Title: Bleeding Out

Author: Bianca Valdez

Pairings: None

Characters: Sam Winchester, Adam Milligan, Lucifer, Michael, Castiel, Death, Dean Winchester

Rating: T

Spoilers: Up to 7.17, "The Born-Again Identity". Set anytime afterwards.

Disclaimer: Rights belong to Eric Kripke and Co. Title comes from the Imagine Dragons song (the lyrics of which fit this story to a T.)

Warning: Mentions of torture, dark themes.

A/N: I'm rewatching s7 and Steven (my muse) decided to drop this on my head, so...here ya go.

It was falling and flying and dying all at once and then his soul was splitting and twisting and he felt a burning pain as something (someone) pushed itself out of his chest and then everything was darkness.

And then he opened his eyes and black warred with white while ultraviolet and infrared collided to make colors that shouldn't have existed while the world spun around him and he thought he was going to die until he realized that he was already dead.

Then he got used to it.

At first they fought, even though there wasn't any point to it, not down here, not in this place. They fought like two battling supernovas, explosive and powerful beyond comprehension, while beneath them or above them or to the side (directions don't matter here) two brothers huddled together and burned (and froze and burned and froze).

Seconds or millennia later (time, too, is inconsequential), something stole his body and he was bared to the hell around him.

Two sets of brothers in a cage and his body gone and all that was left was his soul and they noticed.

They noticed and they stopped fighting.

They stopped fighting and they figured out entertainment.

At first it was just the Younger. He reveled in pain while the Older stood aloof, pretending to be pure.

Then the Older got bored and tortured too.

And He (it hurt so much that he couldn't remember his name, though he thought it might be Dean because that's what rang through his head like a prayer) screamed and screamed until his vocal chords tore but the pain was so bad that he kept screaming even though all that came out was blood.

Every day they ripped him apart and every day they put him back together so they could rip him apart so they could put him together so they could rip him apart and on and on and on until Forever.

And then Forever came and Something grabbed him, and when Something grabbed him the pain went away, but he was so used to the pain being there that the not-pain hurt even worse and he screamed some more and twisted away to where the Older and the Younger were calling for him while tearing at his Brother. But Something was strong and held onto him and as he kicked and screamed it looked at him with its non-face and whispered a name.

"Sam."

And He (Sam) remembered who he was and who They were and who This was and so he closed his eyes and smiled for the first time in eternity and let himself be dragged upwards towards the ordinary, colorless light.

Then he opened his eyes and forgot.

He cries sometimes when Dean isn't looking.

When he closes his eyes and rests his body, his mind stays awake and screams and screams of hellfire and the warring brothers and the little brother that was left behind in that unspeakable horror.

In sleep he thinks he might go mad. Then he remembers he already has.

Castiel fixed him, but Castiel broke him, but Dean pulled him out and his life is a disaster that he doesn't want to contemplate. Dean thinks that it's all gone. All the memories washed down the drain like blood off his hands, but he's wrong. It's still there. Where there was once an open wound is now a deep, permanent scar.

Dean doesn't know that and Sam's not going to tell him.

He thinks Cas knows. Sometimes he'll wake up and he'll swallow the inside tears and Castiel will look at him like he can read his mind (which he probably can, but this is different) and when Dean turns away he'll put a hand on Sam's shoulder and not say a word.

Because there are things you don't talk about and this is one of them.

Sam's never going to heal but if he can make sure he always has Dean and Castiel then maybe he can survive.

They've lost so much and he's made so many mistakes so he probably doesn't deserve much, but if he can ask for one thing it's this.

To keep his friends with him forever.