A/N: Okay, season 13 has ended and Sam has gone on a freaking roller coaster in the last couple episodes. Do you really need a recap? He was killed! Then brought back by his torturing, mind-screwing, nemesis the DEVIL. Then he tried to kill Lucifer and put that whole mess behind him, only to have that cunning fallen angel come back to screw him over and get Jack hurt. Then Dean! Do you really need more explanation then that?

Anyways, I was chatting with a friend about the season finale, and about our tall, brave, magnet for the worst luck in our world (and the Apocalypse World, as it turns out), and we were discussing what we wanted to see happen in season 14, and I think we were in agreement that Sam just needs a HUG. (Okay, and a few other things, but this is a start) And that kind of stuck with me all day, until I finely said to myself, I have to write something about him!

Please note: unfortunately there are exactly zero hugs in this story. How did that happen?

So here it is. Takes place after season 13 finale.

Disclaimer: If you recognize, I don't own it.

"We don't know how long it'll take the boys to expel Michael next season, but we do know Michael sealed his own fate the moment he went back on his promise to leave his vessel." -Justin O'Hanley

Work To Do

by: ThornsHaveRoses

There hadn't been a lot of constants in Sam Winchesters life. Certainly not his parents. Definitely not any friends. Sometimes over the course of his earlier life when someone asked him where lived, he had to catch himself from naming the Impala. He often gave Dean grief about his obsession with that car, but he never meant it. She'd carried them through too much. She was the second constant.

The first constant almost went without saying. His older brother. For a long time, his hero, and as they grew up he became something more - not just the guy who took care of him, and that Sam looked up to, but the guy that Sam took care of too. Partners.

They worked a job that literally and metaphorically sucked the life right out of you. And Sam knew now there was never any getting out of it. It was more then just in their blood ( though it definitely was) it was encoded in their DNA, embedded in their bones. And sure, the were fighting for other people. The safety of the whole planet, some days. Millions and millions of lives, that, when you thought about, had really rested on Sam and Deans shoulder for a time.

But they weren't just hunting. They were fighting a war. A war between, as impossible as it seemed, three factions. Heaven, Hell, and what they'd once referred to as Team Free Will. Two powerful, milennia-old forces with fear-inspiring agendas and armies to back them up, and two brothers and their renegade angel.

It was laughable. It was unbelievable. The fact that they had come out on top? More then once? That many battles had been conquered by, what? Winchester stubborness? Pure, dumb, luck? The fact that God was surprisingly neutral in this war for His creation , and had lent them a hand once or twice?

But Sam and Dean? They fought for each other. Always had. Always would. That made them a force to be reckoned with.

And Dean may have strapped on that soul bomb and walked up to the Darkness, but somehow Sam knew without saying that he wasn't thinking of the world full of people, he was protecting Sam. Because that's what big brothers do.

But Sam would have done it too. He had - the Cage had almost destroyed him. He knew the truth - that's just what brothers did - no matter their age. They sacrificed anything for each other.

When they were young, too young to be left in motel rooms with grownup jobs, Dean had sacrificed his education to take care of Sam. When their father was late, and the grocery money was gone, Sam had sacrificed his lunch money, going hungry so he could bring home chocolate bars for his big brother, pretending a kid had given them to him so Dean didnt feel guilty.

That's just what they did.

But when you start sacrificing that early, it becomes so ingrained. The constant I can fix this mentality that had almost destroyed them time and time again. A conditioned response.

But Sam didn't know how to fix it this time.

There was no demon to bargain with, no self-sacrificing play that would get them out of this one. The monster Sam needed to kill was inside his brother. A kind of invitation-only party with no end. A problem no book in the Men of Letters bunker could seem to help him with.

It was so damn unfair! That minutes -minutes- after Sam got his family back together, for the first time in forever, this never ending war they fought kicked them down again. That his constant, his stone number one, was playing host to Michael, because of Sam.

And it was so unfair that Mary was walking around the bunker, making coffee, he'd even heard her humming under her breath, like she was fine. Like Dean wasn't trapped in his own body by a murderous, world-destroying angel. Like she had already moved on.

And Jack. Sam knew the kid had suffered his fair share - he'd lost his mother, Dean/Michael had killed his biological dad just a few days ago. He'd lost Cas briefly too. He'd been stuck in Apocalypse-World. And yeah, he was still recovering from a near fatal wound, but he didn't act like he understood the... the...the severity of the situation.

Sam felt like he was going crazy around them.

He knew what it felt like to have an angel in control. More then one, actually. That sick, unclean feeling of someone else's hatred and violence and worst of all, joy. To fight as hard as you could against an invasion you'd ultimately let in yourself, only to be shuttered away to a far corner. Helpless.

Sam looked at them, and all he could think was, how were they even functioning? He could barely move -he felt like he was surrounded by water, pushing through the heaviness, all the while sludging through quicksand. And evey hour that passed that he didn't have a solution, or a plan, he was sinking deeper.

Because Sam Winchester was not whole on his own. He'd tried it... time and time again. Dean was his first constant, after all. From the moment he'd carried him out of their burning house. Through thick and thin (and there had been a lot of both). Sam knew he'd never find peace in this life, but he's accepted that, because he knew he'd always have Dean, and that was a trade-off he could handle.

He wandered down the hall, going to the table where his utterly useless pile of books were stacked. Then suddenly furious, he shoved the pile across the table, feeling somewhat mollified by the sharp, angry sounds of hardcovers meeting the floor.

He slumped into the chair, arms across the table, cheek resting against the cool tabletop, feeling that familiar exaustion, that hopelessness, pulling him down.

But then his fingertips brushed, not over the smooth surface, but over rough carvings and his head snapped up to look at the two sets of initials carved into the surface. Sam traced the 'D', his mind racing backwards to when his older brother had offered him the knife. Offered him a chance at a home after three decades of nomadic life. Offered him a silent promise, this is ours. Maybe even, we deserve this. Dean, in his classic, understated way, had offered Sam hope.

And Sam had taken the knife.

Sam had let his brother down before. In Purgatory. With Ruby. More times then he wanted to admit.

But not this time. He would not let Michael keep his brother.

That angel had no idea what the Winchester brothers were willing to do for each other. No idea that he could shake the universe apart if he had a reason. This Michael had never stood toe to toe with a Winchester. He had no idea the situation he had stepped into. Dean had sacrificed his free will - the thing that made him so fundimentally Dean - for his brother. How could Sam do any less? And sitting around this bunker as if an answer would magically appear in his lap - that was doing less.

Purpose flooded Sam's veins like a flood. And more then that... hope. The legacy that his brother left him. Sure, there had been years of pain and suffering and just life that pulled them down as sure as gravity, but Dean had never given in the despair. His brother had always, always fought. No matter how hard. No matter how bloody.

And Michael did not scare Sam Winchester.

The angel didn't know that Sam Winchester had known loss more powerful then most people could fathom and still managed to keep pushing forward. He had clawed his way through a life of hunting. He had taken on the Trials, events that were supposed to kill whoever did so and he was still standing. He'd taken down gods. He'd overcome the Devil in his own body to protect his brother. He'd learned a thing or two about retribution and revenge from Lucifer himself. He'd travelled world's and time. He'd died and lived and died again.

Some things would never change. This path he was on, and had been on since that fire at Stanford, and if he was completely honest, maybe since before that, had all been walked, or raced, or crawled to a simple mantra. We've got work to do.

Michael had taken the very best thing in Sam's life.

Sam was going to take it back.

A/N: Thanks for checking this out! I really enjoyed writing it, so I hope you enjoyed reading it. Feel free to leave a review and tell me what you think.