Trial and Error

by Ophium

Imagine the single most powerful weapon in the Universe is yours to protect. How far would you go to keep it from falling into the wrong hands? How much would you give up to keep it safe?

Although this is set in the same AU of Blind Faith, you can easily find your way around this story without reading the first one.

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TRIAL AND ERROR

The cell was dank and dark, a toilet hole fit for a giant's ass.

Continuous running water, like fetid sweat, fed the mold in the walls until it covered the whole room like green, living paint.

Under the dirt that covered his face, the little boy looked pale in comparison with the putrid green of the wall.

In his small hands was a toy. A broken doll.

It had no head and its white dress had long stopped being even remotely close to white, but it still had arms and one footless leg. A peace offering that had done little to stow the flow of tears and sadness that ever seemed present in his eyes.

And yet...

The doll was his trusted companion whenever the bad men took Dean away from him; his guardian angel when he was left alone in that clammy cell, hearing nothing but the falling of water and echoing of silence.

The little boy had tried to be brave like his new friend was, like Dean was, always with a smile for him and a new story, even when he returned miserable and gasping for breath.

Dean always told the most amazing stories. He fought monsters, Dean would tell him, and one day... one day he would kill the monsters that held them both prisoner.

The little boy just needed to be brave for a little while longer, until Dean got them out of that place, just like he'd promised.

That particular day was different. For one, there was no smile for him, even when the guards closed the doors. Dean was holding his arm against his chest, like it hurt, and he had tears in his eyes.

The boy had never seen Dean cry. He thought Dean looked a bit like the walls, water falling down his cheeks like it did from the moss.

"Come here," he called to the little boy, sliding down the door as soon as the bad men closed it.

The boy raced to him, his smile making up for the one Dean was lacking. Maybe his friend had forgotten how to smile, but the boy could remind him.

They sat facing the back wall, the one with a small slit in between its stone to allow entrance to the thin veil of light that was their only to tell day from night.

The little boy sat in Dean's lap, the feeling of a warm body serving as his chair far more appealing than the hard, cold stone of the soggy floor.

"Does your arm hurt, Dean?" he asked quietly, doing his best to keep his weight away from the limb. "Is that why you're crying?"

Dean shook his head, sucking a ragged breath. "I'm okay, kiddo. How're you doing?"

"Tell me a story, Dean" the kid begged, eager to get things back to their kind of normal. Broken doll grasped tightly in his right hand, while his left played idly with the metal doll's head hanging around Dean's neck, he laid back and waited to be taken away from that place by Dean's fantastic tales.

Dean often joked that the golden head hanging from his neck was the one missing from the doll, shrunken to tiny measure by evil witches who hated dolls.

"Have I told you about that one time Sam and me went to Heaven?" Dean started, his voice heavy with emotion. His voice was always sounded like that when he talked about Sam, but this time it carried even more sadness than usual.

"Mommy told me about Heaven, that it has some white bearded old man, standing at the gate, like Santa, deciding who gets to go in and who doesn't," the boy quickly supplied. "And that I had to be a really, reeeally good boy for the old man to let me pass."

The memory of his mother embrace as she told him her own set of stories brought fresh tears to his eyes. It always did. The boy let them fall. Dean had told him that it was okay to cry when you missed someone terribly.

Still, the feeling of Dean's big fingers brushing his tears away was soothing and the little boy leaned into it, until his face was supported by the man's hand.

Like a tiny cat, Dean always told him. Purring and seeking heat to cuddle.

Dean didn't mind it, the little boy knew that.

"Well, there is an old man," Dean told him, "but he ain't got much of a beard. He tends to this really pretty garden though. My brother and I, we visited a bunch of fun places while we were there, saw lots of friends that we hadn't seen in a long time. But there was this one place where they wouldn't let us in because..."

Dean stopped and looked up, like he was searching for the rest of the story on the ceiling. The little boy followed his gaze up, but all he could see was grey stone. "Why wouldn't they let you guys in?"

"Because we were too old."

"Too old?"

"Yeah, they said it was a place just for the coolest of kids, and only they could get in."

"What did it look like?"

Dean paused, scratching his beard. The little kid always found it funny when he did that. "Well... how to describe it... have you ever been to Disneyland?"

The little kid's eyes grew as large and round as saucers, words escaping him so he could only slowly nod his yes.

"Well, then, it looks sort of like Disneyland," Dean said with another of those smiles that failed to reach his eyes. "Only bigger and cooler."

"For real?" the little kid had to ask. Dean had never lied to him, but it was never too cautious to confirm. "With Goofy and everything?

"Which one is Goofy? Is that the big dog one?" Dean asked. The kid gave a vigorous nod. "Because there was a big, gangly looking dog running the whole thing, telling everyone where to go," Dean added, nose scrunching as he thought really hard. "He's there, to personally greet every new comer into Heaven. Is that Goofy?"

Another nod. "Everyone?"

"Well, every special kid who shows up at his doorstep. You see, there's way too many fun things to do in Heaven's Disneyland, and Goofy wants to make sure that they don't miss a single one of them."

"Even the ones I'm not tall enough to ride?"

"Especially the ones you're not tall enough to ride," Dean said, his voice hitching for some reason that escaped the little boy.

"You think I'll go there one day, Dean? Do you think I'll get to see that?"

From the silence that followed, the little boy almost feared that Dean would say no, that Dean would say that he was a bad boy, and bad boys didn't deserve such happiness. But when he looked up, the boy could see that the reason Dean was silent was because he was biting his lips, eyes closed as if he'd fallen asleep in the middle of his story. "Dean?"

"You'll go there," Dean whispered. "I'll make sure of that."

The words didn't make much sense for the little boy, but he let them go because Dean was hugging him, tighter than he had ever hugged him before and it felt like the safest place in the world, when Dean closed his arms around him like that. It was almost as good as his daddy's hugs.

"Dean, you're squishing me," the little boy complained with a giggle.

The embrace only grew tighter, like Dean hadn't heard his complaint at all. Tighter and tighter still until the little boy could draw no breath. And then hands that had always been loving and protecting, closed around the little boy's neck and in one swift gesture, snapped it.

The broken doll fell to the floor, released from loosen, lifeless fingers. The sound of plastic against stone felt phony, artificial in a world of pain much too real.

Dean sat still, the dead boy in his lap.

And then he laughed.

-oo-

Dean had to keep track of time by doing one mark on the wall for each day that went by, but it was an impossible task even with a tiny slit on the wall that allowed for some semblance of sunlight to enter the cell.

Some days, there was no light at all, the sky too dark with rain to let a single ray of sunshine through. Those days, it felt like the night lasted forever.

Other days, the boredom was so intense that his mind just wandered off. When he became aware of the familiar damp walls again, there was no telling how long had passed. Days, weeks, months... years.

Dean ran a hand over his stubbled cheek, feeling the coarse hair that had grown almost to the length of a knuckle.

A month. Maybe.

A month of complete and utter solitude, not seeing a single soul, not opening his mouth to speak with anyone, without a shred of contact with his captors. If it weren't for the bowl of bland porridge that was shoved inside his cell every day, twice a day, like clockwork, and the noisy troll patrolling outside, Dean would assume that he was alone.

Abandoned in some dark hole, left to die.

For the first few days he had screamed his anger at every noise that he could hear outside, cursing his captors and the mothers who had birthed. He cursed until his voice gave out.

His mind turned towards escape after that. One of the things Dean had realized as soon as he'd opened his eyes inside that cell was that there was no way out except through the door. And that one remained closed even when his meals and water were brought in, or when a new pissing jar was forced inside through an opening barely big enough to fit a closed hand.

Took him awhile to bend his stubbornness to the necessity of it and push the filled jars closer to the door so that they could be removed and thus lessening the smell that had grown fouler and fouler with each passing day.

It was bad enough that there was nothing he could do about his other... waste. Or the fact that he was smelly enough to make himself sick.

The piss, at least, Dean could get rid of.

A guard passed every couple of hours, snooping around and making sure all the doors were properly locked by rattling them. Dean could hear him coming from ten doors away.

The lock on the door was on the outside, and antique sort of thing that, from the sound of it, seemed fit to be in a castle's dungeon. Brackets, bolts and all.

Not even the side hinges presented with a tiny chance of being used in escape, being sturdy steel that seemed newer and better kept than anything else inside that cell.

The slit through the wall was not good either. Its usefulness to allow light in was about as good as its usefulness to let a man pass outside. Even the skinniest of rats would have trouble fitting through there.

Dean paced and roared, bloodied his fists on the moldy walls when frustration got the better of him, but he was not getting out of that cell unless someone came for him.

After the first week of complete solitude, it didn't even matter to him if the ones coming through that door were friend or foe. He just needed motion. Something to happen.

By week two, he was ready to chew his own head off just to stop the close circuit of thoughts from going around and around and around in his mind.

Dean was sure that Sam would be searching for him. Frantically, no doubt, unearthing Earth, Heaven and Hell for a clue as to who had taken his brother.

The list of things that could go wrong when Sam became unhinge like that were too many to leave Dean frantic himself.

They had foolishly believed that there would be a moment's respite for them, a little bit of well deserved peace. Just because they had stopped the apocalypse and killed Lucifer.

After all, once the root of all-evil was vanquished, what more was there to do?

They had taken some time off, visited some friends, behaved as regular people for a while. Tried to be your average Joe.

Sam and Dean had been an utter failure at being normal. Dean had no experience in the matter whatsoever and Sam... Sam had long forgotten how it was to not have blood on your hands on a weekly basis.

They were on their third hunt, after almost two years of civilian life, when Dean was taken. He wanted to blame it on them being sloppy, on the fact that they had lost some of their edge as hunters, but the truth was, it hadn't even happened on the hunt.

It happened at breakfast.

One moment Dean was opening the Impala's door, balancing coffees and donuts in one hand and the keys in the other, and the next ... he was in that cell.

It was such a low-key and uneventful kidnapping that Dean would have laughed at Fate's twisted sense of humor if the joke weren't on him.

He found the broken doll on his third week there. Or maybe on his first week. Time overlapped and folded back and forth until it was all the same.

At first, Dean was sure it was a dead rat. A mummified rat at that, from the stiffness. The doll was half buried in the filthy straw floor, half stuck inside a hole in one of the side walls and Dean pulled it out carefully, like an archeologist digging a rare artifact.

Despite the constant cold inside that cell, the sight still managed to chill Dean to the bones. The implications of the presence of a child's toy in such a place brought nothing good to mind.

He picked it up, trying to imagine who had left it there, whose childish hands had grabbed it last and called that headless doll a friend.

The doll's white dress was stained with blood, faded and turned to rust with the passage of years. Dean could only hope that the child who had brought that doll in to that place had found her freedom quickly.

Dean was about to put the doll aside when a piece of paper fell from it. Carefully rolled up and stored inside the hollow plastic body, Dean picked it up. The length of paper unfolded, tiny blue letters covering it from tip to the bottom.

"It might be years before someone finds this letter, or maybe it gets found the very next day after my death. Doesn't matter, just as long as someone reads it.

If you're reading this, you're either one them –in which case I hope you choke on shit and die- or you're just as trapped in here as we were. My little sister and me.

If that is the case, first of all, my sympathies. I'm sorry that you're in this place, a shit hole I hate with all my heart, a shit hole I can only imagine that, whoever you are, will hate too.

She was the only one who made it bearable in here.

They took my sister a year ago. I think it was a year. I'm much taller now, almost as tall as dad was, I suppose. There is a constant itchy feeling on my chin that I think might be the beginning of a beard. I have no idea. It's been over two years since I've seen myself in a mirror.

I'm not here to talk about me, though. After all this time, I have no doubt that I'll ever be free again. I'll die here, but I won't let that happen before I tell you everything about my little sister. I'm here to talk about her."

The day after Dean found the letter, they came for him.

-oo-

"Where is the sword?"

The question had been repeated more times than Dean cared to count, always in the same flat tone, as if each time the questioner believed whole-heartedly that the prisoner was just hard of hearing and this was the one time he would understand the question and answer.

There were at least three of them, even though only one spoke, and they were after Michael's sword. That was as much as Dean had managed to figure from his 'interactions' with his captors.

As far as he could tell, they were all human.

-oo-

They had waited for him to be asleep to step inside his cell and take him. Dean had woken to a black bag being placed over his head even as he was dragged to his feet by two different sets of hands. He couldn't see a thing.

"Who the fuck are you people?" Dean growled. "Where the hell are you taking me?"

The gag seemed to come as an after thought, hastily fastened around his mouth over the bag. It made it almost impossible to breath.

It was certainly effective against any further questions Dean might've want to yell at them.

The black bag had reduced Dean's world to a void of light and shapes.

Dean had been blinded like that before. It had been for a short, and yet terrifying period, but it had taught him the value of using his other senses in battle to compensate the lost of such an important one.

As he was moved out of his cell, booted steps echoed over the walls, revealing a short ceiling and a stone structure. Dean's footsteps, barefoot as he walked, were soundless, but not devoid of information. They were walking over sandy stone, not the fake slab things, but real stone, the kind that was used to build fortresses and castles.

The air was cold too, like some man-made cave that had swallowed them into the depths of the earth.

The only thing that assured Dean that he wasn't actually in a real medieval castle, smack in the middle of the Dark Ages, was the faint buzz of electricity every ten feet or so, as they walked past the next lamp.

Dean counted his steps, judging how far he was from the following spot of light.

Five feet. There was one hand on each of his elbows, fingers clasped tightly over his skin. Callous hands, used to work.

Four feet. The guy on his left walked with an uneven pace, favoring his right leg.

Three feet. The guy on the right was wearing ear buds. Dean could ear the faint thumping of heavy metal emanating from his side.

Two feet. If he struck the lamp the right way, the guards would be left in the dark as much as he was. And in the dark, Dean had the advantage.

One foot away. Dean's muscles coiled, ready for action. One deep, calming breath, and he struck.

A straight kick on the knee of the guy on his left sent him howling in pain to the floor. Dean thought he'd heard the snap of bone, but he couldn't be sure.

Left hand free, Dean used it to punch the throat of the guy on right who, with his ears impaired, was only now realizing something was amiss.

The lamp was right in front of him, Dean could feel it's hot glare even through the thick bag on his head. He punched it with his bare hands, feeling blistering glass break under his knuckles.

Dean hardly felt the pain. His mind was already on what he needed to do to overpower the stunned guards.

He attacked Ear Buds first. Gasping for air and still clutching his throbbing throat with one hand, the guard was throwing wild punches with his free hand, trying to strike anything in his reach. He ended up punching his partner out, making Dean's job a lot easier.

With one unconscious on the floor, all Dean had to do was follow the sound of the raspy gasp of Ear Buds and push his head against the wall. The noise his skull made as it collided with solid stone echoed through the entire hall.

Only when he was sure that both guards were incapacitated, did Dean waste a few seconds pulling the gag down and undoing the knots on the bag around his head before he pulled everything off.

Blinking his eyes was more of a reflex reaction rather than something of use. The lamps were too far apart to give much light to the place and, with the one nearest to him broken, all Dean could see were two glares at a distance, one ahead of him, the other far behind.

The fight had turned them all around so Dean had no way of knowing with direction he had come from and which he was headed. He picked one at random and ran.

The stone corridor turned left at the end. Dean stopped just short of the turn, closed his eyes and listened. The silence was deafening, but it also meant that there should be no surprises waiting for him past the curb.

He was wrong.

Dean stopped short of rubbing his eyes, hands instead pressed against the wall to confirm what his sight was telling him. A dead end.

Who the hell built a corridor that led nowhere?

Cursing his lack of luck, Dean did a quick turn about and ran back the way he'd come, hoping that there might be some other corridor that he had missed the first time around.

As he reached the broken lamp a second time, Dean realized two important things: one, the guards were no longer there, which meant that the alarm had already been raised on his escape; and two, he wasn't in a simple corridor. The place was a freaking maze.

Looking ahead, towards the next lamp, Dean could see the corridor turn right, just past the lamp. He was pretty sure that he and the guards had walked straight for the last twenty feet, which meant that that turn hadn't been there before. Or he was losing his frigging senses.

Not knowing how much longer he had before the corridor was packed with guards, Dean pushed forward, aiming for the next turn. There had to be an exit somewhere.

He never saw the green cloud of gas, exiting near the ceiling.

The world started dipping drastically to one side, stones walls dancing manically and turning into grey porridge, in a way stone walls had no right to do.

Dean distantly realized that he was being dosed with something, just before his face rushed to meet the ground. His last coherent thought was that impact was going to hurt like hell.

-oo-

The whole left side of Dean's face felt like rubber, which would have been nice if numbness was also part of deal. Instead, it hurt like a throbbing bitch.

He was back into his cell, so wherever the hell they had been taking him before must have been postponed, on account of his improvised escape attempt. Poor attempt, Dean forced himself to add.

How was he going to escape a place that kept changing its layout and where the walls knocked you out?

He couldn't even tell if he was underground, above ground or which way was out. Hell, he couldn't even guess how many guards there were.

It was all designed to give him a headache, Dean knew that much at least.

When the guards showed up the next time, he went quietly. The bag was back on his head and the gag, because he wisely decided to keep his mouth shut, was thankfully absent.

The route they took once they left his cell was, unlike before, so twisted and convoluted, that Dean felt dizzy just from trying to imagine it.

Frigging maze.

All he was missing was a damn Minotaur.

After a good ten minutes walk, the guards stopped. As they came to a stop, door hinges, similar to the ones on his cell, slid effortlessly as a door was opened.

Inside, the air was slightly hotter more on the left than on the rest of the room. From a heater or maybe a bright light that had been left on for too long. They sat Dean right in front of the heat source, releasing his hands just long enough to pull them behind him and bind his wrists behind the chair's back.

When the black bag was pulled from his head, Dean realized that the heat was coming from a flood light, aimed directly at his eyes.

The intensity of such brightness after a long period of darkness felt like a jolt of lightning, aimed straight at his brain. Dean gasped, surprised by the assault.

"Where is the sword?"

A man's voice, no accent that Dean could tell, no peculiarities in his speech that he could use to identify his interrogator. Because of the bright light, all that Dean could see was red, punctuated with sparkling dots of white. It annoyed the living crap of the hunter.

The man was nothing more than a tall, red shadow, hiding behind the flood of intense light, a silhouette of vivid color.

"Wha—" Dean's voice failed him, coming out raspy and weak from lack of use. He cleared his throat, whished for the jar of water that he still had in his cell, and tried again. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Quit playing games," the man said with all the calmness and certainty of one who knew exactly what he was doing. "Tell me where you hid Michael's sword and we'll let you go... Dean."

Dean swallowed the spit he did not have. His eyes watered as he forced them to see what lay beyond the bright light but it was useless.

There weren't that many people in the world who knew about the sword of Michael, less even who knew it to be in Dean's possession. "I have no idea what you're talking about," Dean said dismissively. "Cristo," he added matter of fact, like it was any other name.

Dean knew that it was pointless to call out a demon when he couldn't see past the light to witness the thing's eyes turn black, but Dean was mostly just curious about what his captor's reaction would be to the calling.

There had been a whole army of demons present when the sword had first come into play, in Egypt. Asmodeus' demons. He and Sam had killed many, but it was possible that the ones that were forced back in Hell had yapped their pie holes about the matter.

And then there was Lucifer's private army as well. Any of those could have held a grudge over the weapon that had killed their boss.

"I'm not a demon, Dean," the man said, polite, sounding a touch entertained by Dean's assumption.

"Great," Dean said with a forced smile. "So, what brand of freak are you?" he asked directly, as the man had made plain his knowledge of the supernatural. "Animal, mineral, vegetable or junkless?"

"I'm just a businessman, one that has never failed to procure what his clients ask of him," the man said, his voice turning to stone as he leaned forward. "And my latest client is interested in this particular sword. Which you possess."

Dean closed his eyes, trying to escape the flood of light for just a few seconds. It was pointless, though, as the light was so bright that it passed right through his lids. "What makes you think I have it?"

The smile was silent, but Dean could still hear it in the man's words. "Please… a whole townful of people watched you pull that thing out of the Ark and use it. Do you really think such an event would go unnoticed?"

Dean sighed, realizing that there was no point in trying to deny the obvious. He needed, however, more time. Time to figure out who this client was; time to know what he really dealing with.

It seemed like a lifetime ago, that he and Sam had traveled to Egypt with Bobby to rescue a fake Castiel. The world was on the brink of destruction, there had been little hope that they could ever win and yet… the impossible had greeted them at every turn.

They had found that their blood was more dangerous than they had ever assumed.

They had found out that the Ark of the Covenant was not a myth, but a little box of surprises. Inside Dean had found the long lost sword of the archangel Michael. Well, Dean's sword now, if he were to believe the archangel's words.

That single discovery had allowed them to defeat Asmodeus and Lucifer almost in one single blow, proving just how powerful the sword was. It was not a weapon to keep close at hand and they could not risk it falling into the wrong hands. Like this guy.

It wasn't that Dean thought for one second that anyone other than him had a snowball's chance of actually using the Michael's sword. The thing was very peculiar about who could turn it 'on', so to speak, and would only manifest itself as an actual sword in Dean's presence. Any other time, it just looked like a piece of burned metal.

But the object in itself held power. Something as evocative and famous as the sword of the leader of Heaven's armies... it had the potential to move mountains.

"I don't have it with me anymore," Dean said flatly. "Lost it at a game of poker."

There was a moment of silence and Dean braced for the consequences of his provocative words.

It didn't matter what they did to him. The sword and keeping it safe was more important than his life.

The man said nothing, but Dean could see his shadow move as he gave a head nod to someone somewhere at the back. Suddenly, there were hands on his shoulders, pulling Dean to his feet and dragging him away before he had a chance of realizing he was moving.

They took Dean to another room, one occupied mainly by a large pool of dark water.

After being in Hell for over thirty years, it would stand to reason that a person would've grown immune to the pain and humiliation of torture. But that made as much sense as saying that, because water can be turned into mist, it stops being wet. Some things, you never grow use to. Some things time cannot dilute; they are always horrible.

The atrocities that his soul had suffered in Hell were impossible to inflict on any human body. Flesh was weak, feeble, easily broken and forever ruined.

The soul was immortal, malleable, continuous. Like mercury, it could be split into pieces, only to reassemble itself as new when released from its torment.

In Hell, Alastair would often start his day by pulling out Dean's tongue, just to watch him trying to scream his pain through the rest of the day's 'festivities'.

On Earth, less than two minutes with his head being forced under water and Dean was already feeling the pull of unconsciousness beckoning at him.

It didn't help matters that they had hung Dean up side down, held by his ankles, dangling like a worm at the end of a fishhook over the pool of dark water. His hands, bound behind his back, were of no help whatsoever as water came rushing up to meet his face. The movement was dizzying on its own, gravity shifting wildly without Dean having any say in the matter. It was unpredictable, uncontrollable and fucking annoying.

They never pushed things far enough for Dean to pass out, just enough for him to wish he had.

As his head was once more pulled out of the cold, salty water, Dean's lungs pulled in a long breath even before his brain registered the presence of breathable oxygen.

"Where is the sword?"

The first couple of times, Dean had been inventive. One time, the sword was up his captor's ass; he'd left it in his other pants; the dog ate it.

Sometimes, he'd just tell them to go fuck themselves. After losing count of how many times his lungs had been threatened with a fill of water, Dean had no more energy to be inventive.

Or talk.

He just remained silent and waited for the ropes binding his legs to loosen again and for gravity to rush by until he hit water. The initial shock never failed to rob the breath from his chest.

-oo-

Most of the times, Dean woke up back in cell, clothes already dry, mouth tasting like something had crawled inside and died. It made everything else seem like a bad dream.

Whenever he was conscious enough to do it, whenever there was light enough for it, whenever his eyes didn't cross at the small letters, Dean read.

"I was seven when my mother got pregnant for a second time. The time between my parents' announcement that I was going to be a big brother and the actual arrival of the baby was, for me, a blurry rollercoaster of excitement over the new playmate and worry that the new kid was going to take my place.

My parents brought the new baby home on a Friday. My dad died on the following Sunday. His car crashed against a school bus. My dad's fault, mom used to say every time she hit the bottle too hard.

Life after that was not easy for the three of us.

Mom was always sad, her gaze on something far away from our home. Her happiness, I imagine.

She barely saw us even when we were standing right in front of her. If I hadn't taken care of my little sister, no one would have.

My name was the first word she ever said, and after that she said it often. At the time, that had made me so angry with her…

You see, in a way, I had hoped that, once my little sister begun to talk, she would call out to our mom and pull her back into this reality. If all my little sister ever said was my name, how could that ever happen?

I realize now that I was just being childish. Much the same as when I decided that we should run away from home."

-oo-

"I have a surprise for you today, Dean," the man said, nearing Dean.

Dean blinked his eyes furiously, trying to clear them of water and the fogging effects of having nearly drowned for the hundredth time. Hanging upside down over the body of stinking water where they kept dunking him, Dean had an unique view of his captor. The man was tall, lean as a track racer, hair cut short. His features, however, kept wavering on Dean's vision.

The last time he had said those words, a man had been brought into the room, bound and gagged. Dean had been pretty certain that he had never seen that man before.

When his captor boasted that he was going to kill 'Bobby' unless Dean cooperated, Dean realized that they had simply captured the wrong man.

He was about the right age, and he had a beard just like Bobby, but he wasn't Bobby. Just a stranger.

Dean had said as much; he was sure that the other man had also told them the same. They believed in neither of them.

No pleads or reasoning had managed to get through. The man had looked surprised when one of the guards stepped behind him and cut his throat opened.

He had been just a stranger, but he had still died because of Dean's silence.

Today's surprise was already bringing bile to Dean's mouth. Someone else was going to die because of what he could not tell. He coughed, the only answer he would deign to give his captor.

"Bring him in," the man ordered, taking a step back to allow Dean to view the door behind him.

Even with eyes that refused to focus and gazing the world upside down, the person being dragged inside the room was painfully familiar. "Sam!"

It was a bittersweet happiness, a relief that turned his stomach sick. Dean had been worried sick about his brother, wondering what might've happened to him, what desperate things Sam might be doing to find him.

Now Dean had satisfied his curiosity about where Sam was, but this was the place he wanted his brother to be.

Dean knew exactly why they had brought Sam to him.

"Dean! You're alive!" Sam sounded surprised, yanking against the hands holding him still and struggling to get near his brother. "Thank God!"

"Leave him out of this," Dean hissed, forcing himself to ignore Sam's presence. It was a futile demand, he was aware of that, but Dean could not stand by as Sam was used to make him break.

Dean risked one look at his brother, finding Sam's eyes fixed on his. He too was aware of what was about to happen. "Don't give them anything!" Sam yelled.

They had made a pact. After the worse of the storm had passed, after each had rested and recovered from their injuries, Sam and Dean had made a pact.

They had witness the power that each controlled and both were more than aware of how badly the weapons in their control could be used. Each was more than aware that it was up to them to stop both the sword and the ring of falling in the wrong hands.

At the time, it had seemed ridiculous to actually say the words, to swear on their souls that each would honor the pact.

'I promise and vow that not blood, or pain or love will weaken my resolve'.

The words had sounded silly; over dramatic. The setting sun over the mountains in the isolated spot where they had pronounced them gave the whole thing a feeling of ritual, of importance.

It had felt foolish at the time.

Not anymore.

Dean's heart started racing as he saw two guards move to stand behind Sam.

They didn't slashed Sam's throat. Instead, they dragged Sam to kneel in front of Dean and strapped him to a slab of rock. The knife, with a sharp and long blade was being held nowhere near Sam's throat.

"Where is the sword, Dean?"

Dean bit his tongue to stop himself from replying, from telling the man everything he wanted to know.

As they cut off Sam's right hand, the pact, the words, the honor binding them, was the only thing stopping Dean from screaming the location of Michael's sword.

'I promise and vow that not blood, or pain or love will weaken my resolve'.

Sam didn't scream. Not because of his control over the pain, because some forms of pain can't be controlled, but because his nerve endings were simply and completely overloaded.

Dean could see him staring at his severed limb, gazing in shock as his lost hand fell to the floor and rolled away, like a dog's chew toy.

A part of his mind kept telling him that this wasn't real, that it wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening.

But the strong smell of iron in the air too solid, too vivid for any of this to be an illusion. Dean could almost taste the blood in his mouth. "You fucking bastard." His words were uttered quietly, each carrying as much hatred and promises of retribution as Dean could muster.

"You're forcing my hand, Dean," the man said, a smirk on his lips. "No pun intended. Now… where is the sword?"

Dean exchanged one more look with his brother. There were tears in Sam's eyes, his face was white with pain and blood loss, but his resolve was as strong as ever. There was no turning back for either of them.

"Fuck you," was Dean's only answer as he shifted his gaze back to their torturer.

They cut off Sam's left hand next. He did scream then, senses overfilled and spilling over in a guttural sound of pain. It echoed in the stone structure, expanding and running free, like a beast on its own.

"Where is the sword, Dean?"

'I promise and vow that not blood, or pain or love will weaken my resolve'.

Dean fixed his eyes on his little brother and ignored all else. There were only the two Winchesters left in the world, standing alone against all odds, fighting monsters and beasts alike.

There had been strawberry ice cream for dessert the day his mom had brought Sam home. Dean remembered that so clearly he could almost taste the sweetness in his mouth.

He had been so small and wrinkled that Dean had asked his parents if Sam was a tiny old man. His mom and dad had laughed, but baby Sam had started crying right there and then, as if he had been offended by Dean's comment.

Sam's right foot fell to the floor with a wet slap, the stone beneath him red with blood.

"Where is the sword, Dean?"

The first time Mary had allowed Dean to help her change one of Sam's diapers, Dean had made a mess. His small fingers had been laden with cream to put on his brother's butt but instead, Dean had decided that the cream looked yummy enough to give it a lick. It was the most disgusting thing he had ever tasted.

By the time they cut Sam's left foot, he was too weak to make a sound. The small noise that escaped his bloody lips was a soft call to his brother, a private signal calling Dean back to the here and now.

The last thing Dean wanted was to return to a bitter reality where his brother was slowly being killed in front of him with nothing he could do stop it. But Sam was calling, Sam needed him, and that was something that Dean had never been able to deny his brother.

Their eyes locked, leaving all else outside.

Sam was saying goodbye, and even though Dean's fighting spirit was roaring for him to do something, to save his brother, Dean also knew that there was nothing he could do to stop this from happening.

They had shared a life together, a closer and deeper relationship than most siblings ever manage to achieve. It had not been an easy life, it had been downright insane at times, but it had been their life.

Watching Sam close his eyes with a faint smile on his lips, Dean realized that, he too, had no regrets.

Still, as they finally cut Sam's throat, Dean felt his heart stop.

-oo PART II oo-

Dean had absolutely no recollection of the week after Sam's death. He knew it had been more or less a week from the number of times a pair of goons had entered his cell to force him to eat and drink.

There were no more interrogations; or if there were any, Dean was so lost inside his head that any questions asked would have been pointless.

Not that the question was hard to guess. Where is the sword?

It was the rain that brought Dean back. He found himself staring at the small window, watching something hit the stone and bounce back up, the sound of waterfalls all around him. It took him some time to realize that he was staring at water and that it was pouring buckets outside.

The sudden understanding that Sam was gone forever lit a fire inside Dean that threatened to consume him whole if not allowed an exit.

There wasn't much inside the cell that he could use to vent his anger and frustration. Dean kicked the solid door until his toes were bloody and sore, punched the walls of solid stone as if they were made of jello, stopping only when his legs could no longer hold him up.

Dean folded down like a wooden puppet, all strings cut at once, gravity registering with all its might in one go.

He found himself laying down, not really understanding how he had come to be in that position. The floor stones were cold and wet, a welcome balm to Dean's throbbing limbs.

Sam's look of surprise as they cut off his hand flashed in Dean's mind. He closed his eyes hard, stars popping inside like popcorns, but still the images would not stop coming.

The tears came next, a diluvium of stockpiled grief that had waited as long as it could to get out, but would not be stopped now.

Eyes sore and nose so stuffed it felt twice its size, Dean rolled to his side, knees drawn up and curling into a ball. His gaze fell on the broken doll, lying discarded and forgotten by the corner.

Dean dragged himself over, mustering up just enough energy to push against the floor and slide. The wet floor made for a slippery surface.

His hands closed around the doll and he pulled the paper out. His hands were clumsy and stiff as Dean tried to unfold the yellowish paper and continued to read.

"I was fourteen, and thought myself already a man. I had grown tired of having to take care of my own mother, as well as my little sister. Couldn't leave both of them behind though. Maybe I should've.

If I had left my little sister back home, or even taken her to some orphanage or a police station, she might've still be… safe.

It was my fault she ended up in this place. I know that. It seemed only fair that I would spend the rest of my life here. And even though I've accepted my punishment, it still doesn't change what happened.

We were living in the streets, barely getting by on stolen food and wallets. With time, we developed a routine to pick people's pockets that would put Oliver Twist to shame.

We even had stage names. I was the Hawk and she was the Cat.

When they caught us, at first, I thought they were with the police. In a way, that wouldn't've been so bad.

It was only when they brought us to this place instead of a police station that I realized my mistake.

They took pictures of Cat the first day we got here. Just her. They said I was too old."

-oo-

They had killed Sam in hopes of breaking him, Dean knew that. He could almost laugh at how badly their plan had backfired.

Instead of crushing his spirit, Sam's death had given Dean purpose; his secrets would go with him to his grave and, if possible, the ones who'd killed Sam would join Dean in the afterlife. He was actually looking forward to it.

Dean had fallen into a routine of sorts. He woke, lay in his cell waiting for his captors and accepted whatever torture they had instored for him that day without saying a word.

Usually, it was the same process of dunking him in water upside down. Sometimes, it was the beatings or a high-pressure water hose. It didn't matter much to him. the end result was always pain.

Dean was never aware of when they gave up for the day; he would just wake up in his cell, a bowl of washed out food by his side. That was the time of the day when he would pull the paper from inside the doll and read a little bit more. And then he would fall asleep, wake up and start it all over again.

"My little sister was scared, asking me when would we go home. I don't know which if us was more afraid. Whatever the reason they had taken those pictures, I knew that something bad was going to happen.

A week later, they took Cat away for a short time. I was out of my mind with fear, spent the entire time screaming at the closed door. I was sure they would never bring her back. They did, though."

-oo-

Dean woke up back on his cell. His clothes were still wet from the day's 'festivities' and his mouth tasted of seaweed and shit from all the times he hadn't been able to keep his lips closed. It was a ritual that was becoming old.

"Fuck!" he let out to no one in particular, the single word doing little to dissipate his frustration. He decided to provide it with some friends. "Fuck the fuckery fuckers and the motherfucking cockroaches that fuck them into life!"

He would've gone on, had it not been for the violent cough that racked his chest.

"You shouldn't swear," a small voice ventured over his coughing fit.

Dean jerked, body on high alert as he flung himself against the wall for defense before realizing that the voice was coming from inside the cell. Or that it sounded way too young to belong to any of his captors.

His eyes were puffy and throbbing from the salt in the water, vision too blurry to be of any use. From the lack of light coming through the slit on the wall, Dean would guess that it was nighttime, but he could just make out a small shape, huddled against the opposite wall.

He had a cellmate.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" Dean questioned, covertly moving to get a better look at his new companion. Maybe it was a dwarf.

"I'm Matt," came the answer, even as the small figured shrunk on itself, trying to become even smaller. "Are you one of the bad men?"

The trembling way in which 'bad men' was spoken gave Dean a really, really bad feeling about the age of his cellmate.

Struggling to his feet, Dean narrowed the distance between the two of them, getting his first real look at the new addition. He had been wrong about the dwarf part.

Matt, as it turned out, was probably not even seven.

"Motherfuckers!" Dean let out in anger, running a trembling hand through his hair. He wasn't sure what pissed him off the worst: the fact that these people had no qualms about putting a little kid in a place like that or their pretty obvious intent to use the kid to get Dean to do what they wanted.

-oo-

"It won't work, you know that, right?"

Though he couldn't see the face of his questioner, Dean knew the man in the shadow was confused by his statement from the long pause that followed.

"Want to be a little more specific, Dean?"

Dean snorted. As if they didn't know. It was such an obvious tactic that it was almost offensive of his captors to assume that Dean would not see right through it. "The kid, in my cell," he pointed out with a snarl. "I told you I don't have the sword anymore. Hurting that boy won't change that."

The man laughed, sounding genuinely amused by Dean's claim. "Such a knight in shinny armor," he said, sharing a laugh with the guards. "Don't worry about the boy, Dean. He's much too valuable for me to be use as a mere leverage against you."

Dean shuddered at the implications he could hear in the other man's voice. Blood was already rushing to his head, from the position he once again found himself in, and the loud beating of his heart masked every other word that reached Dean's ears. Still, enough had gone through for him to guess the what the man was saying. Each guess, however, was more stomach churning than the next. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Keep it from your mind, it does not concern you," the man said dryly. "Now… where is the sword, Dean?"

-oo-

"She told me about a big room with lots of screens, each with an unfocused face. She called it the room of the ghosts, because that was how they looked.

There was only her in the room, Cat and the ghosts, she told me through tears. They didn't speak at her, but long numbers would occasionally show up in this or that ghost's screen. The ones with no numbers became dark, going off one by one until, in the end, the screen with the longest number was the only one lit.

'I'm your new daddy' a scary voice had told Cat then. And then she was returned to me, trembling in fear."

-oo-

"Are my parents here yet? Have they come to get me?"

Like the man holding them prisoner, Matt only had one question for Dean every time he returned to their cell. For some reason, the kid seemed to be under the impression that his parents had misplaced him and were currently searching for his whereabouts. Any time now, they would be coming for him and apologize for their mistake with a large bowl of ice cream.

Each day, Dean was forced to crush that hope by saying that no, he hadn't seen them around.

Today was no different. Matt started crying.

"Look, kid, I know your mom and dad are doing all they can to get you back," Dean hurried to say, crouching down in front of the little boy. "You just need to give them a little more time, okay?"

Big brown eyes, framed by wet long lashes, looked up to meet Dean's gaze. His heart clenched at the amount of pain in that look.

"Ho—how do u—you know that?" Matt asked between sobs. "You haven't seen them."

Sam used to do that. Look at him with those sad eyes and ask him where their dad was, why wasn't he home yet, how did Dean knew he wasn't dead. Dean had never managed to quite master the art of lying through his teeth when he heart was just as heavy and concerned as Sam's.

So he had learned to divert attention instead. "I didn't see them, but I know they're thinking about you, Matt," Dean started, looking around desperately for a way to reassure the little boy's feelings. The dark and naked cell offered little help in return.

Dean's eyes landed on the doll, carefully stashed away in the niche on the wall, waiting for the next chance he had of reading. Dean picked it up, carefully taking out the piece of paper and stashing it in his pocket.

"They gave me something for you," Dean voiced, grabbing the doll and presenting it to the kid. The thing's dress was soggy and ratty and its rag arms flopped pathetically by its sides.

"Dolls are for girls," Matt pointed out as soon as he had dried his eyes enough to see what Dean was offering. "I'm not a girl."

"I can see that," Dean admitted with a smile. He could also see that, despite Matt's declaration, his eyes were round with longing to touch something that his mom and dad had brought for him. "But boys play with dolls too," Dean added with an all-knowing look. "My little brother Sam use to... all the time. And he was the bravest of men."

It was hard to talk about Sam without his voice breaking or his heart cease to beat inside his chest. The very word brought back to his eyes images of Sam's last breath, of the way his brother had looked at him, not really understanding what was happening or why he had to suffer such a pointless death. "Have I told you about Sam?" Dean pushed through, feeling disconnected from his own voice.

The words tumbling free from his lips were hard at first, large stones that threatened to choke him as they passed. And then they started flowing, like a broken dam. It hurt as hell to talk about his dead brother, but it also made Dean feel like Sam was right there beside him.

"Sam was your little brother?" Matt asked, as he took the doll with care, nesting himself against the warmth of Dean's body, waiting to hear the rest.

Dean nodded. "There was this one time, when we were both a little older than you, that we stole a whole box of fireworks and lit the sky on fire," Dean started, the smell of moss and human dejects replaced by the smell of the forest at night, clean and fresh and alive. The colors of the fireworks Dean was painting with his words were as bright as the day it had happened. "The day after that, me, Sam and our dad, we hunted our first werewolf."

At the mention of the werewolf, Matt looked up, eyes round with wonder. "Werewolves aren't real."

"Just because you've never seen one, doesn't mean they don't exist," Dean assured him with a wink and a smile.

"There really are werewolves? What about vampires?" Matt asked, coming closer and closer until he was practically on Dean's lap. "Are they real too? Are they really mean and scary?"

"They are real, the few that remain," Dean said with a nod. "But not all of the them are mean. Same as werewolves. In fact, Sam fell in love with one..."

-oo-

"We tried to escape the very next day, as the guard came in to bring us our food. Just like our act in the streets, the Cat pretended she was sick while I stayed hidden, a loose piece of stone in my hands to be used as a weapon.

The guard was so big...

I had to jump in the air to have a chance at hitting him in the head and leave him unconscious or dead. I didn't really care which at that point. I made too much noise jumping.

I only remember watching him turn and thinking 'too soon'.

He must've hit me, because almost a day had passed when I woke up next. I woke to my sister's screams."

-oo-

Matt wasn't in their cell when Dean came to next. The absence of the boy sent Dean's heart hammering inside his chest, fearful for the unknown.

He still had no clue why the kid was there, but it was becoming more and more clear that the kid's presence there had little to do with Dean's uncooperative spirit.

And, despite his best resolutions, Dean had grown attached to the kid. How could he not, when Dean and Matt only had each other to keep themselves grounded, to keep each other attached to reality?

Dean heard the footsteps outside before the hinges on the door moved. He jumped to his feet, ready to press the guards for answers or die trying. He had failed to help that stranger, failed to save Sam; Dean had one more chance with Matt.

The guards never made it past the doorframe, carelessly shoving the little kid inside with one hard push.

Matt landed on his knees in the middle of the room, blinking owlishly at Dean, seeming uncertain of where he was. There were tracks of old tears racing down his dirty cheeks.

"Hey, buddy," Dean started, kneeling in front of the kid so that their eyes met. "You okay? Where were you?"

Matt's little arms closed around Dean's neck as a sob broke down and fresh tears took advantage of old tracks. "They took me to the bad men with no faces," the little boy stuttered in between whimpers. "It was scary. I don't want to go there ever again."

-oo-

"What did you do to that kid?" the words were out of Dean's mouth before he could stop to ponder the wisdom of coming out and press his captor for answers. "Are you such an evil bastard that you get off on scaring little boys?"

Held between two goons, there wasn't much that Dean could do except shooting his mouth off and hope the other man took the bait and answered.

Matt had sobbed all night, incoherent in his answers about where he had been and what had happened. All he would talk was about the faceless men on TV and how that had scared him.

The situation was too similar to the journal he was reading. Dean was aware of that fact. So similar in fact, that Dean had to wonder if his captor hadn't planted the letter in the first place.

The only thing that made Dean think the letter was real was the fact that his captor gained absolutely nothing with such a ruse. Other than fucking with Dean's head.

He had made no threats on the kid; had not offered Dean the chance to free the boy in exchange for the sword's location; hadn't even mentioned the boy at all, save to answer Dean's questions.

For all Dean knew, the kid's presence in his cell was simply a matter of space shortage.

After what had happened the previous day, Dean wanted nothing more but to read the rest of the story and find out what had happened to the two children who had also been held captive there. Even though he was aware that the events told in that piece of paper had long passed and whatever had happened to those children was a thing of the past, Dean needed to know that they were okay, that something good had happened to them.

It had been impossible to leave Matt's side all night. The boy was out of his mind with fear and the feeling of helplessness and anger had just seethed into such a rage that all Dean could think of was getting some answers.

"Your mind can only bear to see me as a monster, Dean," the man said, amused even as he watched Dean's feet being secured and his body pulled upside down. "I told you before, I am a business man, not a monster," he explained patiently. "First you thought I wanted to use him against you, now you complain because I leave him by your side? Make up your mind, Dean."

Dean's blood ran cold. "What sort of business?"

It was impossible to see the man's face, but Dean could feel his cold smile in his bones.

"You know what sort of business, Dean... you've encountered it before, haven't you? Club D'lights?"

Dean felt dizzy, and even though he was hanging upside down like a bat, he knew it had nothing to do with his position. Even after all these years, that name still left a bad taste in his mouth.

It had been one of his first hunting jobs on his own, one that his father would have never allowed if he even dreamed what Dean was set on hunting: a succubus.

But Dean had been twenty-four, hungry to prove himself as a hunter and step out of his father's shadow. He had been so sure that he could succeed where countless others had failed that he didn't even considered any other option. As it was, a succubus was no beast to hunt alone.

The thing had based its operations in a relatively small town, managing to stay well under the radar of most hunters because its victims had absolutely no connection with one other and were, in most cases, outsiders. No one had ever made the connection.

Dean had only caught trace of that succubus because he had literally stumbled across it feeding on some poor fellow in a back alley of a nameless bar. The image was hard to be mistaken for any other sort of back alley sexual encounter, because other than the fact that her mouth was wrapped around the guy's cock, the blue energy surrounding them both was a dead give away.

Dean had shouted, trying to divert its attention while he dug around his pocket for the flask that Pastor Jim had offered him. The woman-like demon had hissed at him, angry that he had interrupted her meal and lunged for him instead.

She stopped midway, screeching in agony and bursting in flames, as the holy water hit her flesh.

Holy water, while it stung as fire, was not enough to kill a succubus. Only after it had run away, screaming into the night, had Dean noticed the wooden cross and rosary on the floor.

The succubus's victim, as it was, had been a fellow hunter. Ritchie.

Ritchie had been the one to tell Dean all about Club D'lights, a place where the most devious, most illegal fantasies became true. A place where the scum of the Earth went to satisfy their most vile sexual cravings. Torture and murder poorly masked as BDSM.

And, of course, the nastier the sexual depravation, the tastier the meal for the succubus running the place.

The following day, Dean had sneaked into Club D'Lights, posing as a PR for an important big shot that wanted to visit the place. It had just been a matter of going to the FBI's most wanted and pick a name.

All doors had opened for him. They asked what sort of D'light Dean would like to try and he had asked for their most exotic flavor, thinking that that would lead him straight to the succubus.

They took him to their most requested and exquisite operative instead. Cathy.

When he laid eyes on her, Dean told himself that she must just be a very small person. It had to be that. There could be no other option.

With the elaborate hair and the heavy makeup, at first glance, the lie could almost be believable. But it was still a lie.

Cathy was only eight and she already had a list of high paying customers. The empty look in her too old, blue eyes, was one that forever would haunt him. He was too late to save her, Dean knew that.

It took Dean a while to convince Cat that he wasn't really a customer. That in fact, just using the word in her presence, with all its implications, was enough to make him lose his lunch. He even showed her a fake FBI badge, in hopes to convince her.

The pure relief and gratitude that beamed from that child when she finally believed Dean's assurances that he wasn't there to hurt her had been heart breaking.

She had told him everything.

There were more like her in there. She saw them at meal times. She also had told Dean where to find the succubus. The 'beautiful lady' as she called it, was in the basement.

It was a fast kill, too fast to put a dent on the anger that Dean was feeling at the time. A couple of words in Latin, some holy water and a mirror to trap the succubus reflection.

As Dean had sent that mirror crashing to the ground, shattering the sex-demon into a million pieces, he knew his job wasn't done.

That succubus had not been the only –or even the worst- monster in there. After he had dispatched it, Dean had worked his way up through the rest of the scum.

That was the only time in his life that Dean broke their father's rule of not killing humans. As he had figured though, there were no humans there other than the kids he had freed. The rest, Dean had burned to the ground.

Dean never forgot the faces of those kids, each and every one of them. He never forgot Cathy and her old eyes.

Dean never told Ritchie about what he found in that club. Although slightly older than him, Dean could tell that Ritchie had a gentle soul that wasn't really cut out for the ugliness of the hunting business.

After leaving that town, smoke still high in the sky from the burning charcoal that used to be Club D'lights, Dean kept waiting for the other shoe to fall. Either the police, knocking on his door with charges of mass murder, or the owner of the place, looking for revenge. No one ever came.

Until now.

-oo-

"They were taking her away and, unlike before, I knew she would not be returned to me this time. Weak and dizzy, I ran to her, not thinking that the guards were too big for me to fight, not thinking that I no longer had my makeshift weapon.

Her little hands were extended, reaching out to me. Her doll, the only one she had, dangled wildly from her fingers. In my sister's eyes, I could see the hope that I could save her.

I tried, but I failed.

Blindly fighting my way to her, my fingers closed around fabric and I imagined I had succeeded. As long as I was grabbing on to my little sister, they would not be able to take her away. I pulled as hard as a I could, with all of my strength until the fabric gave away and I was thrown back.

The door closed on my sister's sobs and I was left here. In my hands, I had the body of her doll, head ripped off. She had been holding it so tight...

It was strange, but at the time, it bothered me more that I had broken her doll than the fact that my sister had been sold like a bag of chips and had been taken to her owner. That thought was too ugly and painful for me to even consider, I suppose.

One year later, I can still barely voice it.

But someone needs to know. Someone needs to stop them.

I wished that that someone was could've been me, but I see now that my part in this story is only to warn others of what happens here. And to remember her.

Cat was my sister and she was only seven when she was taken away. Remember her. Remember Catherine-"

Dean let the piece of paper fall like it had burned him. His eyes were stinging and he couldn't seem to catch his breath.

Catherine. Cathy. Cat.

It couldn't possibly be the same little girl, and yet...

Dean picked the paper up frantically, going back to the beginning of the letter, searching for some sort of clue that this was not the same child, that the Cathy in that piece of paper hadn't become the Cathy with dead blue eyes that had helped Dean kill a succubus.

"... or you're just as trapped in here as we were. My little sister and me."

Cathy's older brother had died in that place, never knowing what had become of his sweet little sister, never dreaming of the horrors she had been forced to endure.

Dean was envious of him.

It was impossible to look at Matt and not see Cathy and the other kids reflected in his face.

Dean could no longer lie to himself. In between their captor's comments and the letter he had found, Dean knew now exactly what was in store for Matt. He was pretty sure that the room full of ghosts that Cat had seen and the faceless men that had scared Matt so much were the same place. Some sort of room where 'buyers' could anonymously look at the 'merchandize' and offer their price.

Club D'lights must've been only one of the many places that the bastards supplied with kids.

And Matt would end up in one of them.

Dean wanted to punch a hole through the wall. Maybe one big enough to get them out.

He needed to take that kid out of there before it was too late.

Escape, however, had been on his mind since day one and still Dean hadn't found a way out.

"You're frowning," Matt called Dean out, small face trying to mimic the contortions that the older man's forehead was doing. "Do your eyes hurt? My mom always frowned like that when her eyes hurt."

"I'm thinking," Dean confessed, his mind cooking up the most deranged plans that had no inkling of working.

Dean had tried to escape by himself and failed at every turn. He had even tried calling Cass for help, but the angel was, for some reason, silent.

With his brother dead and Bobby's whereabouts unknown, there was little hope that someone outside was working on a rescue. It was up to him.

"Now you just look like you're pooping," Matt informed Dean.

For all the shitty ideas that his brain was coming up with, Dean supposed Matt was right.

The pool of water seemed like their best bet as an exit point. With his head being dunked in there repeatedly, Dean had been given ample opportunities to spot the large grate at the bottom, large enough to allow a grown man through. His guess was that the pool was natural and it drained directly to whichever span of salt water that fed it.

The maze was Dean's biggest problem. Every day the guards took him through a different route to the chamber with the pool, but after all the time he had spend there, Dean had been able to pick up the three alternatives that they kept using.

All he needed to deal with was the gas. Still, a plan was already forming in Dean's mind.

-oo-

When the noisy troll walked by, doing his door bolts checks, Dean was waiting. Matt was sleeping on Dean's usual spot, a ratty blanket filled with straw adding volume and length to his tiny body. It was an obvious deception, but Dean only needed the guards to be fooled for a second.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor and Dean's senses went into high alert. If there were more than one or two guards, if Matt moved too soon, if Dean's body was weaker than he'd figured… the whole plan would be over before it even started.

On his signal, Matt started to scream for help as loudly as he could. For a couple of minutes, Dean was sure that the guard was going to ignore the little boy's cries and just keep on walking.

Dean breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the jingle of keys and the door unlocking.

Two guards came in, one still holding the key and the other a gun. With guards' eyes on the body on the floor, Dean charged the guard one holding a weapon first.

Like the guards from before, the ones Dean had defeated in the corridor, these too had some training, but little practice.

The guard raised his gun to take aim, but forgot that the cell was too small to safely maneuver a fire weapon without catching himself or his partner in the line of fire. As soon as he raised his arm to shoot, he was within Dean's reach, who easily pulled his arm straight and aimed a vicious punch at the elbow, dislocating the member and catching the gun as it fell from numb fingers.

With one guard howling in pain on the floor, Dean turned his attention to the second one. "Don't move!" Dean yelled, halting the man's gesture of reaching for his own gun. "Hands down, real slow."

The guard's gulp echoed on the cell as he surrendered and waited for his fate.

Dean wanted to shoot both men. His finger was taut against the trigger, begging him to press just a little bit harder. Any 'human' working in such a sort of business didn't deserve his mercy.

Matt was looking right at him, eyes big and round, looking like a frightened rabbit that would bolt at the slightest noise. He was Dean's priority. He needed to get that kid out no matter what.

The guard fell down with a whimper as the gun crashed heavily with his skull, the other making a pathetic attempt at escape as Dean moved in his direction to apply the same recipe. Didn't do him much good.

Working on a hunch, Dean searched the guards' uniforms. He found what he was looking for in the first pocket. A gas mask. "Here," he said, handing one to Matt. "Put this over your nose and mouth."

The mask was so big for the little boy that Matt had to hold it in place with both hands, but it would do its job when the gas started to hit them.

Placing the second mask over his own face, Dean peeked into the corridor. Empty. "Come on, lets get out of here."

The corridors were deserted as they moved quickly through them. Dean was moving on muscle memory alone, letting his feet take him through the one of the routes he had walked countless times before.

When they arrived at the pool room, Dean was surprised at how close it actually was.

The door was bolted shut by an iron clasp. Praying that it was well tended enough to not make a racket as he pulled, Dean gave it a yank. The bold slid effortlessly under his hands. "Get in there, quickly," he whispered.

Matt hurried to comply, body pressed against the wall, tiny hands holding the mask so tightly against his face that his fingertips were white.

"We can take these off now," Dean took his mask off, making sure there was a smile underneath. The kid was already scared enough without Dean adding his unease to the matter. Which was why he hated what he had to do next. "You okay?"

Matt nodded emphatically, even as his eyes darted all over the room.

"I have to go check something out," Dean explained, telling himself that this was the only way. "And I need you to stay here, as quiet as mouse, okay?"

Another nod, head saying yes even as the kid's eyes told Dean that being left alone was the last thing that he wanted.

Dean needed to check the grate's mobility, and, if he could move it, see how far underwater they would have to swim to get outside. He couldn't risk taking the little boy in there blind.

Not knowing how long they had before the rest of the guards noticed their absence, Dean took a deep breath and dove.

The grate was rusty and heavy, salt water corroding the iron making it easier for Dean to break the clasps. A couple of good yanks and Dean could feel it break free.

Dean came up for air one more time, looked over to make sure that the door was still closed and Matt was okay, and went under a second time.

After squeezing himself through the grate opening, Dean counted the seconds. He had no idea how long Matt could hold his breath, but if the swim was over one minute, it would not be pretty.

Thirty seconds in and Dean was still traveling through the drain, feeling the pull of water rushing him forward. The idea that the trip could be too long for either of them to make it flickered crossed Dean's mind and was quickly discarded. They had to make it outside.

Forty-five seconds in and the dark tunnel started to grow lighter and lighter until Dean could see the surface above.

With a gasp, he immerged on a cave. The high ceiling was covered in shiny, white stalactites, like salt sculptured figures, guarding the exit. Fortunately for him, they were the only guards around.

The entrance to the cave was merely a few feet away, bright sunlight flooding the place in white. They had a way out!

Giddy with the prospect of telling the news to Matt, Dean made his return trip in even less time. All in all, he had left the kid alone for a little over two minutes.

When Dean's head popped back up in the poolroom, the place was no longer dark. And Matt was no longer alone.

"A smarter man would've kept on going, Dean."

Matt was softly crying, struggling against the guard holding him. Dean wanted to cry with him. They had been so close. If only they had a chance to try agai—

"Take him back to the cell. Mr. X will be here shortly to get him," the man in the shadow told the guard, paying no attention to the devastating effect his words were having on Dean.

"No..."

"Dean," the man said, clasping his hands. "Dean, Dean... how shall we put this foolish idea of escape out of your mind?"

-oo-

The world was moving at a pace so slow that it seemed to almost still. Through the fog that had settled over his mind, Dean was aware of what was happening to his body, like a spectator watching a boring show whose finale was already spoiled in advance.

They had started by breaking his right arm. Much like Dean had done with the guard in his cell, they grabbed the limb straight and kicked his elbow from the outside in. Dean felt the bone snap inside his brain, intense pain closing his throat around the guttural scream that was trying to get out.

The grate was still open; freedom was just an arm's reach away. Dean could still swim his way out with just one working arm. Once the pain numbed down, once hatred and desire to survive surpassed the agony, he knew he could do it.

But with only one working arm, there was no way he could take Matt with him and still swim fast enough to get them outside before he ran out of breath.

It was all over.

Matt's innocence was inside a sand clock and Dean could almost see the last grains ebbing away. After that, there would be nothing more left but broken glass.

"It doesn't have to be Matt, you know?"

His captor's words snapped Dean from his world of pain and despair. Clutching his broken arm to his chest, he looked up at the talking silhouette. The man had one hand on the door, as if he'd stopped just short of leaving.

"I'm a man of business, Dean," he reminded. "I care more about numbers than faces."

"What are you saying?" Dean rasped.

"That I can easily replace Matt with some other kid before his buyer arrives," he said matter of factly. "That given the right incentive, I might even let Matt go."

Bile rolled inside Dean's stomach. The man actually believed he was making an irresistible offer, replacing Matt with some other poor kid who would suffer horrors in his stead.

Matt would be free, yes. But for how long? How long until the next human lunatic or demon decided that mankind was overdue for extermination?

"You know what the good thing about being who I am is?" Dean asked flatly, looking straight at where he guessed his captor's eyes were. "It's knowing that there's actually a Hell," he hissed, "and that when you get there, one day, there will be thousands of demons waiting in line to fuck you in ways you cannot imagine, for eternity."

The man at the door stopped. For the first time since their interactions, Dean could feel anger seeping from the man's coolness. He'd finally struck a cord.

An idea had already begun to slowly creep inside Dean's mind, like hot lava eating up ground and destroying everything in its path. He couldn't take Matt from that place and he had just destroyed any chance of returning the young boy to his parents. There was still something that Dean could do to save Matt though.

-oo-

Matt's eyes lit up when he saw Dean return to their cell, like he was some kind of savior that was going to make everything better.

One look at that hopeful face and Dean could no longer stop the tears from falling. He kept telling himself that this was the only way out, the only way he could spare Matt from a life of horrors. This was the only way to stop Matt from becoming another Cathy.

Dean was hardly convincing enough to fool himself.

"Have I told you about that one time Sam and me went to Heaven?" Dean started, his voice heavy with emotion.

Life had been unfair and ruthless with Matt. Dean could only hope that Heaven would treat him better. Who knew, maybe Dean's lie about Disneyworld actually became Matt's reality up there.

Dean hugged Matt one last time, telling himself that he had no right to seek comfort like that, but unable to stop himself.

When his hands closed around Matt's little throat, Dean was sure he wouldn't be strong enough to do it.

Cathy's room had been filled with stuffed animals. Dean remembered that clearly. He remembered how strongly the presence of teddy bears had clashed with the sex toys hanging from the walls.

The snap of bone under his fingers almost surprised Dean, even as he felt Matt go limp in his arms.

The little boy was free. He was going to keep his innocence.

And shadow man would have to find a way to explain to his Mr. X why his investment was dead.

The thought brought a smile to Dean's lips. The laughter that escaped after, had little to do with joy.

-oo-

"You cost me a great deal of money, Dean."

Shadow man was pissed. Dean could tell just from the guarded way he spoke each word. Good. His day was about to get much worse.

"The least you can do to make it up to me, Dean, is telling me where the bloody sword is," the man went on. "I mean, why keep the pretense of honor and all that crap when you've just murdered a little kid?"

Dean bit his lips to stop himself from rising to the bait. After all, it wasn't like the man was making anything up. He had killed a child, for the first time in his life.

"Nothing to say?"

Dean kept his silence.

"You know, there are other ways to extract this information from your brain. I've been keeping things low tech up until now, but my patience isn't infinite."

Sam was gone, Bobby probably too and Dean's hands were soiled in the worst of ways. There was only one way to keep the sword's location safe and now, more than ever, Dean was willing to go there.

"Where is the sword, Dean?"

When he felt the shift in gravity as the rope loosened, Dean closed his eyes and smiled. As his head hit the water, he did the opposite of what the human body is programmed to do. Dean opened his mouth and took a deep breath of salt water.

From above, he could see the distorted forms of his captor and his guards. They were counting the seconds, trusting that, like before, Dean was holding his breath.

Fools.

The edges of the world starting dimming and Dean urged them to fade faster. This was his way out. If all went well, he would be having dinner with Sam at the Roadhouse soon.

There was no reaper this time around. No bright light at the end of tunnel. Just... nothingness.

-oo-

There was a soft, cushioned seat beneath him. Sun light heating his face.

"You can open your eyes now, Dean," a voice said, ice clinking inside a glass decorating the background. "You're not dead."

Disappointment was not a sentiment that most would experience at hearing those words and yet, it was all that Dean could feel. He had failed.

"No, you haven't," the same voice added. "In fact, you passed the test with flying colors."

Dean opened his eyes.

He was on a balcony, overlooking a vast stretch of wetland. Thin veins of water covered the surface, shiny diamond strings under the sun. The balcony itself was made of large, dark grey blocks of stone, rising behind him in a high tower. A castle.

He was in a frigging castle! And in front of him...

The man was a stranger and yet, familiar to Dean. He was the man in the shadows, demanding the sword's location endlessly; he was the stranger on his knees, begging silently to be spared; he was Sam, just before he died; he was Dean as he made the hardest decision of his life; he was Matt, looking so hopeful at Dean; he was a man dressed in black that Dean had met before, on a train filled with souls. "Michael."

"Hello, Dean," Michael greeted him. "It has been a while."

Dean jump to his feet, walking to the edge of the balcony. Several feet below, a courtyard with old cannons and trebuchets was on display. The massive wooden doors where closed. "What do you mean I 'passed the test'?"

His arm, pulsing in pain before, was as good as new now, Dean noticed. He ran a hand over his chin, feeling nothing but a faint stubble instead of a beard.

Michael sighed. "You will not find this amusing," he started. "But it was necessary to ensure that the sword was in good hands."

"Damn right I don't find this amusing!" Dean let out, hands turning to fists as he fought the urge to smash the archangel's face into pulp. "How do get off on playing with people's lives like that? Sam? Matt? Me?"

"None of it was real, Dean," the archangel assured him. "Matt, your brother, Bobby, even the man you did not know, they're all alright."

"Given the circumstances, I feel less than inclined to trust your lying bastard words," Dean spat, turning his back on the archangel.

None of it had been real. And yet, it had felt more than real to Dean. The loss of his brother, the murder of Matt and all for what? "Why? Why go through all this trouble now? Why fuck with me after giving your blessing to use the sword?"

"Because it is in times of peace that soldiers grow weak." The hand on his shoulder was unwelcome, and yet the warmth and serenity that seeped through the touch were like a soothing balm after a nasty sunburn. "You know as well as I do the importance of keeping the sword safe."

"Well, I don't want the fucking thing," Dean said, turning around in anger. "You wanted it so much, you take it."

"The sword is yours, Dean," Michael said calmly, hands extended in Dean's direction. In his palm, the familiar piece of charcoal that hid the long sword. "You've proven that you're worthy to be its protector."

"By allowing my brother to die? Or by killing a little kid?" Dean asked bitterly. His fingers hitched to touch the sword, but he stopped himself.

"By proving that you are ready to give up everything that you are, every principle that you value, every person that you love, to keep it safe."

Dean's shoulders sagged. Deep down, he knew that the archangel was right; it was his methods, however, that made Dean want to do nothing more than spit in his smug face.

"Don't be a child Dean," Michael chided him. "Hate me all you want, but take what it's yours."

"Was everything an illusion?"

The archangel's expression softened. He knew exactly what Dean was really asking.

"Thomas killed himself shortly after writing that letter," Michael explained. "He was under our protection when you freed his sister from that hellish place. I recreated the letter from his memories."

"And Cathy?" Dean asked, his voice all but a faint whisper. Part of him was terrified to hear the answer.

It was strange to see the archangel smile so openly. "Cathy joined the FBI. Her crime unit specializes in missing people. Last year alone, they uncovered two child-slavery organizations and put an end to their crimes."

Dean smiled.

"She's still hoping to find the nice 'special agent' who saved her," Michael added with a smirk that was too similar to Dean's.

The simple words 'saved her' were like ambrosia to his ears. He would never admit to Michael how much he had needed to hear that.

Dean grabbed the sword from the archangel's hands, the burned metal instantly becoming bright and long in his hands. He'd forgotten how beautiful and light it was. "We'll need to discuss your testing methods in the near future, you know that?"

"Hide it better next time, will you?" the archangel said, even as his body started to become pure light. "And call Sam. He worries."

"Prick," Dean let out between his teeth, pulling his cell phone from his jeans' pocket. The gesture was so familiar that he didn't even pause to question how long that cell had been there. "Hey!" he called out before the archangel disappeared altogether. "Where the hell are we anyway?"

Through the light, Michael smiled again. "One of my castles. In France." And then he was gone.

"One of your cas—" Dean mumbled, dialing Sam's number. "What the hell am I supposed to do with that?" he yelled at the empty air.

"Dean? Dean is that you?"

Sam's voice called Dean back to reality. It was good to hear his brother alive and breathing again.

"Where the hell have you been, you idiot? We've been waiting for that coffee and donuts for hours now!"

Dean's eyebrows curled in confusion. He had spent more than three months trapped inside the walls of that castle and Sam and Bobby were still waiting on the breakfast?

"Fucking angels," Dean whispered, shaking his head.

"What was that?"

"Coffee's probably a little cold by now, Sam," Dean replied with a tired sigh.

The change in Sam's tone was so drastic and fast that it would leave anyone else dizzy. "Dean... are you okay? Did something happen? Where are you?"

"Yeah... about that," Dean said, stopping his brother from asking any more questions. He could hear the whole story once Dean was home. "Is Cass around? I need a lift."

"Lift?" Sam's voice was beginning to sound downright alarmed. "Did you crash the Impala? Is that it?"

"I'm okay, Sam," Dean reassured him. "And the car better be right where I left her," he mumbled, more to an absent Michael than to his brother.

"Where are you?"

"Michael's castle... in France, according to him."

The silence on the other side spoke volumes about the implications Sam was already gathering from Dean's words. "I'll call Cass," he said simply. "Stay put."

Dean went back to the comfy chairs and picked the glass of whiskey that Michael had left behind. He had about two minutes to think of a good way to tell his family what the hell had just happened.

The end.

---

AN: My deepest gratitude to Jackfan2 and Amber1960 for their help with this story. Any remaining mistakes that you might've bumped into, they're totally my responsibility