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There’s a fly buzzing around Sam’s face. When it lands on his cheek to drink his sweat he instinctively tries to raise his hand to swat it. Pain flashes through him, bright white and blinding. Right. His hands are nailed to a board. The fly crawls across his field of vision, and the tickle of its legs is worse than the nails through Sam’s hands and feet, worse than the throbbing where his arms have gone numb, worse than his endless struggle for breath on this cross. After an impossibly long time, or maybe half a minute, the fly takes wing and Sam breathes a sigh of relief.
The abandoned church has gone dim in the twilight, although the shattered remnants of stained glass still glow, illuminated by the sunset. Roy and Walt nailed Sam to the cross before dawn, but he’s still nowhere near dead because they’re both idiots. They crucified him wrong.
They put the nails straight through his palms, bickering with each other all the while about the proper rituals to bind the Antichrist. They thought Sam had cast the angels from Heaven. When they stood up the cross on the altar the entire weight of Sam’s body was suspended by the nails through his hands. The meat of his palms began to shred instantly, the flesh too thin to hold him up. His left hand tore free entirely, a jagged path ripped right through the middle. Sam dangled partly free from the cross as he screamed.
They nailed him back up through what remained of his left palm, and held him in place with their hands as they argued about what to do. Finally they tied his arms to the cross with rope. Sam could’ve told them it wasn’t going to work. If you want to crucify somebody you put the nails in just above the wrist, between the two bones of the forearm. That way the victim’s whole weight is borne by his arms, which leads to hyper expansion of the chest muscles and lungs and eventual asphyxiation. But Sam’s weight is mostly being held up by the ropes. While breathing isn’t easy it’s not impossible.
After the first few hours Sam could see Roy and Walt pacing around behind the pews and hear their frustrated whispers. They couldn’t understand why Sam wouldn’t die on cue. Sam wasn’t about to tell them. The longer he held out, the better the chance that Dean would make it here to save him.
They’re gone now. Maybe they went off to google crucifixion. Sam’s grateful for the solitude. The pain’s easier to bear when no one’s staring at him, willing him to hurry up and die already.
The air gets colder as the sun goes down and Sam starts to shake, jarring the wounds in his hands and feet. Maybe it’s shock. He wishes Dean would get here. He’s so thirsty. It’s worse than the pain. It sits square in the center of his consciousness, conjuring up images of icy water bottles, cool streams, and turquoise swimming pools. He sings the entirety of Sgt. Pepper in his head and replays the convoluted plotlines of every episode of Arrested Development, but he can’t escape his yearning for a drink.
The church is nearly dark, but Sam can still see Jesus glowing in the window above the door, mocking him with the historically inaccurate nails through his palms. It’s hard to keep fear at bay anymore. He doesn’t want to spend the night here. What if something has happened to Dean?
When the front door of the church slams open Sam’s first thought is that it’s Walt and Roy come back to finish the job. Sunset catches the figure from behind, illuminating the flare of a trench coat. As far as Sam’s concerned it might as well be wings.
“Cas,” he says, or tries to say. It comes from his parched throat as a croak.
“Sam.” Cas runs up the steps of the altar, bloody sword in hand.
“Water,” Sam says.
Cas ignores him, squinting at the nails through his hands in the half light. For an instant Sam can’t understand why Cas doesn’t whisk him away somewhere safe, and then he remembers. Castiel is just a man now.
“There’s two of them,” Sam says, suddenly afraid.
“I know. They’re dead.” He slowly circles the cross.
“Dean?”
Cas’s voice comes from behind him. “They shot him. He’s in the hospital now, but he’ll live.”
Cas steps back around to the front and brushes his fingertips across the nail in Sam’s right hand. Sam winces.
“I don’t know how to get you down without causing you more harm. I think a doctor should remove the nails.” He hesitates like he’s hoping Sam has an answer, but Sam will be damned if he knows how to take someone off a cross.
“I’ll pull the nails from the wood,” Cas says finally. “There are tools in the Impala.”
“Water,” Sam says.
Cas nods. “I’ll bring it.” He runs for the door and Sam has to fight the urge to call him back, to beg him to stay. He’s terrified that if he lets Cas out of his sight he’ll never return. When the church is empty again Sam has the sinking feeling that the whole thing was a hallucination, the pretty, light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel lie that your brain produces when you’re dying.
But Cas comes back with a bag in his hand before the sun has even crossed the horizon, looking worried and determined. He drops the bag on the altar and lifts a bottle to Sam’s lips. “Here. Drink.” Sam gulps the lukewarm water so fast he chokes. He spasms against the cross and pain flares up anew. Cas lays a hand on Sam’s chest and waits for him to clear his lungs. He holds up two pills.
“Vicodin,” Cas says. “You think you can swallow them? It’ll be easier for you if you can.” Sam nods, although he’s not so sure. Cas feeds the pills to him one at a time. Sam swallows carefully. He almost chokes again on the first one, but he manages to get them down.
Cas pulls a knife from the bag and disappears behind him. “I’m going to see if I can work the nail loose,” Cas’s voice says from somewhere below.
There’s the soft, persistent sound of metal scraping wood, carefully freeing the massive nail that passes through Sam’s ankles. After a while it seems to be working. Sam’s feet feel looser, banging against the plank every time Cas works the knife in around the nail. The pain that comes with every tiny movement is unbearable, and Sam hears himself whimpering shamefully.
Cas lays his left hand over the top of Sam’s ankles and holds them in place. Cas’s skin feels warm against the chill of evening.
“They crucified you wrong,” Cas says conversationally. Sam knows this trick—he’s trying to distract Sam from the pain. No doubt he learned it from Dean. Sam’s grateful nonetheless.
“Historically inaccurate,” Sam says. There aren’t many words left in his brain, but those two are still hanging around.
“Yes,” Cas says. “Exactly.”
Sam hunts for more words. “You saw? Jesus?”
There’s a final jolt, and Sam grits his teeth against a scream. When Cas speaks again he’s still behind Sam, but he’s standing.
“There, your feet are loose . . . no, I didn’t see him crucified.” Sam hears the knife start working again behind him, prying out the nail in his left hand.
“I knew him, though,” Cas says after a brief silence, filled only by the scratch of the knife. “It’s strange. I’d forgotten that, but Naomi’s influence has been wearing off since I fell. You remind me of him. You and Dean both.”
Sam gives the best incredulous snort he can muster when he’s on the verge of passing out. Cas ignores him. “He was meant to be a prophet, but he had his own ideas. He insisted on consorting with prostitutes and tax collectors, on preaching a philosophy that wasn’t written down on any tablet.”
The shredded remains of Sam’s palm starts to rattle against the wood. “Please,” Sam says. He doesn’t know what he’s asking for. Cas’s left hand finds his fingers and wraps around them. His right hand keeps digging. Sam feels the moment the nail pulls free, a mixture of agony and relief. Only the rope holds up his left side now.
“Untie me.” Sam’s arm is made of pain. He’d do terrible things to lower it.
“Soon.” Sam hears Cas shift behind his head and start in on his right hand. “Naomi went to him in the desert. She offered him all the kingdoms of the earth if he’d only work for us.”
“Lucifer,” Sam says.
“The Bible is inaccurate. Lucifer was in the Cage. Naomi is the one who tempted him.”
Sam feels the ropes take more of his weight as his right hand begins to come free. “When he turned her down drastic measures became necessary,” Cas says. “Judas was a faithful servant of Heaven.”
Sam struggles to bring to mind half-remembered scraps of the Bible, stories he read in another lifetime, back when he still believed that prayer was good for something other than a long distance call.
“Forsaken,” he says, hanging on the threshold of unconsciousness.
“Yes, we forsook him on the cross. It was an easy matter to gain control of the Church once he was gone.”
Sam’s right hand suddenly falls away from the board, and he finds himself suspended by nothing more than the ropes. There’s a clattering sound behind him and Cas comes back into view dragging two planks. He lays them at Sam’s feet and takes off his trench coat, spreading it across the top.
“I can’t carry you,” he says, “but I’ll pull you to the car.” He’s leaning close to Sam, and he stinks of stale sweat and unwashed clothes. He hasn’t mastered the concept of daily bathing. He slices cautiously through the ropes around Sam’s arms, taking a little more of Sam’s weight as each one snaps. In spite of his scrupulous care, when he severs the last rope Sam falls on top of him, nearly taking them both to the ground. Cas does his best to lower Sam onto the makeshift stretcher, but Sam still drops the better part of a foot, hands and feet striking the ground in agony.
When Sam recovers enough to remember where he is, he tips his head to survey the impossibly long journey from the altar to the door. He imagines every jerk and jolt along the way. It’d be easier to walk across the Sahara than to be dragged those few dozen feet.
Cas follows Sam’s gaze and seems to understand. “We can rest a few minutes first. Let the pills take full effect.”
He sits down next to Sam and lets him drink from the water bottle. Cas’s hand brushes the sweaty hair from Sam’s face and then settles on his forehead. They wait in silence for chemical grace to take away Sam’s pain. Sam watches as the last of the orange light dies out through the stained glass, until the figure of Jesus blends indistinguishably into the dark.