Disclaimer: The titles to the seperate chapters, and the story itself, are taken directly from Ludo's album, and I lay no claim to the characters portrayed within. Please, don't sue!

-

Dean died today; I watched his face as the invisible hounds tore into his chest, throwing bits of skin, gore, blood everywhere as they dragged his soul to Hell. I saw the light in his eyes go out as I held his lifeless body close, listened to Lilith's laughter as she stood in the doorway just beyond my reach. When she raised her hand with intent, white light washing through the room, touching the ceiling and walls, caressing my skin with a slight tingle, she must have realized that she couldn't kill me. Not that way.

I paid her no attention when she left, fleeing the body that she'd stolen from Ruby. Ruby, the demon whose offer I should have taken as soon as she'd mentioned it. My powers could have saved Dean. My gaze was drawn back to his silent form once more, still held in my arms, his warm blood seeping into my ruined shirt, sticking it against my chest. A cry ripped out of my throat, loud and sorrowful for my lost brother.

-

The last time I'd seen Bobby, he told me to stay on the straight and narrow, to keep hunting, or if not, to stay with him for a while. Somewhere beneath all the guilt and grief, I was gracious towards his offer; having a place to stay and recuperate would be nice. Sullenly, I declined though, because I knew that this wasn't going to end with me recuperating and getting over my brother's death.

As we buried Dean with just a cross that I'd trussed together as a marker, I knew that this wasn't going to end until I could feel him alive and breathing in my arms once more.

He'd sold his soul to save me—and now I would stop at nothing to bring him back.

-

"Why won't you take me?" I pleaded, clutching fistfuls of his button-down in my hands. He just shook his head, looking down at me sorrowfully. "Why won't you bring him back..."

The demon cooed, his hand rubbing my mussed brown hair. I barely felt the fingers; they slipped through the greasy strands so easily; I hadn't washed in over a week. I was down on my knees, no more dignity left after a month of living without him, my breath scented like whisky as implored and prayed that he'd help me. "I can't, rules are rules, Samuel." He replied softly, listening to the sobs as they raced through my body.

I hitched in a breath and let go of his shirt, watching him leave like the countless other demon's that I'd faced at thousands of different crossroads across the country. None of them would help me, even if I offered to go after only a month of time had passed. Nothing I said or did could convince them to bring Dean back for me.

-

I was pinned against the wall by one of Lilith's demons when Ruby finally found me, after two months. I had wanted to die, so I'd taken her life and walked into a trap, somehow hoping that they wouldn't make my death easy for me. I owed it to Dean, who was undoubtedly being torn to shreds by the demons in Hell, as some kind of twisted penance that I thought I deserved for being the cause of all his suffering.

"What the fuck, Sam!" Ruby breathed when the demon had dropped me to the ground, eyes flickering orange and yellow light as he died. She was in my face, wearing a new body, could probably smell my intoxication, stupidity on my breath as she inhaled. Her body was warm when she hoisted me up, but not comforting like the warmth of my brother, when he held me after a hunt that'd almost gone bad. I shied away, but she shushed me until I closed my eyes and let her lead me away.

-

"I'm not drinking your blood, Ruby." I said, even as my eyes tracked the movement of a red droplet on her forearm, spilled from the cut that she'd just inflicted with her knife. She'd explained just how much more power I'd have if I went through with it, and I understood that I needed that. But the part of me that retained my humanity refused to perform such an inhuman act.

I protested even as I locked my jaw around the cut, sucking so hard that I heard her intake a gasp of air. There was nothing intimate about the way I bit down on her skin, forced the blood to keep flowing as I lapped it up, feeling it like fire in the pit of my stomach.

It made me high, so high that I thought I could do anything, that I could kill Lilith and walk into Hell myself to save Dean.