Au where Sam died instead of Charlie.
Deans sobbing over Sams body in that motel bathroom and heaven is in an uproar. The angels don’t want his soul but they know that if they don’t take him there’s going to be a revolution in the single corner where everyone that loves Sam and Dean are but in the end the big boss Hannah takes the chance and sends him to hell.
Crowley as king is the first to know and for a single second goes “Are they bloody serious? Oh for fucks sake.” and takes Sams soul for, I don’t know, like tea and crumpets in his throne room and knowing that despite how he has a lot of loyalists on his side he also knows that there are also still a lot of secretly ProLucifer or even ProBoyKing loyalists as well and he has no idea how many.
So he’s walking a very thin line here with the demons and Sams soul in his throne room and he just bluntly tells him, “Sam, I have no clue what to do with you here.” and a desperate Dean summoning Crowley with everything he has to try to make a deal and Sam begging Crowley to not make the deal and let him stay dead.
Cas and Charlie, filled with guilt because they were there, they were right there when Sam decided to leave and hole up in the motel, trying to just find a single moments peace as he desperately was trying to find a way to save his brother. Charlie thinking that maybe if she hadn’t paid so much attention to Rowena and how she was needling her she could’ve seen Sam leave and stopped him. Imagine her crying, unable to look away from Sams bloodied and so very still body in that bathtub.
Dean caught in the crossfire of himself, one part of him that was filled with the Mark howling and demanding blood. We saw the carnage he created when Charlie had been the one that died. Imagine just what he would do to the Stynes if it was Sammy. His precious baby brother Sammy. The other part of him trying to think logically, or as logically as a grief stricken Winchester can, and ready to get down on his knees, beg, plead, do anything it takes just to get Sam back.
Crowley losing his shit because he has no idea what to do and how to do it. Trying to cling to his crown, his punishments and his control over the demons becoming more severe and more controlling, he doesn’t want to lose his crown but he knows that if a single hair on Sams head is touched all the demons loyal to Sam, and Dean, would be after his blood and they wouldn’t stop.
Sam just trying desperately to stay afloat in his own self guilt and trying to balance out the good and the bad of being alive. What would be the point of living after all? So that he could disappoint Dean more and more each day? And with each passing second that he is in hell, he can feel chip by chip as his humanity is slowly, and almost lovingly because hell knows her true king, taken from him.
Now let’s go to heaven. The Roadhouse heaven we all know is there. Chock full with Ash, Jo, Ellen, Mary, John, Bobby, Kevin, Jessica, and everyone else that loves our Winchester boys and are waiting to welcome them home.
Mary is smiling sadly, her little boy is dead before his time but he’s going to come home, she wants to hug him for the first time in over thirty years, tell him that she is so sorry and she loves him. John being apprehensive and understanding if Sammys never going to want to talk to him again after everything, he just wants his boy to know that he is proud of him and that he apologizes for everything. Bobby telling them both that their idjits and starts to make a drink just the way that he knows Sam likes it.
Kevin in the corner watching with a smile, book in one hand and a drink of his own in the other, wanting and can’t wait to see Sam again. Tell him that he he’s not mad, he knew that it wasn’t Sam that killed him and while he would’ve liked revenge against Gadreel he also understands that Sam is not that type of a person and there were more important things to worry about. He’s looking forward to being able to finally just talk to Sam about non-prophet things because he knows they have a lot in common, they just never got around to talking about it.
Jessica. Oh beautiful, amazing Jessica. The list of things she wants to tell him are almost endless. That she loves him to this day, that she never once regretted meeting and loving him, even if it meant her death she wouldn’t change a single thing about them meeting. That she knew he was going to ask her to marry him and she would’ve said yes within seconds. She wants to hug him and kiss him and never let go, she wants to finally wipe away that almost eleven year old guilt that he was been carrying for all this time since her death and now they’ll have forever for her to make sure he finally realizes that he is deserving of love and peace.
Ellen just wanting to tell him how proud she is of him, Ash wants to make fun with him again, he knows that Sam is the buddy he needs to be able to completely hack into heavens grid and take control back from the angels.
Imagine all of them eagerly waiting for Sam to open that door and come in, confused maybe, a little bit sad and apprehensive, not entirely sure if he belongs there but it’s alright. They’re all here to make sure he finally believes that he deserves heaven.
Turns out they’re wrong.
The angels have been debating the moment they realized that Death was in the corner at the motel, Death himself had come to escort Sams soul; however it is not his place to judge them. Just to greet them as old friends and take them to where they shall be judged and from there; it is not his concern anymore.
The angels going into an uproar, frantically trying to figure out what to do and how to do it. On one hand Sam is the definition of a pure soul, selfless and giving. He’s saved the world countless times and never asked for anything in return.
But on the other hand he is Lucifers vessel, the boy with the demon blood, by all laws they cannot allow that to blemish the light of heaven.
Knowing that Dean will storm heaven with his tainted Mark and the fallen angel Castiel at his side, perhaps even the King of Hell Crowley as well. Who knows what will happen to heaven if they allow them to enter?
So Hannah makes the decision. She takes the soul of Sam Winchester, with their head held high, ignoring the screams and the threats coming from the roadhouse, threadbare and almost featherless wings quivering in fear and just a small tinge of wondering if they were doing the right thing, she takes the soul to the edges of heaven, holds it out, aims her hands towards hell…
And lets go.`
We haven’t even talked about Cas yet. Cas who was just trying to do the right thing, and he really should learn he tells himself bitterly, every time he tries to do the right thing it always fails. Sam the one he raised from perdition, the one who he tried to save from the cage only to screw up and leave his soul behind. Sam who always had a kind smile for him who never once gave up on him and would always trust him is dead. He, just as Charlie, had been only inches away, focused completely on Charlie and Rowena, wary of Rowenas magic because he didn’t trust the witch. She might’ve been chained up but he knows as good as anyone that there are ways around being chained up. Clutching Charlie to him because he just doesn’t know what else to do and he justcannotlook away from Sams body. He’s seen it before of course but that doesn’t make it any easier now, if anything it makes it worse because this is partly his fault. Cas barely holding onto Charlie who can no longer stand on her own while staring in horror at Sams body.
Dean once more. He can only remember flashes of the next few hours. There might’ve been a fire somewhere and he prays that they didn’t burn Sams body in the hunters burial, his brother won’t have a body to come back to if they did and he would offer up his own, and his soul, but he doesn’t want Sammy to be hurt from the Mark (Too late he reminds himself in the few moments that he retains consciousness, Sammys already been hurt by the Mark over and over again.) He remembers seeing blood and comes back to himself in time to see a massacre, bodies. Bodies everywhere, blood everywhere, he’s covered in it. A small part of his mind barely recognizing an arm, because all the would be bodies are in pieces and thrown around, as if someone had just ripped the limbs off and then reached inside to grab the multiple versions of the organs to rip them free, as the Stynes tattoos. Imagine him staggering to the nearest crossroads again and again, sometimes dragging someone by the hair with him, struggling and kicking and screaming because he knows that a blood sacrifice will strengthen the summoning and he wants to talk to Crowley right fucking now.
Sam being placed in a bedroom, a nicely furnishes bedroom with a soft bed and soft sheets, courtesy of Crowley who’s trying to stay on Sams good side. While logically knowing that the room is locked Sam still manages to drift from room to room to endless rooms throughout the entire plane, he doesn’t remember hell being this organized but he easily finds whatever he wants when he wants it as hell reorganizes itself to Sams desire. Just aimlessly drifting from one place to the other, his mind racing as he tries to figure out what to do and how to do it. He wants to live, doesn’t want to keep dragging Dean down, he wants to see his brother again, doesn’t want to keep disappointing him. He wants to get out, he deserves to stay in the deepest and lowest pits there are just let him stay there so that he can’t hurt anyone ever again please for the love of everything he’s just so damn tired please let him rest.
And what of the demons then? The demons that have a loyalty to hell, who follow Crowley only because he’s the king and its the best option, otherwise they will be imprisoned, they don’t care who the king is, they’ll follow because they like their freedom. They don’t fight, they are just mindless sheep following the next herder.
The demons that are loyal to Sam however? They tip toe around him, not knowing which demon is which, who is the one that will look after your back but then who is the one that will just as eagerly stab you in the back as well? Bringing food and water to the prophesied Boy King, despite being a soul now meaning that he doesn’t need it. They leave small gifts that can’t be traced back to them, books or small knives, trinkets to show that they are in his favor and wish him well. Small messages written, each letter is a different handwriting to make sure it cannot be certain who had written them, proclaiming their loyalty to Sam and vowing to come to his side the moment he wishes.
And no one can ignore, despite how faintly, Lucifers screams rattling in the cage as he realizes his vessels soul is in hell but nowhere near to him.