Fic: When the New York Times said "God is dead and the war's begun" (a coda for 14.20, "Moriah")
When the New York Times said "God is dead and the war's begun" (a coda for 14.20, "Moriah")
Genre: Gen, angst, hurt!Sam
Length: ~10K
Rating: R for language and a bit of violence (and let's face it, lots of blasphemy)
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Gabriel, Chuck Shurley
Spoilers: Through 14.20
Synopsis: Follows immediately after "It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah." Sam shot God. God is pissed. And He's going to do something about it. (The title is from "Levon" by Elton John. Yes, I should have chosen another title from "Hallelujah." I didn't. Oh well.)
Thursday
It's Thursday morning, two days after the showdown in the cemetery, and it's still dark. Or maybe it's not really two days later. Or even morning. Dean's watch is still stopped, but the clock in his bedroom says it's 8:35 a.m on a Thursday. But do days and mornings even exist when the sun won't rise? Jack is dead and burned. Cas is gone, fucked off to Heaven to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic, and ignoring or not hearing their prayers. And it's still dark. Phones don't work and there's no TV or internet or radio and the sun still doesn't rise.
They've definitely screwed the pooch this time.
At least the bunker, bless her mysterious little heart, still has utilities from wherever she gets them from. Dean takes long hot showers, cooks food they'll both only pick at, cleans his guns, and regularly confirms that his phone still says No Service. And watches Sam. For his part, Sam reads, plows through the card catalog like he expects to find a book titled So You Tried to Kill God and Now He's Pissed, checks his laptop as obsessively as Dean checks his phone, and sometimes he does what he's doing now - just sits at the library table with his head in his hands, ignoring the book in front of him, doing nothing.
Well. Mourning probably counts as something.
"We should go up to Sioux Falls," Sam says. His voice is rough from disuse, and quiet, but he doesn't seem to notice Dean's startled reaction as it lands like a bomb in the heavy silence of the bunker. "We need to check on Jody and the girls. Donna, too." And it's not like the thought hasn't occurred to Dean, but he's been indulging in an irrational hope that the perpetual night is centered over them, an opaque cloud of doom that will follow the Winchesters wherever they go, but leave the rest of the world alone. And he doesn't want to lead it to anyone he cares about.
But Sam's right. They can't hide in the bunker any longer. "Yeah, okay," Dean says. "Give me ten minutes."
In his room, he tosses an assortment of weapons into a duffel. You never know what you'll come up against when God Himself decides to unleash a pissy temper tantrum on you. He grabs some clothes to shove into Sam's bag and heads back to the library. Sam's other bag will carry the (probably useless) research materials.
Looks like Sam wasn't in a big hurry after all, since he's still sitting at the library table with his head bowed over a book that has none of the answers. But as soon as Dean enters the room, he hears a once-familiar sound: the flutter of angel wings. And a once-familiar figure appears in the library between him and Sam. Which means he has an excellent view of Sam's surprised jolt and the flash of panic that crosses his face.
"Who are you?" Sam says, jumping up from his seat at the table. His chair falls over with a loud clatter. "What are you doing here?"
The angel turns in a slow arc, examining them both. "I am the archangel Gabriel, the messenger. The Lord God thy Creator resurrected me so that I might deliver this message."
Well, he definitely looks like Gabriel. And it would be just like Chuck to send one of his resurrected minions, simply to show what he can do. "So the big guy couldn't come himself?" Dean asks. "Not interested in a good old-fashioned face-to-face?"
"God could have resurrected any of His angels for this purpose. Or archangels." Gabriel looks pointedly at Sam, who flinches under the implied threat. "You should consider my presence to be a sign of his grace and good will. Undeserved, some would say."
"Why are you here, Gabriel?" Sam asks, more quietly.
"That's better." The archangel smiles. It's probably meant to look beatific, but it's on Gabriel's face, so it turns into a sarcastic smirk. "You have surely noticed the lack of sunlight and means of communication. And you are, of course, well aware of the dead being raised at the cemetery where your unwarranted attack on our Father took place."
Dean opens his mouth to respond, because fuck that shit, but Sam shuts him down with a fierce glare.
"But you boys don't know the whole story, do you?" Gabriel continues. "Of course, I guess you wouldn't. Lack of communication and all that. So you're unaware that not only were many dozens of dead humans resurrected, but other things as well. You're unaware that while you've been cowering in your hidey-hole, beasts and demons you long thought dead - because you killed them - have been walking the earth."
Oh, shit, no. It's Crowley's kill everyone you ever saved ploy all over again. Dean watches his brother's jaw clench tight. They're both thinking the same thing. They've got to get out there; they've got to ditch this angel and go do their jobs. Where do they go first? Who can they call on for backup? How many people died while they sat here waiting for the world to come back online? Shit. Chuck and his fucking games.
"If he's got a beef with us, he should take it up with us," Dean says. "Instead of picking on a bunch of helpless civilians."
Gabriel ignores Dean and turns to Sam. "God chose to give you a show of His strength."
"Why, Gabriel?" Sam's eyes are pleading. "Why would He do that? I thought he loved mankind. Why is he endangering everyone on Earth just to show us His strength?"
"Because He's a cowardly dick," Dean offers.
Gabriel shoots him an unpleasant look and turns back to Sam. "Now He desires to offer you a show of His mercy. The Winchesters have sinned against the Lord thy God. Especially you, Sam. Therefore, He requires one simple act from you to demonstrate your repentance. If you perform this act of penance, He will forgive your sins, and your brother's sins. He will send the risen horde back to the flames of Hell and the wastes of Purgatory, and will restore the Earth to its former state."
"Fine," says Sam, quickly. Too quickly. Like he’s never dealt with angels before. Like he doesn’t know what he might be agreeing to; like he's forgotten what kind of horrors God and his angels are capable of. "What does He want?"
"Crucifixion." The angel's smile isn't even trying to be beatific now; it's sinister. "Your crucifixion, Sam."
Sam slumps against the table, apparently speechless. But Dean is here to speak for him.
"No. No way."
"No?" Gabriel arches an eyebrow.
"No. This is bullshit. Sam's not gonna die just because Chuck got his precious little feelings hurt!"
"Oh, Sam won't die."
For a second Dean is almost knocked over by relief, because okay, if Sam doesn't have to die, this is something they can get through. It will be awful, so damn awful, but Sam survived Hell and he can survive this. Chuck will get his jollies and then Dean will cut his brother down and tend to his wounds and everything will kind of get back to normal again. Their version of normal, anyway. But Gabriel's still wearing that sinister smile. And Sam has a look of horror on his face, so he's probably already figured out something that's eluding Dean.
"No," Sam whispers.
"Yes," Gabriel says. "Sam Winchester will remain on the cross, in eternal living torment, as an example to others."
"Eternal?" Dean stutters. "As in, forever? He'll be crucified, and alive, forever?"
"That is what eternal means, yes."
"Oh, fuck no."
"The eternal torment of just one man, repenting his egregious act, in exchange for the salvation of the entire planet? You don't accept these terms?"
Sam tries to say something, but Dean shouts over him. "No! Chuck can go fuck Himself! We are not doing this!"
"Is that your final answer?"
"Wait!" Sam yells. "Dean. Stop. We don't have a choice."
"Of course we do, Sam! We always have a choice!"
"No, we don't! Don't you get it? He can do whatever He wants! He's God! We're lucky He's even giving us the opportunity. He could wipe this world out without a thought."
"Can and will." Gabriel nods sagely.
Fine, someone has to pay. Dean recognizes when his balls are in a vise. But no way is Sam going to be the one on the line. "All right, but not Sam. Take me."
"The Lord thy God is not interested in your alternative proposal, Dean Winchester."
"Sam doesn't deserve it! Sam's already done this whole endless torture to save the world thing."
"Yes, in Hell. That was one of God's favorite plots. And He does appreciate literary symmetry."
"I'm the one who shot Him," Sam says calmly. "He wants me. You gotta let me fix this, Dean."
"See? I knew you were the smart one." Gabriel winks at Sam. "So. This is the Lord's generous offer. Sam Winchester's eternal suffering in exchange for putting your world, and its inhabitants, back to rights. The sun returns to the sky, and the dead monsters and demons return to Purgatory and Hell. Do you accept?"
Sam stands up straight, seeming to gather himself as he prepares to accept his doom. But no, no part of this is acceptable. Dean can't let this happen. He remembers sitting in Bobby's salvage yard, giving Sam his blessing to jump into Hell. Tacitly agreeing yes, you broke it, and I'm gonna stand back and let you fix it. That can't happen again. He can't live through that again.
Dean stomps across the room and positions himself between Sam and Gabriel. "I don't have a say?" he barks at his brother. "You wouldn't let me lock myself in a box forever to take care of Michael, and now you think I'm gonna let you do this? I'm supposed to just sit and watch and let it happen, like I'm one of the wailing women watching Jesus get crucified?"
"Guess again," Gabriel says. "Try Roman soldier."
What. What.
Dean turns to stare at Gabriel. "No."
"Dean," Sam sighs.
"No, Sam! He wants me to nail you to a cross! You cannot seriously expect me to go along with that!"
Gabriel clears his throat. "If you insist, God can certainly find someone else who'd be willing to perform this task."
Yes, someone else, anyone else. It's not gonna happen (oh Christ it's not gonna happen it can't happen) but if it does… if it does, it will have to be done by someone else.
But Sam shouts "wait!" at the angel again, his voice tight and panicky, and turns to Dean. "Listen, Dean." He runs a trembling hand through his hair. "This isn't my first crucifixion, okay?"
Oh, shit, that's something Dean didn't know, didn't need to know, didn't ever want to know.
"There are things that can make it worse, believe it or not," Sam continues. "I know you're not going to do those things. I don't know that about anyone else. So please. I know this is a lot to ask, but please, I need to know you're the one who's gonna do it."
Dean's back roaming the halls of the bunker, stalking Sam with fire in his veins and a hammer in his fist. He's standing over his kneeling brother in a Mexican restaurant, swinging a scythe and surprising even himself when he alters his trajectory at the last possible second. He thought he'd already done the worst possible things he could ever do to Sam. He was wrong.
"Sam, you understand this is gonna be Hell, right? This is just like being in Hell again."
"You think I don't know that? But that's why it's okay." He puts up a hand to stop Dean from interrupting him, as if Dean even had any coherent response to that. "When I first went to Hell, I expected it to stick. I expected to be in Hell forever. But I ended up getting out for a while and having a few good years that I wasn't supposed to have. I know it wasn't all a barrel of laughs, but I got to experience things I wasn't ever going to experience. I mean, Mom? Dad?" Sam puts on a sad approximation of a smile. "And now my break's over. And it's okay."
It's not. It's so far from okay, you can't even see okay from here. But Dean's never been able to save Sam from himself.
(Mom. Dad. Fuck. For the first time since Sam smashed that pearl, Dean's profoundly glad neither of them is here. They'd be so ashamed of him. You had one job, Dad would say. Mom would give him that pitying You did your best; too bad it wasn't enough look. Thank fuck they're not here.)
Sam turns to Gabriel. "We accept. We, ah, praise the Lord for His mercy and gratefully accept His generous offer."
Gabriel nods. "His will be done. It will take place three days from now. If Sam Winchester is not crucified on the third day, this world, and everyone and everything in it, will be destroyed." He looks up to the ceiling and closes his eyes for a moment. "And… there. All of your once-dead demons and monsters are dead again. See? Already things are looking up."
"Oh, sure they are," Dean says, fighting the urge to smash his fist right into the angel's smug face. "How are we supposed to trust you? How do we know Chuck's gonna do what you say He will?"
"Ah, Dean. That was always your problem. A lack of faith." Gabriel tilts his head to the ceiling again. "And now, behold; the Lord has given you a more visible token of His good faith. Accept it, or don't. It's your call." He turns to Sam. "Three days, Sammy."
There's a flutter of wings again, and he's gone.
Sam closes his eyes and slumps back against the table. Dean can't decide which he wants more - to punch the stubborn asshole, or to wrap his arms around him and promise it's not going to happen, that he's going to come up with a way out of this, no matter what. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and it takes a second to realize that this must be the more visible token of His good faith. To remember that cell service is something good, something important, something that hasn't happened in days. But cell phones don't seem particularly important right now. He pulls the phone out of his pocket and quickly flicks through the list of notifications flashing on the screen. No word from Cas. Jody and Donna are apparently alive, although somewhat panicked. The rest can wait.
"Sam," he says. His brother puts a hand over his eyes and ignores Dean entirely. "Sam. We are not doing this. I don't care what you promised. We're not doing it."
"Yes we are. I messed up. He's going to end the world unless I fix it."
"No!" Dean pounds a fist on the library table. "This is exactly what you wouldn't let me do with Michael. So what's different this time?"
Sam runs his hand back over his head, pushing his hair out of his eyes. He still won't look at Dean. "It's different because that was Michael. We've defeated archangels before. But this is God. We can't beat Him, Dean. Not without millions of people suffering in the process."
"There's got to be something we can do. Someone who can help. What about Rowena? We've got cell service now; can't you call her?"
Sam's face shutters. "Lucifer burned her. I'm not going to ask her to go up against God."
"Okay, then what about Billie? Death is stronger than God. Death is supposed to reap God eventually. Maybe she'll do it now."
"Yeah, I'm sure Billie would be willing to reap God in order to save my ass. Everything she's done so far tells me she'd love to step in."
"We don't know until we try, dammit!" Dean stretches out his arms and addresses the empty air above Sam's head. "Jessica! I know you're out there! Get your boss down here! We've got a situation!" He spins to take in every corner of the room, but there's no sign of their supposedly ever-present reaper. Or Billie.
"Face it, Dean," Sam sighs. "This is the only way." He glances down at the table. "So. Uh. Looks like we've got some work to do."
Dean follows his gaze. Somehow a sheet of paper has appeared on the table. He doesn't have to look at it to know what it is, but he picks it up anyway.
The plans are laid out in exacting detail, down to specifying the type of wood. Does the Home Depot in Grand Island even have acacia wood? Could that buy them some time? But a note at the bottom says all the tools and supplies can be found in the garage of the bunker. Well, then.
"We?" Dean says. "No, not we. You are not going to be any part of this." Because there's no way he's letting Sam build his own fucking crucifix.
Sam nods once, tight and grim. "Okay. Okay. I'll, just, ah." Then he turns on his heel and he's gone. Wherever he's retreating to, Dean is clearly not invited.
Dean pulls out his phone again and reads his texts. Looks like the dark shadow of God's anger isn't limited to the general vicinity of the Winchesters after all. He attempts a call to Cas, but as usual, there's no reception in Heaven. He scrolls through his texts. We're okay, he replies to those worth a reply. Working on fixing it. Everything is going to be okay.
Sure. Sam's going to be crucified for all of eternity and Dean's going to be the one pounding the nails into him. Nothing is ever going to be okay again. He picks up the plans again, then slams them on the table. It can wait until tomorrow. Right now he's going to start drinking.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
You know, Samuel, crucifixion didn't happen the way you see it in the movies. The upright part of the cross was a permanent installation. The crucified person was nailed to the cross piece, the patibulum, and then that was attached to the stipes, the upright piece.
It's a memory. It's not actually Lucifer sitting here in his room, lecturing him. It's not even a hallucination. It's just a memory. And that means all Sam has to do is stop remembering.
And the nails go through the wrists, not the hands. See how this nail through your palm rips right through? But your wrist, see here, how the bones are strong enough to hang from?
Yeah, he can shut this memory down any time now.
The flogging beforehand is important. It starts the process of dying. Usually you'd be in shock by the time they started driving the nails. I don't know if it's better this way, or worse. Because it's distracting, isn't it? Doesn't the agony in your back make it hard to feel me pounding spikes into your feet at this moment? No, that's okay; you don't have to answer right now. We'll skip the flogging next time and then you can let me know which is worse.
Sam arranges himself into the lotus position and closes his eyes. He wills his mind to empty. None of this is real, none of this is happening. His thoughts, these memories of Hell, are puffy white clouds. He can send them scurrying to the horizon, leaving a clear blue sky.
You're slowly suffocating, because your lungs can't expand. That's why you have to push up with your legs occasionally, to take a deeper breath. Of course, it's extremely painful, as you've noticed, and eventually you won't have the strength. It can take you several days to die if we do it this way. But if I break your legs - like this - there, see, you can't push up any more, can you? You'll suffocate in minutes. Don't worry. We'll do it the slow way too, so you get the full experience.
It's not real. It won't happen like this. It won't be Lucifer. It won't be deliberately crueler than it needs to be.
Crucifixion isn't about wanting someone to be dead. It's about wanting someone to suffer. It's about wanting someone to have a humiliating, excruciating death.
It will be worse. It will last forever.
Let's try this upside down next time, just for shits and giggles.
If only Dean were here, he might be able to distract him, to make sure his last days aren't spent alone with memories of the cage, to just be here and be with him. But if Dean were here, he'd be trying to talk him out of it. And Sam might not be strong enough to stick to his decision. So it's really for the best that he's alone. Really. He'll stop remembering Lucifer and he'll think about clouds again, and about watching their movement across the wide Kansas sky for the rest of eternity.
Any minute now.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
Friday
Unfortunately, Dean's hangover is not quite bad enough to actually kill him. He runs cold water over his head until some of the fog clears and then pads silently past his brother's closed door. If, somehow, Sam managed to fall asleep, Dean's sure as shit not going to wake him up.
Everything God shut down is still shut down. His token of good faith was limited to cell phone service. There's still no internet, TV, or radio. Or sunlight.
Sunlight doesn't seem as important today anyway. Even the weak glow of the work lights in the garage is enough to set Dean's head pounding. He walks past the shrouded cars, standing sentinel like a line of tombstones, to the work area in the back. And then stares, dumbfounded, at the supplies and equipment in front of him. A pair of sawhorses, a handsaw, and a log. Not lumber, but a fucking log.
"The Lord is feeling nostalgic. He desires that you start from scratch."
Dean whirls at Gabriel's voice behind him, his fight-or-flight reaction only slightly numbed by his powerful hangover.
Gabriel places a finger to Dean's forehead before he can jerk away. In a moment, his headache and nausea are gone. His tongue doesn't feel furry, his hands aren't shaking, and the light no longer feels like it's piercing his eyeballs. But he still kind of wishes he was dead.
"You're welcome," Gabriel says, with a smug smile.
"Fuck you," Dean replies.
"God loves you, you know."
"Oh, I know. I can feel it. Every time I think about Him wanting me to crucify my brother, I just feel the love oozing out of Him."
"He does. He loves you and your brother. But just like your earthly father, He has to punish His children when they misbehave. You do remember your brother tried to kill Him, right? Our Father has administered harsher punishments to people who simply disobeyed Him. What He's asking Sam to do is no worse than what He asked His own Son to do."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Jesus got to die and go to Heaven. He wasn't stuck on the cross for all of eternity."
"So the big guy likes to change it up sometimes. Can't expect the reboot to be a carbon copy of the original. Maybe it will just keep getting better and better. Worked for Spider-Man, right?"
"Well, I'm glad this is so amusing to you," Dean snaps. "What the fuck happened to you, anyway? I thought you were on our side, there at the end. Did Chuck restore you from an old backup or something?"
Gabriel shrugs. "I am what I am, and no more. I'm not on anyone's side. I'm the messenger."
Yeah, this definitely isn't the Gabriel they lost beyond the rift. Adding insult to injury; one of Chuck's specialties. "Message received. Now, how about you make yourself useful? Help me get this log on the sawhorses."
The angel obliges, hefting one end of the log, then settling onto the hood of an old Packard to watch Dean work. He sits silently as Dean chalks a guideline down the log. When Dean picks up the saw, Gabriel clears his throat.
"The Lord thy God requests that you praise Him while you work."
"He what?"
"He requests that you sing songs of praise while you work. That you praise His glory."
"Well, He can kiss my ass."
Gabriel gives him a long, level stare. "God would like to remind you that He could make things a lot worse than they are right now."
A lot worse than being forced to crucify your brother seems impossible. But if there's one thing Dean has learned by now, it's that every time he thinks the worst possible thing has happened, something even worse comes along and proves him wrong. So. Songs of praise it is.
Except he can't think of any. Try as he might, Dean can't think of a single hymn. The only thing that comes to mind is George Harrison. It will have to be good enough.
"My sweet Lord," he sings. "Oh, my Lord." When he looks up at Gabriel, the angel nods appreciatively. "I really want to know You, I really want to go with You…" Dean continues, breaking into the chorus of hallelujahs as he saws the acacia trunk into lumber for his brother's crucifix.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
Sam stares at the empty email window. It stares accusingly back at him. He's already set up messages to go to a few trusted people as soon as the Internet is restored, asking them to come take Dean away from the bunker for as long as they can manage it. But this last one is the hardest.
Don't do anything stupid, he types.
No. Backspace.
Don't try to fix it. Don't try to save me.
As if Dean would ever, in a million years, do what Sam told him to do. Backspace.
I had to do this. I know you didn't want it to happen. I know you don't think I deserve it. I know you think you can, and should, take care of it somehow. But you can't. I'm the one that pissed him off and I'm the one who has to fix it. This was the right thing to do. Please just let me do it.
There's so much more that needs to be said. Thank you and I'm sorry and go and live your life and don't stay around here thinking about me and goodbye.
But he's not going to try to type out any of that now. Right now he's going to find his brother.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
Dean is halfway through a bottle of whiskey, or tequila, or something, when Sam comes into library. He's pale and his eyes are rimmed with red and Dean has to swallow the urge to ask if he's okay, because obviously he's not. And obviously he'll lie about it.
"You, ah, you want anything to eat?" he says, instead. "I could make you a sandwich."
Sam shakes his head. "No, thanks. Don't know if I could hold it down."
Dean tilts the bottle toward him. "Drink?"
"Nah. Feel like I need to be sober for this."
Of course he does. Can't maintain the legendary Sam Winchester level of self-control if you're also on the legendary Dean Winchester regimen of self-medicating. "Well, that makes one of us. I, on the other hand, feel like I need to be drunk for this."
He expects Sam's pissy look, but his brother actually smiles a little bit. It's a small smile, and it fades quickly. "Yeah, I get that," Sam says. "I'm sorry this is on you. I know it's hard."
No, shit, that's not - "Hard for me? Sammy, you're the one who's gonna be…" He doesn't finish. He can't say it.
"And you're the one who has to do it. And I'm sorry. I guess I'm being selfish. So if you don't want to do it, I understand. I can tell Gabriel to find someone else."
"Jesus fucking Christ, Sam." (Is Chuck listening? Will Dean's blasphemy piss him off even further? Maybe he can make the asshole so mad that He'll forget what Sam did, and concentrate on punishing Dean instead.) "Don't you dare. If me being involved in this makes it the slightest bit easier on you, then I'm doing it. End of discussion."
Sam gives him another swift, sad little smile. His eyes are damp. He nods his thanks. (Thanks for agreeing to crucify him. For fuck's sake.)
Dean swallows his whiskey or tequila or whatever and claps a hand on Sam's shoulder. He forces himself to sound cheerful. "You wanna go watch something? I know Netflix won't work, but you've got DVDs, don't you?"
"Yeah." Sam's voice wobbles, just a little. "That sounds good."
They walk silently to Sam's room - Dean brings his bottle - and sit on his narrow bed, squeezed shoulder to shoulder. Sam presses play on whatever's already in the DVD player. It really doesn't matter, because neither of them are paying attention. Dean's only aware of the burn of alcohol, the weight of Sam sagging against him, and the ache in his arms from sawing the wood for his brother's crucifix. And the bottomless pit of his own failure.
He tries Cas again. Cas, I don't know where you are. I don't know if you can hear me. But if there's any way you can get here; please, man. I need your help. Sam needs your help.
There's no answer. He knew there wouldn't be. Maybe Chuck is blocking his prayers, or is keeping Cas away. Maybe Cas doesn't even care any more. Maybe they've finally gone too far. The bottom line is, if Dean's going to stop this runaway train, he's on his own. And there doesn't seem to be a way to stop it. Either Sam is trapped in literal torture for all of eternity, or the world ends.
Okay, but… is the end of the world really the worst case scenario? How much does it even matter, considering the whole thing was provided strictly for Chuck's amusement? Amara had promised darkness, peace, an end. No life, but no pain. That seems like a better alternative right now.
Does a world that relies on Sam enduring crucifixion forever even deserve to exist?
"Sam?" he asks quietly. "What if we don't have to fix it? You said you were done. I'm done too. But this. This is the opposite of being done. So what do you say we just let it go?"
Sam's voice is barely above a whisper. "You know I can't do that."
"But why not? When you shot Chuck, you knew the world would end if you killed him. And you were okay with it."
"I was wrong. I don't get to decide that for the whole world, Dean. I'm done. They're not."
"Yeah. Okay." It was a long shot.
They turn back toward the television, with Dean surreptitiously wiping his eyes and pretending not to notice Sam doing the same. Dean continues drinking, and eventually some combination of sleep and drunken unconsciousness takes over.
. . .
When he wakes up, he's alone, lying on top of the covers with a blanket thrown over him. If he goes outside, he knows the world will still be midnight-dark, but Sam's clock says it's Saturday morning. One more day.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
Saturday
Dean straddles the upright member of the cross (the stipes, the patibulum; words he never wanted to know) and then eases himself down until he's flat on his back. He stretches his arms out on the patibulum and tries not to imagine Sam in this position: flat on his back, arms outstretched, waiting to be crucified. He fails miserably.
No. Put that away and concentrate on the task at hand.
There's a rough spot under his right arm that needs to be sanded more. The place where the two members are joined isn't flat enough - there's a bit of a hump that presses against his back. It would cause muscle spasms after too long. He'll take the planer and shave that down.
And then he has to choke down an outburst of hysterical laughter, because he's trying to make Sam's crucifixion more comfy, like he's some kind of moron who doesn't realize he's building a cross, and Sam's going to be crucified on it, and it doesn't matter how smooth it is, there's nothing he can do to make it any better, nothing, nothing, nothing.
Or maybe there is.
He uses his heel to scuff through the sawdust on the stipes, marking where his foot hits it. There, right there. Well, a couple of inches lower, because it's Sam. He can put a little step there, a little support for Sam to rest his feet on. He'll put some pegs on the patibulum to hold Sam's arms up, to relieve the pressure on his wrists (on the fucking nails that will be ripping through his flesh). He marks the spots with his pencil and tries to feel good about it. He fails miserably.
But as he's sawing the piece for the step, he feels the flutter of angel wings. Dean doesn't have to look up to know that Gabriel is next to the cross, examining the new pencil marks.
"The Lord thy God requests that you stick to His plans, and not make any modifications."
"Oh, come on, Gabriel," Dean sighs. "Does it really matter? He's still gonna have nails sticking through him. He's still gonna be up there forever. You don't think that's enough?"
Gabriel leans over and smudges the pencil marks away with his thumb. "God is interested in Sam's eternal torment. And He knows how crucifixions work."
Yeah, He would. The bastard invented them. Dean pivots to face away from the fucking instrument of torture he's building. He wants to be anywhere but here. He wants to be doing anything but this. He wants to feel Sam's big hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake from this goddamn nightmare. He wants to throw his brother in the Impala and drive, just drive; put all of it behind them.
Then Gabriel's voice is in his ear, low and soft. "I mean, you understand the point of nailing people to things, don't you? This isn't exactly a new experience for you, is it? You've got a little expertise in this area. Or so I've been told."
Rising bile burns Dean's throat. The feeling is almost as real, almost as strong as the sudden, uninvited sense memory of pushing a spike against flesh (not real flesh, but Hell had ways of making it feel real) and feeling that instant of resistance before hammering it home, of slicing through muscle and splintering bone and pinning someone to the rack. The sound of tearing skin and the spike meeting wood and the victim pleading and sobbing and screaming, screaming -
He falls to his knees and chokes up a burning puddle of vomit that's pretty much just stomach acid and whiskey. When he stands up and turns back around, Gabriel is still standing there, lip curled in a familiar smirk.
Dean would give almost anything to have an archangel blade in his hand. All he has is a saw, and it would be so simple to run it across his own wrists and end this here and now, but there's no reason to believe Gabriel would let him off so easy. He points the saw at the angel. "Listen, you piece of flying shit," he growls, "I can make a banishing sigil and send you away, or you can leave under your own power. But either way, you need to be gone. Now."
"You understand what's going on here, right?" Gabriel says. "You made it too easy. He knows what Sam fears most. And He knows your worst nightmares about Hell aren't the ones when you're on the rack; they're the ones when you're off it. You practically wrote this for Him."
Fuck. Fuck. Dean wraps his hand around the saw blade and squeezes until it bites into flesh. He drops the saw to the ground and dips his finger in the blood pooling in his palm. Sinking to his knees, he begins to sketch the banishing sigil on the concrete floor.
"Touchy," Gabriel says. He throws up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Don't bother. I'm going." He doesn't fly; he walks.
Dean kicks the saw away and punches the closest car, leaving a bloody handprint on its dusty cover.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
Sam is staring at the last empty page in his legal pad when he hears Gabriel's knock on the library wall.
"Writing your last will and testament?" the angel asks.
As if Sam owns anything to bequeath. As if he's acquired anything in his 36 years on earth that would be important to anybody. The only beneficial things he has are in his head, and he's running out of time to do anything with them. He puts his pen down with a frustrated sigh. "What do you want, Gabriel?"
Gabriel shrugs and reaches out to take Sam's notepad. He flips through the quickly scrawled notes and tosses the pad back on the table, apparently having found nothing interesting. He moves over to Sam's pile of books, tilting his head to read the spines.
"Just checking," he says.
"And you were expecting…?"
"Eh, just seeing if you're trying to find a way out of our agreement. You guys have a reputation, you know."
"Well, I'm not. I'm trying to write down stuff I think Dean will need to know. Stuff about the bunker."
"So you think he's going to carry on, then. Live in the bunker, hunt monsters, all that."
"I don't know what he'll do," Sam replies honestly. "I'm just trying to make it easier for him if he does decide to stay here."
Gabriel settles into a chair and plops his feet onto the table. "Cause I gotta warn you, that's one thing Our Heavenly Father is concerned about. What Dean will do after."
Sam's concerned about that too. Very concerned. But probably not the same way Chuck is concerned. "What does He think Dean's going to do?"
"Well, He thinks there's a decent chance your brother won't let you keep your end of the bargain. He thinks Dean's going to say fuck this and yank you down from that cross. It might take a day or it might take a year, but odds are, Dean's not going to let you stay up there."
That does sound very much like something Dean would do, and Sam's heart clenches with a sudden fear. "You realize I can't stop him, right?" Sam says, "I'm fulfilling the deal, I swear, but I don't have any control over Dean even now, let alone once I'm…"
"Crucified?" Gabriel grins. "Yes. That's obviously a problem. And God's got a plan, but you're not going to like it." Probably not, because all of God's plans are horrific. Sam's pulse goes up a notch.
"See, He figures that if the general population knows why you're up on that cross, they won't let Dean take you down. All He has to do is make it known that your punishment saved the world. He's got a messenger, obviously." Gabriel points both thumbs back at himself. "And He's thinking about a star again. Right over Lebanon. The Star of Lebanon has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? People will come from all over to see. They'll make pilgrimages. You'll have an audience, 24/7. If Dean tries to get you off the cross, they'll tear him limb from limb, for fear that God will become angry again."
Oh no, no, no. When Sam imagined how his crucifixion could be made worse, he limited himself to the physical aspect, to Lucifer's games. He had stupidly never considered what Chuck might add to the horror. Suffering in front of an audience. People watching, knowing that it was all his fault.
"Don't worry," Gabriel continues, seemingly oblivious to Sam's heartbeat echoing loudly through the library. "He might just call you the sacrificial lamb who saved the world. He might not let them all know you're the one who caused Him to lash out in anger in the first place. They'll only know you sacrificed yourself to appease Him. The Vatican might even make you a saint. Saint Samuel Winchester. Sounds nice, doesn't it?"
No, it sounds like something Lucifer would have come up with. Sam's sinking, sinking, and the Devil is laughing.
"Sammy? You doing okay, big guy? You look a little grey."
"Gabriel, please," he stammers. "Don't let Him do this. Please, you've got to talk Him out of it."
Gabriel picks calmly at a cuticle. "I don't know, man. He thinks it's a great idea. Thinks it might be the only way to make sure Dean doesn't sabotage the plan."
"Please, I'm begging you. There's got to be something you can do." Sam has never groveled, never begged for his life, but the image of his perpetual crucifixion playing out in front of a jeering audience is about to break him.
"Wellllll." The angel draws out the word with a dramatic sigh. "Okay. I'll talk to Him. Maybe I can get Him to hold off on that. If you can prevent Dean from doing anything right off the bat, God might be willing to take a wait-and-see approach." Gabriel points a finger gun at Sam and disappears.
Sam tries to continue his notes, but his hand is shaking too hard to hold the pen.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
After he finishes sanding the cross, Dean heads straight into the kitchen. The beer he pulls out of the fridge sticks to his bloody hand. He probably should wash that. And he would, if he gave a shit about anything right now. Instead, he chugs the beer and grabs a second one. But the end of this day really calls for whiskey. Dean finishes his second beer and takes a couple of long swigs of whiskey straight from the bottle before moving into the library.
Sam isn't sitting at his usual spot, which is currently marked by a small stack of books and a notepad. Is he playing everything is fine so hard that he's actually doing research? Dean flips through the yellow pad. Page after page of Sam's handwriting. Not as neat as it normally is. Things about the bunker that he tried to teach Dean (and Dean refused to listen because those were Sam's things and Dean would never need to know them). Lists of lists. All of the Enochian lock codes for mysterious doors and boxes written out phonetically, because Dean's grasp of Enochian was never as good as Sam's.
(There's a reason for that, and it makes Dean shudder.)
Sam himself is pacing restlessly. When he spots Dean, he comes toward him with that stubborn look on his face, like he's got to convince Dean to do something he really doesn't want to do. Joke's on him. Dean's already agreed to do the worst thing possible. Anything else Sam wants can only be an improvement.
"Listen, Dean," he says. "I need you to do something for me."
"Anything." Dean takes another long drink.
"I need you to promise not to try to get me off that cross. Ever."
Oh, okay, anything but that.
"Sam, you know I have to -"
"No, you don't. Please."
"Listen, dude. You're the one who's always saying we have a choice. You're the one who told me to never give up."
"Not this time."
"So you think I'm just gonna live here, with you hanging from a cross right outside, and never try to do anything about it?"
"No. You shouldn't live here at all. You should leave. Tomorrow, after, you should do what Larry Ganem told me to do when he gave me the key to the bunker. Throw the key inside, lock the door, and walk away forever."
Jesus. Why does Sam always think Dean can let something awful happen to his little brother and then just skip off down the road and lead a happy apple-pie life?
"You're shitting me, right? Leave you here alone?"
"Why do you need to stay here? What do you think you're going to do for me?"
Dean puts a hand over his face. The smell of blood and sawdust is nauseating. "What I'm going to do for you." He has to stop and collect himself. "What I'm going to do is not leave you here alone. Even if that's the only thing I can do." Oh, fuck, this is too much like Hell. This is too much like going to Stull Cemetery just so Sam won't die alone.
"Okay. But that is all you can do. Will you promise me that, Dean? Will you promise me to leave it alone? To leave me up there and not try to undo it?"
Sam is pale and shaky. His infuriatingly calm mask is cracking again, revealing the pure terror underneath. He needs this. There's no telling why, but he needs it. And maybe it's the only need Dean can fulfill.
"Okay, Sam. I promise."
Sam retreats to his room again, and Dean stays in the library with his bottle of whiskey. Sam's entirely wrong about staying sober for this part. Sober Dean is nothing but fury and despair. Drunk Dean is also nothing but fury and despair, but at least he might be able to pass out for a few hours.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
Sunday
Sam's alarm goes off at 8:00 a.m. Maybe Chuck is going to be a stickler about having exactly three days, and maybe he isn't, but there's no reason to take chances. And it's not like he was going to sleep anyway.
He takes a last look at his room. It doesn't contain anything he really cares about, so. That's that.
Dean is nursing a cup of coffee in the kitchen. Straight coffee, as far as Sam can tell by the aroma. Apparently this part requires sobriety. His brother looks like he's slept about as much as Sam has. He puts the cup down and stares solemnly up at Sam. "We can still stop this," he says, without preamble. "You don't have to go through with it. No one would blame you."
Sam swallows a desperate please because he doesn't know if he'd end up saying please stop trying to talk me out of what I have to do or please, yes, make this stop, oh please. "I'd blame me," he says. "And I have a feeling the rest of the world would, too."
"Fuck the rest of the world," Dean says. "Why would they blame you? They won't have any idea that Chuck's punishing them because of you."
"Yeah, I'm actually pretty sure they would."
"Okay, you're probably right, cause that sounds like something Chuck would do. But how do we know He won't get pissed or bored tomorrow and send an asteroid, and then they'll all die anyway from something you don't even have the power to stop? They're not guaranteed a life. You don't owe them a goddamn thing, Sam."
Yes, Chuck might decide to end the world tomorrow, but it won't be on Sam. It won't be Sam's fault, because Sam will have done everything required of him to stop it, and that's what matters. He swallows, and tries to speak, and tries again. But even if he could get words to come out, he doesn't know what they would be. Instead, he bows his head and heads toward the garage, trusting that Dean will follow.
The cross is in the back of the garage, surrounded by piles of sawdust and a few spattered bloodstains. It's smaller than he'd pictured, but its reduced scale doesn't make it any less horrifying. Sam bends to pick up the top end and groans under the weight. The wood is surprisingly smooth, all its rough edges sanded away. As Dean picks up an ominously clunking canvas bag, Sam hefts the cross over his shoulder and drags it toward the garage door. He stops in surprise when he feels Dean pick up the other end.
"You think that's gonna be allowed?" he says, without turning around.
"Hey, Jesus didn't carry his own cross either, so, if Chuck's after authenticity, I think we're okay."
They begin the slow trudge up the hill behind the bunker. Clouds obscure any stars that would have been visible. It's too bad. It would be nice to see stars again, even the threatened Star of Lebanon. Sam didn't think to bring a flashlight - he's not exactly in full practicality mode - but Dean points his own far enough ahead to light the way for both of them. Once they've gone a few dozen feet up the hill, beyond the glow from the open garage door, Dean clicks off the light.
"Check it out, Sam."
It's no longer completely dark. There isn't an obvious sunrise yet, but the sky is clearly paler than it was when they left the bunker, lightening into a dull grey. "Well," Sam says. "I guess that's a good sign." He doesn't allow himself to hope Chuck has decided to bring the sun back regardless of whatever happens on top of this hill. There isn't any room for hope today.
They continue their climb. It's still too dark to discern the scorched earth marking the location of Jack's pyre. They both look away anyway.
Sam hadn't really thought about the logistics of crucifixion, beyond the obvious. But someone did. When they reach the summit, there are supplies waiting for them. A post hole digger, a wheelbarrow, a bag of quick-drying concrete, a shovel, and a bucket of water. Dean doesn't seem surprised to see them. "The Lord provides," he says, with a grimace.
"All right," says Sam, reaching for the post hole digger. "I'll dig, you mix?"
Dean snatches the tool from his hand. "No. I'll dig. I'll mix. You sit."
"Come on, Dean. You don't have do all of this yourself."
"Why?" Dean snaps. "Are you in a hurry to get to the good part?" Then he sags and slides a hand down his face. "Shit. I'm sorry, man. It's just… let me do it, okay? Just let me do it."
"Yeah. Okay. Okay."
Sam lowers himself to sit on the cross, one foot on each side. He looks out at the slowly lightening sky and the horizon gradually fading into view and tries not to hyperventilate. When Dean finally stops and stands in front of him, the color of the sky has barely changed, even though enough time has passed to dig a hole for the cross and mix a wheelbarrow of cement.
"Listen," Dean says. "You change your mind at any point, you just say the word. I don't care how far along we are. One word from you and it stops. Got it?"
Being in control should make it better. It doesn't. Well, it's not like he really has any kind of control, no matter how much Dean tries to make it feel that way. There are no options.
Dean sits down on the cross in front of him, mirroring him, so close that their knees are touching. He leans forward and presses his forehead against Sam's. "I would have done anything," he murmurs. "You know that, right?"
Sam nods his I know and goes down, laying himself out onto the smooth, sanded wood. His legs are still on either side of the cross, his feet planted on Kansas soil for the last time. He stretches his arms onto the patibulum and stares up at the pearly grey sky. He does not look at Dean. He hears his brother sigh deeply, hears him groan as he pulls himself up to stand, hears him rustling in his bag, and does not look. Cannot look.
Eventually Dean kneels at Sam's left side. "You, ah, got any meditation techniques? Should I do this between heartbeats or something?"
Sam closes his eyes. "Just do it. There's nothing you can do to make it any better. Just get it over with."
"Okay. Okay."
Dean carefully picks up Sam's lax left arm and rolls up his sleeve. He removes the watch Sam forgot to leave behind and, after a thoughtful pause, buckles it onto his own wrist. He turns Sam's hand over and traces a finger over the old scar on his palm, deliberately, as if he's trying to commit it to memory. For one desperate second Sam wants him to shove his fingernail into the scar hard enough to break the skin, to assure him that this is actually happening. But there is plenty of real-world pain to come.
Dean puts the arm back down just as carefully, gently settling the back of Sam's hand against the wood. The bag rustles again, and then there is the unexpectedly distinct point of a spike against his wrist. Dean must have sharpened it to go in easier.
It was so wrong to ask his brother to do this. So wrong, so selfish. Dean will never get over it. But it's too late to fix it. All Sam can do is breathe and wait and breathe and wait, and finally Dean brings the mallet down hard and fast, with a sound that's somewhere in between a grunt and a sob, and the spike pierces Sam's wrist.
It's not Sam's first crucifixion, but it's the first one topside, and it's worse than he even thought possible.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
Sam doesn't scream. He gasps, his free hand claws desperately at the wood beneath it, he arches his back and twists his body away from the pain, away from what Dean's doing to him, but he doesn't scream.
Dean plants a hand on his brother's heaving chest. Maybe Sam can feel it. Maybe Sam knows it's an attempt to say I'm sorry and fuck you for making me do this to you and I'm proud of you and please forgive me and seriously, fuck you for making me live through this when we both could have been done forever.
Eventually Sam's breaths even out and his right hand rests limp and trembling against the cross. His left hand is already stained red, a rivulet of blood obscuring the old scar on his palm (stone number one, make me your stone number one) and dribbling onto the ground. He quickly flicks his eyes toward Dean, then clenches them closed again. "Keep going," he gasps. "It's okay."
(No, shut up, don't you dare tell me this is okay.)
"And he stretched out his arms upon the cross and offered himself, in obedience to Your will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world."
Dean jumps to his feet at the sound of the archangel's voice. Gabriel is standing a few feet beyond the top of the cross. Almost, but not quite, in punching distance. Dean almost goes for it anyway; almost swings his mallet right in the bastard's smug face.
"What the fuck do you want?" he shouts.
"Just here for the show," Gabriel says. "Look at you, nailing baby brother to a board. I didn't think you'd really do it."
"Please, Gabriel." Sam's voice is weak and raspy, as if all the screaming he didn't do took its toll on his throat anyway. "We're doing what you want. Please, just leave us alone."
Gabriel gazes down lovingly at Sam. "See, this is what I'm talking about. A man willing to submit to eternal torture to right his wrongs and save the world. His brother, willing to let the world burn in order to save him. This is why I love you guys. It's so epic." He doesn't take his eyes off Sam's face as he circles around the cross. He stops next to Dean, easily in Sam's line of sight now. Sam suddenly gasps in horror, and when Gabriel looks up at Dean again, his amber eyes have turned pale blue. What the everloving fuck.
"I set you up for a perfect Isaac and Abraham sacrifice, a beautiful homage to one of my favorite stories." Gabriel's transformation continues. His hair goes salt-and-pepper; his chin softens and sprouts a short beard. "But this one would have been even more tragic, since Isaac wouldn't have been spared. It would have been one of the saddest and most beautiful dramas I've ever seen. And you denied me."
Dean's standing toe-to-toe with Chuck. With God. His mouth opens uselessly. He hears Sam stammer something, maybe Dean, but he can't look away.
"So, we here we are again." Chuck spreads his arms wide. "Do you get it yet, boys? I can, and will, make you do anything I want. You think you have free will? You still think you can write your own ending? Spoiler alert: You can't. This may be a choose-your-own-adventure story, but don't kid yourself. The only options are the ones I give you."
"You sick, sadistic fuck," Dean spits.
Chuck smiles. "I warned you when we first met that I am a cruel and capricious God. Not that this punishment was capricious at all. It was earned."
Dean can't find words to respond to that, but Sam takes a shuddering breath and says, through clenched teeth, "What do You want us to do?"
"Well, that's a good question, Sam. I'm going to give you two choices. And I think it's Dean's turn to decide." Chuck goes down on one knee, too fucking close to Sam, and rests a hand on his bloody wrist. "Door number one, we continue this storyline. You endure perpetual crucifixion; Dean lives out a sad, lonely, guilt-ridden existence in your shadow. But I'll sweeten the pot. In this storyline, monsters don't hunt humans any more. Only other monsters." He grins up at Dean, his eyes twinkling with glee.
No; the word is poised on Dean's lips. No and fuck You and door number two might be that You end the world, but I don't care any more; let it end.
"Or, door number two. We forget this ever happened, and things go back the way they were. All the monsters. And you two doing what I love, the same things you've always done. Live. Die. But not for too long." Chuck winks. "Save people. Hunt things. Love people, lose people. Carry on with the family business. Give me a good story."
Door number two is too good to be true. Dean plays Chuck's words over and over in his head. Back the way they were. Sam escapes eternal crucifixion. The only person who could possibly reject that offer is… well, it's Sam himself. Sam's still and quiet on the cross, giving Dean a pleading look. The look that says don't worry about me; save people, save yourself. Yeah; fuck that too.
"What's it gonna be, Dean?"
"Two," he says. Quickly, before Chuck can snatch the option away from him. "Back how it used to be. We hunt. We entertain you."
"Ah, good." Chuck beams at him like a proud father. He pushes Sam's hair back from his sweaty forehead and bends low to murmur something in his ear. Dean can't hear what he says, but Sam stares at Chuck wide-eyed and fearful, like an animal caught in a trap. Then Chuck moves his hand away from Sam's wrist. Sam takes in a pained gulp of air and lurches upright, no longer pinned to the cross. His wrist is whole and unbloodied. Dean's knees almost buckle in relief. This; this is all that mattered. This is all he needed.
Sam rubs his healed arm and continues to stare fearfully at Chuck. "I'm glad we were able to come to this agreement," Chuck says, as he stands up. He glances toward the freshly dug hole. "I think you better erect that cross anyway. We'll call it… no, not a commandment. How about a memorandum of understanding. Wouldn't want any of us to forget what we're supposed to be doing. Or not doing." He nods toward Dean, then Sam. "See you soon, boys." Then he's gone.
Oh, Jesus fuck. It's impossible to breathe for a minute. The clouds have thinned and the sky is beginning to lighten further, as if it shares his relief.
Dean drops to his knees in front of his brother. "Are you okay?" he asks, grabbing Sam's arm.
"Yeah. I think so." In the increasing light, Sam's wrist isn't as pristine as it first appeared. The bloody wound is gone, but there is a small cross-shaped scar where the spike pierced him. Sam painstakingly rolls his shirt sleeve down and buttons it, securely covering the mark. He stares into the distance, rubbing his wrist. His hand moves down to press the old scar on his palm. Dean's stomach lurches.
"It's real," Dean says. "You. Me. Chuck. This is all real. No Lucifer."
"Yeah," Sam sighs, still staring out at the gradually lightening landscape. "It's just. This is the kind of thing he'd do, you know? The last minute reprieve that's really just a fake-out. The so-called choice, where you get tricked into picking the bad option."
"What do you mean, the bad option?"
"You should have picked the first one," Sam's voice is still pain-roughened. He's still looking at his feet or the horizon or basically anything that isn't Dean. "People would have been safe from monsters. That's the whole point, isn't it?"
"Jesus, Sam," Dean laughs bitterly, because shit, it's like his brother doesn't know him at all. "No, that's not the point. The point is that you're not crucified forever. Sure, monsters will kill people. Monsters have been killing people since people and monsters were invented. So nobody is worse off than they already were. And we're here to save them. Both of us. That's the point."
"Yeah, and it's all just a soap opera for Chuck. How is that a good thing?"
"I don't care, Sam. I. Do. Not. Fucking. Care." All he cares about is that Sam is safe. All he cares about is that he's not going to be living in the shadow of his perpetually-crucified brother. "Look. I am not going to have a conversation about whether I should have chosen to let you be tortured for all of eternity. It's not up for discussion."
He offers a hand and pulls Sam to his feet. Sam rubs his thumb into his palm again, as if he doesn't even realize he's doing it. "Did you hear what he said to me?"
"No. What?"
Sam finally looks him in the eye. "He said you're done when I say you're done, and not a minute sooner."
Oh. Shit. Now Dean is the one who has to look away, because he doesn't want to see the accusation there: He's just like you, He doesn't want me to decide when I get to die. But that's different. Dean did that for good reasons. Only for good reasons. Never for entertainment value.
"You know what that means," Sam continues. "It means that if He doesn't want me to stay dead, I won't stay dead. And if He does want me dead, there's nothing you can do to bring me back. So, maybe you just don't try."
Or maybe Dean keeping Sam alive was Chuck's idea all along. Maybe he's just an instrument of God. It wouldn't be the first time. "I've got an idea," Dean says. "Let's not talk about that either. Ever. Okay?"
Sam gives in, for once. He stands silently for a minute with his hands shoved into his pockets. "So," he eventually says, "I guess we need to get this in the ground before the concrete hardens."
Yes. Something to do. A mindless task is exactly what they need right now.
It takes both of them to wrestle the cross into its setting. How was he supposed to do that alone? He wasn't, obviously. Chuck always knew which door Dean would pick. Sam is pale and shaky as they maneuver the cross, swaying on his feet. He's woozy from three days without food or sleep. Or maybe from almost being crucified. Once the cross is securely in place, Dean orders him to sit, and he doesn't argue. He practically collapses on the cold dirt and rubs his shoulder. Dean forgot, with all of this new crap, about that wound. It's something he needs to worry about at some point. But not right now.
Without Sam holding the cross straight as Dean shores it up with concrete, it ends up listing to the side. He could not care less. Let its crookedness be one tiny fuck you screamed into the void. Dean tosses the shovel aside and notices the handle is streaked with blood. He wipes his hands on his jeans. Guess he should take care of that injury after all.
"You okay?" he asks Sam again, as if he's going to tell the truth this time.
"Yeah. I guess. I think I could use that drink now."
"You and me both."
Dean keeps a hand hovering by Sam's elbow, ready to catch him if he stumbles, as they make their way back down the hill. By the time they get to the garage, the scrubby grass at their feet is lit with garish color. Dean turns to look back up the hill. The first sunrise in several days should be a welcome sight, but the dark silhouette of the crooked cross, against a wash of fiery orange and blood red, is as ugly as anything he ever saw in Hell.
Tomorrow there will be hunts to find. Monsters to kill. But today he's going to feed his brother and then they're both going to crawl into a bottle. Chuck can entertain himself for one more day.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
(I mean, this is what I would do, if I were God.)
Genre: Gen, angst, hurt!Sam
Length: ~10K
Rating: R for language and a bit of violence (and let's face it, lots of blasphemy)
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Gabriel, Chuck Shurley
Spoilers: Through 14.20
Synopsis: Follows immediately after "It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah." Sam shot God. God is pissed. And He's going to do something about it. (The title is from "Levon" by Elton John. Yes, I should have chosen another title from "Hallelujah." I didn't. Oh well.)
Thursday
It's Thursday morning, two days after the showdown in the cemetery, and it's still dark. Or maybe it's not really two days later. Or even morning. Dean's watch is still stopped, but the clock in his bedroom says it's 8:35 a.m on a Thursday. But do days and mornings even exist when the sun won't rise? Jack is dead and burned. Cas is gone, fucked off to Heaven to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic, and ignoring or not hearing their prayers. And it's still dark. Phones don't work and there's no TV or internet or radio and the sun still doesn't rise.
They've definitely screwed the pooch this time.
At least the bunker, bless her mysterious little heart, still has utilities from wherever she gets them from. Dean takes long hot showers, cooks food they'll both only pick at, cleans his guns, and regularly confirms that his phone still says No Service. And watches Sam. For his part, Sam reads, plows through the card catalog like he expects to find a book titled So You Tried to Kill God and Now He's Pissed, checks his laptop as obsessively as Dean checks his phone, and sometimes he does what he's doing now - just sits at the library table with his head in his hands, ignoring the book in front of him, doing nothing.
Well. Mourning probably counts as something.
"We should go up to Sioux Falls," Sam says. His voice is rough from disuse, and quiet, but he doesn't seem to notice Dean's startled reaction as it lands like a bomb in the heavy silence of the bunker. "We need to check on Jody and the girls. Donna, too." And it's not like the thought hasn't occurred to Dean, but he's been indulging in an irrational hope that the perpetual night is centered over them, an opaque cloud of doom that will follow the Winchesters wherever they go, but leave the rest of the world alone. And he doesn't want to lead it to anyone he cares about.
But Sam's right. They can't hide in the bunker any longer. "Yeah, okay," Dean says. "Give me ten minutes."
In his room, he tosses an assortment of weapons into a duffel. You never know what you'll come up against when God Himself decides to unleash a pissy temper tantrum on you. He grabs some clothes to shove into Sam's bag and heads back to the library. Sam's other bag will carry the (probably useless) research materials.
Looks like Sam wasn't in a big hurry after all, since he's still sitting at the library table with his head bowed over a book that has none of the answers. But as soon as Dean enters the room, he hears a once-familiar sound: the flutter of angel wings. And a once-familiar figure appears in the library between him and Sam. Which means he has an excellent view of Sam's surprised jolt and the flash of panic that crosses his face.
"Who are you?" Sam says, jumping up from his seat at the table. His chair falls over with a loud clatter. "What are you doing here?"
The angel turns in a slow arc, examining them both. "I am the archangel Gabriel, the messenger. The Lord God thy Creator resurrected me so that I might deliver this message."
Well, he definitely looks like Gabriel. And it would be just like Chuck to send one of his resurrected minions, simply to show what he can do. "So the big guy couldn't come himself?" Dean asks. "Not interested in a good old-fashioned face-to-face?"
"God could have resurrected any of His angels for this purpose. Or archangels." Gabriel looks pointedly at Sam, who flinches under the implied threat. "You should consider my presence to be a sign of his grace and good will. Undeserved, some would say."
"Why are you here, Gabriel?" Sam asks, more quietly.
"That's better." The archangel smiles. It's probably meant to look beatific, but it's on Gabriel's face, so it turns into a sarcastic smirk. "You have surely noticed the lack of sunlight and means of communication. And you are, of course, well aware of the dead being raised at the cemetery where your unwarranted attack on our Father took place."
Dean opens his mouth to respond, because fuck that shit, but Sam shuts him down with a fierce glare.
"But you boys don't know the whole story, do you?" Gabriel continues. "Of course, I guess you wouldn't. Lack of communication and all that. So you're unaware that not only were many dozens of dead humans resurrected, but other things as well. You're unaware that while you've been cowering in your hidey-hole, beasts and demons you long thought dead - because you killed them - have been walking the earth."
Oh, shit, no. It's Crowley's kill everyone you ever saved ploy all over again. Dean watches his brother's jaw clench tight. They're both thinking the same thing. They've got to get out there; they've got to ditch this angel and go do their jobs. Where do they go first? Who can they call on for backup? How many people died while they sat here waiting for the world to come back online? Shit. Chuck and his fucking games.
"If he's got a beef with us, he should take it up with us," Dean says. "Instead of picking on a bunch of helpless civilians."
Gabriel ignores Dean and turns to Sam. "God chose to give you a show of His strength."
"Why, Gabriel?" Sam's eyes are pleading. "Why would He do that? I thought he loved mankind. Why is he endangering everyone on Earth just to show us His strength?"
"Because He's a cowardly dick," Dean offers.
Gabriel shoots him an unpleasant look and turns back to Sam. "Now He desires to offer you a show of His mercy. The Winchesters have sinned against the Lord thy God. Especially you, Sam. Therefore, He requires one simple act from you to demonstrate your repentance. If you perform this act of penance, He will forgive your sins, and your brother's sins. He will send the risen horde back to the flames of Hell and the wastes of Purgatory, and will restore the Earth to its former state."
"Fine," says Sam, quickly. Too quickly. Like he’s never dealt with angels before. Like he doesn’t know what he might be agreeing to; like he's forgotten what kind of horrors God and his angels are capable of. "What does He want?"
"Crucifixion." The angel's smile isn't even trying to be beatific now; it's sinister. "Your crucifixion, Sam."
Sam slumps against the table, apparently speechless. But Dean is here to speak for him.
"No. No way."
"No?" Gabriel arches an eyebrow.
"No. This is bullshit. Sam's not gonna die just because Chuck got his precious little feelings hurt!"
"Oh, Sam won't die."
For a second Dean is almost knocked over by relief, because okay, if Sam doesn't have to die, this is something they can get through. It will be awful, so damn awful, but Sam survived Hell and he can survive this. Chuck will get his jollies and then Dean will cut his brother down and tend to his wounds and everything will kind of get back to normal again. Their version of normal, anyway. But Gabriel's still wearing that sinister smile. And Sam has a look of horror on his face, so he's probably already figured out something that's eluding Dean.
"No," Sam whispers.
"Yes," Gabriel says. "Sam Winchester will remain on the cross, in eternal living torment, as an example to others."
"Eternal?" Dean stutters. "As in, forever? He'll be crucified, and alive, forever?"
"That is what eternal means, yes."
"Oh, fuck no."
"The eternal torment of just one man, repenting his egregious act, in exchange for the salvation of the entire planet? You don't accept these terms?"
Sam tries to say something, but Dean shouts over him. "No! Chuck can go fuck Himself! We are not doing this!"
"Is that your final answer?"
"Wait!" Sam yells. "Dean. Stop. We don't have a choice."
"Of course we do, Sam! We always have a choice!"
"No, we don't! Don't you get it? He can do whatever He wants! He's God! We're lucky He's even giving us the opportunity. He could wipe this world out without a thought."
"Can and will." Gabriel nods sagely.
Fine, someone has to pay. Dean recognizes when his balls are in a vise. But no way is Sam going to be the one on the line. "All right, but not Sam. Take me."
"The Lord thy God is not interested in your alternative proposal, Dean Winchester."
"Sam doesn't deserve it! Sam's already done this whole endless torture to save the world thing."
"Yes, in Hell. That was one of God's favorite plots. And He does appreciate literary symmetry."
"I'm the one who shot Him," Sam says calmly. "He wants me. You gotta let me fix this, Dean."
"See? I knew you were the smart one." Gabriel winks at Sam. "So. This is the Lord's generous offer. Sam Winchester's eternal suffering in exchange for putting your world, and its inhabitants, back to rights. The sun returns to the sky, and the dead monsters and demons return to Purgatory and Hell. Do you accept?"
Sam stands up straight, seeming to gather himself as he prepares to accept his doom. But no, no part of this is acceptable. Dean can't let this happen. He remembers sitting in Bobby's salvage yard, giving Sam his blessing to jump into Hell. Tacitly agreeing yes, you broke it, and I'm gonna stand back and let you fix it. That can't happen again. He can't live through that again.
Dean stomps across the room and positions himself between Sam and Gabriel. "I don't have a say?" he barks at his brother. "You wouldn't let me lock myself in a box forever to take care of Michael, and now you think I'm gonna let you do this? I'm supposed to just sit and watch and let it happen, like I'm one of the wailing women watching Jesus get crucified?"
"Guess again," Gabriel says. "Try Roman soldier."
What. What.
Dean turns to stare at Gabriel. "No."
"Dean," Sam sighs.
"No, Sam! He wants me to nail you to a cross! You cannot seriously expect me to go along with that!"
Gabriel clears his throat. "If you insist, God can certainly find someone else who'd be willing to perform this task."
Yes, someone else, anyone else. It's not gonna happen (oh Christ it's not gonna happen it can't happen) but if it does… if it does, it will have to be done by someone else.
But Sam shouts "wait!" at the angel again, his voice tight and panicky, and turns to Dean. "Listen, Dean." He runs a trembling hand through his hair. "This isn't my first crucifixion, okay?"
Oh, shit, that's something Dean didn't know, didn't need to know, didn't ever want to know.
"There are things that can make it worse, believe it or not," Sam continues. "I know you're not going to do those things. I don't know that about anyone else. So please. I know this is a lot to ask, but please, I need to know you're the one who's gonna do it."
Dean's back roaming the halls of the bunker, stalking Sam with fire in his veins and a hammer in his fist. He's standing over his kneeling brother in a Mexican restaurant, swinging a scythe and surprising even himself when he alters his trajectory at the last possible second. He thought he'd already done the worst possible things he could ever do to Sam. He was wrong.
"Sam, you understand this is gonna be Hell, right? This is just like being in Hell again."
"You think I don't know that? But that's why it's okay." He puts up a hand to stop Dean from interrupting him, as if Dean even had any coherent response to that. "When I first went to Hell, I expected it to stick. I expected to be in Hell forever. But I ended up getting out for a while and having a few good years that I wasn't supposed to have. I know it wasn't all a barrel of laughs, but I got to experience things I wasn't ever going to experience. I mean, Mom? Dad?" Sam puts on a sad approximation of a smile. "And now my break's over. And it's okay."
It's not. It's so far from okay, you can't even see okay from here. But Dean's never been able to save Sam from himself.
(Mom. Dad. Fuck. For the first time since Sam smashed that pearl, Dean's profoundly glad neither of them is here. They'd be so ashamed of him. You had one job, Dad would say. Mom would give him that pitying You did your best; too bad it wasn't enough look. Thank fuck they're not here.)
Sam turns to Gabriel. "We accept. We, ah, praise the Lord for His mercy and gratefully accept His generous offer."
Gabriel nods. "His will be done. It will take place three days from now. If Sam Winchester is not crucified on the third day, this world, and everyone and everything in it, will be destroyed." He looks up to the ceiling and closes his eyes for a moment. "And… there. All of your once-dead demons and monsters are dead again. See? Already things are looking up."
"Oh, sure they are," Dean says, fighting the urge to smash his fist right into the angel's smug face. "How are we supposed to trust you? How do we know Chuck's gonna do what you say He will?"
"Ah, Dean. That was always your problem. A lack of faith." Gabriel tilts his head to the ceiling again. "And now, behold; the Lord has given you a more visible token of His good faith. Accept it, or don't. It's your call." He turns to Sam. "Three days, Sammy."
There's a flutter of wings again, and he's gone.
Sam closes his eyes and slumps back against the table. Dean can't decide which he wants more - to punch the stubborn asshole, or to wrap his arms around him and promise it's not going to happen, that he's going to come up with a way out of this, no matter what. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and it takes a second to realize that this must be the more visible token of His good faith. To remember that cell service is something good, something important, something that hasn't happened in days. But cell phones don't seem particularly important right now. He pulls the phone out of his pocket and quickly flicks through the list of notifications flashing on the screen. No word from Cas. Jody and Donna are apparently alive, although somewhat panicked. The rest can wait.
"Sam," he says. His brother puts a hand over his eyes and ignores Dean entirely. "Sam. We are not doing this. I don't care what you promised. We're not doing it."
"Yes we are. I messed up. He's going to end the world unless I fix it."
"No!" Dean pounds a fist on the library table. "This is exactly what you wouldn't let me do with Michael. So what's different this time?"
Sam runs his hand back over his head, pushing his hair out of his eyes. He still won't look at Dean. "It's different because that was Michael. We've defeated archangels before. But this is God. We can't beat Him, Dean. Not without millions of people suffering in the process."
"There's got to be something we can do. Someone who can help. What about Rowena? We've got cell service now; can't you call her?"
Sam's face shutters. "Lucifer burned her. I'm not going to ask her to go up against God."
"Okay, then what about Billie? Death is stronger than God. Death is supposed to reap God eventually. Maybe she'll do it now."
"Yeah, I'm sure Billie would be willing to reap God in order to save my ass. Everything she's done so far tells me she'd love to step in."
"We don't know until we try, dammit!" Dean stretches out his arms and addresses the empty air above Sam's head. "Jessica! I know you're out there! Get your boss down here! We've got a situation!" He spins to take in every corner of the room, but there's no sign of their supposedly ever-present reaper. Or Billie.
"Face it, Dean," Sam sighs. "This is the only way." He glances down at the table. "So. Uh. Looks like we've got some work to do."
Dean follows his gaze. Somehow a sheet of paper has appeared on the table. He doesn't have to look at it to know what it is, but he picks it up anyway.
The plans are laid out in exacting detail, down to specifying the type of wood. Does the Home Depot in Grand Island even have acacia wood? Could that buy them some time? But a note at the bottom says all the tools and supplies can be found in the garage of the bunker. Well, then.
"We?" Dean says. "No, not we. You are not going to be any part of this." Because there's no way he's letting Sam build his own fucking crucifix.
Sam nods once, tight and grim. "Okay. Okay. I'll, just, ah." Then he turns on his heel and he's gone. Wherever he's retreating to, Dean is clearly not invited.
Dean pulls out his phone again and reads his texts. Looks like the dark shadow of God's anger isn't limited to the general vicinity of the Winchesters after all. He attempts a call to Cas, but as usual, there's no reception in Heaven. He scrolls through his texts. We're okay, he replies to those worth a reply. Working on fixing it. Everything is going to be okay.
Sure. Sam's going to be crucified for all of eternity and Dean's going to be the one pounding the nails into him. Nothing is ever going to be okay again. He picks up the plans again, then slams them on the table. It can wait until tomorrow. Right now he's going to start drinking.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
You know, Samuel, crucifixion didn't happen the way you see it in the movies. The upright part of the cross was a permanent installation. The crucified person was nailed to the cross piece, the patibulum, and then that was attached to the stipes, the upright piece.
It's a memory. It's not actually Lucifer sitting here in his room, lecturing him. It's not even a hallucination. It's just a memory. And that means all Sam has to do is stop remembering.
And the nails go through the wrists, not the hands. See how this nail through your palm rips right through? But your wrist, see here, how the bones are strong enough to hang from?
Yeah, he can shut this memory down any time now.
The flogging beforehand is important. It starts the process of dying. Usually you'd be in shock by the time they started driving the nails. I don't know if it's better this way, or worse. Because it's distracting, isn't it? Doesn't the agony in your back make it hard to feel me pounding spikes into your feet at this moment? No, that's okay; you don't have to answer right now. We'll skip the flogging next time and then you can let me know which is worse.
Sam arranges himself into the lotus position and closes his eyes. He wills his mind to empty. None of this is real, none of this is happening. His thoughts, these memories of Hell, are puffy white clouds. He can send them scurrying to the horizon, leaving a clear blue sky.
You're slowly suffocating, because your lungs can't expand. That's why you have to push up with your legs occasionally, to take a deeper breath. Of course, it's extremely painful, as you've noticed, and eventually you won't have the strength. It can take you several days to die if we do it this way. But if I break your legs - like this - there, see, you can't push up any more, can you? You'll suffocate in minutes. Don't worry. We'll do it the slow way too, so you get the full experience.
It's not real. It won't happen like this. It won't be Lucifer. It won't be deliberately crueler than it needs to be.
Crucifixion isn't about wanting someone to be dead. It's about wanting someone to suffer. It's about wanting someone to have a humiliating, excruciating death.
It will be worse. It will last forever.
Let's try this upside down next time, just for shits and giggles.
If only Dean were here, he might be able to distract him, to make sure his last days aren't spent alone with memories of the cage, to just be here and be with him. But if Dean were here, he'd be trying to talk him out of it. And Sam might not be strong enough to stick to his decision. So it's really for the best that he's alone. Really. He'll stop remembering Lucifer and he'll think about clouds again, and about watching their movement across the wide Kansas sky for the rest of eternity.
Any minute now.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
Friday
Unfortunately, Dean's hangover is not quite bad enough to actually kill him. He runs cold water over his head until some of the fog clears and then pads silently past his brother's closed door. If, somehow, Sam managed to fall asleep, Dean's sure as shit not going to wake him up.
Everything God shut down is still shut down. His token of good faith was limited to cell phone service. There's still no internet, TV, or radio. Or sunlight.
Sunlight doesn't seem as important today anyway. Even the weak glow of the work lights in the garage is enough to set Dean's head pounding. He walks past the shrouded cars, standing sentinel like a line of tombstones, to the work area in the back. And then stares, dumbfounded, at the supplies and equipment in front of him. A pair of sawhorses, a handsaw, and a log. Not lumber, but a fucking log.
"The Lord is feeling nostalgic. He desires that you start from scratch."
Dean whirls at Gabriel's voice behind him, his fight-or-flight reaction only slightly numbed by his powerful hangover.
Gabriel places a finger to Dean's forehead before he can jerk away. In a moment, his headache and nausea are gone. His tongue doesn't feel furry, his hands aren't shaking, and the light no longer feels like it's piercing his eyeballs. But he still kind of wishes he was dead.
"You're welcome," Gabriel says, with a smug smile.
"Fuck you," Dean replies.
"God loves you, you know."
"Oh, I know. I can feel it. Every time I think about Him wanting me to crucify my brother, I just feel the love oozing out of Him."
"He does. He loves you and your brother. But just like your earthly father, He has to punish His children when they misbehave. You do remember your brother tried to kill Him, right? Our Father has administered harsher punishments to people who simply disobeyed Him. What He's asking Sam to do is no worse than what He asked His own Son to do."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Jesus got to die and go to Heaven. He wasn't stuck on the cross for all of eternity."
"So the big guy likes to change it up sometimes. Can't expect the reboot to be a carbon copy of the original. Maybe it will just keep getting better and better. Worked for Spider-Man, right?"
"Well, I'm glad this is so amusing to you," Dean snaps. "What the fuck happened to you, anyway? I thought you were on our side, there at the end. Did Chuck restore you from an old backup or something?"
Gabriel shrugs. "I am what I am, and no more. I'm not on anyone's side. I'm the messenger."
Yeah, this definitely isn't the Gabriel they lost beyond the rift. Adding insult to injury; one of Chuck's specialties. "Message received. Now, how about you make yourself useful? Help me get this log on the sawhorses."
The angel obliges, hefting one end of the log, then settling onto the hood of an old Packard to watch Dean work. He sits silently as Dean chalks a guideline down the log. When Dean picks up the saw, Gabriel clears his throat.
"The Lord thy God requests that you praise Him while you work."
"He what?"
"He requests that you sing songs of praise while you work. That you praise His glory."
"Well, He can kiss my ass."
Gabriel gives him a long, level stare. "God would like to remind you that He could make things a lot worse than they are right now."
A lot worse than being forced to crucify your brother seems impossible. But if there's one thing Dean has learned by now, it's that every time he thinks the worst possible thing has happened, something even worse comes along and proves him wrong. So. Songs of praise it is.
Except he can't think of any. Try as he might, Dean can't think of a single hymn. The only thing that comes to mind is George Harrison. It will have to be good enough.
"My sweet Lord," he sings. "Oh, my Lord." When he looks up at Gabriel, the angel nods appreciatively. "I really want to know You, I really want to go with You…" Dean continues, breaking into the chorus of hallelujahs as he saws the acacia trunk into lumber for his brother's crucifix.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
Sam stares at the empty email window. It stares accusingly back at him. He's already set up messages to go to a few trusted people as soon as the Internet is restored, asking them to come take Dean away from the bunker for as long as they can manage it. But this last one is the hardest.
Don't do anything stupid, he types.
No. Backspace.
Don't try to fix it. Don't try to save me.
As if Dean would ever, in a million years, do what Sam told him to do. Backspace.
I had to do this. I know you didn't want it to happen. I know you don't think I deserve it. I know you think you can, and should, take care of it somehow. But you can't. I'm the one that pissed him off and I'm the one who has to fix it. This was the right thing to do. Please just let me do it.
There's so much more that needs to be said. Thank you and I'm sorry and go and live your life and don't stay around here thinking about me and goodbye.
But he's not going to try to type out any of that now. Right now he's going to find his brother.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
Dean is halfway through a bottle of whiskey, or tequila, or something, when Sam comes into library. He's pale and his eyes are rimmed with red and Dean has to swallow the urge to ask if he's okay, because obviously he's not. And obviously he'll lie about it.
"You, ah, you want anything to eat?" he says, instead. "I could make you a sandwich."
Sam shakes his head. "No, thanks. Don't know if I could hold it down."
Dean tilts the bottle toward him. "Drink?"
"Nah. Feel like I need to be sober for this."
Of course he does. Can't maintain the legendary Sam Winchester level of self-control if you're also on the legendary Dean Winchester regimen of self-medicating. "Well, that makes one of us. I, on the other hand, feel like I need to be drunk for this."
He expects Sam's pissy look, but his brother actually smiles a little bit. It's a small smile, and it fades quickly. "Yeah, I get that," Sam says. "I'm sorry this is on you. I know it's hard."
No, shit, that's not - "Hard for me? Sammy, you're the one who's gonna be…" He doesn't finish. He can't say it.
"And you're the one who has to do it. And I'm sorry. I guess I'm being selfish. So if you don't want to do it, I understand. I can tell Gabriel to find someone else."
"Jesus fucking Christ, Sam." (Is Chuck listening? Will Dean's blasphemy piss him off even further? Maybe he can make the asshole so mad that He'll forget what Sam did, and concentrate on punishing Dean instead.) "Don't you dare. If me being involved in this makes it the slightest bit easier on you, then I'm doing it. End of discussion."
Sam gives him another swift, sad little smile. His eyes are damp. He nods his thanks. (Thanks for agreeing to crucify him. For fuck's sake.)
Dean swallows his whiskey or tequila or whatever and claps a hand on Sam's shoulder. He forces himself to sound cheerful. "You wanna go watch something? I know Netflix won't work, but you've got DVDs, don't you?"
"Yeah." Sam's voice wobbles, just a little. "That sounds good."
They walk silently to Sam's room - Dean brings his bottle - and sit on his narrow bed, squeezed shoulder to shoulder. Sam presses play on whatever's already in the DVD player. It really doesn't matter, because neither of them are paying attention. Dean's only aware of the burn of alcohol, the weight of Sam sagging against him, and the ache in his arms from sawing the wood for his brother's crucifix. And the bottomless pit of his own failure.
He tries Cas again. Cas, I don't know where you are. I don't know if you can hear me. But if there's any way you can get here; please, man. I need your help. Sam needs your help.
There's no answer. He knew there wouldn't be. Maybe Chuck is blocking his prayers, or is keeping Cas away. Maybe Cas doesn't even care any more. Maybe they've finally gone too far. The bottom line is, if Dean's going to stop this runaway train, he's on his own. And there doesn't seem to be a way to stop it. Either Sam is trapped in literal torture for all of eternity, or the world ends.
Okay, but… is the end of the world really the worst case scenario? How much does it even matter, considering the whole thing was provided strictly for Chuck's amusement? Amara had promised darkness, peace, an end. No life, but no pain. That seems like a better alternative right now.
Does a world that relies on Sam enduring crucifixion forever even deserve to exist?
"Sam?" he asks quietly. "What if we don't have to fix it? You said you were done. I'm done too. But this. This is the opposite of being done. So what do you say we just let it go?"
Sam's voice is barely above a whisper. "You know I can't do that."
"But why not? When you shot Chuck, you knew the world would end if you killed him. And you were okay with it."
"I was wrong. I don't get to decide that for the whole world, Dean. I'm done. They're not."
"Yeah. Okay." It was a long shot.
They turn back toward the television, with Dean surreptitiously wiping his eyes and pretending not to notice Sam doing the same. Dean continues drinking, and eventually some combination of sleep and drunken unconsciousness takes over.
. . .
When he wakes up, he's alone, lying on top of the covers with a blanket thrown over him. If he goes outside, he knows the world will still be midnight-dark, but Sam's clock says it's Saturday morning. One more day.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
Saturday
Dean straddles the upright member of the cross (the stipes, the patibulum; words he never wanted to know) and then eases himself down until he's flat on his back. He stretches his arms out on the patibulum and tries not to imagine Sam in this position: flat on his back, arms outstretched, waiting to be crucified. He fails miserably.
No. Put that away and concentrate on the task at hand.
There's a rough spot under his right arm that needs to be sanded more. The place where the two members are joined isn't flat enough - there's a bit of a hump that presses against his back. It would cause muscle spasms after too long. He'll take the planer and shave that down.
And then he has to choke down an outburst of hysterical laughter, because he's trying to make Sam's crucifixion more comfy, like he's some kind of moron who doesn't realize he's building a cross, and Sam's going to be crucified on it, and it doesn't matter how smooth it is, there's nothing he can do to make it any better, nothing, nothing, nothing.
Or maybe there is.
He uses his heel to scuff through the sawdust on the stipes, marking where his foot hits it. There, right there. Well, a couple of inches lower, because it's Sam. He can put a little step there, a little support for Sam to rest his feet on. He'll put some pegs on the patibulum to hold Sam's arms up, to relieve the pressure on his wrists (on the fucking nails that will be ripping through his flesh). He marks the spots with his pencil and tries to feel good about it. He fails miserably.
But as he's sawing the piece for the step, he feels the flutter of angel wings. Dean doesn't have to look up to know that Gabriel is next to the cross, examining the new pencil marks.
"The Lord thy God requests that you stick to His plans, and not make any modifications."
"Oh, come on, Gabriel," Dean sighs. "Does it really matter? He's still gonna have nails sticking through him. He's still gonna be up there forever. You don't think that's enough?"
Gabriel leans over and smudges the pencil marks away with his thumb. "God is interested in Sam's eternal torment. And He knows how crucifixions work."
Yeah, He would. The bastard invented them. Dean pivots to face away from the fucking instrument of torture he's building. He wants to be anywhere but here. He wants to be doing anything but this. He wants to feel Sam's big hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake from this goddamn nightmare. He wants to throw his brother in the Impala and drive, just drive; put all of it behind them.
Then Gabriel's voice is in his ear, low and soft. "I mean, you understand the point of nailing people to things, don't you? This isn't exactly a new experience for you, is it? You've got a little expertise in this area. Or so I've been told."
Rising bile burns Dean's throat. The feeling is almost as real, almost as strong as the sudden, uninvited sense memory of pushing a spike against flesh (not real flesh, but Hell had ways of making it feel real) and feeling that instant of resistance before hammering it home, of slicing through muscle and splintering bone and pinning someone to the rack. The sound of tearing skin and the spike meeting wood and the victim pleading and sobbing and screaming, screaming -
He falls to his knees and chokes up a burning puddle of vomit that's pretty much just stomach acid and whiskey. When he stands up and turns back around, Gabriel is still standing there, lip curled in a familiar smirk.
Dean would give almost anything to have an archangel blade in his hand. All he has is a saw, and it would be so simple to run it across his own wrists and end this here and now, but there's no reason to believe Gabriel would let him off so easy. He points the saw at the angel. "Listen, you piece of flying shit," he growls, "I can make a banishing sigil and send you away, or you can leave under your own power. But either way, you need to be gone. Now."
"You understand what's going on here, right?" Gabriel says. "You made it too easy. He knows what Sam fears most. And He knows your worst nightmares about Hell aren't the ones when you're on the rack; they're the ones when you're off it. You practically wrote this for Him."
Fuck. Fuck. Dean wraps his hand around the saw blade and squeezes until it bites into flesh. He drops the saw to the ground and dips his finger in the blood pooling in his palm. Sinking to his knees, he begins to sketch the banishing sigil on the concrete floor.
"Touchy," Gabriel says. He throws up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Don't bother. I'm going." He doesn't fly; he walks.
Dean kicks the saw away and punches the closest car, leaving a bloody handprint on its dusty cover.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
Sam is staring at the last empty page in his legal pad when he hears Gabriel's knock on the library wall.
"Writing your last will and testament?" the angel asks.
As if Sam owns anything to bequeath. As if he's acquired anything in his 36 years on earth that would be important to anybody. The only beneficial things he has are in his head, and he's running out of time to do anything with them. He puts his pen down with a frustrated sigh. "What do you want, Gabriel?"
Gabriel shrugs and reaches out to take Sam's notepad. He flips through the quickly scrawled notes and tosses the pad back on the table, apparently having found nothing interesting. He moves over to Sam's pile of books, tilting his head to read the spines.
"Just checking," he says.
"And you were expecting…?"
"Eh, just seeing if you're trying to find a way out of our agreement. You guys have a reputation, you know."
"Well, I'm not. I'm trying to write down stuff I think Dean will need to know. Stuff about the bunker."
"So you think he's going to carry on, then. Live in the bunker, hunt monsters, all that."
"I don't know what he'll do," Sam replies honestly. "I'm just trying to make it easier for him if he does decide to stay here."
Gabriel settles into a chair and plops his feet onto the table. "Cause I gotta warn you, that's one thing Our Heavenly Father is concerned about. What Dean will do after."
Sam's concerned about that too. Very concerned. But probably not the same way Chuck is concerned. "What does He think Dean's going to do?"
"Well, He thinks there's a decent chance your brother won't let you keep your end of the bargain. He thinks Dean's going to say fuck this and yank you down from that cross. It might take a day or it might take a year, but odds are, Dean's not going to let you stay up there."
That does sound very much like something Dean would do, and Sam's heart clenches with a sudden fear. "You realize I can't stop him, right?" Sam says, "I'm fulfilling the deal, I swear, but I don't have any control over Dean even now, let alone once I'm…"
"Crucified?" Gabriel grins. "Yes. That's obviously a problem. And God's got a plan, but you're not going to like it." Probably not, because all of God's plans are horrific. Sam's pulse goes up a notch.
"See, He figures that if the general population knows why you're up on that cross, they won't let Dean take you down. All He has to do is make it known that your punishment saved the world. He's got a messenger, obviously." Gabriel points both thumbs back at himself. "And He's thinking about a star again. Right over Lebanon. The Star of Lebanon has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? People will come from all over to see. They'll make pilgrimages. You'll have an audience, 24/7. If Dean tries to get you off the cross, they'll tear him limb from limb, for fear that God will become angry again."
Oh no, no, no. When Sam imagined how his crucifixion could be made worse, he limited himself to the physical aspect, to Lucifer's games. He had stupidly never considered what Chuck might add to the horror. Suffering in front of an audience. People watching, knowing that it was all his fault.
"Don't worry," Gabriel continues, seemingly oblivious to Sam's heartbeat echoing loudly through the library. "He might just call you the sacrificial lamb who saved the world. He might not let them all know you're the one who caused Him to lash out in anger in the first place. They'll only know you sacrificed yourself to appease Him. The Vatican might even make you a saint. Saint Samuel Winchester. Sounds nice, doesn't it?"
No, it sounds like something Lucifer would have come up with. Sam's sinking, sinking, and the Devil is laughing.
"Sammy? You doing okay, big guy? You look a little grey."
"Gabriel, please," he stammers. "Don't let Him do this. Please, you've got to talk Him out of it."
Gabriel picks calmly at a cuticle. "I don't know, man. He thinks it's a great idea. Thinks it might be the only way to make sure Dean doesn't sabotage the plan."
"Please, I'm begging you. There's got to be something you can do." Sam has never groveled, never begged for his life, but the image of his perpetual crucifixion playing out in front of a jeering audience is about to break him.
"Wellllll." The angel draws out the word with a dramatic sigh. "Okay. I'll talk to Him. Maybe I can get Him to hold off on that. If you can prevent Dean from doing anything right off the bat, God might be willing to take a wait-and-see approach." Gabriel points a finger gun at Sam and disappears.
Sam tries to continue his notes, but his hand is shaking too hard to hold the pen.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
After he finishes sanding the cross, Dean heads straight into the kitchen. The beer he pulls out of the fridge sticks to his bloody hand. He probably should wash that. And he would, if he gave a shit about anything right now. Instead, he chugs the beer and grabs a second one. But the end of this day really calls for whiskey. Dean finishes his second beer and takes a couple of long swigs of whiskey straight from the bottle before moving into the library.
Sam isn't sitting at his usual spot, which is currently marked by a small stack of books and a notepad. Is he playing everything is fine so hard that he's actually doing research? Dean flips through the yellow pad. Page after page of Sam's handwriting. Not as neat as it normally is. Things about the bunker that he tried to teach Dean (and Dean refused to listen because those were Sam's things and Dean would never need to know them). Lists of lists. All of the Enochian lock codes for mysterious doors and boxes written out phonetically, because Dean's grasp of Enochian was never as good as Sam's.
(There's a reason for that, and it makes Dean shudder.)
Sam himself is pacing restlessly. When he spots Dean, he comes toward him with that stubborn look on his face, like he's got to convince Dean to do something he really doesn't want to do. Joke's on him. Dean's already agreed to do the worst thing possible. Anything else Sam wants can only be an improvement.
"Listen, Dean," he says. "I need you to do something for me."
"Anything." Dean takes another long drink.
"I need you to promise not to try to get me off that cross. Ever."
Oh, okay, anything but that.
"Sam, you know I have to -"
"No, you don't. Please."
"Listen, dude. You're the one who's always saying we have a choice. You're the one who told me to never give up."
"Not this time."
"So you think I'm just gonna live here, with you hanging from a cross right outside, and never try to do anything about it?"
"No. You shouldn't live here at all. You should leave. Tomorrow, after, you should do what Larry Ganem told me to do when he gave me the key to the bunker. Throw the key inside, lock the door, and walk away forever."
Jesus. Why does Sam always think Dean can let something awful happen to his little brother and then just skip off down the road and lead a happy apple-pie life?
"You're shitting me, right? Leave you here alone?"
"Why do you need to stay here? What do you think you're going to do for me?"
Dean puts a hand over his face. The smell of blood and sawdust is nauseating. "What I'm going to do for you." He has to stop and collect himself. "What I'm going to do is not leave you here alone. Even if that's the only thing I can do." Oh, fuck, this is too much like Hell. This is too much like going to Stull Cemetery just so Sam won't die alone.
"Okay. But that is all you can do. Will you promise me that, Dean? Will you promise me to leave it alone? To leave me up there and not try to undo it?"
Sam is pale and shaky. His infuriatingly calm mask is cracking again, revealing the pure terror underneath. He needs this. There's no telling why, but he needs it. And maybe it's the only need Dean can fulfill.
"Okay, Sam. I promise."
Sam retreats to his room again, and Dean stays in the library with his bottle of whiskey. Sam's entirely wrong about staying sober for this part. Sober Dean is nothing but fury and despair. Drunk Dean is also nothing but fury and despair, but at least he might be able to pass out for a few hours.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
Sunday
Sam's alarm goes off at 8:00 a.m. Maybe Chuck is going to be a stickler about having exactly three days, and maybe he isn't, but there's no reason to take chances. And it's not like he was going to sleep anyway.
He takes a last look at his room. It doesn't contain anything he really cares about, so. That's that.
Dean is nursing a cup of coffee in the kitchen. Straight coffee, as far as Sam can tell by the aroma. Apparently this part requires sobriety. His brother looks like he's slept about as much as Sam has. He puts the cup down and stares solemnly up at Sam. "We can still stop this," he says, without preamble. "You don't have to go through with it. No one would blame you."
Sam swallows a desperate please because he doesn't know if he'd end up saying please stop trying to talk me out of what I have to do or please, yes, make this stop, oh please. "I'd blame me," he says. "And I have a feeling the rest of the world would, too."
"Fuck the rest of the world," Dean says. "Why would they blame you? They won't have any idea that Chuck's punishing them because of you."
"Yeah, I'm actually pretty sure they would."
"Okay, you're probably right, cause that sounds like something Chuck would do. But how do we know He won't get pissed or bored tomorrow and send an asteroid, and then they'll all die anyway from something you don't even have the power to stop? They're not guaranteed a life. You don't owe them a goddamn thing, Sam."
Yes, Chuck might decide to end the world tomorrow, but it won't be on Sam. It won't be Sam's fault, because Sam will have done everything required of him to stop it, and that's what matters. He swallows, and tries to speak, and tries again. But even if he could get words to come out, he doesn't know what they would be. Instead, he bows his head and heads toward the garage, trusting that Dean will follow.
The cross is in the back of the garage, surrounded by piles of sawdust and a few spattered bloodstains. It's smaller than he'd pictured, but its reduced scale doesn't make it any less horrifying. Sam bends to pick up the top end and groans under the weight. The wood is surprisingly smooth, all its rough edges sanded away. As Dean picks up an ominously clunking canvas bag, Sam hefts the cross over his shoulder and drags it toward the garage door. He stops in surprise when he feels Dean pick up the other end.
"You think that's gonna be allowed?" he says, without turning around.
"Hey, Jesus didn't carry his own cross either, so, if Chuck's after authenticity, I think we're okay."
They begin the slow trudge up the hill behind the bunker. Clouds obscure any stars that would have been visible. It's too bad. It would be nice to see stars again, even the threatened Star of Lebanon. Sam didn't think to bring a flashlight - he's not exactly in full practicality mode - but Dean points his own far enough ahead to light the way for both of them. Once they've gone a few dozen feet up the hill, beyond the glow from the open garage door, Dean clicks off the light.
"Check it out, Sam."
It's no longer completely dark. There isn't an obvious sunrise yet, but the sky is clearly paler than it was when they left the bunker, lightening into a dull grey. "Well," Sam says. "I guess that's a good sign." He doesn't allow himself to hope Chuck has decided to bring the sun back regardless of whatever happens on top of this hill. There isn't any room for hope today.
They continue their climb. It's still too dark to discern the scorched earth marking the location of Jack's pyre. They both look away anyway.
Sam hadn't really thought about the logistics of crucifixion, beyond the obvious. But someone did. When they reach the summit, there are supplies waiting for them. A post hole digger, a wheelbarrow, a bag of quick-drying concrete, a shovel, and a bucket of water. Dean doesn't seem surprised to see them. "The Lord provides," he says, with a grimace.
"All right," says Sam, reaching for the post hole digger. "I'll dig, you mix?"
Dean snatches the tool from his hand. "No. I'll dig. I'll mix. You sit."
"Come on, Dean. You don't have do all of this yourself."
"Why?" Dean snaps. "Are you in a hurry to get to the good part?" Then he sags and slides a hand down his face. "Shit. I'm sorry, man. It's just… let me do it, okay? Just let me do it."
"Yeah. Okay. Okay."
Sam lowers himself to sit on the cross, one foot on each side. He looks out at the slowly lightening sky and the horizon gradually fading into view and tries not to hyperventilate. When Dean finally stops and stands in front of him, the color of the sky has barely changed, even though enough time has passed to dig a hole for the cross and mix a wheelbarrow of cement.
"Listen," Dean says. "You change your mind at any point, you just say the word. I don't care how far along we are. One word from you and it stops. Got it?"
Being in control should make it better. It doesn't. Well, it's not like he really has any kind of control, no matter how much Dean tries to make it feel that way. There are no options.
Dean sits down on the cross in front of him, mirroring him, so close that their knees are touching. He leans forward and presses his forehead against Sam's. "I would have done anything," he murmurs. "You know that, right?"
Sam nods his I know and goes down, laying himself out onto the smooth, sanded wood. His legs are still on either side of the cross, his feet planted on Kansas soil for the last time. He stretches his arms onto the patibulum and stares up at the pearly grey sky. He does not look at Dean. He hears his brother sigh deeply, hears him groan as he pulls himself up to stand, hears him rustling in his bag, and does not look. Cannot look.
Eventually Dean kneels at Sam's left side. "You, ah, got any meditation techniques? Should I do this between heartbeats or something?"
Sam closes his eyes. "Just do it. There's nothing you can do to make it any better. Just get it over with."
"Okay. Okay."
Dean carefully picks up Sam's lax left arm and rolls up his sleeve. He removes the watch Sam forgot to leave behind and, after a thoughtful pause, buckles it onto his own wrist. He turns Sam's hand over and traces a finger over the old scar on his palm, deliberately, as if he's trying to commit it to memory. For one desperate second Sam wants him to shove his fingernail into the scar hard enough to break the skin, to assure him that this is actually happening. But there is plenty of real-world pain to come.
Dean puts the arm back down just as carefully, gently settling the back of Sam's hand against the wood. The bag rustles again, and then there is the unexpectedly distinct point of a spike against his wrist. Dean must have sharpened it to go in easier.
It was so wrong to ask his brother to do this. So wrong, so selfish. Dean will never get over it. But it's too late to fix it. All Sam can do is breathe and wait and breathe and wait, and finally Dean brings the mallet down hard and fast, with a sound that's somewhere in between a grunt and a sob, and the spike pierces Sam's wrist.
It's not Sam's first crucifixion, but it's the first one topside, and it's worse than he even thought possible.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
Sam doesn't scream. He gasps, his free hand claws desperately at the wood beneath it, he arches his back and twists his body away from the pain, away from what Dean's doing to him, but he doesn't scream.
Dean plants a hand on his brother's heaving chest. Maybe Sam can feel it. Maybe Sam knows it's an attempt to say I'm sorry and fuck you for making me do this to you and I'm proud of you and please forgive me and seriously, fuck you for making me live through this when we both could have been done forever.
Eventually Sam's breaths even out and his right hand rests limp and trembling against the cross. His left hand is already stained red, a rivulet of blood obscuring the old scar on his palm (stone number one, make me your stone number one) and dribbling onto the ground. He quickly flicks his eyes toward Dean, then clenches them closed again. "Keep going," he gasps. "It's okay."
(No, shut up, don't you dare tell me this is okay.)
"And he stretched out his arms upon the cross and offered himself, in obedience to Your will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world."
Dean jumps to his feet at the sound of the archangel's voice. Gabriel is standing a few feet beyond the top of the cross. Almost, but not quite, in punching distance. Dean almost goes for it anyway; almost swings his mallet right in the bastard's smug face.
"What the fuck do you want?" he shouts.
"Just here for the show," Gabriel says. "Look at you, nailing baby brother to a board. I didn't think you'd really do it."
"Please, Gabriel." Sam's voice is weak and raspy, as if all the screaming he didn't do took its toll on his throat anyway. "We're doing what you want. Please, just leave us alone."
Gabriel gazes down lovingly at Sam. "See, this is what I'm talking about. A man willing to submit to eternal torture to right his wrongs and save the world. His brother, willing to let the world burn in order to save him. This is why I love you guys. It's so epic." He doesn't take his eyes off Sam's face as he circles around the cross. He stops next to Dean, easily in Sam's line of sight now. Sam suddenly gasps in horror, and when Gabriel looks up at Dean again, his amber eyes have turned pale blue. What the everloving fuck.
"I set you up for a perfect Isaac and Abraham sacrifice, a beautiful homage to one of my favorite stories." Gabriel's transformation continues. His hair goes salt-and-pepper; his chin softens and sprouts a short beard. "But this one would have been even more tragic, since Isaac wouldn't have been spared. It would have been one of the saddest and most beautiful dramas I've ever seen. And you denied me."
Dean's standing toe-to-toe with Chuck. With God. His mouth opens uselessly. He hears Sam stammer something, maybe Dean, but he can't look away.
"So, we here we are again." Chuck spreads his arms wide. "Do you get it yet, boys? I can, and will, make you do anything I want. You think you have free will? You still think you can write your own ending? Spoiler alert: You can't. This may be a choose-your-own-adventure story, but don't kid yourself. The only options are the ones I give you."
"You sick, sadistic fuck," Dean spits.
Chuck smiles. "I warned you when we first met that I am a cruel and capricious God. Not that this punishment was capricious at all. It was earned."
Dean can't find words to respond to that, but Sam takes a shuddering breath and says, through clenched teeth, "What do You want us to do?"
"Well, that's a good question, Sam. I'm going to give you two choices. And I think it's Dean's turn to decide." Chuck goes down on one knee, too fucking close to Sam, and rests a hand on his bloody wrist. "Door number one, we continue this storyline. You endure perpetual crucifixion; Dean lives out a sad, lonely, guilt-ridden existence in your shadow. But I'll sweeten the pot. In this storyline, monsters don't hunt humans any more. Only other monsters." He grins up at Dean, his eyes twinkling with glee.
No; the word is poised on Dean's lips. No and fuck You and door number two might be that You end the world, but I don't care any more; let it end.
"Or, door number two. We forget this ever happened, and things go back the way they were. All the monsters. And you two doing what I love, the same things you've always done. Live. Die. But not for too long." Chuck winks. "Save people. Hunt things. Love people, lose people. Carry on with the family business. Give me a good story."
Door number two is too good to be true. Dean plays Chuck's words over and over in his head. Back the way they were. Sam escapes eternal crucifixion. The only person who could possibly reject that offer is… well, it's Sam himself. Sam's still and quiet on the cross, giving Dean a pleading look. The look that says don't worry about me; save people, save yourself. Yeah; fuck that too.
"What's it gonna be, Dean?"
"Two," he says. Quickly, before Chuck can snatch the option away from him. "Back how it used to be. We hunt. We entertain you."
"Ah, good." Chuck beams at him like a proud father. He pushes Sam's hair back from his sweaty forehead and bends low to murmur something in his ear. Dean can't hear what he says, but Sam stares at Chuck wide-eyed and fearful, like an animal caught in a trap. Then Chuck moves his hand away from Sam's wrist. Sam takes in a pained gulp of air and lurches upright, no longer pinned to the cross. His wrist is whole and unbloodied. Dean's knees almost buckle in relief. This; this is all that mattered. This is all he needed.
Sam rubs his healed arm and continues to stare fearfully at Chuck. "I'm glad we were able to come to this agreement," Chuck says, as he stands up. He glances toward the freshly dug hole. "I think you better erect that cross anyway. We'll call it… no, not a commandment. How about a memorandum of understanding. Wouldn't want any of us to forget what we're supposed to be doing. Or not doing." He nods toward Dean, then Sam. "See you soon, boys." Then he's gone.
Oh, Jesus fuck. It's impossible to breathe for a minute. The clouds have thinned and the sky is beginning to lighten further, as if it shares his relief.
Dean drops to his knees in front of his brother. "Are you okay?" he asks, grabbing Sam's arm.
"Yeah. I think so." In the increasing light, Sam's wrist isn't as pristine as it first appeared. The bloody wound is gone, but there is a small cross-shaped scar where the spike pierced him. Sam painstakingly rolls his shirt sleeve down and buttons it, securely covering the mark. He stares into the distance, rubbing his wrist. His hand moves down to press the old scar on his palm. Dean's stomach lurches.
"It's real," Dean says. "You. Me. Chuck. This is all real. No Lucifer."
"Yeah," Sam sighs, still staring out at the gradually lightening landscape. "It's just. This is the kind of thing he'd do, you know? The last minute reprieve that's really just a fake-out. The so-called choice, where you get tricked into picking the bad option."
"What do you mean, the bad option?"
"You should have picked the first one," Sam's voice is still pain-roughened. He's still looking at his feet or the horizon or basically anything that isn't Dean. "People would have been safe from monsters. That's the whole point, isn't it?"
"Jesus, Sam," Dean laughs bitterly, because shit, it's like his brother doesn't know him at all. "No, that's not the point. The point is that you're not crucified forever. Sure, monsters will kill people. Monsters have been killing people since people and monsters were invented. So nobody is worse off than they already were. And we're here to save them. Both of us. That's the point."
"Yeah, and it's all just a soap opera for Chuck. How is that a good thing?"
"I don't care, Sam. I. Do. Not. Fucking. Care." All he cares about is that Sam is safe. All he cares about is that he's not going to be living in the shadow of his perpetually-crucified brother. "Look. I am not going to have a conversation about whether I should have chosen to let you be tortured for all of eternity. It's not up for discussion."
He offers a hand and pulls Sam to his feet. Sam rubs his thumb into his palm again, as if he doesn't even realize he's doing it. "Did you hear what he said to me?"
"No. What?"
Sam finally looks him in the eye. "He said you're done when I say you're done, and not a minute sooner."
Oh. Shit. Now Dean is the one who has to look away, because he doesn't want to see the accusation there: He's just like you, He doesn't want me to decide when I get to die. But that's different. Dean did that for good reasons. Only for good reasons. Never for entertainment value.
"You know what that means," Sam continues. "It means that if He doesn't want me to stay dead, I won't stay dead. And if He does want me dead, there's nothing you can do to bring me back. So, maybe you just don't try."
Or maybe Dean keeping Sam alive was Chuck's idea all along. Maybe he's just an instrument of God. It wouldn't be the first time. "I've got an idea," Dean says. "Let's not talk about that either. Ever. Okay?"
Sam gives in, for once. He stands silently for a minute with his hands shoved into his pockets. "So," he eventually says, "I guess we need to get this in the ground before the concrete hardens."
Yes. Something to do. A mindless task is exactly what they need right now.
It takes both of them to wrestle the cross into its setting. How was he supposed to do that alone? He wasn't, obviously. Chuck always knew which door Dean would pick. Sam is pale and shaky as they maneuver the cross, swaying on his feet. He's woozy from three days without food or sleep. Or maybe from almost being crucified. Once the cross is securely in place, Dean orders him to sit, and he doesn't argue. He practically collapses on the cold dirt and rubs his shoulder. Dean forgot, with all of this new crap, about that wound. It's something he needs to worry about at some point. But not right now.
Without Sam holding the cross straight as Dean shores it up with concrete, it ends up listing to the side. He could not care less. Let its crookedness be one tiny fuck you screamed into the void. Dean tosses the shovel aside and notices the handle is streaked with blood. He wipes his hands on his jeans. Guess he should take care of that injury after all.
"You okay?" he asks Sam again, as if he's going to tell the truth this time.
"Yeah. I guess. I think I could use that drink now."
"You and me both."
Dean keeps a hand hovering by Sam's elbow, ready to catch him if he stumbles, as they make their way back down the hill. By the time they get to the garage, the scrubby grass at their feet is lit with garish color. Dean turns to look back up the hill. The first sunrise in several days should be a welcome sight, but the dark silhouette of the crooked cross, against a wash of fiery orange and blood red, is as ugly as anything he ever saw in Hell.
Tomorrow there will be hunts to find. Monsters to kill. But today he's going to feed his brother and then they're both going to crawl into a bottle. Chuck can entertain himself for one more day.
° † ° † ° † ° † ° † ° † °
(I mean, this is what I would do, if I were God.)