Sam Winchester was tired. Not tired as in exhausted, although that wasn't far off either, but tired as in fed up with being "The Problem."

All the patronizing "it's not your fault" comments had always struck him as false, despite the sincerity clearly evident in those who said it. This was not so much the truth anymore. There was a definite sour note surrounding those reassurances now, because obviously it was Sam's fault. Nobody else decided Ruby was a good idea. Nobody else lost sight of themselves they way he had, falling prey to the very thing he'd so desperately tried to avoid – his own curse. He, Sam Winchester, had opened the gate and set Lucifer free. He had been the last bastion of defense between the world and the Apocalypse and he'd fucked that up real good.

Even now, however, it was easy to see him as the victim. He'd been duped, seduced by a pretty demon bitch. He'd been – more or less – drugged out of his rational mind. The truth was Sam had always considered himself more the problem than the victim, always the one needing to be protected, whether it was from others, or himself, and always at a horrible cost. The bodies left in his wake numbered in the hundreds, if not the thousands. He'd lost countless friends, and only the tattered remnants of a painfully dysfunctional family remained. They'd paid the price too. One was emotionally handicapped, the other, physically. If Dean wasn't fucked up before he went to Hell for Sam, he was now, and Bobby's wheelchair had Sam Winchester's name written all over it.

It wasn't over either, not by a long shot. The demons were demanding Bobby's death. The angels were pissing themselves to put Michael in Dean's meat. Sam was once again playing the rope in a cosmic sized game of tug of war. He was the problem yet again, and those close to him were being asked to make sacrifices - again. How fair was that? Dean had dedicated his life to protecting Sam. He'd given up his soul once already, and now he was being asked for his physical body too? No. No way.

Sam was tired. He was tired of being the victim, the problem, the monkey in the middle; tired of watching everyone around him suffer on his account. The life he'd always dreamed of having was completely unattainable now. Even if they came out of the last battle unscathed, what would be the point? So let's say they succeeded in throwing Lucifer back in jail, what then? Nothing would change. Sam would still have demon blood in his veins, still be tempted to grasp the power he always felt tickling and taunting him at the back of his mind, and he'd still have his ass on the line. He was, and always would be, the key to Lucifer's prison door. Angels, demons and Hunters would all be hot on his tail for the rest of his life. Friends and family? Forget it. Sam would drag down anyone who dared stand beside him.

Dean would never have the life he really wanted, attain the secret desires he'd always kept hidden. There would be no wife, no children, no white picket fences and family dogs. He'd spend the rest of his life doing what he'd always done - protecting Sam, and protecting others from Sam. Call it love, or duty, or whatever, Dean would never leave his brother's side.

It was time, then, for Sam to make a sacrifice. They'd lock Lucifer up and they'd throw away the key, Sam was about to see to that. What he was about to do would probably mean the death of him in one way or another, but it would save the world and free his brother. No price was too high for that reward.

He dropped the burning match he held clutched between his fingers. Acrid smoke rose from the contents of the battered metal bowl sitting at his feet. Sam inhaled deeply and spoke the last word of the spell he conducted.

Almost immediately a voice came from the shadows.

"You rang?"

The alley Sam had chosen was small and narrow, crowded with trash and riddled with puddles of foetid dark liquid. Sam had located a dry spot at the back near a brick wall. So had Crowley, much as Sam suspected he would. The shoes the demon wore cost a fortune.

Quickly, before Crowley could take a step, Sam knelt and with one quick flip of his wrist, made the line that would close his trap. He'd drawn it using a black wax candle. In the dim light of the alley it was virtually undetectable to the human eye. Banking on Crowley's vanity, Sam anticipated the demon looking out for chalk lines or spray paint instead. After all, humans were clumsy and stupid when it came to magic, bumbling around with chalk and herbs as if they knew what they were doing. Sam had picked up on Crowley's disdain for human magic in the comments he had made about Sam's hex bags. He'd taken pains to make sure he played his A-game this time.

Crowley raised one eyebrow as he looked down at his feet, then at Sam. "Nicely done. Ruby taught you more than stick and bone magic I see." He crossed his arms and cocked his head, frowning. His voice was chiding, as if he spoke to a wayward toddler. "Does your brother know you've attained the skills and become the definition of a practicing warlock, Sammy? Meethinks he'd disapprove."

"I don't need his approval."

"Funny, that comment. I've gotten the impression that you've been working particularly hard of late to gain Dean's approval. This makes sense. After all, he's one of the few – say, maybe three – people in the world not trying to kill you at the moment. Best keep him happy." Making a faint gesture toward the circle Crowley added, "I don't think this little exercise in the dark arts is going to do the trick."

Sam took a step toward the outermost boundary of the trap, standing just shy of stepping over into it. "It serves its purpose."

"Indeed," Crowley agreed. "The immediate purpose is clear of course, but beyond that my curiosity remains piqued."

"You're about to become a hero, Crowley." Sam said quietly. "How do you feel about martyrdom?"

The affable, slightly smug expression on the demon's face abruptly vanished. "What?"

Sam slipped Ruby's knife out of his pocket. "You know, I see right through you. Yeah, you've been livin' large up here, you and your little demon cronies. It's obvious why you want Lucifer locked up again. He's going to screw up your good times, and your little alliance with us is so typical – you're nothing but a user."

"No denial there." Crowley's eyes narrowed as he watched Sam skirt the edge of the circle with the toes of his shoes avoiding the lines by a hairs breadth. "I don't like getting my hands dirty."

"And it's a win-win situation for you isn't it? If we lose, you get credit for leading us right into Lucifer's hands. If we win, you'll kill us, not only because we'll hunt down you and every other demon we can find afterward, but putting our heads on a pike will make you a lot of friends in high places. You have taken a pretty big hit in the popularity department lately. You said so yourself."

Crowley let out a little exasperated "puff" of air. "So you're going to kill me first? Offing a powerful ally, that makes sense." His face twisted in fury when he realized Sam wasn't going to yield. "Look, I just want my life back you oversized sack of shit!" He shrieked. "You think you're going to trap Lucifer like this? With wax and herbs? He'll fry you Sammy-boy! He's no demon. He created us. God once sat on his throne with Michael on his right and Lucifer on his left – making him the third most powerful being in the universe. YOU CAN'T WIN THIS WITHOUT ME!!"

The reply was spoken in a voice soft and low, with a chillingly ominous tone.

"You've got that right."

Sam lunged into the circle, arm whipping through the air in a broad arc that concluded at the juncture between Crowley's throat and jaw. The demon staggered. Blood literally exploded from the severed jugular, but was quickly contained. Sam clamped his mouth down over the wound, greedily sucking the flow of blood down his throat, letting none of it fall to the ground. He'd need it all, every drop. He groaned as urgent cravings suppressed now for months finally found relief. A shudder ran through his body. The sensation was close to orgasmic.

The demon struggled feebly. At first Sam contained him physically, using his greater height and strength, but as desperation grew and Crowley attempted to free himself with psychic power, Sam made a similar shift in strategy. The first taste of demon blood had immediately awakened his own power. Subduing his rapidly weakening victim took little effort, and once his hold was established, Sam had no opposition. His unleashed abilities quickly made short work of Crowley. Sam drained him dry of both life and blood before dropping the empty husk onto the pavement in a broken heap.

Sam stepped back, panting, blood staining his mouth and chin, his eyes a reflection of the darkness surrounding him. "You'll do your people proud, Crowley." He put out a foot and shoved the body over onto its back. One hand fell limply into a puddle. The nails were neatly trimmed, manicured. That figured.

"Pompous ass," Sam murmured, staring down into the startled expression frozen on Crowley's face. The demon hadn't hadn't fully comprehended just how much of a threat Sam really was to him and all his kind. Even trapped as he was he had not expected Sam to kill him. Overconfidence had become his downfall.

Idly, as if he were unaware of himself doing it, Sam ran his tongue down the blade of Ruby's knife – first one side, and then the other, savoring the last of Crowley's power-rich blood. Liquid gold, it couldn't be wasted.

The temptation to fry the body was strong. Sam's lip curled, his eyes glittered, and the sulfur laced scent of Hellfire stung his nostrils. His fingers burned and itched, sparks jumping between them. He could call the fire, always could, but had thought it a pretentious and unnecessary gesture of pure showmanship. Why waste his strength? This time, however, watching Crowley's meatsuit burn would be extremely satisfying.

"No." Sam smothered the fire, locked it all down, locked everything down. He had to save his newly acquired energy for the main event, not to mention hide it from Dean.

Sam knew he wasn't strong enough to wrench control of his body back from Lucifer, not without a little extra turbo boost. Crowley had been a very old and a very powerful demon, nearly as old and powerful as Lilith. His blood had borne the flavor of centuries of death and destruction. It tasted of countless souls bought and sold. Crowley was cold, calculating and vicious, and his blood carried the taint of those traits, amplifying them in Sam.

Which was exactly what he needed. Like Crowley, Lucifer could not be allowed to see what was coming. Sam had to bury his intentions deep, and move fast when the time came to strike. He needed power and cunning enough to counter Lucifer's own. Sam had thought long and hard about his own weaknesses and how to overcome them, and although the answer had been obvious, he'd skirted around it for weeks. The last thing he wanted to do was walk this path again. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

The final decision had been painful. This, the initial outcome of that decision, was not. His first taste of Crowley's blood had hit him like a freight train, obliterating the small voice of conscience reminding him that this was not a good thing. Sam drank, he sometimes smoked pot, and once took a hit of cocaine in college to keep him awake through a late-night cram session, but there was nothing like this high. Nothing. The sensation of feeling all the powers of Hell coursing through his veins was beyond anything he'd ever experienced before. It was an addiction from which he could never be broken. Ruby had been right in saying Sam's power had been with him all along, but the key to all the locks he placed upon that part of himself was in the blood. One taste blew the doors wide open.

He wiped the blood from his face with his coat sleeve, adding a new stain to those already present. He'd lie to Dean. He'd say a demon ambushed him on the way back. Sam had killed it, wiped the blood off the knife onto his sleeve. Dean would believe him because of the trust Sam had been working so hard to rebuild between them. If Dean knew what Sam was really doing, there would never be trust between them again. Crowley had gotten that part right.

Sam tucked the knife away and rolled his shoulders to shake out the kinks. It didn't matter. Even if he survived the battle with Lucifer it wouldn't be for long. His first round of detox had been bad. Withdrawal from the blood of Famine's minions had nearly killed him, triggering seizures so violent he'd dislocated both shoulders. Crowley's blood was a thousand times more potent. Sam just hoped to God Dean would have the wherewithal to shoot him before it got too bad.

He'd made the excuse of a beer run to get away from Dean in the first place, and he wouldn't be lying about that. A brown paper bag was tucked up nice and neat along the alley wall behind him. Sam retrieved it, and with one last smug look at Crowley's body, continued on his way.

A silhouette at the mouth of the alley stopped him in his tracks. Cast against the light of a street lamp on the sidewalk behind him, the figure was an unrecognizable man-shaped shaddow. The only clue to his identity was the faint outline of wings stretched out above his head. It was a fluke, a rare combination of light and shadow that rendered them visible to Sam's mortal eyes. A slight shift in position and they were gone again, leaving behind the simple silhouette of an average sized man.

Neither of them spoke as Sam slowly made his wary approach. He could feel himself gathering power, wondering if he dared use it. He couldn't afford to use it, hoped he wouldn't have to for more than one reason.

"Cas," Sam said softly. His voice held just the hint of a challenge.

Castiel did not reply. He did, however, take another step forward, his smoky gray eyes shifting from Sam, to the body lying on the pavement, and back again, obviously realizing what had taken place there. Sam stiffened under his gaze.

Don't try to stop me Cas. Don't make me hurt you.

"Would you, Sam?" Castiel replied quietly.

"I could," Sam whispered. "You aren't what you were before, Cas. I could kill you where you stand. "

"Could and would are two different things."

"If you tried to keep me from doing this, Castiel, I would kill you." Sam's heart twisted with remorse – just the words themselves stung. "Please. It's the only way and you know it."

Their eyes locked. Neither of them spoke.

After a moment, Castiel stepped aside and let Sam pass without another word.

He hurried back to the hotel where his brother waited. Dean was already half drunk and didn't even notice the blood on Sam's sleeve, let alone ask any questions. They were both hitting the booze hard these days. It drowned out the pain and put a leash on the worst of the nightmares. What dreams they did have were muddled-up by alcohol, making them inhospitable to uninvited guests - like angels, fallen or otherwise.

There was not just beer in Sam's bag, but another bottle of whiskey. He poured them both a glass.

"Here's to making a stand," Dean murmured, raising his glass somewhat unsteadily. His voice was slurred and his eyes seemed to wander off in two different directions. "Me and you, Sammy. We might go down, but we'll go down fightin'."

They touched glasses with a satisfying "clink" but as Sam drank deep of the whiskey, burning the sulfurously metallic taste of Crowley's blood from his tongue and throat, he thought:

There will be no we this time, Dean. You can't go where I have to go, do what I have to do. You just stand back and shut the door once I get there.

It's my turn to experience Hell.