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We are each other’s Achilles’ heel.
2012
It all starts with Chronos.
2015 / 2020
It all ends in Death.
2020 / Fortuna
In between is Fortuna, looking over the pool table at Sam. And she sees everything. Sam is the only living creature who can move around the bar. The others are frozen in place in precisely the position they were in, drinking beer, leaning against the counter, and watching the game between Fortuna and Sam, which they all know is essential and nerve-wracking. Dean is standing behind Sam. If Sam reaches out, he can touch his brother. Dean has a funny look; he has just opened his mouth to say something about a pool cue.
“You’ve got a lot at stake,” Fortuna says.
“Yes, I do.”
“Why are you here?”
“I just wanted to see this moment, this situation. What I....”
“You want to see what you are at your core if the story your creator created doesn’t protect you.”
“Maybe,” Sam admits, sucking in his lower lip.
“You know how this meeting ends, don’t you?”
“Obviously.”
“Do you know what could happen?”
“I know that too.”
“Are you going to continue to be a hero?”
“That depends on what real heroes are like. Who they save. The world or themselves. Or maybe someone beyond that.”
“I suggest you stay hidden, Samuel Son of Chronos. If anyone catches wind of you and what you’re doing...”
“I won’t risk my mission. It’s too precious.”
Fortuna raises her eyebrows and nods. The world around them stirs again. The club hits the cue ball, and the ball scatters the triangle.
“Solids for me,” Fortuna says. “And you are behind the eight.”
2015, Impala, somewhere
“Dean. If you could bring someone back, who would you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Whose death would you prevent? Who would you resurrect?”
“Elvis.”
Sam scoffs.
“Well, no, I’d stop Cliff Burton from dying. Metallica would have been so much more without that fatal car crash. Just think, the bass patterns of Orion ... what a stunning piece of art Burton created. That song is heavenly. It has inspired so many young people, lifted them from the gutter, and will live on for decades to come... Damn the Swedes and their ice roads and buses crashing on the road.”
“I mean our lives. Who would you bring back?”
“Oh, like someone other than you?”
Dean glances at Sam and grins. There’s a challenge in the smile but also sadness. They both know the price of being soulmates, of having their fates intertwined. The world is on its knees before them. They are willing to sacrifice everything for each other.
2009 / Leshi
Leshi is the game’s opening when Samuel Son of Chronos makes his first move, and therefore the most difficult of all the tasks. Samuel has to be careful that Dean doesn’t notice anything odd about his behavior at a time when he’s more than just plain Sam. This year is challenging for the brothers, as it is the year of the end of the world. Sam and Dean’s relationship is trapeze art. Dean has just taken Sam back as his partner, but he still finds it hard to trust Sam. Dean thinks Sam is just a junkie thirsty for demon blood and will betray his brother and the world one way or another. Dean is nervous and suspicious. They yell at each other a lot.
Sam will never betray Dean. Never again. Even though he knows he will make colossal mistakes, he can’t change anything right now. Everything has to be extraordinarily ordinary.
If Dean saw what Sam was doing, Dean wouldn’t understand. He’d throw him out again. And that can’t happen under any circumstances. Time must remain intact, unchanged by events.
Leshi is a Ukrainian forest god who has been worshipped in the past. When the pagan deity’s forest was cut down, and she lost her worshippers, she moved to this small town. Leshi figured out that she could turn idolization into a new method of worship. She seeks out human idols, becomes like them, meets her fans, and then absorbs the human life force into herself. Never mind that people die in the process. It used to be enough to kill three people yearly, but not anymore. And this Leshi killing spree is Sam’s fault, too. The coming Apocalypse has made Leshi power mad.
When Sam chops off the head of Paris Hilton-looking Leshi with an axe, he stops. In his mind, he imagines how reality can be different while pulling at the strings that build the fabric of reality. His thoughts take hold of the pulsating force around him. He holds on to it with all his might. He feels his invisible teeth reach around the power of the pagan god and bite off a small piece of her. Such a tiny little chip that no one else will notice it’s missing.
Once Samuel, Son of Chronos, gets what he wants, he slips away from himself and into another time.
2015, Impala out there somewhere
“You’d like to bring someone back, wouldn’t you?” Sam intones.
“Mom.”
“Mom? Not Dad?”
“‘She never had a chance at happiness. Never had a chance to see you grow up. And Dad did have his turn.”
Sam thinks hard.
“Maybe not a real opportunity,” Sam says. “Yes, he tried, but he never had a chance at a normal life. Not under those circumstances.”
“Sounds like you’ve forgiven him.”
“Maybe.”
Sam can’t go on as he used to. He thinks he must forgive his father because he is like him. Just as stubborn, just as blind. If he hates his father, he hates himself.
Dean rubs his hand, the spot where Cain’s Mark burns his skin. Sam doesn’t know what it feels like, but he can imagine. Dean always looks like someone’s poking him from the inside with sharp needles.
“What about you? Who are you bringing back? Jess?”
“Jess is in Heaven, and I think she’s happy. Why would I want to cause her any more suffering?”
“But you were made for each other.”
Sam looks out the window. The scenery changes as the car speeds along the highway. Once as a child, Sam hated this feeling of disconnectedness, of being between homes. He could never put down roots. Just as he got used to school, its students, or teachers, his father would tear him away from new friends and relationships. Sam was forced to adjust to the fact that discontinuity and drifting apart were the norm in his life.
The only anchor was Dean, who shared all the same feeling of detachment and a sense of being an outsider. Sure enough, Dean began to hunt with his father and was gone for days at a time. But Dean was often there to care for Sam and stabilize his world.
Years by Dean’s side have accustomed him to constant movement. He only feels completely relaxed when sitting in a moving car, listening to the engine’s purr and staring at the scenery flashing past.
“I’ve changed,” Sam says. “I’m a different man from the one she loved. Jess is the same young idealist she was when she died. Jess loved me, who was naive and ignorant. The me who hadn’t yet fallen.”
Dean glances at Sam.
“It wasn’t your fault. You were set up.”
“I don’t mean it like that. I’ve accepted what happened. Our part in almost destroying the world. And a lot of people have died because of us. Bystanders who were there when we saved someone else. Demon or angel hosts who didn’t stand a chance.”
“Who then? Who would you return?”
“Someone whose death I caused by being too stubborn.”
“Well, who?”
“Well, Charlie, for example,” Sam slips up. The back of his hand hits the cold window of the car. He pulls his hand away. The cold brings back bad memories.
“Charlie’s alive.”
“If she were dead,” Sam corrects. “She’s like a little sister.”
“She is,” Dean says proudly.
2011 / Veritas
Sam has been good at taking a punch. His pain tolerance has been honed to a fine edge. It’s not for nothing that his father drilled his sons to fight as much as to endure mental pressure. Sam and Dean wrestled, boxed, and exercised for hours daily. Any ordinary everyday situation could turn into a battle for survival when Dad suddenly found they had to hide, run from an unseen enemy or dodge an attack.
There were mishaps, but they were overcome with painkillers and by continuing training the next day as if nothing had happened.
Years of training and outright abandonment have come at a price - Sam has developed a complex dependency on his older brother, a relationship some have called pathological. That’s why Sam tolerates it more from Dean than from anyone else. It’s why Sam lets Dean do what Dean wants. It’s why Sam trusts that Dean would never do anything to hurt his little brother. And so is Sam. Dean is his idol, and Sam would never hurt Dean.
Soulless Sam is a more terrifying creature than Samuel, Son of Chronos, remembers. Soulless Sam has no connection to Dean, no real need to truly experience anything other than the hedonistic pleasure of his existence. Dean is important but in a twisted way. Dean is important because he is Sam’s property; Dean has instrumental value. On some level, soulless Sam tried to protect his older brother, as he stayed away from Dean for months, never revealing that he had returned from the dead.
Soulless Sam has no respect for the relationship between the brothers and is willing to sacrifice even if it gets in the way of Sam’s deepest ambitions. He can say to Dean, “I got your back,” when he might as well let his brother turn into a vampire. A soulless Sam is a true unnatural abomination, and Samuel will do what he needs to do as quickly as possible.
Veritas has Sam and Dean tied to the railings of an empty swimming pool. Sam has a knife, which he uses to pry loose the rope around his arms behind his back.
Vetiras wants to play her truth game, and Dean is forced to tell his secret about Sam.
“I wanted to kill him at night. I thought he was a monster,” Dean tells Veritas.
When it’s Sam’s turn to speak, soulless Sam dodges and lies because he can. The soulless one has no conscience.
“Our work is important. We take care of each other,” Sam says.
“You’re lying.”
“You said I couldn’t lie to you,” Sam insists.
“But it’s still possible? How? “
Then Veritas asks Dean: “What is he?”
Samuel sweats in anguish. How precisely Veritas gets to the heart of the matter! But Veritas can only see beneath the surface. She can’t see the second layer, not an extra passenger in this timeline.
“I doubt everything that comes out of your mouth. You are not human.”
Sam gets his hands free, throws a knife in Dean’s direction, and lunges at Veritas. They roll on the ground, and Veritas wraps her arms around Sam’s throat.
It’s the moment he’s been waiting for. He’s clumsy because he’s never done this before. He stops the moment and does what he came here to do. Dean doesn’t notice anything. Veritas does, but it doesn’t matter to the outcome. The end of Veritas’ journey is here. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Soulless One or Samuel behind the killing. First, Dean strikes Veritas, then Sam finishes the deed and slays her by impaling her with a bar of iron.
“You’re not my brother,” Dean says after Sam stands up.
“Dean. It’s me.”
“What are you?”
“She’s right. There’s something wrong with me. Badly. I’ve been lying to you,” Soulless Sam says.
When Dean starts beating Sam, Samuel takes each blow calmly. Samuel thinks he deserves to be punished, at least this soulless Sam does, even though the situation isn’t Sam’s fault. Sam can’t help it that he returned from Hell without his soul. As Sam crumbles under Dean’s wrath and falls unconscious, Samuel slips away, thinking, If you only knew Dean, how deep my lie goes.
2015, Impala, out there somewhere
“Okay, Dean, if you don’t want to bring someone back to life, then what? What would you change if you could change one other thing in our lives?”
“I wouldn’t change anything.”
“You’re lying.”
“Well, yeah, maybe I’d quit this job and become a mechanic.”
“So mundane. Would you really be happy in something so ordinary and boring?”
“Yeah. But I’m good with cars, unlike you. I almost didn’t destroy Baby’s carburetor or fail to change the oil. Or installed an iPod. How about you? You’d make a good professor at some university. You’d teach hot students mythology, demonology, and other dull and titillating stuff.”
“I don’t see anything but the two of us.”
“Dude!”
“I mean it. Where you go, I go.”
“Perv.”
Dean chuckles. He’s smiling, not angry. Maybe impressed by Sam’s response.
Sam doesn’t open up any further about what he’s really thinking.
Dean is his North Star. Dean is his only constant. Dean is his Mom and Dad, his big brother. There’s no room in Sam’s heart for anyone else because Dean is already there. Dean has taken up residence inside him as such an essential element that Dean cannot be removed without destroying Sam. Together they are an entity called SaDeam or DeaSan, as they used to say as children.
Perhaps when he left Stanford to join Dean’s journey, there were days when he longed for a return to normal or a life he considered normal. But too many things have happened since then. It doesn’t bother Sam anymore. The journey became shared. He doesn’t need anyone else by his side. He’s happy this way.
“Lucifer,” Dean says.
Sam flinches, as he always does when the devil is mentioned.
“What about him?”
“I wouldn’t give you to him.”
“That’s in the past.”
“Still. I’d go in your place myself.”
“I’d save Adam,” Sam says. “But that’s probably impossible. And without his sacrifice, we’d have to face Michael the Archangel. “
“Maybe Michael could be negotiated with, unlike Lucifer. If Michael has learned anything about being in a cage.”
Sam sighs deeply.
“No. I don’t think so. He is practically the same kind of asshole as Lucifer. His father’s son.”
Sam doesn’t believe it. He knows from experience.
2012 / Chronos, 11.34 pm
It all starts with Chronos. It is impossible to say whether it is a coincidence, fate, or pure accident.
Chronos and Dean return through time to 2012. Chronos attacks Dean, and Sam defends his brother. He stabs Chronos in the chest with a stake. At the same time, Sam feels something extra slam into his own chest. Maybe it’s a spell he did with Jody to connect 1944 and 2012. Perhaps it’s something else. The time Dean returned was 11.34pm. The number is magical: if you tap it into a calculator and turn it upside down, the word HELL is formed.
“Enjoy Oblivilion, enjoy damnation,” Chronos says before he dies.
The universe slows down. Dust particles float around Sam in beautiful patterns. Jody and Dean seem frozen in place. But they are still moving, just slow enough for him to see the movement of a single hair or the breath that escapes their mouths.
Or maybe Sam is just so fast that he becomes a whirlwind to the rest of the world.
At first, he’s stunned and thinks he’s hurt, but then he realizes nothing worse has happened. Instead, a miracle. An extraordinary force has settled inside him. It clings to Sam’s innate supernatural abilities, which have lain dormant and regressed from lack of use.
Sam’s consciousness expands from the seed of Chronos.
Sam understands this: what we experience as the flow of time is a succession of moments in time. Man can only see the movement in which he is involved. Some beings higher than men exist at all times simultaneously. And gods like Chronos are free to move from moment to moment in time, travel, and shape particles.
Sam cannot do what Chronos does but can absorb a small fragment of Chronos’ power. And that shard causes him to be elsewhere at times, at instants. And that’s why he knows more than he should know. He is present in the moments he has already experienced and the ones yet to come.
At first, he doesn’t want to change the outcome of events, he really can’t, but he can learn - and take something away from each encounter.
So at first, he wants nothing; he just is, but when he looks far enough into the future, through the black ooze and the darkness and the apocalyptic ruined world, he sees a moment that makes his blood run cold, and his mind screams with terror and sadness.
At that moment, Samuel Son of Chronos is born and has a mission.
2015, Impala, somewhere
“I miss Bobby.”
Sam doesn’t say anything to that as he’s forced to swallow the lump suddenly rising in his throat. He agrees.
“It’s so wrong,” Dean continues. “But I think Bobby will be happy in Heaven, too.”
Sam smiles sadly.
Dean strokes his hand. He rubs it often. Sometimes a shadow crosses Dean’s face, and he can’t hide the pain. But most of the time, he just forces a smile on his face as if to say, it’s okay, Sammy, there’s nothing to be afraid of.
Sam thinks of Bobby. Of all the losses, Bobby’s death feels perhaps the worst of all - if you don’t count Dean, all his deaths. Bobby was to Sam what John could never be, a father who was present. Even though Bobby was sometimes unusually cranky and stubborn, there was always a man inside who longed for family, companionship, and friends. “My boys,” he said and meant it.
“I think he’ll have everyone on their toes and angels in a daze. Bobby has always been such a young rebel. The James Dean of his day.”
“Tell me about it,” Sam mumbles.
2014 / Calliope
The auditorium smells of cheap perfume, sweat, and the anguish of creativity. The musical is cute. And a little embarrassing at the same time. Sam watches the girls enthusiastically act out an epic romance of brotherly and comradely love.
Dean stands beside him, face flushed, staring at the two girls holding hands.
“They’ll probably start kissing soon,” Dean murmurs.
“It’s an artistic interpretation of the relationship between you and Cas. Accept it as an honor.”
“Damn Chuck and his book series. We should’ve killed Chuck off when we had the chance.”
Sam listens to Dean’s snickering and grunting, closes his eyes, and enjoys the energy that the musical radiates to him. It renews his soul. It sensitizes and empowers him at the same time. It is terrific to be adored. It is fantastic to feel these young people admire him and his image. Chuck’s epic book series causes Sam to be an idol to many. Thousands and thousands of readers of the book series think Sam and Dean are a force of nature. People create art about these two idols. People hold conventions where they dress up as Sam and Dean. That’s why Leshi’s power is perfect for Sam... Samuel Son of Chronos to harness. There’s always someone somewhere drawing a picture of Sam or writing a story about him. And each time, Sam feels the power of a fan’s love reviving him.
Sam opens his eyes. He has to follow the script assigned to him. He cannot yet enjoy the worship that is being lavished on him. But when the time is right, he must again make a small exception to the predetermined.
Today Samuel must face Calliope, the god of epic poetry, and steal a small piece of power from this god.
2015, Impala, out there somewhere
“Do you still think I’m a monster?” Sam asks.
Dean glances at him and gives him a fondly murderous stare. The way an outraged older brother stares at a younger brother who has done or said something foolish, like touching an iron bar with his tongue in the freezing cold, peeing on an electric fence, or eating laxative sweets.
“Sam. Now. Seriously.”
“...”
“Aren’t we already past that stage? How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t think like that anymore. I haven’t in a long time. Although sometimes, in my anger, I might let myself assume otherwise. I have bad days too. Capiche?”
2011 / Osiris
“I can kill you,” Sam says as he tightly grips Osiris and presses the ram’s horn against the god’s spine.
“Then why don’t you?”
“I want to trade with you.”
“For what? What have you to offer me, mortal?”
“I am no ordinary mortal.”
Osiris feels Sam out and finds that Sam is holding him in a grip that shouldn’t be possible. Osiris lunges but can’t get away. Indeed, Sam can kill him if he chooses.
“Speak. What do you want?”
“You’re the god of Death. I want your ability to negotiate with Death.”
“You’re already addressing me.”
“I’m talking about the Horseman of the Christian God. I want the power to negotiate with him. A bit like one colleague to another.”
“Oh.”
“I won’t kill you if you give me that ability.”
Finally, Samuel stabs the horn into the back of Osiris - he must save Dean, whom Osiris condemned to death and who is currently struggling with his conscience - a conscience that has taken the form of the late Jo and will kill Dean in the most gruesome way if Sam doesn’t stop it.
But as Samuel promised, the horn will only put Osiris into a deep sleep.
2015, Impala, out there somewhere
“Sorry,” Sam says.
“Sorry for what?”
“Well, for everything.”
“Dude! Are you going through some kind of emo-crap phase, or what?”
“No particular reason.”
“When was the last time you apologized? Do we take your temperature?”
Sam pauses and continues.
“I haven’t always been the best brother. I’ve made bad decisions that have hurt others.”
There are a lot of unspoken things floating around in the air. Ruby and demon blood at the top of them. Sam can never beat himself up too much because he let Ruby lead him into a trap. But if there’s a lesson in all this, it’s that without Dean, Sam will make terrible mistakes.
“Well, I’m not going to deny that,” Dean says after reflection. “But---”
“But?”
“Maybe you had good reasons for it. At least sometimes.”
“Thanks,” Sam says.
“You’re welcome.”
“I mean it.”
“Me too.”
Dean glances at Sam. Sam glances back. Yes, Sam forgives Dean too. For all that has happened and all that will happen.
Non-time / This is how he planned it
Chronos’ power does not extend to the afterlife. The afterlife, in Heaven or Hell or Purgatory, is outside the concept of time. Therefore, Sam cannot see what he will be after he dies. The emptiness after death frightens him. One would think it would be easy to give up after all he has been through, but he has been fighting for his and Dean’s lives for so long that he can’t stop fighting.
In time, Dean will ask Sam to let him go, to let him die away. A reality in which Dean does not exist is an abomination to Sam. But Dean is good at insisting on promises, and the relationship between the brothers has developed to the point where Sam never wants to break promises to Dean again.
That’s why Sam has to do things differently. He doesn’t have to break the trust if Dean never has to ask Sam to make that ultimate sacrifice.
Samuel Son of Chronos is present at various moments. He has carefully chosen the occasions when he moves from being a spectator to being proactive and intervening at that moment. He does not do big things because he does not want to draw attention to himself. Causes and consequences, the course of events, and fate have their guardians. If Samuel tries to change things and leaves traces, he will inevitably draw the guardians’ attention to himself. He only does small things in huge situations where you can’t see what’s happening unless you can look in the right spot. A spider cannot see a speck of dust slipping through a net. He bypasses the spider and the web, taking only small mouthfuls of the gods.
The work of magic is complex. Well, it’s not really magic. It’s a force of nature woven together by divine powers that is almost impossible for anyone to break. God could break it, of course, but God is a creature of great arcs and tiny details and cannot look in the right direction at the right moment.
2015, Impala, somewhere
“What will you do when I die?” Dean asks.
“You’re not dying.”
Sam has been hunched over in the car seat, but now he sits up in a more upright position and takes a deep breath.
Before Sam can get nervous and start his lecture, Dean continues. “I wish you’d move on. Start a family.”
“Who would I start a family with,” Sam snorts because that’s what he has to say. That’s what he thinks in a mode where Dean’s existence is a law of physics. Even so, at the same time, he knows he’s going to start a family and do precisely what Dean wants. Sam vaguely sees a woman and a boy, but Dean never meets them.
And that’s wrong. It’s totally wrong.
“But yes, I’m scared,” Sam confesses. Dean’s grip on the wheel tightens. “I’m scared of you dying. I’ve always been afraid.”
“It’s happened. The Trickster tried to teach you...”
“And it certainly taught me nothing. It’s not death itself that’s the problem. It’s losing something forever. That you can’t do anything anymore. That the other one is completely gone.”
Sam almost bursts into tears, even though he’s always been so good at hiding his feelings. Dean doesn’t understand how deep Dean’s roots have grown. When Dean was dead for a few months before Cas brought Dean back, a black hole inside Sam sucked in all the good in Sam. Sam never wants to go through that again.
“I know we never used to give up,” says Dean. “We always pull each other out, no matter what kind of gutter we’re in. Although you might ask if it’s always worth it. What’s the price.”
“Don’t try it,” Sam snorts. “You have no right... damn. I understand that not everyone likes what we’ve done.”
“There are forces out there that don’t think we should go on forever. Maybe they’re right. Maybe we should have died trying to stop the Apocalypse.”
Sam can barely contain the rage that surges inside him. That rage is reserved exclusively for when Dean starts to utter foolish, self-destructive, or self-pitying words.
“We have the right to decide what happens to us, not others,” Sam says through gritted teeth.
“Tell that to all the bastards who always get in our way. We’ll never be left alone.”
“Maybe it’s not the peace we want, but motion,” Sam mutters. “Because abnormal is normal. If we ever retired, we’d probably get bored in a few days.”
“Or maybe we’re the flawed ones,” Dean says, and now Sam realizes Dean is really annoyed. He snorts loudly through his nostrils. The Impala is already speeding, and Dean accelerates.
Sam breathes in and out. In and out.
Maybe Sam is flawed, but that’s how the universe designed him. He wants not to be startled by sudden noises, and he wants not to have nightmares about Lucifer and all his dead loved ones - but Dean, he wants to keep and cherish everything that has happened to him and Dean.
2017 / Moloch
Moloch is a god to whom humans have sacrificed to gain power and success. The Bishop family managed to benefit from their captive god for a hundred years, but then a descendant of the family locked the god in a cellar and wished it would die away. The poor devil was starved for decades, making putting him out of his misery easy. Sam is happy to do so because no creature should languish in torture conditions. But of course, he manages to snatch a piece of the god with him. Samuel needs an understanding of the power of sacrifice. That is what Moloch unwittingly gives him.
Sacrifice is essential to the brothers’ relationship, a form of constant without which they would not be who they are. One can, of course, think that the root cause of the sacrifice lies in Chuck’s passionate obsession with fratricide, and in turn, it lies in Chuck’s own complex sibling relationship. Write about what you know, so they say.
John Winchester sacrificed his children’s lives to avenge his wife’s death. It was inevitable that something of that way of life would be passed on. Throughout their lives, Sam and Dean have become accustomed to sacrificing for each other and, in the process, offering a variety of things to the altar of their brotherhood.
Sam has come to understand the meaning of sacrifice. The value of giving something you value and love. It’s the only way to make the gods see, and the universe listen. He has sacrificed himself. Now he must sacrifice more: things that do not yet exist but would bring so much good. To understand that, he must first experience and know what it all feels like. What it feels like to have your child’s first cry, first tooth, first time saying ‘Daddy’, learning to ride a bicycle, an awkward sex education conversation, drinking a beer together while leaning on the hood of an Impala. What it feels like to have a son who gives his father permission to give up on life and go to the underworld.
Samuel lives and suffers.
2012 / Artemis
“Before you go...” Samuel says to Artemis. He steps closer to Artemis, who clutches Prometheus’s body in her arms. Zeus lies dead beneath Prometheus. Artemis’ powerful arrow pierced them both at the same time.
“I understand the pain you are experiencing,” Samuel continues.
“How can you understand,” Artemis whispers. She sounds hopeless. Then she looks at Sam more closely and frowns.
“I have also experienced the loss of everything. Desolation. When your heart is ripped from your chest, there’s nothing left to go on. I know no one should be left alone.”
Artemis tilts her head, her posture eases.
“We will give your lover a hunter’s funeral,” Samuel promises, nodding toward Prometheus. “But I can promise you more. You are our god, in a way. We are hunters, too, after all.”
Artemis’ body relaxes. She glances up, hopeful.
“I can promise us. Me and Dean. I can lay our hearts and souls at your feet. For you.”
2015, Impala, somewhere
“What would you do if you had to spend eternity with me?” Sam asks.
It’s Dean’s turn to snort.
“Would you want to spend eternity with me?” Sam confirms.
“Well, isn’t it obvious? Soulmates share Heaven. I’ll never be rid of you and your sock juice.”
“Even if you wanted to.”
“Nah. You’ll have to watch Busty Asian anime with me. Let’s call it even.”
Sam smiles broadly.
“Dean. I know you love me.”
Dean gives him the middle finger.
2015 / The day it all ends for the first time
Sam is on his knees on the floor. His jaw is aching. Dean’s punches have pounded him mercilessly to the ground. Dean’s hand clenches around the handle of the scythe, ready to strike. Dean is in agony, tears in his eyes, but once he’s made up his mind, he goes at it like a bull. Sam has to die to keep from bringing Dean back to life. The circle of life, death, and resurrection between the brothers must be broken. Only then can Death take Dean with him and nullify the effects of Cain’s Mark.
Sam holds a photograph of Dean and their mother in front of him. Sam has just told Dean that he believes and knows that Dean is a good person. Cain’s curse cannot change who Dean is at his core.
Dean’s hand tenses, ready to strike.
“Close your eyes, Sam,” Dean says softly.
The universe shrinks to the size of a pinhead. Fear and terror squeeze Sam’s heart. Dean is selfish - doesn’t he see how much Sam loves, how wrong this is, and why they should do as others tell them?
Sam closes his eyes, but suddenly they snap open.
“I have a proposition,” Samuel says, raising his eyes defiantly and looking past Dean to Death.
Dean freezes as time stands still.
Death has been unconditional in his demands. He has persuaded Dean that Sam must die. Sam finds it hard to contain the anger growing inside him. Why must Dean himself kill Sam? Haven’t they suffered enough already? Why does everyone want them to biblically be Cain and Abel and always have to die and suffer because one has killed the other or caused the death of the other?
What if their destiny is to live?
“I have a suggestion,” Samuel repeats, bringing Chronos’s powers to the surface. Sam and Samuel are one. He openly shows for the first time that they co-exist but only reveals himself to Death.
“No, I have a claim,” Samuel says. “From Death to Death. By Osiris, I oblige you to listen.”
Death tilts his head and listens. His eyes are bottomless chasms. You can drown in them if you look too deeply.
“I know that you cannot remove the Mark for the sake of your vows, for it will unleash a great power that threatens the whole world. I have seen it too. But you have not spoken of a third option. About sharing the sign between Dean and me.”
“What good would that do?” Death says. “You’re both the same. You’d both be equally murderous then and perhaps even more destructive than Dean would be alone. I would bring down into the world a destructive force, a double Cain.”
“Cain had a lover, and for her sake, Cain lived a long time in peace. A mark will loosen its grip if fed by someone who satisfies its needs.”
“For Cain, it was love. What would it be for you two?” Death asks. His tone is neither hostile nor threatening, only curious.
“I have a new purpose for us,” Samuel, Sam, says, and then, with the power he stole from Veritas, he proves to Death how he planned it all.
Death testifies and believes what he is told.
Death, an old man seen many destinies, nods and gently takes the scythe from the frozen Dean’s hand. The scythe disappears out of sight. Death uncovers Dean’s right hand and brushes his bony fingers over the reddened Mark. He nods and urges Sam to stand up, grabbing his left hand.
“And what is your sacrifice to bind this spell into existence?”
“My unborn child,” Sam says, his voice rough. He feels a longing for the wife he will never have. He misses the son he will never have. But he has made his decision, and it holds. He draws on Moloch’s strength for his sacrifice. He feels in one moment all the years of love he will never have from his family and the grief he feels at the loss of his loved ones.
Sam cries out in unspeakable pain as half of the Mark is copied into his hand. He loses consciousness and collapses to the floor.
Sam wakes up to Dean shaking him awake.
“Sam. Sam!”
“What?”
“We’re alive. And the Mark is gone!”
Dean shows Sam his hand. There is definitely no Mark.
“I don’t understand what happened,” Dean wonders. “I blacked out, Sam. I wouldn’t have killed you. I can’t...”
“I know,” Sam says, patting Dean on the shoulder.
Sam feels a hint of pain in his arm, but he knows there’s nothing in his skin either. Not yet, not for another five years.
Samuel Son of Chronos lets time settle back into its own pattern. Everything else must happen. Everything else must go as God’s script says until God is dethroned and a new, more merciful God takes his place.
Samuel Son of Chronos sighs deeply. There is still so much suffering and doubt ahead. Darkness, the new coming of Lucifer, the British Men of Letters, the Archangel Michael... But also so many good moments. Samuel disappears into the background and falls into a deep slumber.
Sam and Dean leave the bar and face a dark day with a new menacing force, the Sister of God. Darkness. Time moves forward as it was meant to.
2020 / The day it all ends for the second time
Everything begins again with Death.
This is the time after the great battle when God no longer exists. In his place is a new God who has said he will no longer interfere in the lives of mortals, and so all other outside forces must leave the world alone.
Sam hates this remote hayloft, the wooden posts supporting its roof, and one rusty iron spike into which the vampire has shoved his brother.
Sam presses his forehead against Dean’s.
Dean coughs, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. The vampires are dead, but the iron bar has pierced his body, pinning him in a deathly embrace.
“Hey,” Dean says. “I think this is it.”
“It’s not,” Sam says. His body shakes with tears.
“I want you to stop trying to bring me back to life,” Dean says. “I want you to finally...”
“‘Shush, Dean,” Sam says. “We just have to wait a minute.”
“Sam, I want...”
“Trust me,” Sam says.
And they wait. Sam keeps his hand on Dean’s chest, and Dean holds his hand on Sam’s hand.
Sam hopes and believes. He trusts in tiny bites and pieces of the gods.
At the moment when it should all end, it all begins again. Samuel, the Son of Chronos, wakes from his deep sleep and gives his most important gift, the one Death wove for them both from silk and fate, from the threads of their intertwined lives.
Half of Cain’s Mark appears on Dean’s right arm. And its counterpart, the other half, appears in Sam’s left arm.
Sam pulls Dean’s body from the iron rebar, and the wound heals. Dean gasps for breath. He will keep breathing as long as Sam lives, and Sam will keep breathing as long as Dean breathes.
The marker connects them. It ties their lives and deaths together and brings whatever remaining strength Samuel has left after his journey. The touch of Calliope flows between them. Every adoring sigh, every thought that someone worshipfully directs at them, feeds and strengthens them. There are other forces, smaller and more prominent, things that Samuel gathered over time during his journey. They can empower them.
“Sam. What the hell have you done?”
“Saved us.”
2020, Impala, somewhere
Dean has been mad at Sam for a couple of weeks. Cain’s brand pulses in their arms, but every time its power throbs with rapturous craving and rises in flux, it subsides after a moment. As Dean’s anger rises to the surface, Sam pulls him down. As Sam’s mind becomes agitated, he calms as he feels Dean’s presence.
Finally, Dean agrees to talk to Sam instead of just grumbling.
“Why, Sam?”
“Because. You know why.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Yes, I am. You raised me.”
“And now?”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“Come on. So you don’t have a plan? You just transferred the Mark to both of us for your own amusement. Very mature.”
“Well, of course, I have a plan. Artemis is waiting for us.”
“The goddess of the hunt?”
“I promised her us.”
“You promised. In what sense? Till death do us part? You didn’t get enough of Becky?”
Sam flinches. Of course, Dean doesn’t know about the wife that never comes. Sam’s going to tell him. Someday. He’s never going to lie to Dean again. But there’s always the question of when to reveal it. It’s too soon to tell the price tag on Dean’s life. Dean would go ballistic, and he might sulk again for weeks.
“Something along those lines,” Sam replies. “Artemis gives us purpose. We get to hunt the big game.”
“Together?”
“Together.”
"Like Jing and Jang."
"Thelma and Louise," Sam grins.
“Bonnie and Clyde.”
“Butch and Sundance.”
“I’m not necessarily Thelma, then,” Dean says.
“Why not?”
“Sometimes it’s cool to be Louise.”
“Whatever rocks your boat.”
“Dude! Right now, Cliff Burton, Orion,” says Dean. As the bass’s low notes begin to buzz through the speakers, he turns the volume to full and sticks his elbow out the Impala’s open window.
Sam leans back in shotgun, closes his eyes, and enjoys the momentum.
Well. Now they have an eternity.