Museum of Failure
word count: 1360
rating: PG-13
warnings: spoilers for s13e11, show level violence, one F bomb
characters/pairing: gen, Sam, Dean
summary: Dean knew Sam. He knew him well enough to know that there was more going on with Sam's reaction to the Dark Web than just Sam being depressed. coda to s13e11 Breakdown.
Also on AO3
Sam slept, or at least laid in bed, until 10 am.
Sam turned down pancakes.
Sam tried to bail in the middle of a case.
Sam wouldn’t even try to hack the Monster eBay.
Sam told Dean that things were going to end bloody.
And if it wasn’t for the fact that Dean had practically raised Sam, and knew Sam better than Sam knew himself, Dean might have believed all of those things were because Sam was in a really dark place right now.
But the Sam who backed away from the computer, who wanted the FBI to hack the site instead of trying for at least a few minutes of the nearly an hour they had, that wasn’t Depressed Sam.
That was Scared Shitless Sam.
Dean wasn’t even sure how he knew the difference, but he did, just as sure as he knew that Leviathan in the police station in Iowa wasn’t his Sammy.
Sam had recognized that the site was Dark Web immediately, which told Dean that Sam had seen something like it before. Sure, maybe Sam had dabbled into the Deep Web looking for some obscure spell ingredients or a lead on a case, but those reasons wouldn’t have scared him like what Dean saw.
There was something more sinister than monsters buying human limbs out there, and Dean needed to know what it was so he could protect Sam from it.
When Dean said he was taking Dime Dropping Vamp’s computer, Donna only asked that he copy whatever data could help law enforcement close the cases and send it in anonymously, or get it to her and let her do it. Sam was outside talking to Doug, and didn’t see Dean put the computer in the trunk.
As soon as they were back in the bunker, Sam locked himself in his room again. Dean brought the computer in from the car and set it up in his bedroom, locking his own door.
It took over an hour and some of his finer Frank Deveraux training to figure out how to access the unfamiliar TOR browser and hack the password for the auction site.
The high bidder for Sam’s heart (half a million? Where does a werewolf get cash like that?) had a profile on the site. Not anything like his name or address or how Dean could find him to put a silver bullet in him for even thinking about eating Sammy’s heart, but the kind of annoying bullshit people used to put on MySpace. There were links to his instant messenger (which was definitely being passed on to the hunting community), his favorite blogs, his favorite music, and his favorite videos.
Dean clicked on the videos, figuring that he would find more potential hunts. Instead, he ended up in something like Monster You Tube, and lonewolf638 had a playlist entitled “Sam Winchester.”
Well, that certainly got Dean’s attention.
He clicked into the most recent video, and recognized her voice instantly, although he couldn’t see her face. The video was shot from behind Angry Spice, focusing on Sam, who was tied to a chair in front of her.
Dean had an idea before of what had happened when the Brits had kidnapped Sam.
Knowing it, intangibly, didn’t remotely compare with watching his brother being tortured on video. It was even worse knowing it that strangers, monsters, were watching it for enjoyment.
Sammy was doused in cold water, which made Dean shudder, knowing Sam must have felt like he was back with Lucifer. He was hit, cut, and had his feet burned with a blow torch.
A blow torch, really? While hypothermic? The shock to the nerves would have made the burns so much more agonizing.
Through it all, Dean was proud that his little brother kept telling his captors “Screw you.”
Sam finally lost consciousness, due to pain or exhaustion or both, but instead of stopping, the Brits merely changed tactics.
Sam was injected with something while he was out cold, and Angry Spice murmured some words that Dean couldn’t make out.
It was a good thing she was already dead, although Dean considered going out and finding her corpse and shooting it a few more times.
Sam came to, obviously hallucinating, calling out Dean’s name and the names of other family and friends in anguish.
Even with whatever crap they’d shot Sam up with and then maybe voodoo’ed him, he still managed to get the upper hand and nearly escape.
That video ended, and the playlist moved on to the next.
It was another surveillance tape of Sam in the same cellar, unconscious, tied to a chair, and shot up with something while Angry Spice apparently performed a spell on him.
Dean watched in confusion for several minutes as the Brit described a romantic scene, and then proceeded to interrogate Sam, because surely she couldn’t be making Sam hallucinate what it sounded like.
It was what it sounded like, because she asked Sam if it was good for him when he fought his way out of the mind control.
Dean flipped to the next video, anything to get away from Sam’s look of horror and revulsion.
The title of the next clip was “Sam Winchester vs. the demon Belial” and the date was during the time Dean had been a demon.
Sam was dragged into the room by two demons, where a third demon began shouting at Sam about killing demons while trying to get Dean back.
Sam told the demon in charge that he would only send him back to Hell, not kill him, if the demon would tell Sam where Dean was.
The demon laughed, until Sam pulled an arm free and managed to kill one of the demons and wound the other.
Unfortunately, the demon in charge threw Sam across the room before Sam could get near him, and then charged before Sam could recover.
The demon proceeded to beat on Sam while monologing on how Sam should know his place, and not try to confront demons who were older than the biblical Moses. Sam was punched, kicked, stomped on, and thrown around the room. Through it all, Sam tried to fight back.
This, apparently, was how Sam’s arm and shoulder got injured while he and Dean were apart. The demon had Sam on the ground with a foot on his chest and was apparently trying to rip Sam’s arm off.
Cas ran in and smote the demon. He helped Sam, who was coughing up blood, to his feet, and then half carried, half dragged him out of the room.
If Dean hadn’t already seen the violent attack Sam had just endured, the way Sam had screamed in pain when Cas helped him up and had gone completely pale would have confirmed that this was much worse than just a sprained elbow.
Dean turned off the computer.
Sam never said anything. He never would have, and Dean knew that.
Dean walked through the library, grabbed a bottle of bourbon, and wandered, eventually ending up in the gun range downstairs.
He unscrewed the top and took a long drink straight from the bottle.
There had been at least 7 more videos Dean hadn’t watched.
Yet.
He would watch them sometime. He knew that as surely as he knew his own name.
As surely as he knew he had fucked up again, failed in the one job he had ever had that meant anything.
Sam didn’t say a word, and never would. He didn’t have to.
Dean might drink, and might shoot some things, and maybe for a few minutes he would feel better.
But when he went to bed tonight, and tomorrow night, and most likely for the next couple weeks, he would see Sam being tortured when he closed his eyes.
Sam would never tell Dean what happened, and Dean could never tell Sam how sorry he was, how he knew he had failed.
Dean took another long drink from the bottle, and shoved the heel of his hand against his eyes as he heard his father’s voice as plain as if the man had been standing there.
“Take care of Sammy.”