Febuwhump Day Fourteen: Can't Go Home. Sam has been captured and tortured for six months. Dean finally finds him, but he's not the same.

Title: The Chair

"If you leave right now, don't ever come back."

Dean's words played on repeat in Sam's head, etched into the inside of his skull, seared into the backs of his eyelids. They haunted him. Dean shouted one last "screw you" as Sam left the bunker and slammed the thick, metal door behind him. Every day, he lived with that regret.

If he hadn't walked out, he wouldn't have been captured. If he'd told Dean he was coming back, but he needed some time, instead of spitting out a "Fine, I won't," then someone would be looking for him, wishing he would come home. But he didn't do any of that and for the past six months, he had been confined to this closet-sized prison cell.

It was the same day he left that he was attacked by a group of men and brought here. He had no idea where "here" was, just that when they took him out of his cell to torture him, the small, rectangular windows right below the ceiling indicated he was underground.

Sam licked the cut on his arm, carved from a broken beer bottle, and lamented the yellowing edges. He could tell it was going to get infected as so many of his untended wounds did. Miraculously, he had managed not to die of staph infection despite the pus that festered on his cuts, stabs, burns, and bare nail beds.

Sam sat with his back against the wall, huddled in the corner, like an abused animal. Some days, he had to remind himself he was real and human, but in the corners of his mind, doubt had formed. Maybe it didn't matter either way. It was beginning to look like he would never escape from this place and even if he did, he had nowhere to go. After everything Sam had done, Dean was officially finished with him. Sam couldn't blame him for that.

Sam started at the sound of a key clanking in the lock of his door. He tried to push himself further against the wall, but it was pointless. Once the door was opened, there was nothing he could do to stop what came next. They used to keep him chained up, but once he grew so weak that he wobbled on his feet and fainted from exertion, they allowed his wrists and ankles to go bare.

One of the rotating men entered and wrenched Sam up by the arm he had been nursing. He yelped as the cut reopened and fresh blood squeezed out. He stumbled behind the man, trying not to tumble to the floor.

The man pulled him into the main room and forced him into The Chair. That was what the men had taken to calling the torture: "You're going in The Chair," "Do you want The Chair?" "Put him in The Chair." The man took Sam's wrists and tied them to them behind him and he bound Sam's ankles to the legs with an itchy rope caked in his blood. Sam used to beg them to stop and they had explained to him their reason behind the whole thing: he had opened the gates of hell and the first day the demons were free, their families were slaughtered. Sam knew that it was true that it was his fault, but there was no justice in the torture. He thought eventually they would grow bored of it and finish him off, but they relentlessly took turns each day coming to the basement to torture him.

Beside The Chair, there was a table made of rotten wood with a collection of torture tools laid on top of it. Everything from whips to pliers to fire pokers and Sam knew them all like old friends.

"What'll it be today?" the man asked himself.

Sam bowed his head. He was too tired to speak, too tired to squirm, but his body still shook with fear and anticipation. It was possible he deserved all of this. The men definitely thought so, at least.

Often, the torture was methodical, but when the man picked up a blood-crusted knife and turned to Sam, there was a glint in his eyes that said he was feeling vengeful today. "Look at you," he scoffed, "Pathetic. You once opened the gates of Hell, now you couldn't open a jar," he laughed derisively, "No one's coming for you. Shit, we're probably the only people who care if you live or die."

"Why don't you just kill me?" Sam asked.

The man stepped close to him and held the dull blade beneath his chin, tilting it up so that he could see Sam's despondent eyes. "I want you to beg to die. I want to see you broken."

But Sam was already broken. There was no reason to go on. He had always had a vibrant spirit, he would never go down without a fight and even on his deathbed, he refused to give up. Yet here, after six months of daily torture, he was ready for it to be over.

Through the window, a shadow was cast, but neither Sam or his captor were paying enough attention to see the man peeking through the glass.

"Just kill me," Sam's voice was monotone.

"So you want to die?" the man egged him on.

"I don't care."

"Say it like you mean it," swiftly, the man took the knife and stabbed it through Sam's shoulder. He cried out and screwed his eyes shut as the hot pain blossomed through him, distracting him from all his other wounds and overcoming his brain so it was all he could think of. "Kill me!" Sam shouted, "Just kill me!"

A gunshot made Sam's ears ache. At first, he thought he had been shot and the feeling hadn't yet registered, but when he opened his eyes, he saw the man's body on the floor, lifeless with a hole in his forehead where blood dribbled out. In some capacity, he was shocked by it, but nowadays, feelings only registered in a faraway part of his brain. He gazed blankly at the body and vaguely wondered what had happened, but even that was only a mild curiosity.

"Sammy!" a voice shouted. Sam knew that voice, but his mind was going blank as fatigue overtook him and he didn't have the willpower to stay awake.

…

"Sam, oh my god, Sam," there were hands on his face, but they weren't cruel and cold. They touched his cheeks, softly patting him, and the voice said, "Sammy, wake up. Talk to me."

Sam squinted back to reality, back to the pounding headache and pulsing pain in his shoulder. "Dean?" he asked weakly.

"Yeah, it's me, I'm here. It's okay now," he sighed with deep relief, then crouched to Sam's feet. Sam didn't crane his neck to watch and risk aggravating the knife in his shoulder, but he knew what Dean had done when the pressure was released from his ankles. He wiggled his feet, feeling the freedom from the binds. Dean rounded him and after a moment, the rope fell from his wrists. He walked around Sam to stare fretfully at the knife in his shoulder. "It's not that deep, but I don't want to take it out here."

Sam watched his brother, unsure if this was all a dream, but he usually didn't dream in the brief hours he was able to sleep.

"God, Sam, I'm sorry. I looked for you for so long. I should have gotten here sooner. Fuck. What did they do to you?" he took Sam's head in his hands and pressed their foreheads together. He needed to be close, but he couldn't hug him with the blade sticking out of him. Sam let himself feel Dean's existence, the first comfort he'd known in months, even if he wasn't fully present. He felt his brother's warm forehead and the kindness in his firm hands. Dean took a deep breath, releasing all the tension he had been carrying for the past half a year. "I missed you so much," he pulled away and straightened, "Let's go."

"Go where?"

"Home?"

"I can go home?"

Dean looked at him with confusion in his creased forehead. "What do you mean?"

"You said not to come back," Sam reminded him.

Dean looked like someone punched him in the gut. "Of course you can come back. Did you think this whole time I didn't want you to come home?"

"I don't know."

"I'm sorry I said that. I didn't mean it, okay? Please, I need you to come back. I've been losing my mind without you."

Sam was stunned. He had been convinced that Dean wouldn't want him around anymore, but this whole time, his brother still cared for him. Maybe if he knew that, he wouldn't be broken like he was now, but living only between his cell and The Chair with nothing to look forward to, he lost all hope. He wanted to die. Dean had even watched him ask to be killed. Sam didn't know who he was anymore, but there was a slight spark of hope lit in him, deep inside where his emotions had been buried, now that he was free. It seemed impossible, but here was Dean in the flesh, saving him once more.

"I'm sorry," Sam murmured.

"No, don't be sorry. It's okay. We're fine now, right? You're gonna be alright. We'll get you all patched up like new," there was still pain in Dean's voice and Sam knew that it was killing him to look at his little brother like this, covered in wounds and begging to die.

"Okay," Sam said, choosing to believe him.

Happy Valentine's Day! 3