Chapter Text
He supposes he should’ve seen this coming. He should’ve known that there would be consequences beyond his brother’s hatred. In hindsight, he’s not exactly sure how he expected Heaven to react to what he’d done, but he never would have guessed this. Though maybe he was asking for this. Maybe this is what he deserves.
He knew the demon blood was wrong, even while he was doing it. He knew Ruby was bad, that he shouldn’t have trusted her. Deep down in his most basic survival instincts he knew these things. But he needed so badly for her to be telling the truth. To believe that even if he couldn’t save his brother he could stop anyone else from getting hurt. He needed to believe he was doing the right thing.
Eventually he got so lost in the madness of Ruby’s mind games and his own desperation to be right that he found he was willing to kill just to prove it to himself. To prove it to Dean.
God, Dean. Part of Sam, a very dark and beaten down part of him, worries that when Dean finally stumbles upon this scene the only thing he’ll think to himself is that Sam got what he deserved. That he had this coming.
Did he have this coming? He tries so hard to do the right thing. Do what Dean wants from him, what Bobby wants from him, what his father wanted from him, what Ruby wanted from him, what god wants from him, what anyone and everyone wants from him. He gives and he gives until he has nothing left and then he gives some more after that because it’s all he knows how to do. He just wants to be good.
A good brother, a good son, a good friend. A good man. He always thought that he was at least making a damn good effort. But admittedly being nabbed by three angels to be used as a blood sacrifice so they can open the gates of Hell and toss the Devil back in his box kinda makes a guy reevaluate his life choices just a bit.
Has he been doing it all wrong? Has he not been as good as he thought he was? Or is it perhaps that none of it really matters at all. That no matter how hard one tries, or how much good one puts back into the world, the story has already been written and everyone has their ending waiting for them.
The angels have no interest in even looking at him, let alone speaking to him, so it’s not like he can ask them his deep, probing cosmic queries as a last request before they gut him. Which is just rude, if he’s being totally honest. At least demons usually talk back when he tries to bother them.
He can hear them talking amongst themselves just outside the door of the crypt they’d tossed him in what had to be hours ago. He can’t make out much of what they’re saying through the solid stone door, but from their tones he gathers they’re feeling pretty impatient. He just wishes he knew what they’re waiting for.
The room itself is filthy, but that’s not much of a shocker. It’s nearly pitch black even in the middle of the day, the only light source being an oil lamp that one of the angels, Nariel, intentionally snuffed out when they were dumping Sam in here. Sam doesn’t know the names of the other two so he’s resorted to calling them Ren and Stimpy because the appearances of their chosen vessels are hilariously similar to the characters.
He can’t tell how long it’s been since they locked him in here, but he thinks it’s been at least a few hours. His shoulders ache from the way they’re being pulled back by his tied hands and the solid stone floor and walls are not doing his back any favors. He wonders if Dean knows he’s missing yet, but it just sends him down a spiral of ‘I asked for this’ again so he pushes the thought away.
When the heavy stone door finally pulls open again with a deep groan, like it’s causing the door physical pain to drag itself out of the way, the bright flash of orange light from the sunset across the field floods the small room and blinds Sam momentarily. He cringes away from the onslaught, blinking purposefully as he tries to clear the floaters from his vision.
“Move it, boy king.” Nariel orders, adding the nickname with a mocking tone. Sam doesn’t budge, too wary of what the angels intend to do once they get him out of here.
Nariel rolls his eyes impatiently, reaching down to grab Sam’s arm and drag him across the floor and through the doorway. Sam grunts at the pressure, kicking his feet against the stone floor in an attempt to slow their progress. It’s less than thirty seconds before he’s dumped unceremoniously in the dirt outside the door of the crypt and his face smushes into the ground. He pulls himself upright the best he can and shakes his head to try to get the dirt off his face, blinking against the sudden brightness as he tries to get a look around.
It’s a cemetery like every other cemetery. Sam’s been in dozens of them and the creep factor wore off when he was around 12. But there’s something about this one. Something familiar. Like it’s calling out to him. Like it was built for him. It makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
He spots Ren and Stimpy standing a few yards away in an empty patch of grass, and he watches in abject horror as Stimpy slices open the palm of his vessel and holds out his hand, creating a symbol of blood in the grass. He can see Ren’s lips moving and he guesses that he’s chanting something, but he’s too far away to make it out.
“Okay, listen,” Sam turns back to Nariel with a panicked expression, still having no idea what the hell these three are up to but realizing that whatever it is is very, very not good. “I get it, you guys are pissed about the demon blood thing, right? That’s fair, everyone’s pissed. I messed up, I know that. But I’m trying to make it right, okay? I’m tryna -- I wanna fix it. Just -- We don’t have to do whatever this is, okay?”
Nariel listens to Sam speak with a muted look of intrigue on his face, like he finds Sam’s attempt at reasoning funny. Sam waits for him to say something, say anything, but he just turns away and whistles to the others, who both nod in return. Sam tries to scurry away when Stimpy reaches out to grab him, but he doesn’t get very far. Stimpy takes the shoulder of Sam’s jacket in a fist and starts pulling, hauling him through the dirt like a sack of flour. Sam tosses in his grip, kicking his feet against the ground and pulling on the rope around his wrists but he only succeeds in rubbing away the skin around his hands.
He’s deposited roughly on his side in the middle of the blood sigil Stimpy had drawn before, the warm, wet liquid soaking the side of Sam’s jacket and coating his arms. He feels someone at his back undoing the ropes and the moment he’s free he moves to lash out at the nearest body, but Ren grabs his right hand and pulls him over onto his back, his other hand being pinned under his back. He goes to pull it up but Nariel drops down to his knees and climbs up onto Sam’s lap, forcing more weight down onto his hand.
Sam groans at the pressure, glancing panickedly between the three angels as he tries to understand what the hell they’re doing. Ren is crushing his wrist as he drags it outward, pulling his arm away from his body and irritating his sore shoulders. Sam flinches when Stimpy worms a hand underneath his back to reach for Sam’s other wrist, dragging it out from under him and pulling on it like Ren had until his arms are stretched as far as they’ll go. The position strains his ribs and he can’t bear how exposed he feels.
“You don’t have to do this, okay? Whatever -- Whatever this is, you don’t have to do it. I’m sorry about the demon blood. I’m sorry I let him out. I know it was wrong. It won’t happen again, I swear. Just -- Just let me go, okay?” Sam stutters over his words as his heart races in his chest. He doesn’t like the way they’re looking at him. Like this is work. Like they don’t want to be here any more than he does.
“This is the story, boy king.” Nariel sneers condescendingly, reaching down to pull a silver angel blade from his jacket. Sam jerks away from it, tugging on Ren and Stimpy’s holds on his hands and frantically kicking his feet against the dirt.
Nariel uses his free hand to tug the hem of Sam’s shirt up before resting his hand on Sam’s hip for balance as he begins to dig the tip of the angel blade into Sam’s stomach. Sam shouts more from shock than pain, pulling harder on his hands as Nariel traces the blade in a pattern up to Sam’s ribcage. Sam wails at a particularly harsh line over his clavicle, deep enough that he swears he can actually hear the knife grinding over bone, and Nariel huffs out a laugh. It’s the most expression Sam’s seen from the angel since they met.
The knife disappears for a moment, and Sam is about to allow himself to breathe before Nariel is digging his hand into one of the deeper wounds just below Sam’s left ribs and Sam’s pretty sure he feels his soul leave his body for a moment. A sort of hot white light flashes over his eyes as his ears start to ring, his entire body tingling with the feeling of a million little needles poking and prodding at every little spot.
Sam doesn’t deserve this. Surely he doesn’t. How could anyone deserve this?
His vision rushes back to him with an overwhelming flood of color and he blinks against it, trying to understand why his head feels so heavy. It’s not until he finally manages to relearn how to use his eyes that he realizes his head feels heavy because Nariel has his hand on Sam’s forehead, pinning it down as he makes some sort of doodle on Sam’s face in his blood.
There’s a moment where where Sam considers that this isn’t actually happening and he’s just having an incredibly screwed up dream. Because this doesn’t seem like something that would actually happen. Although, at this point Sam’s not sure he believes there’s such a thing as something that would never happen.
He can hear Nariel speaking, chanting something again. His latin isn’t all that good, but in the course of the last year he’s picked up enough to make out the angel saying something about the ‘final seal’ and ‘restoring the balance’ and Sam thinks he’s going to be sick. He knows what they’re doing now. They’re trying to sacrifice the person who broke the final seal in an attempt to reverse it.
Would that work? Could it be so simple?
He’s so exhausted he feels like he wants to cry. He can’t remember the last time he had his energy sucked out of him this fast, but god is he tired. He hopes Dean doesn’t find this when they’re done. He doesn’t want Dean’s last image of his precious baby brother to be a visual metaphor of just how fucked up that brother became. He deserves to hold on to some of the delusion that Sam was good.
He sees Nariel lift the blade up, knows he’s about to make the final move, and he finds that he only has one thing left to say.
“Just tell him… Tell him I’m sorry.” Sam asks, his chest burning with every heaving breath that he drags in through weary lungs. Nariel pauses to laugh properly this time, the blade faltering slightly.
“You still think God gives a shit? After all of this?” He shakes his head incredulously, and Sam is far too tired to tell him that isn’t the ‘he’ he was talking about.
“God doesn’t care about you, boy. God doesn’t care about a damn thing.” Stimpy sneers, speaking for the first time since they cornered Sam outside the motel room. Sam sighs wearily at the tired ‘daddy doesn’t love me’ routine, rolling his eyes until he’s glaring petulantly up at the angel pinning his right hand.
“We’ve all got daddy issues, Stimpy. No need to be a pussy ‘bout it.” Sam’s voice drags as he speaks, blood loss and shock melting together into a vicious wave of nausea that he barely holds down.
Stimpy’s expression sours at Sam’s comment, probably not finding the nickname nearly as funny as Sam does, if he even understands it. Sam barely has half of a second to process the sharp movement out of the corner of his eye before he hears a loud crunch and ice is shooting up his arm. He cries out like a kicked dog, kicking his feet against the dirt again in a desperate attempt to give his brain anything else to focus on but the violent burning sensation in his wrist, throbbing under Stimpy’s unrelenting grip.
“Enough. Let’s get this over with.” Nariel snaps, forcing Sam’s attention back to the blade still shimmering in his hand. Sam’s chest heaves when the blade is lifted once more and he squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for it to come down.
He’s so focused on the blade, on Nariel, on the waiting, that when the thundering bang of a bullet echoes across the open field of the cemetery he thinks he might actually pull a muscle in his rib from how hard he jumps. Blood splatters his face as Nariel is thrown to the left, knocking the bulk of his weight off Sam’s lap. It doesn’t kill him, because of course it doesn’t, but it grabs the attention of the other two as well and within seconds Sam is free to wriggle out of the way as they jump to their feet to fend off whoever fired the bullet.
Sam’s chest burns as he drags himself back and away from the angels with his good hand, leaving a trail of blood in the dirt as he goes. He’s still not really sure what happened just now. It was all so fast and his brain is such a mess right now. He watches Nariel shove himself to his feet with a frustrated growl, grabbing his angel blade from the ground where it must have fallen and turning towards where the shot had come from.
It’s not until a fourth figure appears from behind the crypt, looking pissed and brandishing an angel blade of his own, that Sam’s brain finally starts to catch up. But why would Dean save him? How did Dean even know he was here? Does Dean really still care, even after everything Sam’s done?
Sam slumps back into the dirt, knowing that Dean has it handled from here and far too exhausted to sit up and watch. He listens to the angels shout, listens to the sounds of fists against flesh, and eventually he listens to them scream as a bright light swallows up the cemetery. He waits for the light a second time and then a third, hearing Dean huff out a breath and toss the angel blade into the dirt somewhere nearby.
“Sam.” Dean moves to sit by Sam’s side and Sam can’t tell if he sounds worried or annoyed, but he’s not sure if he has the energy to deal with either one right now.
“Fucking Christ, Sam. I leave you alone for five minutes.” Dean mutters under his breath, and Sam’s pretty sure now that it’s worry he’s hearing. He’s also pretty sure he’d rather Dean be annoyed. At least when Dean’s annoyed Sam is too busy being annoyed back to feel guilty.
“My bad.” Sam huffs wearily, rolling his head to face his brother. Dean shakes his head at the comment, frowning down at Sam’s bloodied chest.
“What the hell is this crap?” Dean leans over Sam’s chest a bit in an attempt to see the deeper cut along his ribcage on his left side and Sam tries to ignore how anxious it makes him feel.
“Some kinda… ritual thing. Dunno.” He focuses on breathing, on keeping his heart rate down to control the bleeding. He focuses on anything that isn’t his brother prodding at his aching ribs.
He doesn’t tell Dean that he knows exactly what this was. That he’s incredibly frustrated that Dean interrupted them. That this might have been his one and only chance to make it all right.
“Jesus, Sammy. You really know how to get yourself in a mess, huh? Alright, c’mere.” Dean moves to heave Sam up by his shoulders, dragging him back until he’s resting against one of the headstones. Sam groans the whole way, the wounds on his chest feeling like they’re being torn open with every twitch of a muscle.
“What’s this?” Dean reaches up to pad at the blood coating Sam’s face and he flinches, barely restraining himself from swatting Dean’s hand away.
“It’s not. It’s just an art project, my head’s fine.” Sam swipes clumsily at his cheek with the sleeve of his good hand and cringes when it comes away soaked red. Dean frowns at the explanation, but thankfully he doesn’t comment.
Sam lets him tend to the myriad of cuts on his torso, trying to keep himself from wincing at the particularly deep ones. He doesn’t ask Dean why he’s here or how he even found Sam. He doubts he actually wants to hear the answer to either question.
“You hurt anywhere else?” Dean only speaks up again when he’s satisfied Sam’s not going to bleed to death. Sam very carefully lifts his broken hand and holds it out to his brother, hating that even after all this time and all these things they’ve been through together, at his very core he still feels so small in front of Dean. He’s still just little Sammy looking to his big brother to save him, to make him feel better.
Dean takes Sam’s hand in both of his, rolling his jacket sleeve out of the way and offering a sympathetic hiss at the sight of Sam’s wrist. In the few minutes since Stimpy had crushed it under his angelic strength the joint had swollen brutally and turned a nasty shade of purple. They both know there’s not much to be done for a broken hand until they get back to the car at the very least, but Sam is admittedly surprised when Dean reaches up a hand to pull a ziploc bag from his shirt pocket, pulling it open with his teeth and dumping the contents into Sam’s good hand.
It’s not Ibuprofen. That’s about all Sam’s sure of. He glances up at Dean suspiciously but Dean shrugs at him with a casually innocent smile and honestly at this point Sam’s too exhausted to care what these are or why Dean is carrying them around in a fucking ziploc bag in his shirt like a cokehead in a dark alleyway.
“What’d they want with you, anyway?” Dean asks, freeing Sam’s hand and stuffing the bag back in his pocket. Sam frowns, considering the question. He could be honest. He could tell Dean that the hosts of Heaven itself just tried to ritually sacrifice him in the middle of a cemetery because he’s pure evil and they know it. They know it and so does he and unlike Dean they were strong enough to do something about it.
“Told you, I dunno. They weren’t very talkative.” Sam is not honest. His mind is still reeling and frankly he’s too tired and too fractured wide open right now to be able to stomach the look on his brother’s face if he were to tell him the truth. So instead he sighs wearily, dreading the drive to the nearest motel. He just wants to take a shower and go to bed. He doesn’t want to be trapped in a claustrophobic car with his brother watching his every move, waiting for him to snap.
“Yeah, well I told you from the jump that angels were dicks. And I’m always right.” Dean comments in his snarky big brother tone as he reaches down to wrap an arm under Sam’s shoulders, hauling him carefully to his feet. Sam groans at the movement, leaning heavily against his brother when the sudden change in position makes the field around them tilt under his feet.
“The amount of times you’ve been right is about the same as the amount of movies you’ve watched that didn’t have a hot female lead.” Sam quips back, trying to ignore how much he’d missed this. Just bickering with his brother.
“Screw you man, Shawshank is like one of my favorite movies and there’s not a single chick in it.”
“That’s one example, dude! You spend way more time watching Tomb Raider and Porky’s 2 and we both know why you like that one.” Sam huffs a laugh when Dean doesn’t respond and he knows he’s won.
“You’re such a bitch.” Dean grumbles bitterly, reaching down to open the passenger door of the Impala. Sam smiles to himself, leaning against the car as Dean goes around to the other side and tugs open the driver side door.
“Yeah, and you’re a jerk.” Sam smirks warmly at him, and they look at each other in silence for a long moment before Dean breaks it by ducking down into the car. Sam takes a moment to breathe, wiping at the blood on his face again.
“You get blood on my car and I’ll kick your ass.” Dean calls out to him and Sam chuckles louder this time.
Did almost being ritually sacrificed by angels somehow fix Sam’s relationship with his brother? Honestly, that would fit in pretty well with the last few years. And Sam’s not exactly in a position to look a gift horse in the mouth. Especially not when that gift horse is his brother finally being able to look him in the eye again.