Sam and Chuck's Rubber Band

Sam and Chuck's Rubber Band

A Supernatural story by Ariana @arianaspn61497

One more entry in the #SPNWishList fic and art challenge! One wasn't enough for Ariana! She  responded to the prompt: "Sam and Chuck's wounds (and their link)." This story even dips a toe into the strange, cosmic relationship between Chuck and Amara. If you ask me, it's the key to everything. Enjoy!  -- Jennie

GIF by Canon SPN GIFs on Tumblr

Sam sits up in bed, his body covered in sweat, with a pounding headache. 

He has not been sleeping well at all lately. He keeps having horrible nightmares. In them, Sam is killing Dean or Dean is killing Sam. 

It is the very thing neither brother has ever wanted. They have fought against it for so long.  Could it be Sam’s depressed brain going over the worst scenarios as the world falls apart around them?

Sam gets up and walks to his sink, splashing cold water on his face. He looks in the mirror at the bags under his eyes and stubble darkening his pale skin. He rubs a hand over his jaw,  hearing the comforting rasp of skin against beard.

Should he tell Dean about the dreams? He isn’t sure if these are just regular nightmares… Maybe it’s a symptom of his shoulder wound. 

Sam pulls aside his sleep shirt to examine it. He reaches over and flips on his overhead light.  The wound looks like a cigar burn. It is black, and not completely closed at the center. The red around the outside is almost like a sign of infection. 

They had tried everything to heal it, but it still looks the same. Time had not even made much of a difference. Sam feels like there is something still inside him, but it isn’t solid like a bullet would be… More like a portal, which doesn’t make any sense.

Sam reaches over and brushes his fingers over it. He feels an ache, but also a pull, as if he is mentally reaching out of his body. Chuck is gone, right? The gun Sam used wounded Chuck just as much as it did Sam.

He remembers when Chuck said it would do the same thing to the shooter as it did to the person being shot. Sam was not sure how that worked then, but he is beginning to think that since it didn’t end in death, some unforeseen circumstances are making him sick and weak. 

Could Chuck be feeling this way too? Chuck could heal himself, though, so maybe Sam is the only one suffering here.

Sam turns off the light and goes back to his bed. He lies down, looking up at the ceiling fan. Will he ever feel like himself again?

--------------------------------------------------

Chuck is trying so hard to focus on what he wants to do, now that he is no longer in charge of this world.  At least, not the way he was before Sam shot him. 

He can see all the people, except Sam and Dean. For some reason he hasn’t been able to watch or steer them in the direction he wants since the cemetery. 

That stupid gun he made backfired on him big time. He was sure Dean would kill Jack. It was an old story he loved: father and son on opposite sides. One good, one evil, and the bad guy always loses. That was the way things should be. 

Dean was so stubborn, though… Chuck should have taken that into account before he hurried along what he thought would happen.

Chuck has always felt like a master strategist. He tried to be so many steps ahead of his characters. He loved pushing the pieces into place, but usually from afar. He was too impatient and stepped in too soon when Jack did the unexpected, making everyone tell the truth.

Chuck frowns as he feels a sensation in his shoulder, where the wound is still festering. He wishes he could heal this wound, but for some reason it won’t. Probably because Sam is not healed, and Chuck is sure they don’t want to see him right now.

Chuck has always been a writer, and since everything went sideways, he hasn’t been able to work. This block is one that he has never encountered before. Most of his blocks are just short-lived issues he sorts out with a funny story in between the sad ones.

This block is stopping him from doing anything, and the wound must be why.

Chuck created the weapon, but he is not sure exactly what is going on. He wanted to make the weapon to kill, because he was so close to the ending he wanted. Chuck didn’t really flesh out what the gun would do should it wound someone. His only command when creating it was that the person firing the weapon would get equally hurt as the victim.

Chuck is trying to think through why something happened beyond his design, and it hits him like a brick wall. Amara! She must be messing with him. That is the only explanation. 

Chuck should be able to make whatever he wants happen in his world. The Winchesters have managed to sidetrack his plans before, but not by much.

Chuck has to find Amara to find out what she is up to, poking around in his business. He reaches out, and can feel her, but is not sure where yet. Chuck feels a burning sensation in his wound and flinches, wishing again that he could see Sam.

--------------------------------------------------------

Sam flinches as he tries again to clean the wound.  He hopes that at least he can clear up the red around the edges, if he can just find the right medicine.

Sam has been trying all kinds of alcohol -- and one night a week ago, that didn’t go well with Dean.

Sam smiles as he remembers the string of cursing he heard heading for his door late one Friday night. Dean burst through Sam’s bedroom door, looking around, then pointing at the bottle of whiskey Sam was pouring into a cup.

Sam ignored him and dipped a cotton ball in the liquid, rubbing it against his wound.

“Sam! What are you doing?!” Dean stared in horror, his eyes wide.

“Just trying to get this cleaned up. What’s your problem?”  Sam looked back at the wound and dabbed some more on it, trying to suppress a smile. If he looked at Dean again, he knew he would bust out laughing.

“Not with my best whiskey!” Dean stomped over to the table and grabbed the bottle, turning to walk away. Dean was just drunk enough already to forget the cap and as he stomped toward the door, and whiskey flew out of the bottle, splashing on his jeans and the floor.

Sam started laughing, and the offended look on Dean’s face was enough to make him fall back on his bed laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe. Dean stalked out, slamming Sam’s door behind him.

Sam finally caught enough of a breath to let out the loudest donkey-braying laugh he had in a long time. Dean opened the door and came back in to get the cap. He capped the bottle, ignoring Sam writhing on the bed in laughter. 

Dean stomped back out the door, slamming it again -- this time, hard enough to make it shiver in the frame. Sam couldn’t stop laughing for a full five minutes, and he only stopped because he heard breaking glass and he was scared Dean had hurt himself.

------------------------------------------------------------

Sam shakes off the memory. Dean was fine, but any chance Sam has to laugh about anything becomes a treasured moment.

Sam has been digging through the lore, looking for strange wounds, but he is sure this is something not seen before in the world. 

Chuck created the gun, and Sam thinks it was to kill, and was never meant to be shot at Chuck himself. 

The puzzling part is: What did the gun shoot? It wasn’t visible to the eye, but what could a gun that takes no bullet shoot?

Sam stares into the distance, trying to make sense of this puzzle piece. Sam shivers and it hits him: The only thing the gun was shooting was the will of the shooter.

Chuck made it, so it was possible, but with the hole inside Sam, he is worried that it wasn’t just a thought that was projected at Chuck.

Could it be a piece of his soul?! They know through working to get Jack back that you can burn pieces of your soul away without too much harm. Could it be that Sam’s will was sent as a piece of his soul? That could be what makes the wound different.

It also could explain why it is a wound and not death. Sam never wanted to kill Chuck.  He wanted to wound him so that Chuck would stop messing with them. When Sam picked up that gun, all he wanted was to distract Chuck. 

In truth, Sam is not sure they could kill Chuck, even with his gun. It took Amara, his sister, to almost do it the first time, and Sam is not that powerful. 

Sam can’t be sure his theories are correct about his soul being shot into Chuck, but it just feels right in his gut. Sam doesn’t want to talk to Dean about this yet because so many things are going on -- and Sam’s wound isn’t changing, so it’s better to leave it alone for now.

------------------------------------------------------

Chuck finally tracked down Amara to Reno, of all places. 

He decides the best way to talk to her is to wait for her in her room. He is sure she knows he is around, of course, but she won’t be in a hurry to see him. 

Their little trip away from Earth was kind of like the beginning of a marriage. It started out like a honeymoon, full of excitement and relaxing together. Then, as they communicated more, the more they realized why being separated in the first place might have been the best thing for them. 

Chuck was sure that everything back on Earth was going well, but he loved watching Sam and Dean. Amara got annoyed with that pretty quickly.

Chuck couldn’t help but tease her about how badly everything was going between the boys and their mother. Chuck wasn’t sure why Amara fiddled with bringing Mary back in the first place.  Mary had to die to start off their story, and having her back could help the boys -- or so Chuck thought at first. He didn’t even have to do anything to make Mary stay away from them. She did it all on her own. 

The more Chuck was paying attention to Earth, the more Amara got frustrated. She was trying to explore, and she really wanted Chuck to experience things with her. Amara had been alone for so long, and now she was beginning to think it was a good thing to be apart from Chuck. She had so many things on Earth she wanted to explore.

Chuck was so busy watching the boys deal with the Brits, he didn’t notice Amara was gone for a while. Chuck felt it when Lucifer made a baby, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.  Maybe it was time to go back and keep a closer eye on everything. 

One day he tried to find Amara and realized she wasn’t around. He could feel her, but very far away, and it made him pretty irritated.

He saved her from Dean, and the thanks he got was her just taking off? She didn’t even have the courtesy to talk to him first. Family could suck sometimes.

Chuck was beginning to feel like he could understand the Winchesters better now. Maybe being abandoned by family wasn’t the best thing, but it did build character. 

Chuck decided that getting back to Earth was more important than finding Amara, so he went.  Of course, Amara was on Earth, and when he realized that, he was glad. She was close, and they could get in touch whenever he felt like it.

Back in Reno, Amara comes into her room and Chuck shakes off his thoughts.

“What do you want, brother?” Amara’s voice is dripping sarcasm, and it makes Chuck frown.
“Just wanted to check up on my sweet sister.” Chuck turns on his brightest smile as Amara rolls her eyes.

“Wait, you are not yourself. Not complete.” Amara grins as she walks toward him.

“It’s nothing. Let’s cut the bull. Have you been messing with me, Amara?” Chuck’s face is stony and he crosses his arms.

“I have no idea what you mean.” Amara turns her back on Chuck as a huge smile blooms on her face.

“I think you do. I am headed for an ending here, and I don’t want you in my business. If you care so much about the Winchesters, you will leave them to me.”  Chuck can feel Amara’s energy grow around her; he’s unsure how exactly this will go for him.

“Look, Chuck, I only changed the gun so you might understand how it feels to be vulnerable.  You locked me up once and tried again. You have never had to feel helpless, and you deserve it. Just once.”  Amara’s eyes are so full of pain, but she can see the rage growing in Chuck.

“I don’t care why you did it…” Chuck says. “Look, just go with me again. We don’t need this Earth. I set everything in motion, and I promise not to pay attention to it so much. I just want us to try again. Please?” Chuck tries to push down the rage because he needs Amara to get out of here.

“I have more I want to do, but not with you,” Amara says. “I think you can share the fate of this place. Goodbye.”  She walks out the door, shaking her head and sighing. 

Chuck can’t leave, she thinks, and he deserves to know how it feels to be stuck with no way out.  Amara feels a weight lifted and heads off -- but she will always keep an eye on the Winchesters.  Chuck can be petty.

------------------------------------------------------

Sam is writhing in pain as his connection with Chuck is being pushed to its limits. 

He remembers passing out in the bunker after Cas was trying to help him. 

Now he is in a strange world of colors and lights -- he feels like it’s a huge kids slide and he has no idea where it ends. He feels a pull from deep inside him, and he is more sure than ever it’s his soul. 

Suddenly Sam feels like he is floating in a room like an out-of-body experience. All at once, Sam sees Chuck. Chuck is looking at his wound in a mirror. When he looks up, he sees Sam’s spirit, then turns, with a very surprised look on his face. 

Sam can’t hear anything, like a silent movie, but it looks like Chuck is trying to talk to him. It looks like he’s saying not yet.   

Sam frowns and then feels himself being yanked back. He knows so much now, and he needs to talk to Dean.

This is huge. They might be able to take advantage of Chuck. They have more work to do.