SPN BigBang: Above and Below, Part 4
See masterpost for summary, rating and further information.
Getting out of Heaven isn’t hard. Jimmy Novak has left Heaven countless times, and even though he was rarely aware during those events, he was aware often enough to see how it goes: You’re in Heaven, and then you’re not.
Angels move between Heaven and earth the same way they move between different spots downstairs. Jimmy’s soul just gets pulled along from wherever it is the moment Castiel wants to leave and finds itself on earth in his old body. Or some kind of material projection of his old body. He’s not even sure about that anymore.
The point is that leaving Heaven the way the angels do it is out of the question for Sam.
But Jimmy has been here a long time. He knows there are other ways - backdoors angels sometimes take when they leave Heaven without permission. When they fly down the usual way, they leave a signature that tells everyone they’ve gone. The doors are just… doors. And they are always open.
The tricky thing is finding them.
Naturally, they are in spots where no one would happen to step through them by accident. And they are being used by beings who can fly. Already having a bit of an idea, it doesn’t take Jimmy a lot of research, in the end, to find one conveniently just outside the great hall.
He has no clear memory of it, but Jimmy has the distant impression that Castiel, or rather the thing he has become, has repeatedly used it in recent times. Perhaps he, too, needs to hide every now and then.
The difficult part is getting there. From beside the throne Jimmy could basically see it if it weren’t invisible, but Sam is in chains and the hall is never entirely empty of angels.
So getting rid of the chains is Jimmy’s first task. Waiting for a convenient moment is part of it. Then he has to get Sam to the right spot and hope he makes it.
And then, finally, he has to wait for the New God’s wrath.
He’s going to make Sam promise. Jimmy will only free him if he promises he’ll find Claire even before finding Dean and makes sure she won’t consent to becoming his successor as Castiel’s vessel.
But first he has to figure out how get Sam out of here in the first place. He already checked the chains - they have no weak spots, the shackles no lock. It’s all been created by the minds of the New God and his angels. Nothing Jimmy is capable of doing could break them.
Or so he thinks - until he gives a hard tug on one of the chains going through Sam’s wings and the whole tings comes rattling down on them. It was merely a gesture of his frustration and Jimmy is so taken by surprise that the heavy thing nearly falls right on his head.
It doesn’t, because it somehow stops existing before it touches him.
That’s admittedly odd, but Jimmy doesn’t waste time on thinking about it. He quickly looks around if anyone has seen what he did, but the only two angels currently present in the hall are right on the other end and don’t look in their direction.
Sam doesn’t make a sound and doesn’t move so no one will notice until he’s free to start running. He listens intently as Jimmy explains to him where the door is. Castiel’s vessel will accompany him to the balcony and then stay behind and await his fate.
While he works he brings up his daughter. To his utter dismay, Sam shakes his head.
“Come with me,” he says instead. “You’re right, Cas won’t be happy with you. Maybe he really will kill you. But maybe he won’t. The way he is right now, you might be taking my place here soon enough and your daughter will still be in danger.”
“I can’t.” Just the idea is absurd, even though Jimmy is beginning to understand that non-existence might not be the worst thing to happen to him. “He’ll find me wherever I am. And then he’ll find you.”
“I can get you to a safe place. Please, Jimmy!”
“No. I won’t.” All the time, Jimmy did little more than watch as the angels tortured Sam. He won’t endanger him like this, now.
Besides, he is painfully aware that a father in hiding could never offer the same protection to his daughter as a promise binding a king of Hell.
“I won’t let you die for me. If you stay, so will I.”
Jimmy gulps. Audibly. “What about Dean?”
“I’m confident that you’re not stubborn enough to let him come to harm.”
One of the angels is looking in their direction. Only seconds now and he’ll notice that the chains are gone. There is no more time to lose over this debate.
So Jimmy pulls Sam to his feet and runs with him. They are almost to the window by the time they hear shouts behind them. Only seconds now and Sam is stumbling, shouldn’t even be able to stand, let along run, after who-knows-how-long he’s been chained. Jimmy hasn’t even completely made up his mind yet. He might just let Sam fly and stay behind. Push him off the balcony himself if he has to. But then they reach the edge and suddenly Sam’s arms wrap around him and Sam’s voice calls in his ear, “Hold on tight! On earth I can’t summon my wings.”
The words don’t even make sense to Jimmy because he can’t think. Hands that are not Sam’s reach for him and then the ground is gone from beneath his feet and he can’t tell up from down, doesn’t even know if he’s flying or falling. He only wonders how Sam can even fly with his wings full of holes…
…and then he really is falling, no doubt about it, because after a second of feeling like he left his stomach somewhere above him, he hits the ground. Hard.
Actually, he mostly hits Sam who somehow ended up under him. But that still is hard and painful, and the parts of Jimmy that doesn’t hit Sam still hit the ground. Admittedly, it is grass and not concrete, but even that is anything but pleasant.
But it seems they got off lightly. The fall wasn’t that far, so the hole in the fabric of whatever must have spit them out not that high above the ground. It could have been much worse, and Jimmy wonders if they would have been able to figure out a way to save themselves in the time it took to fall twenty thousand feet if they’d been returned that high.
Then he thinks about how he almost send Sam through this alone, not knowing he can’t fly on this side. And how he didn’t think Sam could fly anyway, so what kind of awful plan did he come up with here? And then he remembers that he didn’t think it would matter because Sam is dead anyway and shouldn’t be able to die, which leads to the thought that he’s dead himself, so what in Heaven’s name did he just hurt? It certainly wasn’t his body.
And if he is hurt, what about Sam who hasn’t been so healthy to begin with?
In a hurry, Jimmy gets off the boy, but Sam doesn’t move. Worry stabs Jimmy like a knife until he notices how Sam is looking up to the sky with an expression of quiet awe on his face. He’s still naked and his body is still covered in wounds. Now he’s no longer chained and bend over, Jimmy can see the full extend of the damage dealt.
Sam’s wings, as predicted, are gone.
The angels Jimmy half-expected to follow after them don’t show up. It’s not that much of a surprise, actually - these doors to earth don’t have a set exit like devil’s gates do. Whoever uses them determines where they end up, although that process is rather rough and vague. Perhaps they were dropped out this close to the ground because the gate picked up on Jimmy’s wish not to go splat after a ten thousand feet fall. Or it’s all random in their case because only angels can use the doors at will.
In any case, the angels from the hall can’t follow them because they don’t know where they went. Still, Jimmy can’t imagine Heaven is going to need very long to find them.
Trying to get his bearings, Jimmy sits up and back, away from Sam. He’s wearing his suit, he realises, but not the trench coat Castiel used to be so fond of.
At the thought of his angel something inside him twists, but he is quickly distracted by his surroundings. As it seems, they have landed on a meadow. In a park. In board daylight. And while he can’t see anyone around, Jimmy can hear the unconcerned voices of people not too far away.
And he’s sitting beside an injured, naked man. Bad impressions are unavoidable if someone walks in on them.
Suddenly Jimmy wishes he had his coat, if only because he could use it to cover Sam. Spare himself the embarrassment and offer Sam a little dignity, if nothing else.
Sam doesn’t seem to even have noticed his public nakedness so far, or if he does, he doesn’t care. He’s still lying there, looking at the sky, and Jimmy notices that his eyes are no longer black. They look normal enough on first sight. Only on second glance does Jimmy see that the irises are no longer the hazel he vaguely remembers but yellow. Almost golden.
Actually, they seem to be glowing a little.
“What now?” Jimmy asks. “Where are we?”
“Boston,” Sam informs him, as if that were obvious.
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
Okay, maybe a demon knows something like that. An angel’s vessel definitely doesn’t.
Sam’s bandages are once again soaked through and he’s seeping into the grass. Jimmy would like to guide the boy’s attention to that fact and then try to get some information on what Sam is planning to do now, but they find themselves surrounded by strangers before he can even open his mouth.
Five people, men and women, who seemingly appeared out of nowhere. They look harmless enough but for the fact that they are all, for some reason, wearing sunglasses. It’s not that sunny.
So they look like a bunch of hired killers. Jimmy’s first reaction it to jump, and their first reaction upon seeing him is draw knifes.
Knifes. Not swords. These are not angels.
“Wait,” Sam says suddenly, his voice sharp. “It’s not him.”
“Looks like him,” one of the men says, sounding very suspicious. They don’t step closer, but they don’t lower their weapons either.
“This is Jimmy, his vessel.” Sam glares up at them from where he’s sitting on the ground. “He helped me. Put those away!” He nods at the blades and at once they all disappear beneath jackets or in folds of their shirts. Jimmy’s remembered heart skips a few beats when he realises that they thought he was Castiel and would have killed him (or worse) if Sam hadn’t stopped them. (Probably worse, since he’s already dead.)
One of the women offers her hand and Sam lets himself he pulled to his feet. He doesn’t seem at all bothered by his lack of clothing, and neither is anyone else. Anyone but Jimmy, that is, who does his best not to look in Sam’s direction.
Funny, considering he’s seen him naked for weeks.
“What happened to Dean?” Sam asks. “Where is he?”
Someone finally hands him a robe and he wraps it around himself without comment. It’s black and long and looks completely out of place. Surrounded by the sunglassed group, Sam looks more like the leader of a sect than anything else.
It finally dawns on Jimmy who these people are and why they are wearing sunglasses. One of them hands a pair to Sam to hide his glowing yellow eyes. It does nothing to make him look less odd.
“It was Meg,” the one who gave him the glasses says. Sam turns sharply, baring his teeth.
“Are you sure?” he hisses.
“Absolutely. Some guy saw him get taken. Didn’t even know what he saw. We found Meg’s vessel, too - she was still a little alive. Remembered that Meg wants Dean for-”
“I know what she want him for,” Sam interrupts him. He looks around and Jimmy does the same, noting a few people at the far end of the green who stand staring at them. Probably just passer-bys who wonder about the odd group, but he doesn’t have any desire to find out if he’s right.
Sam seems to have the same thought even though he looks like he would much rather go and kill something. Jimmy can hardly suppress a shiver when he looks at him. The unnatural calmness the boy king displayed all through his captivity disappeared when he learned what happened to his brother.
Regardless, his voice is still rather calm when he says, “We’ll go home for now. Is anyone else here?”
“No. The others are making sure we still have a home to return to,” a woman with long blonde hair and black clothes says. Sam nods his approval.
“Good.”
“What about him?” the woman points at Jimmy who doesn’t like the attention.
“We’ll take him with us.”
The guy who gave the sunglasses - a short man in his early twenties - throws Jimmy a look through his own glasses, then shrugs. Apparently he’s lost his aversion when he learned he’s not facing a god.
Jimmy has no choice but to follow them as they walk out of the park. They don’t make it further than a hundred yards, though, when suddenly Sam grabs his arm and Jimmy’s standing on a different meadow, this one not belonging to any park. It reminds him of the way Castiel moves on earth, except that it feels completely different.
They emerged in the shadow of a tree. Before them is a hill and the mouth of a cave, not much higher than Jimmy himself, leads inside, lined by stones.
The stones are covered in symbols.
“This is one of the oldest devil’s gates there are,” the short guy explains when he notices Jimmy’s interest. “It’s been here since long before the middle ages. You actually have to know how to use it, otherwise you’ll just end up in a cave.”
“How do I use it?” Jimmy asks.
“I’ll take you along,” Sam offers. But before he does, he hesitates for a second. “It’s Hell,” he says, as if he had to remind Jimmy of that detail. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Heaven’s not that much fun either,” Jimmy says bravely. It’s not even true - Heaven is wonderful. That’s why it’s Heaven. But it’s been spoiled for him lately, by Cas becoming something else, by the terrible task of caring for an abused prisoner, and finally by the threat of gruesome torture upon being taken back there. As a deeply religious man he never thought he’d ever see it like this, but right now Hell is the lesser of two evils.
Sam takes him by the hand without another word and maybe Jimmy holds on a little too tightly as he is led through something he can’t define; like a storm without wind, a long walk on nothing that’s over in a second.
He closes his eyes without meaning to and when he opens them again, Jimmy finds himself on a large field of dead grass, beside a hill. Before him there are dead, leafless trees. The sky is the colour of sulphur - just looking at it, Jimmy things he can smell the terrible stink.
It takes him a second to realise that he really is smelling sulphur. It’s faint, though, not nearly as strong as he expected.
A hot, dry wind is blowing, carrying with it noises Jimmy eventually identifies as screams. He shudders. This is Hell. This really, truly Hell, and he willingly walked into it.
Against his will he wonders if Castiel knows yet of their escape. How he feels about his vessel going to Hell rather that staying with him.
If his family is still safe.
“Sam,” he says. “My daughter…”
“Cas won’t hurt her,” Sam says before he can finish. “Not yet. But if he wanted to, there would be nothing anyone could do to stop him.”
Jimmy stops on the spot. He knows Sam is right - Cas is a God now; what could any of them possibly offer to fight him? But if that was supposed to comfort him, then Sam has gone further from being human than he originally assumed.
Right now, Jimmy wants nothing more than get out and run to his family. He hasn’t seen them for so long, not the real them. He’s basically corporal now, for whatever reason. He’s just himself, without an angel riding him, and he could touch them…
And he knows he wouldn’t be doing them a favour, would only tear open old wounds and lead the angels straight to them; but he still longs for them and wants to see with his own eyes that they are safe.
The boy king’s attention, however, has already moved on. The wind tears at Sam’s hair and robe. His face is dark when he looks around. “That long?” he says quietly.
“He’s been gone for months,” the blonde woman confirms. It seems absurd to Jimmy - there’s no way that much time has passed between Dean’s last visit and now. But then he remembers that time moves faster here. And he doesn’t even know for sure how much time has passed in Heaven. For Sam, it was certainly longer than for him.
Sam starts moving without a word, towards a goal hidden by the drifting sand. After a few steps he stumbles over nothing and sways on his feet and Jimmy remembers his injuries and general bad state. However, when two of his friends (followers?) move to support him he shakes them off.
He’s also moving pretty fast for someone on the verge of falling over.
Eventually a building emerges from the dust. It’s made of bare stone and looks like a small fortress more than anything else. It has only two storeys but foundation is board and once they are inside Jimmy can see that it’s bigger than it seemed from the outside.
The corridors are narrow, though, and the rooms he sees just as big as they have to be. This place has been built for practicality, not luxury. Jimmy wonders who built it; maybe it’s always been here - he doesn’t think there are architects in Hell.
Unless they were evil architects.
Upon closer observation, Jimmy sees the obvious sign of decay. Carpets that made the rooms more comfortable have rotted away, furniture is torn or broken. Stones have fallen out of the wall and the same dry grass as outside has grown through gabs in the floor before it died. Torches on the walls are hardly able to light the darkness that threatens to swallow the windowless corridor and it’s almost unbearably hot.
As they walk, a faint tremor runs through the ground.
“Oh shit,” someone says right beside Jimmy. “I hope it doesn’t get bad.”
It’s the small guy who gave Sam the shades and has finally taken off his own. He flashes black eyes at Jimmy and grins, but he looks worried at the same time.
“What do you mean?”
“The boss. He’s not exactly balanced right now. I had hoped everything would get better when he returns but right now it rather looks like he might tear the place down.” He narrows his eyes into a glare. “So you are the vessel of that asshat? Congratulations.”
“My name’s Jimmy.”
“Well. I’m Asmodeus.”
Jimmy looks the guy over. He doesn’t looks like someone with such a name. Actually, he looks like a pretty normal guy, if one ignored the black eyes. “What did you mean, get better?”
“What, you don’t know? This is Hell, dumbo.”
“I know that.” Jimmy’s scared, but also irritated andrefusing to be intimidated by this place and this demon. “Why would it get better with Sam here?”
The demon raises an eyebrow. “You really don’t know anything, huh? I thought you’ve been to Heaven.”
“Yes. Heaven. It’s quite a difference.”
“Not that much, actually. The mechanics behind them are pretty much the same. Except in Heaven your place is formed by your own good memories, and here by your nightmares and the sadism of someone else. Well, usually.”
Jimmy looks around but the place doesn’t look much more terrifying than the ruin of a castle on earth. Sam has long since hurried away and disappeared around a corner, and Jimmy feels a little betrayed for being left behind like this after the boy king dragged him here. “So who’s nightmare is this?”
“Sam’s, of course.” Asmodeus sounds a little irritated; apparently that was a stupid question. “Though I wouldn’t call it a nightmare, except on the bad days,” the demon clarifies a second later. “This is not a bad day, by the way, though things usually are a hell of a lot better than this.”
Jimmy blinks at Asmodeus and Asmodeus blinks back until he accepts that he needs to offer a bit on an explanation. “Sam and Hell,” he says, “they get along, mostly. It’s not exactly dream world here - I mean, it’s still Hell and can only be so nice - but when Sam’s okay, this is a pretty decent place compared to all the rest. No stink, no screams, no rot - and most of all, no spikes to be shoved on.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Jimmy admits.
“Yeah, it isn’t. But as I said, Sam’s subconscious has a big influence here, and Hell is always ready to get in through the cracks. These tremors you’re feeling? That’s Sam going out of his mind with worry for Dean. And don’t get your hope up - he can’t control it.”
As if to agree, the ground shakes again, harder this time. “Why Sam? Why not you?”
“He’s the boy king.” Asmodeus shrugs as if that was enough of an explanation. “He just kinda belongs here, you know? Don’t worry, he’s doing pretty well. He could be worse. Much, much worse.”
“This is good?” Hot wind blows into their faces as they pass a room where the ceiling has collapsed and the door is missing.
“Oh, it’s not perfect. We usually have walls everywhere, and water and stuff. Didn’t you listen? But Sam was gone. This whole place is kept save and more of less stable by him, so after he left, it started to fall apart. The water’s the first to go, every fucking time. Do you have any idea how much that sucks?”
Jimmy can imagine. “So it all falls apart every time Sam leaves?” It seems unbelievable.
And impractical.
But Asmodeus shakes his head. “Only after a while. And if Dean’s here it’s maintained even without Sam. But Dean’s gone too, so this is the result.”
Sam’s reaction to seeing this place suddenly makes sense. “How does that work? I though it was Sam’s world.”
“Yeah. Don’t ask me. Apparently they’re soul mates or something gay like that.” The demon suddenly grins. “Well, they’re mates sure enough. Dean came down here with a lifetime of kinky experience, and he’s been…”
“I can imagine,” Jimmy hurries to say, though he really, really can’t. And doesn’t want to. This incest thing still creeps him out.
Asmodeus grins wider, clearly enjoying his discomfort. Then, suddenly, he turns serious. “Dean said they made the boss scream up there. Is that true?”
The grim memory replaces the unbidden imagines of incestuous sex but isn’t an improvement. “Yes.”
“Wow.”
“Wow?” Jimmy asks incredulously. “You’re enjoying that, demon?”
“No, no!” Asmodeus shakes his head and lifts his hands in a gesture of denial. “Bad choice of words, man. Just, Sam doesn’t scream. Never. So I get why Dean was so pissed!”
“He doesn’t scream? That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Well, it doesn’t mean he never gets hurt, if that’s what you’re thinking. There are a lot of evil dumbshits down here, and most of them are after Sam’s ass. Sometimes literally. Figures it takes an angel to actually get a sound out of him.” There’s obvious disgust in the boy’s voice.
Jimmy think of the miserable and very silent human shaped pile Sam has been the first time he saw him after Dameal branded him. “You mean he’s usually too much of a hard-ass to scream?” he asks incredulously.
Asmodeus rolls his eyes in the face of Jimmy’s cluelessness. “No, he’s just too fucked up.” And when he notices Jimmy’s blank stare he explains, “Sam’s been in the deepest circle of Hell. With Satan and Satan’s big brother. Do you really think any demon can keep up with that? No matter what anyone does to him, someone else did it to him before, and better. Once, a couple of yeas ago, he’s been taken by another demon lord. They nailed him to the ground with rusty spikes, tore off his skin, fucked him good and proper, the usual program. Sam never made a sound.”
Jimmy stares at him, sickened, but Asmodeus continues to talk about torture and rape in the unconcerned way only demons can. He actually looks very satisfied when he says, “The others did, though, when Dean found them.”
The human doesn’t know what to say to that. He only knows that this place is terrible and he wants to be somewhere else. He hasn’t been able to imagine how unbearable it would be to be in a place where something like that is normal.
Fortunately, he doesn’t have to say anything because they have reached a small hall and Sam’s voice sounds through it, calling for someone called “Andy”. Asmodeus grimaces and calls back, “Coming!”
Jimmy follows a little slower, too bothered by this place and what Asmodues - or Andy - told him to hurry, yet too bothered by this place and what Andy told him to stay behind on his own. The other demons who came to pick Sam up have long since scattered in all directions, and Jimmy has no interest in getting to know any of them, even though through Sam he’s already leaned that not all demons are inherently evil.
They’re still… alien. Unpredictable. At home in this place and with such a great potential for wickedness.
And Jimmy finds another of them when he arrives at the room Asmodeus disappeared into. It’s not much larger than the cell Sam was kept in in Heaven, except it has furniture. But the walls are burned and it smells of smoke. The covers of the large double bed are torn and dirty and the bookshelves on the wall have collapsed. There’s a closet containing clothes, but most of them are rags that are lying strewn all over the floor - doubtlessly left by Sam as he looked for something still suitable for wearing.
Now he’s sitting on the bed dressed in black pants that are torn at the knees - probably not for fashion reasons. He’s also wearing a tight, sleeveless black shirt and the raw and burned skin on his wrists is covered by black bandages. The blond woman Jimmy saw before is standing beside him, wrapping more bandages of the same colour around the still-bleeding cuts in his left arm. Altogether, Sam looks every inch the demon lord he is.
Until he looks up and Jimmy can see that he is still pale, with dry lips and bloodshot eyes. He’s also still covered in bruises and minor cuts. In fact, he would be the very picture of a beaten victim if there wasn’t something in his eyes that says he’s anything but defeated.
“You know what to do if I don’t come back,” he says to the woman who is just now done with bandaging his arm. The bandage will be soaked soon enough, but at least on the black fabric it won’t be as obvious until the blood starts running down his arms again.
“Where are you going?” Jimmy asks, alarmed. Something here smells of a bad plan. The kind of plan that makes people leave orders for the case of their death.
“I’m going to get Dean.”
Yes, Jimmy kind of expected that. “Not alone, right?”
“I’m the only one who can.” There is something in the way Sam’s eyes are looking right through all of them at a destination only he can see that tells Jimmy he doesn’t need anyone else and doesn’t want anyone else.
But Jimmy doesn’t feel like letting him go like that. Not after anything he’s been through and only just getting away alive. “It’s obviously a trap! Just like what... the angels did. And you’re walking right into it!”
“It’s not a trap. They don’t expect me come back,” Sam says impatiently and stands. On thin, trembling legs, covered in injuries and oozing blood. The demons he’ll go after are going to fall over with fear when they see him.
But when he looks at Jimmy with more darkness in his golden eyes than Jimmy ever saw in the black ones of a normal demon the human thinks that they just might.
+*+*+
Sam leaves only minutes later. He slips a long vest over his shirt that covers the knife in his belt and that’s all the preparation he makes. The knife seems to be a ridiculously small weapon to take into battle with God-knows-how-many demons (or maybe God doesn’t know either), but he doesn’t take anything else. All he says to Jimmy before he leaves is, “Lily will take care of you”, pointing him to the women who dressed his wounds. Then he leaves and Jimmy runs after him along with Lily and Andy, but even though the two demons don’t look happy neither of them tries to stop Sam. It seems they merely want to see him off.
Jimmy feels like he has to do something. Anything. Silly as it seems, he feels responsible for this boy. But Sam doesn’t even notice any of them anymore, and despite his weakened state they can barely keep up with him.
The fortress, it turns out, is built on a cliff. Not a cliff over an ocean but a cliff over an endless black pit that smells on sulphur and carries the echoes of a thousand screams. It leads right down to the next deeper circle of hell, Andy explains, and Jimmy could say exactly what kind of sinners go to the second circle for what kind of punishment, except he doesn’t believe his knowledge is accurate anymore and is distracted anyway when Sam runs over a balcony and takes a leap off the railing, just like he did in Heaven.
Only this time he doesn’t have wings.
Jimmy’s breath stops. For a second Sam falls freely, then his large black wings unfold seemingly out of thin air and he’s soaring up.
This is the first time Jimmy sees the wings in action; it’s a majestic sight, but he can’t enjoy it for long, because Sam flaps them once and disappears downwards, into the dark.
NEXT
Getting out of Heaven isn’t hard. Jimmy Novak has left Heaven countless times, and even though he was rarely aware during those events, he was aware often enough to see how it goes: You’re in Heaven, and then you’re not.
Angels move between Heaven and earth the same way they move between different spots downstairs. Jimmy’s soul just gets pulled along from wherever it is the moment Castiel wants to leave and finds itself on earth in his old body. Or some kind of material projection of his old body. He’s not even sure about that anymore.
The point is that leaving Heaven the way the angels do it is out of the question for Sam.
But Jimmy has been here a long time. He knows there are other ways - backdoors angels sometimes take when they leave Heaven without permission. When they fly down the usual way, they leave a signature that tells everyone they’ve gone. The doors are just… doors. And they are always open.
The tricky thing is finding them.
Naturally, they are in spots where no one would happen to step through them by accident. And they are being used by beings who can fly. Already having a bit of an idea, it doesn’t take Jimmy a lot of research, in the end, to find one conveniently just outside the great hall.
He has no clear memory of it, but Jimmy has the distant impression that Castiel, or rather the thing he has become, has repeatedly used it in recent times. Perhaps he, too, needs to hide every now and then.
The difficult part is getting there. From beside the throne Jimmy could basically see it if it weren’t invisible, but Sam is in chains and the hall is never entirely empty of angels.
So getting rid of the chains is Jimmy’s first task. Waiting for a convenient moment is part of it. Then he has to get Sam to the right spot and hope he makes it.
And then, finally, he has to wait for the New God’s wrath.
He’s going to make Sam promise. Jimmy will only free him if he promises he’ll find Claire even before finding Dean and makes sure she won’t consent to becoming his successor as Castiel’s vessel.
But first he has to figure out how get Sam out of here in the first place. He already checked the chains - they have no weak spots, the shackles no lock. It’s all been created by the minds of the New God and his angels. Nothing Jimmy is capable of doing could break them.
Or so he thinks - until he gives a hard tug on one of the chains going through Sam’s wings and the whole tings comes rattling down on them. It was merely a gesture of his frustration and Jimmy is so taken by surprise that the heavy thing nearly falls right on his head.
It doesn’t, because it somehow stops existing before it touches him.
That’s admittedly odd, but Jimmy doesn’t waste time on thinking about it. He quickly looks around if anyone has seen what he did, but the only two angels currently present in the hall are right on the other end and don’t look in their direction.
Sam doesn’t make a sound and doesn’t move so no one will notice until he’s free to start running. He listens intently as Jimmy explains to him where the door is. Castiel’s vessel will accompany him to the balcony and then stay behind and await his fate.
While he works he brings up his daughter. To his utter dismay, Sam shakes his head.
“Come with me,” he says instead. “You’re right, Cas won’t be happy with you. Maybe he really will kill you. But maybe he won’t. The way he is right now, you might be taking my place here soon enough and your daughter will still be in danger.”
“I can’t.” Just the idea is absurd, even though Jimmy is beginning to understand that non-existence might not be the worst thing to happen to him. “He’ll find me wherever I am. And then he’ll find you.”
“I can get you to a safe place. Please, Jimmy!”
“No. I won’t.” All the time, Jimmy did little more than watch as the angels tortured Sam. He won’t endanger him like this, now.
Besides, he is painfully aware that a father in hiding could never offer the same protection to his daughter as a promise binding a king of Hell.
“I won’t let you die for me. If you stay, so will I.”
Jimmy gulps. Audibly. “What about Dean?”
“I’m confident that you’re not stubborn enough to let him come to harm.”
One of the angels is looking in their direction. Only seconds now and he’ll notice that the chains are gone. There is no more time to lose over this debate.
So Jimmy pulls Sam to his feet and runs with him. They are almost to the window by the time they hear shouts behind them. Only seconds now and Sam is stumbling, shouldn’t even be able to stand, let along run, after who-knows-how-long he’s been chained. Jimmy hasn’t even completely made up his mind yet. He might just let Sam fly and stay behind. Push him off the balcony himself if he has to. But then they reach the edge and suddenly Sam’s arms wrap around him and Sam’s voice calls in his ear, “Hold on tight! On earth I can’t summon my wings.”
The words don’t even make sense to Jimmy because he can’t think. Hands that are not Sam’s reach for him and then the ground is gone from beneath his feet and he can’t tell up from down, doesn’t even know if he’s flying or falling. He only wonders how Sam can even fly with his wings full of holes…
…and then he really is falling, no doubt about it, because after a second of feeling like he left his stomach somewhere above him, he hits the ground. Hard.
Actually, he mostly hits Sam who somehow ended up under him. But that still is hard and painful, and the parts of Jimmy that doesn’t hit Sam still hit the ground. Admittedly, it is grass and not concrete, but even that is anything but pleasant.
But it seems they got off lightly. The fall wasn’t that far, so the hole in the fabric of whatever must have spit them out not that high above the ground. It could have been much worse, and Jimmy wonders if they would have been able to figure out a way to save themselves in the time it took to fall twenty thousand feet if they’d been returned that high.
Then he thinks about how he almost send Sam through this alone, not knowing he can’t fly on this side. And how he didn’t think Sam could fly anyway, so what kind of awful plan did he come up with here? And then he remembers that he didn’t think it would matter because Sam is dead anyway and shouldn’t be able to die, which leads to the thought that he’s dead himself, so what in Heaven’s name did he just hurt? It certainly wasn’t his body.
And if he is hurt, what about Sam who hasn’t been so healthy to begin with?
In a hurry, Jimmy gets off the boy, but Sam doesn’t move. Worry stabs Jimmy like a knife until he notices how Sam is looking up to the sky with an expression of quiet awe on his face. He’s still naked and his body is still covered in wounds. Now he’s no longer chained and bend over, Jimmy can see the full extend of the damage dealt.
Sam’s wings, as predicted, are gone.
The angels Jimmy half-expected to follow after them don’t show up. It’s not that much of a surprise, actually - these doors to earth don’t have a set exit like devil’s gates do. Whoever uses them determines where they end up, although that process is rather rough and vague. Perhaps they were dropped out this close to the ground because the gate picked up on Jimmy’s wish not to go splat after a ten thousand feet fall. Or it’s all random in their case because only angels can use the doors at will.
In any case, the angels from the hall can’t follow them because they don’t know where they went. Still, Jimmy can’t imagine Heaven is going to need very long to find them.
Trying to get his bearings, Jimmy sits up and back, away from Sam. He’s wearing his suit, he realises, but not the trench coat Castiel used to be so fond of.
At the thought of his angel something inside him twists, but he is quickly distracted by his surroundings. As it seems, they have landed on a meadow. In a park. In board daylight. And while he can’t see anyone around, Jimmy can hear the unconcerned voices of people not too far away.
And he’s sitting beside an injured, naked man. Bad impressions are unavoidable if someone walks in on them.
Suddenly Jimmy wishes he had his coat, if only because he could use it to cover Sam. Spare himself the embarrassment and offer Sam a little dignity, if nothing else.
Sam doesn’t seem to even have noticed his public nakedness so far, or if he does, he doesn’t care. He’s still lying there, looking at the sky, and Jimmy notices that his eyes are no longer black. They look normal enough on first sight. Only on second glance does Jimmy see that the irises are no longer the hazel he vaguely remembers but yellow. Almost golden.
Actually, they seem to be glowing a little.
“What now?” Jimmy asks. “Where are we?”
“Boston,” Sam informs him, as if that were obvious.
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
Okay, maybe a demon knows something like that. An angel’s vessel definitely doesn’t.
Sam’s bandages are once again soaked through and he’s seeping into the grass. Jimmy would like to guide the boy’s attention to that fact and then try to get some information on what Sam is planning to do now, but they find themselves surrounded by strangers before he can even open his mouth.
Five people, men and women, who seemingly appeared out of nowhere. They look harmless enough but for the fact that they are all, for some reason, wearing sunglasses. It’s not that sunny.
So they look like a bunch of hired killers. Jimmy’s first reaction it to jump, and their first reaction upon seeing him is draw knifes.
Knifes. Not swords. These are not angels.
“Wait,” Sam says suddenly, his voice sharp. “It’s not him.”
“Looks like him,” one of the men says, sounding very suspicious. They don’t step closer, but they don’t lower their weapons either.
“This is Jimmy, his vessel.” Sam glares up at them from where he’s sitting on the ground. “He helped me. Put those away!” He nods at the blades and at once they all disappear beneath jackets or in folds of their shirts. Jimmy’s remembered heart skips a few beats when he realises that they thought he was Castiel and would have killed him (or worse) if Sam hadn’t stopped them. (Probably worse, since he’s already dead.)
One of the women offers her hand and Sam lets himself he pulled to his feet. He doesn’t seem at all bothered by his lack of clothing, and neither is anyone else. Anyone but Jimmy, that is, who does his best not to look in Sam’s direction.
Funny, considering he’s seen him naked for weeks.
“What happened to Dean?” Sam asks. “Where is he?”
Someone finally hands him a robe and he wraps it around himself without comment. It’s black and long and looks completely out of place. Surrounded by the sunglassed group, Sam looks more like the leader of a sect than anything else.
It finally dawns on Jimmy who these people are and why they are wearing sunglasses. One of them hands a pair to Sam to hide his glowing yellow eyes. It does nothing to make him look less odd.
“It was Meg,” the one who gave him the glasses says. Sam turns sharply, baring his teeth.
“Are you sure?” he hisses.
“Absolutely. Some guy saw him get taken. Didn’t even know what he saw. We found Meg’s vessel, too - she was still a little alive. Remembered that Meg wants Dean for-”
“I know what she want him for,” Sam interrupts him. He looks around and Jimmy does the same, noting a few people at the far end of the green who stand staring at them. Probably just passer-bys who wonder about the odd group, but he doesn’t have any desire to find out if he’s right.
Sam seems to have the same thought even though he looks like he would much rather go and kill something. Jimmy can hardly suppress a shiver when he looks at him. The unnatural calmness the boy king displayed all through his captivity disappeared when he learned what happened to his brother.
Regardless, his voice is still rather calm when he says, “We’ll go home for now. Is anyone else here?”
“No. The others are making sure we still have a home to return to,” a woman with long blonde hair and black clothes says. Sam nods his approval.
“Good.”
“What about him?” the woman points at Jimmy who doesn’t like the attention.
“We’ll take him with us.”
The guy who gave the sunglasses - a short man in his early twenties - throws Jimmy a look through his own glasses, then shrugs. Apparently he’s lost his aversion when he learned he’s not facing a god.
Jimmy has no choice but to follow them as they walk out of the park. They don’t make it further than a hundred yards, though, when suddenly Sam grabs his arm and Jimmy’s standing on a different meadow, this one not belonging to any park. It reminds him of the way Castiel moves on earth, except that it feels completely different.
They emerged in the shadow of a tree. Before them is a hill and the mouth of a cave, not much higher than Jimmy himself, leads inside, lined by stones.
The stones are covered in symbols.
“This is one of the oldest devil’s gates there are,” the short guy explains when he notices Jimmy’s interest. “It’s been here since long before the middle ages. You actually have to know how to use it, otherwise you’ll just end up in a cave.”
“How do I use it?” Jimmy asks.
“I’ll take you along,” Sam offers. But before he does, he hesitates for a second. “It’s Hell,” he says, as if he had to remind Jimmy of that detail. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Heaven’s not that much fun either,” Jimmy says bravely. It’s not even true - Heaven is wonderful. That’s why it’s Heaven. But it’s been spoiled for him lately, by Cas becoming something else, by the terrible task of caring for an abused prisoner, and finally by the threat of gruesome torture upon being taken back there. As a deeply religious man he never thought he’d ever see it like this, but right now Hell is the lesser of two evils.
Sam takes him by the hand without another word and maybe Jimmy holds on a little too tightly as he is led through something he can’t define; like a storm without wind, a long walk on nothing that’s over in a second.
He closes his eyes without meaning to and when he opens them again, Jimmy finds himself on a large field of dead grass, beside a hill. Before him there are dead, leafless trees. The sky is the colour of sulphur - just looking at it, Jimmy things he can smell the terrible stink.
It takes him a second to realise that he really is smelling sulphur. It’s faint, though, not nearly as strong as he expected.
A hot, dry wind is blowing, carrying with it noises Jimmy eventually identifies as screams. He shudders. This is Hell. This really, truly Hell, and he willingly walked into it.
Against his will he wonders if Castiel knows yet of their escape. How he feels about his vessel going to Hell rather that staying with him.
If his family is still safe.
“Sam,” he says. “My daughter…”
“Cas won’t hurt her,” Sam says before he can finish. “Not yet. But if he wanted to, there would be nothing anyone could do to stop him.”
Jimmy stops on the spot. He knows Sam is right - Cas is a God now; what could any of them possibly offer to fight him? But if that was supposed to comfort him, then Sam has gone further from being human than he originally assumed.
Right now, Jimmy wants nothing more than get out and run to his family. He hasn’t seen them for so long, not the real them. He’s basically corporal now, for whatever reason. He’s just himself, without an angel riding him, and he could touch them…
And he knows he wouldn’t be doing them a favour, would only tear open old wounds and lead the angels straight to them; but he still longs for them and wants to see with his own eyes that they are safe.
The boy king’s attention, however, has already moved on. The wind tears at Sam’s hair and robe. His face is dark when he looks around. “That long?” he says quietly.
“He’s been gone for months,” the blonde woman confirms. It seems absurd to Jimmy - there’s no way that much time has passed between Dean’s last visit and now. But then he remembers that time moves faster here. And he doesn’t even know for sure how much time has passed in Heaven. For Sam, it was certainly longer than for him.
Sam starts moving without a word, towards a goal hidden by the drifting sand. After a few steps he stumbles over nothing and sways on his feet and Jimmy remembers his injuries and general bad state. However, when two of his friends (followers?) move to support him he shakes them off.
He’s also moving pretty fast for someone on the verge of falling over.
Eventually a building emerges from the dust. It’s made of bare stone and looks like a small fortress more than anything else. It has only two storeys but foundation is board and once they are inside Jimmy can see that it’s bigger than it seemed from the outside.
The corridors are narrow, though, and the rooms he sees just as big as they have to be. This place has been built for practicality, not luxury. Jimmy wonders who built it; maybe it’s always been here - he doesn’t think there are architects in Hell.
Unless they were evil architects.
Upon closer observation, Jimmy sees the obvious sign of decay. Carpets that made the rooms more comfortable have rotted away, furniture is torn or broken. Stones have fallen out of the wall and the same dry grass as outside has grown through gabs in the floor before it died. Torches on the walls are hardly able to light the darkness that threatens to swallow the windowless corridor and it’s almost unbearably hot.
As they walk, a faint tremor runs through the ground.
“Oh shit,” someone says right beside Jimmy. “I hope it doesn’t get bad.”
It’s the small guy who gave Sam the shades and has finally taken off his own. He flashes black eyes at Jimmy and grins, but he looks worried at the same time.
“What do you mean?”
“The boss. He’s not exactly balanced right now. I had hoped everything would get better when he returns but right now it rather looks like he might tear the place down.” He narrows his eyes into a glare. “So you are the vessel of that asshat? Congratulations.”
“My name’s Jimmy.”
“Well. I’m Asmodeus.”
Jimmy looks the guy over. He doesn’t looks like someone with such a name. Actually, he looks like a pretty normal guy, if one ignored the black eyes. “What did you mean, get better?”
“What, you don’t know? This is Hell, dumbo.”
“I know that.” Jimmy’s scared, but also irritated andrefusing to be intimidated by this place and this demon. “Why would it get better with Sam here?”
The demon raises an eyebrow. “You really don’t know anything, huh? I thought you’ve been to Heaven.”
“Yes. Heaven. It’s quite a difference.”
“Not that much, actually. The mechanics behind them are pretty much the same. Except in Heaven your place is formed by your own good memories, and here by your nightmares and the sadism of someone else. Well, usually.”
Jimmy looks around but the place doesn’t look much more terrifying than the ruin of a castle on earth. Sam has long since hurried away and disappeared around a corner, and Jimmy feels a little betrayed for being left behind like this after the boy king dragged him here. “So who’s nightmare is this?”
“Sam’s, of course.” Asmodeus sounds a little irritated; apparently that was a stupid question. “Though I wouldn’t call it a nightmare, except on the bad days,” the demon clarifies a second later. “This is not a bad day, by the way, though things usually are a hell of a lot better than this.”
Jimmy blinks at Asmodeus and Asmodeus blinks back until he accepts that he needs to offer a bit on an explanation. “Sam and Hell,” he says, “they get along, mostly. It’s not exactly dream world here - I mean, it’s still Hell and can only be so nice - but when Sam’s okay, this is a pretty decent place compared to all the rest. No stink, no screams, no rot - and most of all, no spikes to be shoved on.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Jimmy admits.
“Yeah, it isn’t. But as I said, Sam’s subconscious has a big influence here, and Hell is always ready to get in through the cracks. These tremors you’re feeling? That’s Sam going out of his mind with worry for Dean. And don’t get your hope up - he can’t control it.”
As if to agree, the ground shakes again, harder this time. “Why Sam? Why not you?”
“He’s the boy king.” Asmodeus shrugs as if that was enough of an explanation. “He just kinda belongs here, you know? Don’t worry, he’s doing pretty well. He could be worse. Much, much worse.”
“This is good?” Hot wind blows into their faces as they pass a room where the ceiling has collapsed and the door is missing.
“Oh, it’s not perfect. We usually have walls everywhere, and water and stuff. Didn’t you listen? But Sam was gone. This whole place is kept save and more of less stable by him, so after he left, it started to fall apart. The water’s the first to go, every fucking time. Do you have any idea how much that sucks?”
Jimmy can imagine. “So it all falls apart every time Sam leaves?” It seems unbelievable.
And impractical.
But Asmodeus shakes his head. “Only after a while. And if Dean’s here it’s maintained even without Sam. But Dean’s gone too, so this is the result.”
Sam’s reaction to seeing this place suddenly makes sense. “How does that work? I though it was Sam’s world.”
“Yeah. Don’t ask me. Apparently they’re soul mates or something gay like that.” The demon suddenly grins. “Well, they’re mates sure enough. Dean came down here with a lifetime of kinky experience, and he’s been…”
“I can imagine,” Jimmy hurries to say, though he really, really can’t. And doesn’t want to. This incest thing still creeps him out.
Asmodeus grins wider, clearly enjoying his discomfort. Then, suddenly, he turns serious. “Dean said they made the boss scream up there. Is that true?”
The grim memory replaces the unbidden imagines of incestuous sex but isn’t an improvement. “Yes.”
“Wow.”
“Wow?” Jimmy asks incredulously. “You’re enjoying that, demon?”
“No, no!” Asmodeus shakes his head and lifts his hands in a gesture of denial. “Bad choice of words, man. Just, Sam doesn’t scream. Never. So I get why Dean was so pissed!”
“He doesn’t scream? That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Well, it doesn’t mean he never gets hurt, if that’s what you’re thinking. There are a lot of evil dumbshits down here, and most of them are after Sam’s ass. Sometimes literally. Figures it takes an angel to actually get a sound out of him.” There’s obvious disgust in the boy’s voice.
Jimmy think of the miserable and very silent human shaped pile Sam has been the first time he saw him after Dameal branded him. “You mean he’s usually too much of a hard-ass to scream?” he asks incredulously.
Asmodeus rolls his eyes in the face of Jimmy’s cluelessness. “No, he’s just too fucked up.” And when he notices Jimmy’s blank stare he explains, “Sam’s been in the deepest circle of Hell. With Satan and Satan’s big brother. Do you really think any demon can keep up with that? No matter what anyone does to him, someone else did it to him before, and better. Once, a couple of yeas ago, he’s been taken by another demon lord. They nailed him to the ground with rusty spikes, tore off his skin, fucked him good and proper, the usual program. Sam never made a sound.”
Jimmy stares at him, sickened, but Asmodeus continues to talk about torture and rape in the unconcerned way only demons can. He actually looks very satisfied when he says, “The others did, though, when Dean found them.”
The human doesn’t know what to say to that. He only knows that this place is terrible and he wants to be somewhere else. He hasn’t been able to imagine how unbearable it would be to be in a place where something like that is normal.
Fortunately, he doesn’t have to say anything because they have reached a small hall and Sam’s voice sounds through it, calling for someone called “Andy”. Asmodeus grimaces and calls back, “Coming!”
Jimmy follows a little slower, too bothered by this place and what Asmodues - or Andy - told him to hurry, yet too bothered by this place and what Andy told him to stay behind on his own. The other demons who came to pick Sam up have long since scattered in all directions, and Jimmy has no interest in getting to know any of them, even though through Sam he’s already leaned that not all demons are inherently evil.
They’re still… alien. Unpredictable. At home in this place and with such a great potential for wickedness.
And Jimmy finds another of them when he arrives at the room Asmodeus disappeared into. It’s not much larger than the cell Sam was kept in in Heaven, except it has furniture. But the walls are burned and it smells of smoke. The covers of the large double bed are torn and dirty and the bookshelves on the wall have collapsed. There’s a closet containing clothes, but most of them are rags that are lying strewn all over the floor - doubtlessly left by Sam as he looked for something still suitable for wearing.
Now he’s sitting on the bed dressed in black pants that are torn at the knees - probably not for fashion reasons. He’s also wearing a tight, sleeveless black shirt and the raw and burned skin on his wrists is covered by black bandages. The blond woman Jimmy saw before is standing beside him, wrapping more bandages of the same colour around the still-bleeding cuts in his left arm. Altogether, Sam looks every inch the demon lord he is.
Until he looks up and Jimmy can see that he is still pale, with dry lips and bloodshot eyes. He’s also still covered in bruises and minor cuts. In fact, he would be the very picture of a beaten victim if there wasn’t something in his eyes that says he’s anything but defeated.
“You know what to do if I don’t come back,” he says to the woman who is just now done with bandaging his arm. The bandage will be soaked soon enough, but at least on the black fabric it won’t be as obvious until the blood starts running down his arms again.
“Where are you going?” Jimmy asks, alarmed. Something here smells of a bad plan. The kind of plan that makes people leave orders for the case of their death.
“I’m going to get Dean.”
Yes, Jimmy kind of expected that. “Not alone, right?”
“I’m the only one who can.” There is something in the way Sam’s eyes are looking right through all of them at a destination only he can see that tells Jimmy he doesn’t need anyone else and doesn’t want anyone else.
But Jimmy doesn’t feel like letting him go like that. Not after anything he’s been through and only just getting away alive. “It’s obviously a trap! Just like what... the angels did. And you’re walking right into it!”
“It’s not a trap. They don’t expect me come back,” Sam says impatiently and stands. On thin, trembling legs, covered in injuries and oozing blood. The demons he’ll go after are going to fall over with fear when they see him.
But when he looks at Jimmy with more darkness in his golden eyes than Jimmy ever saw in the black ones of a normal demon the human thinks that they just might.
+*+*+
Sam leaves only minutes later. He slips a long vest over his shirt that covers the knife in his belt and that’s all the preparation he makes. The knife seems to be a ridiculously small weapon to take into battle with God-knows-how-many demons (or maybe God doesn’t know either), but he doesn’t take anything else. All he says to Jimmy before he leaves is, “Lily will take care of you”, pointing him to the women who dressed his wounds. Then he leaves and Jimmy runs after him along with Lily and Andy, but even though the two demons don’t look happy neither of them tries to stop Sam. It seems they merely want to see him off.
Jimmy feels like he has to do something. Anything. Silly as it seems, he feels responsible for this boy. But Sam doesn’t even notice any of them anymore, and despite his weakened state they can barely keep up with him.
The fortress, it turns out, is built on a cliff. Not a cliff over an ocean but a cliff over an endless black pit that smells on sulphur and carries the echoes of a thousand screams. It leads right down to the next deeper circle of hell, Andy explains, and Jimmy could say exactly what kind of sinners go to the second circle for what kind of punishment, except he doesn’t believe his knowledge is accurate anymore and is distracted anyway when Sam runs over a balcony and takes a leap off the railing, just like he did in Heaven.
Only this time he doesn’t have wings.
Jimmy’s breath stops. For a second Sam falls freely, then his large black wings unfold seemingly out of thin air and he’s soaring up.
This is the first time Jimmy sees the wings in action; it’s a majestic sight, but he can’t enjoy it for long, because Sam flaps them once and disappears downwards, into the dark.
NEXT