The Battle of Evermore, as Fought on the Stairway to Heaven and the Highway to Hell
Title: The Battle of Evermore, as Fought on the Stairway to Heaven and the Highway to Hell
Author: monsterfan
Pairing/Rating: Gen, PG
Word Count: 4K
Summary: Anti-Christmas gift for immortal_jedi over at sammessiah. After Castiel declares himself the new god, he decides he wants someone he trust to run hell. It’s a toss up between Crowley, who’s all too eager for the job, and Sam, who doesn’t want it at all. Sam is persuaded to put his name in the running. And then he finds out exactly how many hoops he has to jump through…
Based on this prompt: Castiel is God- and he needs someone to run Hell. He doesn't want Crowley.... but he knows exactly who would be a good fit for the job. Sam.
Notes: This is my first time playing in the Sammessiah sandbox. I was eager to flex my muscles with something dark and bloody. This is not that. Some creeping on immortal_jedi revealed a penchant for humor and schmoop, which is what I do better anyway. So I present here Reluctant-to-be-Boy-King!Sam....er, I hope you like it. Thanks to dreamlittleyo for organizing this exchange.
* * * * *
“I’m your new god, a better one. So, you will bow down and profess your love to me, your Lord, or I shall destroy you.”
There’s a tense minute after Castiel makes his proclamation. Sam and Bobby’s knees are just starting to give when Dean has the balls to say, “Come on, Cas, I’ve seen you crying because a girl wanted to touch you under your trench coat.”
Castiel glowers at Dean for a moment, but when Dean just stares back in challenge, Cas sighs. “Come on, Dean, I’m serious. I’m god now. You have to obey me.”
Bobby, sensing that the only thing they have to fear and all that, chimes in. “Like you obeyed your god?”
Sam would totally make an air point in the hunters’ column, but the room is spinning and he’s not entirely certain that Lucifer isn’t giving Cas bunny ears.
“Not doing too well, are you, Sam?” Cas says smugly.
“What’s wrong with you?” Dean barks at his brother.
“Cas broke my hell-wall.” Sam is totally a tattletale.
Dean points a finger at Cas. “Fix him.”
“No.”
“Cas…”
“Don’t threaten me. I’m god.”
Sam and Dean look at each other. It’s official: Cas is going to be insufferable for as long as he’s in power.
“Cas, now.”
“Fine,” Cas grumbles. He takes two steps forward, slaps his palm on Sam’s forehead, and retreats. Sam immediately feels better. Lucifer sticks out a forked tongue before he flickers out of sight for good.
Two slow claps catch their attention, and they turn around to see that Crowley has returned. “Well, so much for the Winchesters saving the day. I guess the heavenly host have a new leader?”
“And Earth and hell,” Castiel interjects.
They all look at him. He’s shorter than any of them, and he looks awfully young and naïve to be declaring himself the ruler of all existence. Sam remembers a time when a gaggle of black-eyed weirdos used to tell him that was his job. He’s grateful those days are over.
“Yeah, about that,” Crowley says. “Listen, you’re going to be busy, what with the angel mutiny, so what do you say you let me keep hell? I’ll cut you in at, say, ten percent of all souls, and you can feel free to pop by to visit your brothers in the cage any time you want.”
Castiel narrows his eyes and looks back and forth between Sam and Crowley, like he’s formulating a plan. A plan Sam isn’t going to like at all.
Dean pulls Sam away by his jacket sleeve. “Dude, I think he’s gonna ask you to rule hell.”
“Why me?”
“Hello, Lucifer’s vessel? Boy king?”
“Well, I’m not doing it.”
“No, of course not,” Dean agrees quickly. “Except, yeah, you are.”
“Dean! What?”
“Think about, Sam. This way, you can keep an eye on Cas, and we can clean up hell, stop all the torturing and the crossroads deals, and we can finally get Crowley off our backs. I think you should tell him you want the job.”
Sam looks to Bobby for guidance, but the old man just shrugs and tugs his cap down. “I’ve seen you do dumber things.”
They move back to Cas and Crowley, who are having heated negotiations. Sam just interrupts them. “I want to rule hell,” he declares. The angel and the demon look at him in surprise. “It was my destiny. I want it. I’ll do a better job than Crowley, Cas, you know I will. I’ll put an end to the torture.”
“I already did that,” Crowley informs him.
“So what happens to people in hell now?” Dean asks.
“They wait in line.”
Later, when they’re not squaring off with a new god and the self-acclaimed king of hell, he and Dean should probably talk about how unfair it is that they were psychologically and physically tortured in hell before the policy change. Now, however, Sam tries to put his first-rate education to use thinking up an alternative punishment that Cas would like better.
“I’ll make all the souls in hell do volunteer work,” Sam says.
Dean pipes up, “Yeah, like cleaning the highways, and - Cas, you hated how dirty the bathroom at the movies was -”
“When did you go to the movies together?” Bobby wonders.
“Yeah, we’ll make them mop public restrooms,” Sam finishes. He looks expectantly at Crowley and Cas.
“That’s horrifying,” Crowley admits. “That’s real torture.” He spins on his heel toward Cas. “Well, which one of us is it going to be?”
“Being god means being called upon to make the tough decisions,” Castiel narrates, as if there’s an audience watching this charade go down. “I think - I think I will have to see who’s better for the job. You have to prove your worth.”
* * * * *
When Cas said they would have to jump through hoops, Sam didn’t think he meant it in the literal sense. Sam knows to tuck and roll on the way out, but he’s still covered in bruises and mud. Crowley, who did the demon-disappear-and-appear thing at all the critical moments, is still wearing his richly tailored wool overcoat and shiny black shoes. He looks completely unruffled.
After the hoop-jumping comes the hurdles. Sam kicks ass on that one, since his legs are eight miles long and since Crowley insists running is beneath a demon.
Cas announces the tie-breaker will be a three-legged race. Crowley suddenly has a third leg, and he just gives a lecherous grin when Sam asks where it came from. He beats the Winchesters, who are sniping at each other and not really doing well with that whole concept of teamwork.
“Crowley has won,” Cas announces.
“He totally cheated!” Sam protests.
Crowley shakes his head sadly. “It’s hell, you moron! You’re supposed to cheat!”
“I want another chance,” Sam insists. Dean stands behind him with his arms crossed over his chest, silently seconding the demand.
Cas doesn’t seem that enthused about continuing the competition, but he agrees to it. He announces a time and place for the second battle - somewhere the Winchesters can’t be because they’re beholden to little things like the laws of physics.
“Before you say I’m being unfair,” Cas preempts, “let me remind you that you’re arguing with god. God is always fair. If you really want to rule hell, you’ll figure out a way to do this.”
After he and Crowley disappear, Sam throws his hands up. “Great. How are we supposed to get to heaven by six a.m.?”
“Stairway?” Dean jokes, but shakes his head that this is serious business before Sam can yell at him for being flip. “Maybe we’re supposed to kill ourselves…Nah, Cas wouldn’t be that evil.”
“No, I think you’re right,” Sam realizes.
“Sammy, suicide is -”
“We have to build a stairway.”
* * * * *
Building a stairway to a place that isn’t even a physical location sounds a lot easier than it really is. It takes a lot of phone calls to scientists and engineers and some experimenting with helium that doesn’t work - and only leads Dean to conclude that, if the helium’s not good for anything else, it’s good for making funny voices. By 4:30 they’re frustrated and exhausted.
“If I don’t figure this out in the next hour and a half, I’m going to forfeit hell,” Sam reminds him.
In his Mickey Mouse helium voice, Dean replies, “Gee, that’s too bad. Look on the bright side -” he pauses to inhale some more gas - “actually, I have no idea what the bright side is.”
“I didn’t even want this job,” Sam complains sinking into a chair in the corner of the room. “You forced me into this.”
“Dude, a chance to rule hell? Yeah, you had to take it.”
“Dean,” Sam says seriously, “you were there for forty years. You really think it’s such a good idea for us to go back?”
“Me?” Dean looks panicked. “Who said anything about me?”
And that’s just great. Sam is building a stairway to heaven so he can assume the throne to hell, and his brother won’t even come with him. Just like the fifth-grade science fair. Well, minus the hell part.
Sam ignores Dean for the next half-hour. Dean gives up on inhaling helium - maybe the tank is out, or maybe he remembered he’s thirty-three. They drift to opposite sides of the motel room that Cas agreed to expense. Dean lies on his back and stares up at the ceiling, drifting in and out of sleep. Sam’s just about ready to keel over with exhaustion when it hits him: it’s not so different than the fifth-grade science fair.
“I got it,” he announces, watching Dean shake awake. “We need to find a twenty-four hour Wal-Mart. We’re going to need posterboard, glue, modeling clay, and glitter.”
* * * * *
At 5:49 they pray to Castiel to come to their motel room. He arrives at 5:51, looking confused.
“Ta-da!” Sam pushes the diorama forward on the table. It looks like it was assembled by a child in a special needs program, but it’s done. There’s blue and green construction paper on the bottom to represent Earth, and a staircase made out of accordion-fanned posterboard leading upward. At the top of the staircase are Pipecleaner Sam and Dean. They’re distinguishable because Dean glued brown string all over Pipecleaner Sam’s head and then rolled him in glitter. In retaliation Sam cut an inch off Pipecleaner Dean’s legs. The glitter, by the way, is supposed to be sprinkled all over the top of the staircase to signify heaven. The last time they were in heaven, it was actually pretty grungy, but Sam figures that it’s best to stick with popular interpretation for a project like this.
“What is that?” Castiel asks as he squats down to get a better look.
Dean talks him through the diorama. “That’s Earth, and that’s a stairway to heaven, and that’s Sam and Dean, in heaven. You said we had to be in heaven at 6:00. It’s 5:57 right now.”
“I see.” Castiel squints a little, which Sam has come to realize could mean anything from displeasure to his vessel passing gas. It doesn’t worry him. They’ve got this. “Very creative,” Cas concedes. “You win.”
“So Sammy gets to rule hell?”
“No, Sam won one challenge, and Crowley won the other. We’ll have to have a third round.”
“Oh, come on, Cas,” the brothers protest, but Castiel holds out his palm to quiet them.
“I’m a fair god. We’ll have a tie-breaker. Be at the Old Orchard shopping mall tomorrow at noon. Meet me at the food court. Our final battle will take place there.”
As soon as he’s gone, Dean immediately gets to work googling the name of the shopping mall, which turns out to be just north of Chicago. They can easily get there by noon and still have time for a few hours’ sleep. Fair god, after all.
* * * * *
By the time they get to the food court, Crowley is sitting in one of the plastic chairs with a giant chocolate chip cookie in front of him. He looks uncomfortable.
Sam gives him a wave as Dean gets in line for some coffee, but Crowley pretends not to see him. Even though they’re competing, Sam would like to think they have good sportsmanship. The brush-off hurts his feelings a little, until he remembers that Crowley is a demon, and they’re battling over leadership of hell. He’s probably lucky Crowley hasn’t set the hellhounds on him to take him out of the running.
He wonders if maybe Cas laid down some ground rules before this competition began.
He and Dean sit at the table next to Crowley, who eats his cookie in silence.
Finally Cas arrives, walking through the food court with majesty. He’s radiant. It might just be the angle of the sun coming through the skylights.
“Hello, children,” he greets them, with his arms outstretched.
Dean rolls his eyes. “All right, we’re here. What’s today’s bullshit?”
“Crowley, Sam,” Cas begins, sounding a little like the host of a reality TV show, “we have battled using physical strength, which Crowley won, and using intelligence and creativity, which Sam won.”
“I was in heaven waiting for you!” Crowley protests. There’s a little bit of melted chocolate on the corner of his lip. Sam tries to tell him by gesturing with his thumb, but Crowley just looks down at his own thumb in confusion.
Castiel continues, undaunted. “Today we will battle using the heart. To rule hell, you must possess strength and intelligence, but a good leader is always one who understands the hearts of the people. A good leader should -”
“Seriously, Cas, cut to the chase,” Dean interrupts.
“I really wish you’d stop raining on my parade. Fine, you have to figure out the true desires of three people in this food court and find a way to fulfill them.”
Sam raises his hand with a question.
“Go ahead, Sam.”
Dean slaps him across the ribs and mutters, “We’re not in school,” but Sam ignores him.
“I’m just a little confused on the objective of this battle,” Sam says. “I mean, ruling hell is all about making people unhappy, isn’t it?”
“If you don’t even know what the job description is, you shouldn’t get the job,” Crowley points out. “I win.” He pushes back from his chair and balls up the wax paper the cookie was in.
“Not so fast,” Cas says. “Only god can decide when the competition is over.”
“I wasn’t kidding, Cas,” Dean warns. “You want me to send all the angels that drunk text from that one time?”
Cas sighs heavily. “Just do it,” he urges Sam. “I promise there’s a point.”
Sam guesses it’s better than being told to make a mall full of people unhappy. Or kill them, or whatever. But he’s still not wholly sold on the purpose of this little challenge. What’s the point of testing their good intentions if they’re on the road to -
“Oh,” Sam says in realization. Dean turns to look at him. “It’s an AC/DC thing.”
Dean gets it immediately. “Gotta say, Cas, the whole classic rock motif to this competition? Didn’t know you were so cool, man.”
“What are you talking about?” Cas asks.
“Never mind,” Dean says glumly.
“Look, can we put a time limit on this little exercise?” Crowley suggests. “As much as I do love cavorting with the huddled masses yearning to shop free, one of my hellhounds gets jumpy if she doesn’t get walked after lunch.”
“Right, yes,” Cas agrees. “You have thirty minutes.” He gives a little smile of self-satisfaction.
Sam zeroes in on a woman sitting by herself near a ficus tree. She has a book open on the table, but she’s clearly not reading it. She looks lonely. He knows from his experience interviewing victims that he can win her trust in approximately eight minutes. He might have this challenge sewn up.
It’s almost as if Cas is trying to sway the contest in his favor. But a fair god wouldn’t do that, right? Still, it’s pretty remarkable that they’re being asked to do something that doesn’t require any skills other than a good ear and a charming smile. No demonic powers necessary.
“Man, if Ruby could see me now,” he muses as he hurries over to the woman.
Her name is Linda. She’s twenty-eight and recently broke up with her fiancé. She just moved to the area from Providence. She still hasn’t finished unpacking her stuff, but she couldn’t stand being alone in her apartment anymore, so she took herself out for some retail therapy. Sam learns all this in under four minutes.
While he’s chatting with Linda, he sees Dean beeline it for a dude who has his tie thrown over his shoulder while he eats a salad. Sam’s a little confused when Dean leans forward over the table, shifting his hips a little, and then laughing a little too loudly. But then Dean looks over his shoulder to Sam, points to Linda, gives a thumbs up, and two minutes later necktie guy and Linda are chatting like old friends. And he and Dean still have twenty minutes left to fulfill two desires - one, if Cas will count necktie guy.
Sam spares a few seconds to search out Crowley. He catches the demon kissing some overweight redhead in stretchy pants. He’s clearly just made a deal for her soul.
Sam nudges Dean, who shakes his head and urges Sam deeper into the crowd.
Heart’s desire fulfillment number two is easy - and accidental. Sam runs smack into a toddler, or rather the other way around, and the kid’s ice cream tumbles off the cone and onto the floor. The kid looks at his empty cone and starts crying. Without realizing he’s still playing the game, Sam rushes to the ice cream counter and buys a replacement. He hands it over to the kid with a smile. “I’m sorry about that,” he says sincerely. The kid’s mother thanks him profusely and offers to pay him, but he waves her off.
“Dude,” Dean says with pride when the kid and his mother are gone, “that was number three.”
“Time?”
“Seventeen minutes left.”
“One more just in case,” Sam insists.
Finding case number three proves much more difficult, and it’s a good thing they have the extra time. Somewhere between Dean getting slapped across the face by a granny and a teenager with hot pink hair and a nose ring calling Sam a creeper, Crowley seals his second deal with a kiss. Finally, Sam realizes they haven’t even scoped out the employees. He spots a tall, lanky teenager with overgrown chestnut hair sneaking peeks at a chemistry textbook every time his co-worker turns his back to dump a new batch of fries.
“Bingo.”
Sam takes his time heading toward the counter because he doesn’t want to scare the kid off. He inquires about an item on the menu, and the kid gives a complete, if somewhat bored, answer. When Sam tells him he needs a minute to decide, the kid whips out the book and starts reading again. Sam angles his head sideways. “Organic chemistry? Man, I loved that class.”
It’s a lie. Sam has had to learn certain things about science to do his job, but he much preferred the abstract world of the humanities. Even when he was a competitive mathlete, it wasn’t so much about the fun as it was having an excuse to avoid doing chores on Saturdays.
“Yeah, the AP test is coming up,” the kid says.
Sam nods sympathetically. “Bet you’re hoping for a good score so you can get into the college of your dreams, huh?”
“Well, I already got accepted into Northwestern, but, you know, without extra scholarships…”
“What would say if I could guarantee you a full ride?” Crowley interrupts.
“Hey, I was talking to him!”
Crowley shrugs and gives Sam a look to remind him that ruling hell is supposed to be about cheating. Sam knows he can’t promise this kid as much as Crowley. The best he can do is tell the kid it’s worth working at a fry counter all summer if it means his dream school in the fall. And he can offer to help fill out the FAFSA.
There are only four minutes left to the contest, and if Cas decides necktie guy and Linda only count as one, Sam will lose the seat of hell to a smarmy British demon who likes easy listening hits. That simply cannot happen. Crowley is some two-bit who has risen through the ranks. His opportunism has perhaps earned him a rung near the top of the ladder, but he’ll always be a hell commoner. Sam was the one born into noble blood. Sam is the one who deserves hell.
“Oh, fuck,” he mutters.
“What?” Crowley asks. He’s got his palms flat on the white counter, leaning over it like he’s just about to do something slightly illegal in order to secure the soul of the poor chem dork.
“I just realized what my third desire was,” Sam says sadly. There’s no real harm in confessing now the results of this little dog-and-pony show Cas has concocted are certain. “Hey, kid, if this creep tries to kiss you, scream ‘rape,’ okay?” Sam shuffles back over to Dean, who’s rubber-necking around the room like a chicken in heat. “It’s all right. We’ve got three.”
“We do? We do?” Dean beams, but his face falls when he sees Sam’s. “Why do you look so upset about it?”
“Because the third desire is my own.”
“Oh.” Dean doesn’t get it. Sam waits for him to realize he doesn’t get it. “What was your desire?”
“To rule hell.”
* * * * *
Castiel pronounces Sam the winner of the competition and, as a result, the new leader of hell. He graciously offers to let Sam decide whether he wants his official title to be Assistant to God, Hell Division; Prince of Hell, a Principality of Heaven; or, Dean’s favorite, Duke of Infernal Damnation. Sam asks if he can have ninety days to think about it.
“And now, Sam,” Cas says, once again spreading his arms wide, “I want you to solemnly avow that you will rule hell as I have ruled you.”
Sam raises his right hand and swears.
* * * * *
The first thing Sam does when he and Dean get to hell is place an injunction on the line-waiting torture. He’s thinking about switching to a phone bank where everyone’s eternally on hold, but there are more important matters to tend to. He summons everyone to the biggest fire he can see, which will serve as the Royal Infernal Damnation Gathering Place. He gives the demons a few minutes to wrap up whatever they’re doing that he doesn’t want to think about before he addresses them.
“Dude, this is, like, your first big speech as the king of hell,” Dean says with a little awe.
“Prince,” Sam reminds him. “Or duke.”
“Whatever. What are you going to say?”
Sam shrugs. He really has no idea; he just thought it was appropriate to make some kind of speech marking his ascension. He steps out in front of the crowd. There are demons as far as the eye can see. Millions of them - some in human bodies, with black eyes; some no longer corporeal at all - and they’re all waiting for him to take the reins.
“Hi, everybody, I’m Sam, and this is my brother Dean,” he begins. It’s not a very regal opening. He can hear one of the human-demons coughing over the silence. He wonders if hell has crickets. “Um, okay, well, as you may know, I’m your new leader. From now on, you’ll do what I say.”
He pledged he would rule them as Castiel had ruled the competition.
“Okay, if you’ll divide into two lines, the first thing we’re going to do is called Red Rover.”
The End