, that they aren't. He knows it's useless, but he feels like he has to try, try something, anything, to save Dean, even if it's offering himself up to a God he's no longer sure wants him.
Sam dreams that Dean is being tortured, and Sam knows his torturer. The demon isn't that, isn't it, but Sam recognizes it as the other.
Sam gets drunker and drunker trying to forget. He wishes that he hadn't burned the spell. It was just a little human blood, just a little. It was just a few drops, and his own blood is too tainted to do the job.
Ruby comes for him, and finds him broken, and she puts him back together again in her own fashion. He lets her, because when she's around, the dreams stop. He doesn't want to think about why, so he shoves that thought back with the other ones, back to where he won't think about them and know.
---
When Dean comes back, the first emotion Sam feels is.... Joy, happiness, utter fucking delight. All of these words hardly encompass what rushes beneath his skin, in his bones. But then—then there is jealousy, a dirty, horrible emotion that makes him want to throw up or run away. It's awful, and he does his best to push it away and focus on what matters: Dean is here and safe again. Sam shouldn't begrudge him that; he endured far more than Sam had. And he remembers all of it, right from the beginning. He didn't have time to adjust to the memories like Sam had. It was just—
No angel had gripped him tight and raised him from perdition. Demons had thrown him out, laughing all the way.
And it kills Sam a little inside that he can't hold his brother close and say that he feels his pain, because he really fucking doesn't, even though he does. Because Sam's been in Hell too, but he told Dean he doesn't remember, and he wants to keep what trust he can get from his brother. He wants his brother to trust him, even though he doesn't deserve that trust in the least.
---
Of course, Sam knows that Dean will find out eventually.
---
She tilts her head at him, a gleeful glint in her eyes. Well, right eye, since Sam had slashed the left one out, and Dean had shot salt into the open wound. It's raw and angry looking, festering before their eyes. A smile curls at her lips, and it looks so warm and inviting that he doesn't want to know what the hell she finds so funny. Her one-eyed gaze slides away from him and rests momentarily on his brother before honing straight back on Sam's face.
“Hiya, Sammy,” she whispers, leaning in close. She's loud enough that Dean, pinned to the wall just two feet away from them, can hear her. She wants him to hear her. “Remember me?”
Her cold black eye glitters in the semi-darkness, and for a moment Sam thinks that it's Meg, returned once more to make their lives a living hell. Except it isn't Meg, because there's something off about this whole thing. The silence stretches, interrupted only by the ticking of the grandfather clock down the hall. Sam sort of wants to smash it with an ax because it's quickly becoming the most annoying thing about this situation, but he can't move from where he's pinned, and besides.
He doesn't have an ax.
“Oh, Sammy, you don't remember,” she says after a dramatic pause. He wants to roll his eyes, because, seriously, it's like all the demons went to drama school together. They're all reading from the same script, with the same narrative thread full of smirks and snark. He wonders if there's somewhere that he can file a complaint, since it gets old after a while, but he dismisses the thought. He needs to focus on the crazy demon bitch who's got him and his brother pinned to yet another freakin' wall.
“Who the fuck are you?” Dean growls. Sam glances at him, taking in the thin trail of blood snaking its way down his brother's face and the way Dean's shirt is ripped. Shit, Dean's not going to shut up about that shirt for hours after they get out. If they get out. “And why the hell would Sam know who you are?”
“Oh, Sammy,” the demon says again. The human she's riding would have been pretty, before, but now she just looks dirty. Dirty and used, a cheap whore bought for just an hour before being thrown back on the street. Well, minus an eye. Sam'll feel guilty about that later. Maybe. “Still keeping secrets from your big brother?”
Dean looks at him accusingly, and yeah, Sam deserves that, but it still hurts. But he doesn't have time to be emo; they're still trapped with a demon calling the shots.
“I'm not keeping secrets,” Sam insists, even though it's kind of a lie. Not a big one, not one that would apply unless—
Holy fuck.
“Vetis,” he snarls. He struggles against the force holding him to the wall.
“Bingo!” the demon smiles, looking far to pleased with herself—itself. “Aw, and I was afraid you'd forgotten all about me. After all the fun we had together.” Vetis leans into him and runs her hands over his chest. “Do you remember?” she asks. “Do you remember what it feel like to have the flesh stripped from your bones, to feel your skin bake in the flames? To scream so hard that you choke on your own blood?”
“What the hell?” Dean snaps. “Sam?” He sounds uncertain, scared. Like he's catching on, but he doesn't want to believe. He focuses on the demon. “Get away from my brother! I'll tear you apart!”
The demon laughs, throwing its body's head back and everything. It crackles like Dean's threat is the funniest thing its heard all day. “Oh, honey, you never told him?”
Vetis turns away from Sam and goes over to Dean, ignoring Sam's frantic yelling and swearing. She/It eases up to Dean like they're at a bar, like the woman's blood isn't leaking out of her eye and Dean isn't held captive against the wall. It pulls in close, standing on its toes to get up close to his ear. Like it's going to tell him a secret.
“Your baby brother lied to you,” she says, loud enough that it fills the room. “All that time that he was dead? He remembers it. All of it.” The demon pulls away, grinning happily.
Than Vetis smiles even wider, until it threatens to take over the meatsuit's face. She drops the final load like it's freakin' nothing, like this isn't breaking his brother's heart more than it already is.
“Time moves differently in Hell.”
Dean looks like he's going to throw up. His eyes flicker to Sam, and the horror there makes Sam's own stomach churn. Sam remembers. He remembers everything. He hadn't lied to Dean at first, when he first asked if Sam remembered being dead, but it hadn't remained the truth for long.
Sam remembers....
Sam remembers pain, remembers hours and hours of it, remembers being pulled apart and shredding, like fucking meat, remembers blood running down his neck and his chest, down his thighs. Remembers white hot fire burning away his blood, boiling it in his veins. He remembers screaming and screaming and screaming, because it just hurt so fucking much. Each second was an hour, each minute a year.
Demons had control of everything, and he'd quickly (slowly, an eternity) learned that they could make time seem like whatever they wanted. They could make hours feel like days, or like it was only the blink of an eye. Not that they would do something like that, because what's the point in torturing if time passes too quickly for your victim to feel it?
Pain had curled around him, pushing at him, pulling at him, breaking him down. And when he couldn't take anymore, when he was wasted and shattered, they put him back together again. Even that hurt, hurt so damn much that he had begged for them to just leave him that way, to just let him be broken if it meant that it would stop.
Vetis had been there. A shadow that had been present for every sob, every tear, every cry. Vetis had never offered Sam the deal Azazel had offered Dean—to torture instead of, well. No, Sam was destined for something else, something greater.
It had just been another step in the master plan, another nudge toward the apocalypse.
They had wanted him to be receptive, to have just one more wall stripped away, to be that much closer to saying yes.
Sam's never going to say yes. He's going to cut out his own tongue first.
Sam can see Dean, pinned to the wall like old times, except he can't remember if Dean's ever looked this helpless before. Even when the shit hits the fan, Dean is a dangerous man, and he knows it. But in the face of Sam's secret, that all goes away, leaving behind a broken, scared older brother who can't save the only person in the world he loves. It makes Sam ache inside.
Vetis throws back its body's head and laughs again. Sam wants to throw up. He can't seem to remember any of his Latin over the screams echoing in his head. Vetis stands in between Sam and Dean, exactly in the middle.
“I love Winchesters,” it giggles. “You cry so pretty.” Because Dean is crying, silently, his eyes on Sam. Dean is crying, and Sam just wants everything to stop.
“F-Fuck you, bitch,” Sam gasps. Vetis tilts its head at him, sickeningly sweet.
“Oh, Sammy,” Vetis crackles. “You already have. Or, I've fucked you.” And Sam doesn't want to remember, doesn't want to think.
It's Dean that starts shouting Latin, Dean who saves Sam from the blackness washing over him. Vetis laughs, and Sam knows that it doesn't have to obey, but the demon goes anyway. It leaves them with a kiss, and Sam can feel blood drip from her eye-socket onto his cheek.
The force holding them to the wall vanishes, leaving Sam facing Dean, the new knowledge hanging between them, right over the woman's empty body.
One little slip, Vetis says in his mind. One little slip. You've already fallen, you just haven't reached the bottom yet.
-------
Kudos to anyone who knows who Vetis is. :)
