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The world no longer makes sense.
They stand in the hallway outside Jack's room, and Sam can hear Cas and Dean speaking, saying things about next steps and what they should do, but every syllable is muffled. None of it carries any meaning. They're outside Jack's room, but Jack isn't in there. Jack isn't anywhere. Jack is dead.
Jack is dead.
Something sick rises in Sam's gut, and he turns on his heels and strides away. He—he can't be here. He can't be outside that room, in these halls, in this entire place. This was their home. This is where he taught Jack to use his powers, and told him he was more than his bloodline. This is where they celebrated his birthday and gave him a normal Thanksgiving and made him feel loved and accepted. This is where they brought him back to, every time he lost his way and wound up somewhere else.
This place, this terrible, horrible place. This was their home. This was Jack's home. And now Sam can't fucking stand it.
He bursts out the door, gulping down air, head tipping back towards the sky. Jack is dead. Jack is dead. Jack is dead. Jack was sick, and he died. And Sam could do nothing to save him. Jack is—Jack—
The world doesn't make sense. He can't fucking breathe. There is a weight on his chest more monumental than anything he's ever felt, a buzzing in his brain that makes him want to collapse. This can't be real. That can't have seriously just happened. It just isn't possible, it isn't. Jack can't be dead. It's not real. Jack is just—he's there, in the Bunker. He's there somewhere, Sam just didn't see him. He has to be. Because the alternative—the alternative—
"Please," Sam chokes out, blinking up at the stars above, vision blurry from the tears now streaking down his face. "Please, you—you can't. You can't take him, you...He can't be—he—"
With sudden clarity, Sam understands like he never has before why Dad made a demon deal to save Dean's life, why Dean made one for Sam. Dean was his son, and Sam—Dean raised him, he was as much his kid as his brother. Before this, before Jack, Sam could understand that kind of love in an abstract sense, but once he had Jack, it...God, he gets it. He feels like one of his limbs has been ripped off, that his heart was torn right from his chest.
No kind of love is bigger than another, in Sam's mind. Platonic, romantic, familial—it isn't one or the other, one more important than another. But the love of a parent for their child? It's simply different. It's a kind of powerful love that you can't understand until you understand, the kind of all-consuming need to love them, protect them, make them happy, that is incomparable.
Jack is—Jack was—no Jack is Sam's kid. He is. It doesn't fucking matter whose angelic DNA got donated to make Jack a reality, that's all it was—donation. Jack was Kelly's son, and Cas', and Dean's, and Sam's. God, he was Sam's son. He was. From that first fucking day, when Sam looked him in the eye and knew he had to protect him.
It was instinct to stop Dean in the nursery, to save Jack no matter how monstrous he appeared to the rest of the world. And then when Sam sat in that cell with Jack and saw who he was, what he could do, the kind of person that was still developing—how could Sam not have his heart go out to him? How could Sam not get so fucking attached?
And then—well, and then. Everything that happened, everything they experienced, everything they went through together. And Jack became so much more than a child Sam cared for, he became Sam's. Sam loved him fiercely, wholly, all-consumingly. He would've done anything for that kid, his kid. He would've stormed the gates of Hell, of Heaven, would've fought and killed and sold whatever he had to for Jack's happiness, sold his fucking soul if it meant Jack would get to smile—
Sam's breath catches in his throat.
He understands why Dad made a deal for Dean, why Dean made one for him. The things a parent would do for their child—there is no comparison. And for them, in the world they live, selling your soul isn't just a euphemism, a phrase to emphasize how far you'd go for someone. It's real. It's possible.
It's waiting.
Swallowing past the lump in his throat, Sam walks on shaky legs towards the impala. He knows he has everything he'll need in the trunk, so he slides into the driver's seat and grabs the spare key from its hiding spot in the glove compartment. It's not too far to a crossroads that'll work for his purposes, only a couple miles at most. Will take him barely any time at all to get this done.
He can have it done before Dean even realizes he's gone. And—and he needs to. Because there's one person in all of creation who might be able to stop Sam from going through with this, and it's his brother.
He speeds down the dirt road, treating the impala with less care than he normally would but he can't bring himself to care at all, not right now. His heart is pounding in his chest, his body beginning to buzz with adrenaline. He's actually doing this, he can actually do this. He doesn't care what it takes, doesn't give a flying fuck, not as long as it gets Jack back. He doesn't care if he gets no more than an hour, just like Dad. It would be worth it. It would be so very worth it.
When he finally arrives at the crossroads, he slams on the brakes and practically throws himself out of the impala, rounding the car to the trunk at record speed. His hands fumble over the keys and he curses himself before he manages to get the key in the lock and open it, eyes darting all over the contents as he looks for what he needs.
Bone from a black cat, graveyard dirt, and one of his fake IDs for a photo of himself—he throws them all together in a cigar box and then moves to the center of the crossroads, immediately dropping to his knees to dig a hole and burying the box inside.
Panting more from emotion than exertion, Sam gets back to his feet, scanning the area around him for the demon. His heart is pounding so hard he can feel it in his fingers, his toes, his ears.
"Come on, come on," Sam mutters, whirling around desperately, scanning the darkness for any sign of some demon watching and waiting just to screw with him. But there's nothing.
"Where are you?" Sam shouts, nearly unable to breathe around the panic, the anger, rising in him. "Come on! I'm right here!"
Only silence greets him in response.
No. No. No, this can't be happening. Where are they, where is that red-eyed son of a bitch? He doesn't even care who it is, he doesn't care how smug they are, it doesn't matter to him. They just need to turn up, they need to, so where are they?
This can't happen. This—no, he can't let this happen. Jack is dead Jack is dead Jack is dead, Sam's kid is dead. How can he let that stand? It—no, just fuck no. How the hell is he supposed to continue on in this world with his kid gone? The entire universe should cease, the Earth should stop spinning. Jack is gone and Sam would give anything will give anything—
There's...a card he can play. A card he considered so utterly absurd that he hasn't even thought about it since that day the demon Kipling offered it to him. A card that would have Dean and Castiel and Mom all screaming at him, hell would have everyone in the goddamn universe calling him an idiot. But it's a card nonetheless. It's a card that a demon, any demon, will take.
Sam drops to the ground again, clawing at the dirt until his box is revealed. He grabs it, hoisting it high above his head as he staggers back to his feet, waving the box around.
"You punishing me now? Fine," Sam shouts. He knows someone's listening, he knows. He buried the box, he followed all the rules—someone is listening. Hell, everyone is probably listening. "You win! Whoever shows—they get the Crowley Deal!"
("You see, I want the Crowley Deal. I give you information, a spot of help every now and again, and in return, you choose to turn a blind eye to the crossroads deals, the demon-on-demon violence, et cetera."
"We never gave Crowley that deal."
"How exciting. Then I would be breaking new ground.")
It's insane. It's ridiculous. It's traitorous.
And Sam only regrets not thinking of it sooner.
He waits. He waits for some ambitious son of a bitch to show up. They have to. There's no way they could turn that down, right? A blank check from Sam Winchester? Kipling wanted it so fucking desperately back then, and Sam highly doubts there's a demon alive who wouldn't feel the same, who wouldn't want that kind of power over Sam, over Hell. There's no way they're petty enough to ignore this just because it's Sam asking. No way. Demons are vindictive sons of bitches, but they're also power-hungry and egotistical. How in the fucking world could they ever turn this deal down?
But still, there is no answer. The world is quiet around Sam, not another soul—human or otherwise—in sight.
No one is coming.
Grief and rage and despair and a million other emotions rise inside Sam, threatening to consume him, and he roars, screams, hurling the box into the woods. He screams and he screams, collapsing to his knees and pounding his fists against the rocky dirt until his skin is torn and red streaks through brown. He screams until his throat is too sore to continue on, hits until his hands beg him to stop, sobs until his body aches from how hard he's shaking.
And then he sits there, hunched over, and cries.
Jack is dead.
Jack is dead and he's not coming back.
Sam doesn't know how long he's been sitting there when he hears the sound of a car speeding down the road, sees headlights approaching, but he knows it's been a while.
He's moved to leaning back against the impala by now, legs bent upward, forearms resting on his knees. He's staring blankly out into the distance. Everything is...numb, far away. It's cold and dark and he's alone but what does any of that matter? His kid's dead. Nothing fucking matters.
The car pulls to a sudden stop, a door opens, and footsteps race towards Sam. He looks up as Dean appears in front of him; his brother's expression is barely-concealed panic, and he rushes to say, "Tell me you didn't make a deal."
Sam's face twists, feeling the words hit him like a knife. He tried, he tried, apparently even Dean knew he'd try, but no, he didn't make a deal. They wouldn't let him. Why wouldn't they let him? He'd give them anything, they had to know that, had to see how desperate he was. Why would they do that to him?
"I tried," Sam croaks out, blinking rapidly against the tears that are once again beginning to fall. He wants the numbness back. He wants to stop feeling anything at all. "They wouldn't even come." His breath hitches, and he looks up at his brother. Dean looks back at him, his own grief clear. And beneath that—understanding.
Dean knows what it is to offer everything you have in exchange for a kid you love more than life itself.
Sam keeps talking, his words coming out of him in a rushed, disoriented ramble. "I should've done more, I should've—I—everything we have, the spells, the lore, what good is any of it if we can't even save our own kid?"
Dean is silent for a long moment. "I don't know," he says eventually, voice quiet.
Sam squeezes his eyes shut, shaking his head. God, how could this have happened? It can't be happening. Jack can't be gone, he can't.
"Come on," Dean says, clearing his throat, reaching out to clasp Sam's shoulder. "Let's go back to the Bunker, huh? It's freezing out here." Sam doesn't move, and Dean sighs. "C'mon, Sammy. We gotta go."
Sam swallows, and finally offers a tight nod, allowing his brother to guide him to his feet. Dean keeps hold of his arm and he guides him to the passenger side of the impala, gentle like Sam's still a little boy as he helps Sam in the car. Sam allows the treatment without protest, unable to speak, to do anything. Probably would've sat on the ground for hours and hours more if Dean didn't come for him.
Maybe the frost would've taken him, after long enough. Sam thinks he might've been grateful if it had.
Distantly, Sam can hear Dean talking to someone, and he realizes Cas is there too. Sam's chest throbs with guilt. Cas was the first of them to love Jack, the first Jack in turn called his father. Sam's making this all about him but, fuck, he's not the only one grieving, not by a longshot.
They all lost their kid. Sam's just the only one broken enough to resort to something like this.
Sam closes his eyes and leans his forehead against the window, trying to keep pulling air into his lungs and letting it out, no matter how badly he wants to stop breathing, stop existing. Maybe he could see Jack again, if he did. Maybe he could get to hold his kid again.
"Alright, Sammy," Dean says softly as he climbs into the car and starts it up, "let's go back home, warm you up."
Sam doesn't have it in him to tell Dean that bunker isn't home, not anymore. Not when Jack's memory haunts every corner. Not when Jack will never set foot in it again.
"Okay," he says instead, barely more than a whisper. Silence falls between them.
It lasts the whole way back.