Tidings of Comfort and Joy . (pre-12.09 ficlet)
Dean keeps track of the days, Sam later learns. Dean has always been about exerting control over the uncontrollable. There’s peace in power.
Sam doesn’t keep track. When he was down there, years meant nothing. They were just a speck against the eternity he knew he’d spend with Lucifer.
He measures his experiences in the prison not by meals (three a day, pushed through a narrow space in the door) but by people and routines. There’s a guard who walks with what must be a bit of a limp. His second foot drags just a bit. He breathes loudly. He never speaks.
Sam’s cell is cramped but livable, but he once shared something about this size with two pissed-off archangels. Having it all to himself is a blessing.
The silence, though–nearly complete except for the times when the mouth-breathing guard comes to deliver meals–is what gets to him.
Sam tries to tell himself it’s okay, that the silence here is nothing like the years of darkness and silence in the Cage, but after what feels like weeks, he finds himself slipping. He’ll feel a breath of hot air on his shoulder and turn to see no one. He’ll hear distant laughter and footsteps that disappear as fast as they came. He’ll feel the razor-sharp edge of a blade cleaving his eyelids as he wakes from broken sleep.
He throws himself into learning when that starts happening. Dean may find comfort in control, but Sam has always found it in knowledge. The guards’ rotations. Overheard snippets of conversation. His memories of coming down here. This prison is far underground, but Sam remembers the elevator that brought him down here and the staircase beside it. He fashions escape plans. How could he get out, or get a guard to come in? How would he free Dean? (How could he find him, for that matter?) How would they deal with any obstacles?
It helps, but not for long. Soon, he finds himself slipping again, losing time. Sometimes he’ll surface from a daze to find that he’s missed two meals. He starts forgetting things, losing his routines. That’s when it gets bad.
It’s almost like Dean knows, really.
They have Dean far enough away that they haven’t been able to communicate at all, but when Sam hears several pairs of footsteps running past his door, he knows they must be going for Dean. He jerks to awareness, eyes wide, overactive brain manufacturing worst-case scenario after worst-case scenario.
Sam presses himself against the door and strains until he hears something. A voice. He could almost swear it’s Dean. Not Dean-in-pain or Dean-angry or Dean-afraid, but annoying big brother Dean belting out lyrics at the top of his lungs or shouting-at-TV-shows Dean. He breathes. His brother is okay.
Dean’s voice only increases in volume, but Sam can’t make out any words. More guards come and go, and Sam hears threats and footsteps and metal-against-metal and “Shut the fuck up!”
Dean doesn’t. Finally, the guards return, grumbling under their breath. Sam listens, trying to make out anything he can. He catches, “Persistent bastard, I’ll give him that,” and, “Merry my ass! If anyone’s merry around here, we’re not doing our jobs right!”
The guards all shuffle past his door except for Mouth Breather, who stops. Sam hears him inhale and sigh. “Look, your brother won’t shut his fucking face unless we tell you ‘Merry Christmas.’”
Sam can’t bring himself to respond. His brain goes blank. Has it really been that long? And then he relaxes against the door, warmth unfurling in his belly and spreading all the way to his fingertips. He smiles.
“You hear? I’m not saying it again.”
The warmth turns to fire, and Sam recognizes his will to fight reigniting. “Sorry I can’t return the sentiment,” he mutters, voice thready after weeks of disuse.
The guard grunts and walks right back where he came from. Sam hears him yelling something at Dean, and Dean finally quiets down.
Dinner includes gummy stuffing and slices of crappy gelatinous cranberry sauce and what might once have been turkey before it died of dehydration, but Sam eats it with relish, remembering Dean’s faint voice from earlier. He adds a mark on his mental map, bright gold and glowing: Dean. It’s where he’ll find his brother when they escape.
It’s not the merriest of Christmases he’s experienced, but it’s sure as hell not the worst. They’re both here, both alive. And they’ll get out.
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