Fic: The Winchester Way
Apr. 8th, 2014 06:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brightly_litTitle: The Winchester Way
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
brightly_lit
Rating: PG
Genre: gen, angst, mindfuck, retcon, psychological torture, hurt!everyone, conceptual horror
Characters: Sam, Samifer
Word Count: 1,200
Summary: Sam was willing to do anything to get Dean out of Purgatory--anything at all ... Dean just never knew it.
"Third: act disappointed to learn your brother was alive. Oh, the look on Dean’s face ... Lucifer savored it still. When he played it right, he was able to draw it out of him any old day, knowing the pain of that was still as fresh for Dean as it was the very first time."
The hardest part had been releasing Lucifer from the box, but he’d put him in there, so he knew how to get him back out.
The next hardest part had been trying to convince Lucifer to take him as a vessel. Lucifer had been burned the previous time, after all, ‘still smarting’ from his imprisonment, or so he said, but really it was that he was shaken by the fact that Sam had been able to wrest control from him, one of the most powerful angels ever created. He was right to be wary, since that was after all Sam’s plan again now.
When Dean and Cas had disappeared with Dick, after tireless research, Sam had narrowed down their most likely location to Purgatory. The monsters he’d interrogated had given him a pretty clear picture of the place: vast, full of leviathans and every other monster he and Dean had ever encountered (plus a bunch they’d never even heard of). It was a problem that Dean was human; it would attract monsters to his location. It was a bigger problem that Cas was an angel, because it would attract even more, but Sam knew Dean, knew he would never abandon Cas no matter how dangerous his presence was to him. All Sam could hope was that they were still alive.
It wasn’t that it would be impossible to get into Purgatory, though it would be extremely difficult, and having Lucifer’s power at his disposal would make it far easier. It wasn’t even that it would be impossible to find Dean and Cas and bring them back out, though the odds of success were slim without an angel’s power. No, the real reason Sam needed Lucifer inside him was because it would be the only way to bring Dean back if he was, as all sense and reason suggested he must be, dead.
Sam had overpowered Lucifer once before due to his desperation and determination; thus, it never occurred to him that he might fail this time. He hadn’t accounted for what really allowed him to take back control: Dean there, alive, at his mercy, needing Sam’s help. He hadn’t realized the deep-seated despair lodged in him since Dean’s disappearance--the creeping fear that Dean was finally dead and lost forever--would weaken him so utterly that he was soon Lucifer’s to do with as he wished.
Lucifer had lots of plans. Revenge wasn’t one of his favorite obsessions (except against his brothers and sisters who had betrayed him ... not to mention his father), and he’d had plenty of fun with Sam already, but there was still one out there who’d indirectly caused Lucifer a lot of suffering who’d completely escaped punishment, and Lucifer meant to remedy that. He’d learned through Sam that there was one sure way to torture a Winchester that surpassed any other. Sam and Dean were resilient little buggers. They could take anything you threw at them. Threaten their brother, though, and you had your golden ticket to torture. His time spent sifting through Sam’s most precious memories had taught him everything he needed to know about how to exact revenge on Dean.
First: do nothing. Don’t look for him or try to help him as he fought for his life in Purgatory.
Second: find someone you liked better than Dean--or at least claim you had. All the memories he’d shared with Dean about Amelia were made up. If Dean needed to verify his brother had really chosen her over looking for him, well, the demon possessing her would confirm it for him ... and make it sound as romantic as possible ... at least, as well as a demon could manage that, having no romantic feelings. Whatever; Dean bought it. Dean was so ready to buy it, because that was Dean’s secret fear, see: that Sam never loved him like he loved Sam, that he saw Dean as only an obstacle to the life he’d always truly wanted. Which led Lucifer to his favorite (so far) ...
Third: act disappointed to learn your brother was alive. Oh, the look on Dean’s face ... Lucifer savored it still. When he played it right, he was able to draw it out of him any old day, knowing the pain of that was still as fresh for Dean as it was the very first time. Dean was a fun little plaything.
There were a few nice achievements in here that Lucifer was proud of--making Dean kill his buddy Benny, that was a good one. Robbing him of the opportunity to do the trials himself, though he was as eager as ever to sacrifice himself instead, the moron. The best--and it required a lot of setup--was making Dean believe he’d failed his brother so utterly that he wanted to die just to stop being a burden to Dean in the church--oh yeah, that was beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
Gadreel had been a great help, as always, and Metatron was easily puppeteered into working the spell to cast the angels out of heaven--a nice little act of revenge on his brothers and sisters who’d been up there sitting pretty all the time Lucifer was stuck in hell. Plus, then they would have front-row seats when he got to the next part ...
Fourth: battle and defeat Michael. This one would be easy. He’d had hell centuries to wear him down, mess with his mind in the cage. It was mostly about psychological manipulation and brainwashing. Michael’s doubts and fears had made him weak and susceptible, and now he was all but ready to throw himself on Lucifer’s sword. Then the Earth would be his. It had all worked out better this way, actually, if Lucifer were honest with himself. He should probably be thanking that little gnat Dean for his inadvertent role in making Lucifer’s success so easy, but why forgive when you can punish?
Ooh, but first, the best part, the very best part ...
Three and a Half: reveal to Dean that it had been Lucifer all along. These long years since Dean got out of Purgatory, the guy he’d thought was his brother was the devil. Lucifer was putting off that part to savor, and because there were so many opportunities to torment Dean in the meantime. He’d been successfully driving him over the edge for a while now. It hadn’t been hard to get Cain in the game, although they both chortled over the unexpected ease of that ploy via Dean’s reckless eagerness to take on the Mark--seriously, what was with that?? He’d ask Sam, but Sam had stopped talking to him a long time ago, the big meanie, sulking with infinite sorrow deep in the recesses of his mind, silently begging Dean for forgiveness, wishing he really had done nothing and let Dean find his own way out of Purgatory, rather than doing something so crazy and foolhardy and reckless just to save his brother that he ended up destroying the world, but surely Dean would understand. It was the Winchester way, wasn’t it?
~ The End ~
Author's Notes:
- I keep hoping we're going end!verse at the end of this season, and this is one way I envisioned it possibly happening--which would serve the dual purpose of retroactively explaining Sam's inexplicable behavior since the beginning of S8 (as discussed at length in the comments on this meta). I'm a Sam!girl, but I don't understand so much of how he's been acting or how unsympathetic the writers have been making him, this season and S8. Then it occurred to me that could be quite deliberate. I had this idea and it wouldn't let me go, so here it is!
Author:
brightly_litRating: PG
Genre: gen, angst, mindfuck, retcon, psychological torture, hurt!everyone, conceptual horror
Characters: Sam, Samifer
Word Count: 1,200
Summary: Sam was willing to do anything to get Dean out of Purgatory--anything at all ... Dean just never knew it.
"Third: act disappointed to learn your brother was alive. Oh, the look on Dean’s face ... Lucifer savored it still. When he played it right, he was able to draw it out of him any old day, knowing the pain of that was still as fresh for Dean as it was the very first time."
The hardest part had been releasing Lucifer from the box, but he’d put him in there, so he knew how to get him back out.
The next hardest part had been trying to convince Lucifer to take him as a vessel. Lucifer had been burned the previous time, after all, ‘still smarting’ from his imprisonment, or so he said, but really it was that he was shaken by the fact that Sam had been able to wrest control from him, one of the most powerful angels ever created. He was right to be wary, since that was after all Sam’s plan again now.
When Dean and Cas had disappeared with Dick, after tireless research, Sam had narrowed down their most likely location to Purgatory. The monsters he’d interrogated had given him a pretty clear picture of the place: vast, full of leviathans and every other monster he and Dean had ever encountered (plus a bunch they’d never even heard of). It was a problem that Dean was human; it would attract monsters to his location. It was a bigger problem that Cas was an angel, because it would attract even more, but Sam knew Dean, knew he would never abandon Cas no matter how dangerous his presence was to him. All Sam could hope was that they were still alive.
It wasn’t that it would be impossible to get into Purgatory, though it would be extremely difficult, and having Lucifer’s power at his disposal would make it far easier. It wasn’t even that it would be impossible to find Dean and Cas and bring them back out, though the odds of success were slim without an angel’s power. No, the real reason Sam needed Lucifer inside him was because it would be the only way to bring Dean back if he was, as all sense and reason suggested he must be, dead.
Sam had overpowered Lucifer once before due to his desperation and determination; thus, it never occurred to him that he might fail this time. He hadn’t accounted for what really allowed him to take back control: Dean there, alive, at his mercy, needing Sam’s help. He hadn’t realized the deep-seated despair lodged in him since Dean’s disappearance--the creeping fear that Dean was finally dead and lost forever--would weaken him so utterly that he was soon Lucifer’s to do with as he wished.
Lucifer had lots of plans. Revenge wasn’t one of his favorite obsessions (except against his brothers and sisters who had betrayed him ... not to mention his father), and he’d had plenty of fun with Sam already, but there was still one out there who’d indirectly caused Lucifer a lot of suffering who’d completely escaped punishment, and Lucifer meant to remedy that. He’d learned through Sam that there was one sure way to torture a Winchester that surpassed any other. Sam and Dean were resilient little buggers. They could take anything you threw at them. Threaten their brother, though, and you had your golden ticket to torture. His time spent sifting through Sam’s most precious memories had taught him everything he needed to know about how to exact revenge on Dean.
First: do nothing. Don’t look for him or try to help him as he fought for his life in Purgatory.
Second: find someone you liked better than Dean--or at least claim you had. All the memories he’d shared with Dean about Amelia were made up. If Dean needed to verify his brother had really chosen her over looking for him, well, the demon possessing her would confirm it for him ... and make it sound as romantic as possible ... at least, as well as a demon could manage that, having no romantic feelings. Whatever; Dean bought it. Dean was so ready to buy it, because that was Dean’s secret fear, see: that Sam never loved him like he loved Sam, that he saw Dean as only an obstacle to the life he’d always truly wanted. Which led Lucifer to his favorite (so far) ...
Third: act disappointed to learn your brother was alive. Oh, the look on Dean’s face ... Lucifer savored it still. When he played it right, he was able to draw it out of him any old day, knowing the pain of that was still as fresh for Dean as it was the very first time. Dean was a fun little plaything.
There were a few nice achievements in here that Lucifer was proud of--making Dean kill his buddy Benny, that was a good one. Robbing him of the opportunity to do the trials himself, though he was as eager as ever to sacrifice himself instead, the moron. The best--and it required a lot of setup--was making Dean believe he’d failed his brother so utterly that he wanted to die just to stop being a burden to Dean in the church--oh yeah, that was beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
Gadreel had been a great help, as always, and Metatron was easily puppeteered into working the spell to cast the angels out of heaven--a nice little act of revenge on his brothers and sisters who’d been up there sitting pretty all the time Lucifer was stuck in hell. Plus, then they would have front-row seats when he got to the next part ...
Fourth: battle and defeat Michael. This one would be easy. He’d had hell centuries to wear him down, mess with his mind in the cage. It was mostly about psychological manipulation and brainwashing. Michael’s doubts and fears had made him weak and susceptible, and now he was all but ready to throw himself on Lucifer’s sword. Then the Earth would be his. It had all worked out better this way, actually, if Lucifer were honest with himself. He should probably be thanking that little gnat Dean for his inadvertent role in making Lucifer’s success so easy, but why forgive when you can punish?
Ooh, but first, the best part, the very best part ...
Three and a Half: reveal to Dean that it had been Lucifer all along. These long years since Dean got out of Purgatory, the guy he’d thought was his brother was the devil. Lucifer was putting off that part to savor, and because there were so many opportunities to torment Dean in the meantime. He’d been successfully driving him over the edge for a while now. It hadn’t been hard to get Cain in the game, although they both chortled over the unexpected ease of that ploy via Dean’s reckless eagerness to take on the Mark--seriously, what was with that?? He’d ask Sam, but Sam had stopped talking to him a long time ago, the big meanie, sulking with infinite sorrow deep in the recesses of his mind, silently begging Dean for forgiveness, wishing he really had done nothing and let Dean find his own way out of Purgatory, rather than doing something so crazy and foolhardy and reckless just to save his brother that he ended up destroying the world, but surely Dean would understand. It was the Winchester way, wasn’t it?
~ The End ~
Author's Notes:
- I keep hoping we're going end!verse at the end of this season, and this is one way I envisioned it possibly happening--which would serve the dual purpose of retroactively explaining Sam's inexplicable behavior since the beginning of S8 (as discussed at length in the comments on this meta). I'm a Sam!girl, but I don't understand so much of how he's been acting or how unsympathetic the writers have been making him, this season and S8. Then it occurred to me that could be quite deliberate. I had this idea and it wouldn't let me go, so here it is!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-04-09 05:16 am (UTC)Anyway, you never know. Let's hope :D
no subject
Date: 2014-12-21 04:06 am (UTC)I agree; I think they were just doing it for the drama/self-pity. At least things seem to be better in terms of Sam's characterization this season ...
no subject
Date: 2014-04-09 11:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-21 04:09 am (UTC)Ah, Lucifer, the ultimate sadist ... yet in the world of SPN, also somehow lovable. :-)
Glad you enjoyed!
no subject
Date: 2014-04-09 12:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-21 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-15 04:39 am (UTC)Seriously, what an amazing story. Brilliant.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-21 04:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-21 01:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-12-12 05:54 am (UTC)