Who: Sam Winchester. CLOSED. What: Meeting with Azazel. When: Not sure. It's always dark so time isn't exactly something he can determine. Where: Alternate universe! Rating: HIGH.
It seemed near impossible for the world around him to just suddenly change in the way that it had. One minute he was walking away from a well spent afternoon with Heather, the next he was standing in the middle of a street littered with destroyed automobiles, broken buildings, and the corpses of those who had been unfortunate enough to get in the way of what seemed like the inevitable. Sam had encountered more than one demon since then. All of them seemed more than friendly and yet, oddly timid, while around him. And they were all more than willing to answer every question he fed them, finally leading him to the conclusion that this, whatever it was, wasn't something that he was supposed to be in. Right? A world couldn't change so quickly. His past couldn't just be altered, could it? Unless this wasn't the past. Maybe it was the future. His future.
Slumping back against the freezer behind him, Sam slowly fell to the ground and pulled his right leg in toward him while the other simply rested outward. Arm resting on his knee, he pressed his mouth against his forearm and stared off at the contents of the grocery store that he'd been searching for supplies. He was sitting at the end of the frozen food aisle, while the produce section spread out into a small corner to his right. A shopping cart filled with dozens of various rotting foods poked out from behind the display of apples, a trail of maggots guiding their way from the cart itself and back toward the young woman sprawled out in an awkward position on the floor. Her legs were bent at an angle, her head was twisted to the side, and her arms were, despite it all, delicately wrapped around a small object bundled into her arms.
There was a defeated look fixated onto Sam's face as he continued to stare off at the mother and child, their bodies slowly being eaten away by the maggots squirming their way along the surfaces of their flesh. God, he couldn't breathe. He couldn't even think anymore. He'd seen so many bodies, so many lives lost, and now, finally he was beginning to understand. The horrified feeling that had haunted him ever since he'd stumbled into what he assumed to be the future -- his future -- slowly sank away from his chest. It was instantly replaced with a sort of dull numbness that he'd never quite felt before. All he could do was stare at the bodies, his mind barely even registering just as to what it was that was going on around him anymore. Nothing mattered. Nothing was important. Because this was it, wasn't it? This was what he was going to do. He was going to kill and maim and hurt all of the people that he'd worked so hard to save in the past and it was unstoppable.
Unless...
He reached out to his side and pushed himself up into s standing position, back sliding against the cool surface of the freezer yet again. He slowly tore his gaze away from the rotting corpses and looked down at his other arm, which had simply refused to let go of the knife that he'd been using to defend himself since his arrival. He swayed a little as he took an unsteady step forward and lifted the knife up at eye level. Blood stained it's surface, but he didn't feel bad about it's presence. It belonged the the demon's that he had killed. The people who had eerily called him 'friend' and requested orders from him. The demon who had brought him Bobby's lifeless body and claimed that he, at the very least, should have had the right to properly humiliate what was left of him before they ripped him apart and fed him to the dogs. A sharp twinge of pain tore it's way through the wall he'd built inside of him at the memory, but it quickly faded as he tightened his jaw and turned the knife over. He had to do it. It was the only way to stop this. Because if he wasn't alive, if he wasn't in the past, then there was no way that he could bring forth all of this. The end of the world. The apocalypse.
Drawing in several quick breaths, Sam brought the blade up to his neck and swallowed hard. This was it. It was the end of the line.
Dean never should have brought me back, Sam realized, the corners of his eyes growing damp. He had killed Dean here. His own brother. How could he have done that? What the hell had he been thinking? Screwing his eyes shut, Sam ignored the single tear that trickled down the side of his face and pressed the blade into his throat. He didn't quite break any skin yet, but the feel of the cold steel against the various scratches that already existed because of his hunt back in the past still wasn't a very pleasant feeling. Not that it mattered. What he was feeling now, on the inside, was so much worse. It was like someone had been plunging a knife into his chest over and over again. And the knife refused to kill him. That was probably the most horrible part of it all.
"What do you think you're doing with that knife, Champ?" It came so suddenly. The voice. His voice. Sam quickly dropped his arm to the side and turned around, his horrified eyes taking in the sight of no one other than the Yellow-Eyed Demon himself. Glowing yellowed hues, a patch of graying hair tacked onto his head, and a calming look that Sam never did quite manage to understand. He was in the body that Dean had destroyed him in, which Sam had considered, up until this point, impossible. Azazel. It was the fucking bastard who had terrorized his life. He had killed mom, he had burned Jessica alive right in front of him, and he had cursed Sam with his blood, slipping it down his throat when he was nothing more than a child quietly lying in his crib. A surge of hatred rushed through him at the mere sight of the monster. How was he even alive? How could someone come back from taking a hit from Samuel Colt's demon slaying gun? It was impossible. And yet, here he was. Looking as smug as ever.
"You can't be," he choked out, taking a step back. "I can't -- what have I done?"
Azazel tilted his head to the side, his eyes glowing eerily in the dark. "You've been killing your own, Sammy." He didn't move from his position opposite Sam. He kept still, examining Sam from a distance as he spoke. "I understand your conflict with Balaam. He was getting a little out of hand. But Agramon? My Agramon?" He slowly stepped forward. "And Cresil. He was a friend. A very close one. He was like a brother to you. He raised you, as I have." Licking his lips, Azazel couldn't help but shoot Sam an uncertain look. "I can forgive the slayings, Sammy. You're my son. But if I didn't know any better, I'd say that you were starting to feel. You're slipping. Losing your grip. If you don't wipe that kicked puppy look off of your face, then they'll begin to question our stability. Do you really want that? After all that we've done to get this far?"
Sam didn't know what to say. He was friends with demons and now Azazel seemed to think that he was his father. Or something like one. Sam had always known that he'd been rooting for him in the background, but this was just sickening. It was more than he could handle and Sam honestly didn't think he could bear to listen to anymore of it. "What the hell did you do to me?" Sam had to know. It couldn't have just been the blood, could it? Something else had to have changed him. "What did you do?!"
"You're overreacting. I think, maybe, you need to sort all of this out. You're obviously having some personal issues." He whistled through his teeth and, just like that, another demon rounded the corner aisle and appeared just a little behind him, standing at his right shoulder. "The King is in need of a fix. Take him in. Bring him to Asmodeus. He'll know what to do." Sam raised his knife out in front of him and stepped back again. Azazel merely shifted in his stance and the knife was skidding out of his reach. Sam dove onto the floor, snatched it up, and suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a pair of hands were on him. One gripped at his throat while the other grabbed at his hair. His head was slammed down onto the ground roughly. The corners of his vision went black, but Sam kept his eyes open, more than determined to stay awake -- to survive, at least long enough to fucking kill Azazel for what he had done to him, everyone that he had loved, and the entire world -- but the second collision between his face and the floor instantly did the trick. His entire body went limp and as his vision began to blacken entirely, he could distantly hear voices from above him.
"That was surprisingly easy. Shouldn't there have been...more?"
A beat.
"Yes. And that's why he needs this. There's something wrong. Now, keep this within the ranks and don't let word get out, do you understand? It's an internal affair and we will deal with it as soon as possible. But before you go..."
And then there was nothing. Just the dark, plaguing him all over again.