A/N: Tag to the fantastic 5.14: My Bloody Valentine. This is a series of missing scenes set at various points during the episode.

Warnings: SPOILERS for 5.14: My Bloody Valentine. Mild spoilers for the rest of season 5. Blood and gore, mild swearing, metaphor-abuse.

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or any of its characters.

A Bellyful of Locusts

The smell didn't go away.

Sam had wiped the blood off the knife as well as he could, but its smell still stayed – still lingered, attached to his clothes, his skin, his hair, the very air he breathed –

He swallowed against his suddenly parched throat, against the sulphurous twang that burned in his nostrils and sent electric spasms along his nerves. He needed to, he needed – (the blood, he had to take it in, he –) to get back to Dean, Cas; he needed to tell them that the demons (full of power pulsing through their veins, just there for the taking, lord) were somehow involved in this.

He picked up the briefcase, and with a great deal of effort, focussed on the clasp. It was adorned by an eclectic array of symbols in a pattern that Sam couldn't immediately recognise. The rest of the briefcase – black, sturdy, a little worn with use – looked unremarkable. He held it up to his ear and shook it very carefully – he couldn't hear anything moving inside, although the case was rather heavy. What was about the case that had demons carrying it around? And how did it all connect to their job? Sam decided it was best to discuss this with Dean back in the motel, away from the smell, away from how it was making him feel –

No. Nononono. He wasn't going to think about it. Truth be told, he was rather ashamed – and a little scared – that the blood was affecting him like this again, after all these months of training his mind against it –

Just a temporary thing, he assured himself. If he didn't think about it, he was going to be fine. Right.

He absently wiped the sweat beading on his forehead with his sleeve and walked back to the parked taxi. A few minutes into the ride back to the motel, though, Sam was just about ready to go crazy. The smell that seemed resolute in sticking to his person doubled in intensity within the cramped confines of the car; rolling down the windows helped, but only a little: his stomach still roiled and burned, his face pink and feverish.

Dean was sitting with his laptop at the table when Sam finally managed to stagger into the motel room; he was on his feet in a flash, asking what had happened, but Sam's only response was to slam the case on the table and disappear into the bathroom, where his stomach was intent on purging what seemed like everything he had eaten the past week. Dean called out his name a few times in between the bouts of retching, but didn't otherwise intervene.

When Sam was finally done, he leaned his against the toilet bowl, spent. Dean watched him from the bathroom door, concerned and a little wary. "What's wrong with you?" he asked at length. "And what's with that bag?"

Sam slowly lifted himself to his feet. "Demon," he rasped. "I'd seen it before – carrying that case the first time we went to the Medical Centre, and just now. I think it's got something to do with what's going on."

"Demons, huh? Well, that's just great," Dean said. "And you? Are you okay? Did you –"

Sam looked at Dean's exhausted features, wondering how much of this renewed intensity of his thirst was worth piling on Dean's already-overflowing plate. "Just a little under-the-weather, is all," he said (couldn't Dean smell it, coming off his clothes in giant clouds, suffocating?). "Probably feel better after a shower and a change of clothes."

Dean surveyed him for a long minute before nodding and turning back into the room. "You do that," he said. "Then we'll get to opening this thing."

Sam did feel a lot better after the shower, the nausea but a memory and the burning considerably reduced in intensity. He joined his brother in contemplating the black case.

Maybe that flare-up had been a temporary thing, after all.

Okay, now Dean was starting to get a little concerned.

Sitting in the Impala outside St James Medical Centre, waiting for a demon carrying human souls along with an angel who was on a meat-eating binge, he wondered at how rapidly this case had dissolved from kill-the-rogue-Cupid to find-a-Horseman-of-the-Apocalypse. Not to mention Sam – his addiction rearing its ugly head again, although Dean was more grateful than he could say that his brother admitted to it first-up. But damn, he didn't want to have to go through this again – he didn't want Sam to have to go through it. Sam, who was under lock-down back in the room. Sam, with a hunger for demon-blood that was only going to get more acute as time progressed. Sam, alone with his addiction.

He had to end this quickly, for all their sakes.

Especially considering that it seemed like he was the only one capable of it, just then.

He wasn't going stir-crazy with some kind of carnal craving; he hadn't the slightest flicker of desire for anything other than getting the job done. Getting it all done, so that it could all just – just end. Yeah, who wouldn't want that?

Hadn't Famine affected him, like it had affected Sam, Cas? Dean believed it had, although in a way that was opposite to the others. All he could feel since coming into town was an acute sense of – lack. Like a force trying to pull out something from deep within him; except it'd just ended up punching the hole wider.

Dean didn't pretend to understand the feeling: maybe that's how he was, maybe he really didn't crave for anything material (not since Hell); it didn't matter. He had a job to do, an Apocalypse to stop.

After that, maybe it would all end.

"Tell me," Sam said slowly, wiping the dripping blood off his chin, "where is Famine?"

The male demon pinned against the wall sneered at him defiantly. "He's right here," it snarled. "Right here in you, in your hunger –" It broke off into garbled screams of agony, as Sam raised his arm, clenching his hand into a fist.

"Wrong answer," Sam said, releasing the demon temporarily. It shuddered and gasped against the wall, eyes rolling crazily in their sockets. Sam crouched in front of it, tilting his head like he was studying an insect. The demon looked past his shoulder at the bloodless corpse of its partner, and the fear in its eyes doubled. "I don't –"

Sam raised his hand, and the demon writhed for the second time. "One last chance," he said. "Where's Famine?"

"Urgh, the – agh! The Big-" the demon opened its eyes, its gaze at once desperate, beseeching, and hateful, "Biggerso-son's outlet in...guh – in town!"

Sam released the demon once again, looking thoughtful. The demon collapsed onto the floor, trying to crawl to an escape –

"Wait," Sam said. "Your turn isn't over yet."

The demon was telekinetically slammed to the ground, and Sam loomed over him, that same piece of bloodied jagged glass in one hand. He licked the remaining blood off the glass, that feral glint back in his eyes. "No," the demon whimpered. "Nononono. I told you what you wanted to know – let me go! Let me leave this body and I won't bother you again, I – agh!"

Sam reached down with the glass, and in a single move, slashed the carotid and lowered his mouth to the bleeding wound. The demon blood shot rejuvenating fire through his veins; a strength he hadn't realised he had craved and missed for a long, long time flowing into every crevice of his body. This was power; this was him.

This was how he was going to save his brother.

And so Famine was defeated.

Dean stared at the corpses and the blood and decay that littered the restaurant; at the result of the chaos of the last ten minutes, still holding the knife uselessly in one hand. Cas stood beside him, fingers and mouth and the front of his trench coat stained with meat, gazing at his brother with a mixture of awe and pity.

And Sam –

Sam turned away from Dean and wiped the blood from his nose with the sleeve of one long, shaking arm.

Dean couldn't believe what he'd just witnessed. He couldn't believe that Sam could harness that kind of power. Couldn't believe how much of himself Sam had to give for it; couldn't believe how much more he had had to give to refuse Famine's offer and kill him, instead.

Couldn't believe that he himself had been so useless, paralysed and with the knife in hand, while he allowed his brother to put himself through... that again.

Couldn't believe that he'd failed Sam, again.

"Sam," Cas said, stepping forward. "That was well done."

Both brothers turned to face him; the angel met them with his usual impassive stare. "Famine has been defeated," he said. "This is a definite cog in Lucifer's plans."

Sam's twisted in an expression of self-loathing that Dean could recognise all too well. "Sam –"

"I'm sorry, Dean." Sam looked at him, a strange kind of resignation in his eyes. "I think you should – you should act fast, before it kicks in."

Cas frowned, but Dean knew exactly what he was talking about. Detox. Sam's craving might have reduced to controllable levels after Famine's defeat, but soon he was going to hit withdrawal stage, and it wasn't going to be pleasant.

"I... I think the... uh, Panic Room." Sam swallowed. "I think... there. We – I should go there. Until... until this..." He made a sweeping gesture with one arm.

Cas nodded in comprehension. "The sooner, the better, then," he said, and touched both of their foreheads. An instant later, they were in Bobby's house, trying to explain what had exactly happened, and what needed to be done. To his credit, Bobby didn't waste time trying to pry out long-winded explanations; he directed Sam to be taken to the Panic Room, and as Dean slid the last bolt into place on the iron door to the room, he thought that last image of seeing his brother cuffed to the bed, face puckered in misery and the anticipation of more pain, would be permanently imprinted on the back of his eyelids.

The screaming started a couple of hours after that.

Cas, Dean and his bottle of whiskey kept vigil outside the door, as Sam screamed and begged and prayed inside. Cas would sometimes offer a few words of reassurance to Dean, but would mostly stand there, immobile and eternally patient. They listened to Sam's struggles with the detox, for upon investigating a prolonged period of silence, Dean had found Sam hovering several inches above the bed, twitching and moaning, as the shackles that bound him to the bed refused to let him go, and his shoulders were nearly wrenched out of their sockets with the strain. Dean had fought Sam down onto the bed until the supernatural seizure had passed, unable to stop his tears of panic and fear.

And so here we are again, Dean thought, taking another generous swig of whiskey, back where we started.

For all his bluster about Free Will, how could they actually escape predestination? With all of Heaven and Hell seemingly working against them, how in the world was he going to do this, how was he going to end this? He had searched for answers for so long from so many places, but it was the same damn bleak story every time. There was no hope, no help, there was no escape from destiny, from the Apocalypse.

There was only person he had left to ask for help.

"I'm going to get some fresh air," Dean mumbled to Cas, and left.

Finally, finally – silence, respite.

Sam lay against the bed, hoarse and panting. The pain had stopped, and after a series of horrifying hallucinations featuring the people he had loved, the people he had failed, it seemed like he was finally experiencing a moment of lucidity. Had he turned a corner? Was the ordeal close to being over?

"Dean," Sam said, wincing at how wrecked his voice was.

To his surprise, Dean answered almost immediately. "Sam," he said, appearing before him. "Sam."

"I think the worst of it's over," Sam said, shifting minutely in his shackles.

"I don't think so."

Sam frowned at his brother; Dean's expressive eyes were filled with a sadness so profound that it rattled Sam in his very bones. "What do you mean?"

"It's not over, Sam," he said. "With you, it's never going to be over. For me."

"Dean..."

"I've lost everything, Sam," Dean said, and to Sam's horror, his brother's skin was starting to blacken and peel, blood and pus running down his face in small rivulets. "I've given everything I ever had, for you. Now I'm empty – and for nothing, because with you, it's never going to be over!"

Sam clenched his teeth. "No. No, Dean, if this about what that Horseman told you – and yes, I heard what he said – it's not true! You aren't – you aren't going to give in, ever –"

"I'm dead, Sam," Dean continued, and Sam could see the yellow-white of Dean's skull as the flesh began to fall out in decaying chunks. "Dead because of you."

"NO!" Sam struggled viciously against his bindings, fury fuelling his exhausted muscles. No – no he wasn't going to let Dean to – he, he, it wasn't his, it – no, he was going to stop this, so God help him, he was going to stop this, he was going to get Dean back!

"Sam..." was the dying exhale as what remained of Dean disintegrated into thin air.

And Sam continued to scream.

Finis