A/N: Trying to get this fic done so I can just knock it off the shelf of my WIPs.
The most they could succeed with in the control room was changing the power fluctuations throughout the main grid of the bunker, but that didn't do anything for the powers keeping them inside. What kept them in wasn't just in the circuits, but in the warding.
Exhausted, Sam went back to his room, telling Castiel and Dean to not kill each other while he was away. Sam didn't think they would. Though, there was the threat of Dean killing himself, and maybe Sam should have decided to stay up all night to keep him safe, but he didn't have it in him.
Maybe this really was The End.
His room didn't feel like the sanctuary it usually did. Instead, it made the hair stand up on the back of his neck, and it made his skin crawl.
God had created this world, even this bunker, and this room. He'd placed Sam in it, like he was some doll to be played with. Hell, he'd even placed Lucifer in it before. The corners of Sam's eyes burned with tears at those memories, of Lucifer staying with them in the bunker, of him taking over Sam's room, of Sam not being able to look at anything the same for long months afterwards.
God had assured him that he was safe while Lucifer was there. Sam had even seen it, seen that the Devil couldn't use his powers, but now, knowing that this was all part of God's story…
Sam wanted to be sick.
This was what his life had led to? This was what twenty-six years of being yanked around by demons had been for? This was what he'd lost Jess for? What he'd been possessed for? What he'd died, and sacrificed, and been tortured for?
Sam's chest ached, and he realized he was barely breathing.
Heaving in a breath, he went over to his desk, and found himself shuffling through his belongings there: pictures of himself, of Dean, and Cas, and Jack. Pictures of Bobby, of Mom.
A fist clenched around Sam's heart.
Had they even been real?
He tried telling himself they were, that all of this still was. But what was reality but an ephemeral, fleeting thing when the course of it could be altered at a cruel God's whim?
Was he altering it now?
Was this still part of his plan? Lock up the Winchesters and let the drama begin?
Sam had to admit, if it was his plan, it was working rather well.
Too well.
His head spun, and confused, fractured memories swirled behind his eyes.
Bed. I need bed.
Sam was tense as he showered, and not just because of the pain of the bullet wound. He felt as if he was being watched, as if a million tiny eyes peeked out from every shadow and crevice.
He'd always been watched. He'd always been used.
This wasn't Sam's story.
This was God's story.
Sam was just the poor bastard unfortunate enough to be made to star in it.
Of course that's what his life amounted to. Of fucking course.
Some free will, he thought.
Free will, the thing he'd always been fighting for, the thing that had constantly been taken away from him. Now he was left with the knowledge that that was purposeful, that the free will had simply been a treat hovered before him to draw his attention away from the strap ready to hit him from behind. Could Sam look up and see the hand that held the treat? Could he reach for it, and then reach farther, finding that control he so desperately craved?
The idea was maddening.
By the time his brain finished rolling it over and over, his skin was reddened from the too-hot water, and his body was sore from how he flinched at every sound, at every image in his peripheral vision.
Sam finished getting ready for bed, and then he just stared up at the ceiling.
This wasn't his. This room, this bunker, this little bit of family he'd carved out for himself. It wasn't his.
How could he make it his?
Should he make it his?
Sam wanted to. Oh, how he wanted to with everything he had. But even that couldn't be trusted.
No, no. Don't go down that route, he snapped. Can't go down that route.
This could be his.
His heart that beat in him might have been crafted by a wicked God, but it was his. Wasn't it? He'd fought for those beats, fought for the very body he was in to be his own. He'd lived in it. He'd lived in it for enough years to know what he liked to eat, what he didn't like, what pushing himself too much looked like, what it needed to feel better, what felt good, what felt bad… He knew all of that. That was Sam's information.
Did that make it his?
Did that make this life his own?
Those thoughts kept Sam up, and he'd only dozed a bit by the time he heard raised voices in the hallway.
Sam groaned, shoulder aching, and pulled himself out of bed.
"It's not fair!" Dean was yelling as Sam opened the door.
"Of course it's not fair!" Castiel yelled back. "But we don't have to keep being his toys, the hamsters on his wheel!"
Sam could only stare in shock as Castiel raised his voice. That wasn't something he did a lot. But the situation he'd stepped into seemed intense. Dean was swaying where he stood, his face all red, and his hair was a mess, his eyes bloodshot. His hands trembled, and he still hadn't let Castiel heal him.
Castiel's physical presence couldn't be perturbed, but Sam saw the pain, and the stress, and the anger in his blue eyes. He saw things he wasn't even sure there were words for.
"Maybe he's just making you say that," Dean argued. "Huh? You think of that?"
"I make my own decisions," Castiel asserted.
Dean started laughing. He twirled around, and almost fell over, which had Sam going to him. Dean shot him a look that had Sam backing up and raising his hands. Now Dean looked up, and he was shouting. "You hear that, Chuck? Your little angel down here thinks he makes his own decisions! You see what you did? You yank the cloth off from over our eyes and he still believes in what you made him. You happy about that? Cas doesn't deserve this shit. He doesn't deserve it, Chuck. Any of it!"
Sam was stunned, breathing heavy. He hadn't expected Dean to start yelling upwards, to a God who was probably enjoying this.
A sob tried to push its way out of Dean, and it came out sounding like a whimper. He hung his head.
"I don't deserve it," he murmured. "Sammy doesn't." He heaved a sigh. "Jack didn't."