Written by Titan of Saturn

DoC: 12/05/07

Summary: It's three years to the day since the world ended, and Dean gets a visit from Sam.

Spoilers for season two 'All Hell Breaks Loose' parts one and two. Rated M for language, blood, and disturbing imagery. Some very mild non-con incest. AU for AHBL. Evil!Sam.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural.

It's three years to the day since the world ended in an explosion of shadows.

Dean's still alive. Sam hunted down the demon he'd made the deal with and forced it to let Dean off the hook, let him live. Dean wasn't there when it happened, so he doesn't know the details, only what Sam's told him. He imagines that Sam used his ability to control demons, the ability he learned from Ava, to make it happen. The red-eyed demon wouldn't have consented otherwise.

Dean found out about it three days after he was supposed to die, on the one year anniversary of the end of the world. He'd opened the door of his motel room to find Sam leaning against the door frame, big goofy smile on his face.

"I did it, Dean." Sam told him, and Dean heard the words almost as if they were traveling through water. "I saved you."

"I'm the one who's supposed to save you, Sam." And Sam laughed, like it was some sort of inside joke, and pushed his way into the room past Dean. He laughed again, softer and with less joy, running a finger across the empty windowsill.

"What, no gofer dust, no salt? Come on Dean, you can't tell me you had that much trust in my ability to get you out of this mess." The words were teasing and light, but the voice was stressed and breaking. Sam turned back to him, where Dean was still standing in the open doorway, and the teasing smirk around his lips did nothing to hide the gut-wrenching fear in his eyes.

Dean closed the door, and then leaned on it. He took Sam's big soulful eyes and the chick flick moment over the white elephant that stood in the room. It was frighteningly easy.

He did that again, on the second anniversary of the end of the world.

Dean decides, as he opens the door of his motel room to Sam leaning against the frame, that the third time is the charm. He doesn't plan on letting it go this time.

"Why are you here, Sam?"

"I wanted to see you, check up on how you're doing." Sam's smiling at him, a shrug in his words. Dean doesn't yield. "Did you manage to save that guy in Idaho, Lenny?" Dean flinches because shit thathurt coming from Sam. Sam uses the opening and pushes past him into the room, stepping carefully over the line of salt inside the threshold. He looks back for some reason, maybe instinct or psychic vibes, and then crouches down to run a finger across the runes enforcing Dean's salt line.

Sam laughs, low and surprised, choking on sheer disbelief in short bursts of laughter. It's the same laugh Dean's heard every time he said something ridiculous and Sam couldn't believe he found it funny. Dean misses that laugh.

"Dude, were you trying to keep me out?" Dean just listens and watches; Sam sound's like he can't believe it and looks like it's the funniest thing he's seen in a long time. "If you were, this is a pretty pathetic attempt." Lightly mocking, like Dean had done to Sam dozens of times. Like Sam had done to Dean, just as frequently.

What is that?

It's an EMF meter. It reads electromagnetic frequencies.

I know what an EMF is. But why does that one look like a busted-up walkman?

Because that's what I made it out of. It's homemade.

Yeah. I can see that.

"Then care to share how exactly it's done?" Dean asks. Sam snorts and stands, flopping onto Dean's bed and making himself comfortable. "I didn't." Dean continues.

"Didn't what?"

"Save that guy in Idaho." Sam looks at him like he's nuts.

"I know that already. It was pretty stupid of you to try."

"Well, you know me. Stupid's my middle name."

"Tell me about it." They don't say anything for a while, and somehow the silence is still comfortable.

"Get out, Sam." Dean says the words with a measured calm that he doesn't feel, with a determination that will probably break as soon as Sam turns those eyes on him. He makes himself remember Sam at the door saying Did you manage to save that guy in Idaho, Lenny? and forcing his way into the motel room. Dean tries not to remember Sam's laugh of utter disbelief or Sam's mocking tone, because then he could never go through with this. Sam turns to look at his brother with a startled expression.

"No."

"Goddamn-it, Sam, I said get out!" Dean's fake calm shatters and he's out of glue to piece it back together again. All the King's soldiers and all the King's men . . .

"I don't want to leave yet, Dean." Sam is so calm, so plain about it, that Dean can't hold back anymore. It all rushes to the surface; past the shards of every face he's ever worn, all of them as broken and irreparable as his mask of calm.

"What the hell are you even doing here in the first place? Huh? What gives you the fucking right to sit there like nothing has happened, to talk to me like nothing has changed, to stride right back into my life on the fucking anniversary of the end of the goddamn world?"

Sam stands up.

"Don't ever talk to me like that again." Sam Commands him, and Dean feels the words echo in his head. His throat closes up and Dean chokes on the words he wants to say, cursing Andy and his brother for showing Sam that could be done.

Dean laughs, and it's nowhere near as carefree as Sam's is.

"So now I'm not allowed to be mad at you? How convenient."

"I didn't stop you from being mad at me," Sam informs him, lifting his hands palms up and shrugging as if to say what can you do "just from expressing it, and only from expressing it to me. You'd know if I prevented you from being mad."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better? So you just controlled my actions and not my emotions. Not much of a line there, Sam." Dean realizes Sam's decree doesn't cover sarcasm, and manages to feel some sense of relief. He doesn't know why – he hardly wastes the effort to be sarcastic these days, even with Sam.

Sam smirks. It's not a Sam smirk, something teasing or mocking. It's a smirk Dean has only seen once before now; the image of Sam's face after shooting Jake is burned into his memory. If he never saw that expression on Sam's face again, it would be too soon.

"If I want to hear how pissed you are that little brother is barging in on your perfect, hopeless life, then I'll rummage around in your head until I find it. Otherwise, I suggest you keep your mouth shut about it. I do what I want to, and if I want to visit you on the 'anniversary of the end of the goddamn world,' then I will. It's not like you can do anything about it."

Dean feels a chill at the realization that Sam can probably read minds now, and fuck, but that's scary. Sam – his Sam – has got to be the most powerful human on the planet, and ranked pretty high with the demons by now, too. Sam, though, walks past him and out the door like he hadn't just refused to leave.

Sam doesn't show up on the fourth anniversary of the end of the world.

Instead, Sam shows up again on the fourth anniversary of the day Dean made the deal with the red-eyed demon. On the third anniversary of the day Dean was supposed to die, and Sam saved him. The anniversaries are starting to drive Dean nuts. He wonders if Sam has developed a morbid sense of humor while not in his company. He doesn't doubt it.

Still, Sam doesn't show up on the anniversary of the end of the world. It's only a difference of three days, and Dean doesn't think this anniversary is much better than the last, but somehow it makes a difference. Dean's not sure how or why yet, or even if that change matters to him or to Sam or to the both of them. He only knows that it matters and it shouldn't. Not anymore.

It's sometime after the fourth anniversary. Dean's thirty-one and trying to figure out where the years have gone, and everything falls apart.

Over the past four years, Sam has kept Dean alive. He marked him with some kind of 'Property of Sam Winchester, Do Not Kill' sign that's kept the yellow-eyed demon's soldiers from killing him on sight. As much as Dean's hated by the residents of Hell, Sam's feared more, and that realization makes Dean sick. There are rules, of course, that Dean has to follow to stay under Sam's protection. He can't exorcise demons anymore, and he's expected to hand over someone he's trying to save if they're wanted by the yellow-eyed demon.

Dean feels sometimes that Lenny's blood will never wash off.

Sarah calls him. She's screaming and crying and can't form a coherent sentence, so Dean drives across three boarders and through eight demon-run military checkpoints to get to her. When he does, she's being hunted by demonic soldiers. This time, Dean can't let it go. He won't let her die, and he breaks the rules to protect her because this is Sarah – Sam's girl, Dean sister, the woman who could have been a hunter, who his brother should have married no matter how much Dean had joked about it, no matter that they'd only stopped by three times and the two had never had a single date. He won't let them have Sarah.

Dean regrets his decision almost a day later, when Sam arrives in a government helicopter and dismisses the demonic soldiers. The demons had been looking for nearly twenty-two hours by the time Sam arrives, Dean's bolt-hole soaked in charms of look away and protected by everything he could manage.

Sam finds them in under twenty minutes. He walks right through the wall and into their hide out, destroying all the charms and wards protecting the place as he does.

Sam's human. As powerful as he is now, as much as he can do, Sam is still human. No ancient Shaman priest ever made charms or wards to be used against humans. It's a fact the hunter community mourns tears of blood for, dying at Sam's feet. Dean isn't deaf – he's heard the rumors and stories. He knows what Sam does, what Sam is. Sometime soon you'll have to save Sam, Dean. If you can't, you're going to have to kill him. It was too late now. It had always been too late. Even if Dean would do it – which he wouldn't, even now, because he could still pretend – the time had long passed when any sort of bullet or knife could reach Sam.

"I though we had a deal, Dean." Sam says, ignoring Sarah as she criesOh God, it's true. Sam, tell me that's not you. "This breaks the rules."

"I know." Dean says in a grim voice, trying not to yell over what he feels is the echo of his pounding heart. "I can't do this anymore, Sam." Sam raises his eyebrows and smirks, that smirk Dean hates because it's not a Sam expression, too dark for his Sammy. Third time's the charm.

"Not because it's Sarah?"

"That too." Dean admits, and watches as Sam flicks his eyes in Sarah's direction. He feels a little bit of hope, for a second, but Sarah is abruptly quiet at his side and Dean realizes that Sam was just Ordering her to shut up. "So what now?"

"That's not up to me, Dean. I though you knew that. I only protect you because he lets me." From behind Sam, a man with yellow eyes steps into view.

Dean pulls the Colt automatically. The Colt and it's one bullet that he's kept with him all this time since he retrieved it from the Gate to Hell – the Colt that Sam's never asked him to hand over – but it's torn out of his hand by Sam using telekinesis before he even has a chance to sight down it. The yellow-eyed demon shakes his head in disappointment.

"Dean, Dean, and here I was thinking you were a good slave. I should have known better, eh Sam? Your brother is nothing but trouble." Dean tenses as the demon walks right up into his space, but he doesn't dare move. "Take his protections and wards off, and then you know what I want done with the girl. Make sure you get all the information out of her." The demon orders Sam who, to Dean's horror, lifts a hand and telekinetically rips off all of Dean's protection charms.

Dean feels something in him break as he watches Sam turn away without a second thought. When he hears Sarah slam into a wall and start to scream two minutes later, Dean's insides are already numb. He has no room to wonder what information Sarah could possibly have that would interest the demon before him, or to worry over her wellbeing. He just can't.

The demon tilts its head and lifts a hand, touching Dean's cheek experimentally with a single finger. Dean flinches away but nothing happens, and the demon grins.

"Those charms are the reason I send Sam to deal with hunters. It's just too much work getting them off myself. He's such a useful tool, don't you think?"

"Sam's not a tool."

"But he is. Just look over there for the proof. He really does like her, you know, but all I have to do is say the word, and little Sammy will kill her for me."

"Don't call him that!" An invisible blow hits him behind the knees and Dean folds to the ground.

"I said look." The demon hisses in his ear, and turns Dean's head with a hand on his chin and not telekinesis, which somehow makes it worse.

Sam is holding a bloody knife, but he's not using it anymore. Instead, Sarah is simply holding her head and screaming. Dean remembers, suddenly, standing before the incinerated roadhouse and gasping in pain as Andy forced images of Sam and their location into his head.

Must be the stress. Ah. I could've swore I saw something.

Come on, I'm not some psychic!

I saw Sam. I saw him Bobby.

He can't help but wonder what Sam's showing Sarah to make her scream in such anguish.

"Hey Sammy, why don't you come play over here." The demon says. Sam turns to look at them, and then walks over, leaving Sarah crippled and screaming on the ground. He lifts the knife to his mouth and licks the blood off, and by the time he stops next to Dean kneeling on the ground his lips are bloody and Dean's stomach has turned itself inside out.

Dean feels a sudden force holding him down, like weight on his shoulders, and somehow he knows its Sam and not the demon. Yellow-eyes pulls away, and Sam drops to his knees in front of Dean, a parody of a mirror image. He lifts his almost-clean knife and slides it along the side of Dean's face like he's caressing it. Dean flinches away, slightly, before he can stop himself. It's suddenly apparent how much Sam moves like some sort of animal, like a predator. Prey his mind hisses at him. Or maybe that's Sam.

"Do you remember?" Sam whispers with blood stained lips. "Do you remember when I fell?" He leans forward so their chests are nearly touching and whispers directly into Dean's ear, and Dean tries to move away – get away! – but it's as if there are chains anchoring him to the ground. "Lets find out."

Pain explodes behind Dean's eyes, and this is nothing like Andy's vision but he's seeing something on the inside of his eyelids other than stars. He feels like a rake is being grated against the inside of his skull, tearing his thoughts apart, and he tries to think –what the hell? – but the pain is too much.

An image comes into focus and the pain fades into the background. He's in the graveyard again, with Sam and Bobby and Ellen, and Jake is standing before the Devil's door to Hell with the Colt in one hand.

Hey lady, Jake says, turning away from Sam. Put your gun to your head. Dean's view shifts right and he watches Ellen put her gun to her temple, and then to Bobby putting his gun down. Dean waivers, consents, and watches as Jake turns to Sam only to get a bullet, two, three, seven and he and Booby both lunge for Ellen but it's too late. Dean is covered is blood and gray matter.

Blood.

Then Dean isn't Dean anymore, but Sam. And he's really fucking pissed at Jake, because Jake betrayed his mercy, stabbed him in the back,won. Pissed and cold, still so damn cold even though the anger helps keep it away. Cold as death; and he realizes he knew the moment he woke up, even as Jake stands in front of him and insists he'd been dead. Spine shot. Killing strike.

Jake with that smirk and his boasting, claiming Ava's words were truth, Ordering Ellen and then expecting him to just put his gun down, fuck that, and he shoots him. Empties his clip into the son of a bitch, ignoring the spray of blood, and feels something in his mind loose and then break, and he realizes suddenly that he's powerful. He can do anything. Anything. In the back of his head, in a part of his mind that hadn't been open before, he can feel an echo of surprise and pride and victory. The emotions curl out like feelers and settle under his skin, and he can sense the glow of yellow hellfire at the other end of the link, knows what it is and was and could be, so he bends over to take the Colt from Jake's dead and bloody body, reaching out with his mind to the new sense of 'human' on his left and pushes with a surge ofvictory and power and mine pumping beneath his skin. All mine.

Blood.

Dean looks up from where Sam flung him and Bobby across the graveyard, and feels his heart sink. It should be because he can see Sam inserting the Colt into the lock and turning it, but it's not. It should be but it's not and Dean can't change that. It's because they're in the middle of a devil's trap, and the person who just telekinetically slammed Dean into a headstone is Sam, Sammy, his brother, and no one else.

Bobby grabs Dean by his jacket and drags him behind cover just as the doors swing open and a mass of shadows burst out with a deafening roar. Bobby holds Dean down and huddles next to him behind the headstone muttering Jesus Christ; it's a Devil's Gate. Jesus Christ, Dean, your brother just opened the door to Hell. A goddamn Devil's Gate Dean. Fuck, we've got to close it. Come on Dean, you with me? Fuck, Dean, wake up. We've got to shut the damn doors.

Then Bobby is ripped from his side, so suddenly and violently that he takes a piece of Dean's jacket with him, and Dean turns to see a man standing in the gale, yellow eyes glinting. Behind him, Bobby is sprawled out at an awkward angle, head against a cracked tombstone and blood pooling underneath him. The man with yellow eyes is smiling when Dean looks back up at him.

Blood.

Thanks to you, Sammy's back in rotation. The demon whispers in Dean's ear, yellow eyes full of laughter and mocking triumph. I wasn't counting on that, but hell, I liked him better than Jake anyhow. Dean listens to the voice in his ear, but his eyes are glued to Sam standing unharmed in the masses of demons that are swirling onto Earth. Dean thinks that it looks like Sam's standing in the middle of a black storm, and he recalls Bobby warning them of this. Storm's coming he'd said, and Dean hadn't really understood what he'd been saying. Bobby probably hadn't either.

Killing in cold blood. The demon confesses, like he's telling Dean a secret. That's what does it, what unlocks the power I granted them. You saw what he did to Jake. That was pretty cold, don't you think? Dean looks at him, finally, trying to work this new revelation into everything he knows; about Mom, about Dad, about Sam. The demon grins. What, didn't he tell you? Little Sammy's gift isn't exactly natural. Look at him. Are you even sure he's human? That what you brought back is 100 pure Sam? You of all people should know that what's dead should stay dead. But I thank you for that little oversight, so I'll tell you a secret about him: Sam isn't even sure of it himself.

Dean sees Sam turn around and look at them. He's not smiling, but his eyes have a light to them that Dean doesn't recognize. He looks satisfied, like he has everything he's ever wanted and it's not right but Dean feels something pull at his chest anyway, an old ache that has never been forgotten, an old fear, an old wish. It doesn't seem to matter that Sam's covered in blood.

Blood.

Dean gasps and opens his eyes to the present, throat scratchy and raw. Sam is laughing in his ear like he used to as a kid, when he'd master a weapon or a move or something Dean told him he couldn't, only it's twisted through some distorted mirror. The sound sends a shiver down his spine. Over Sam's shoulder, the yellow-eyed demon is grinning.

"I've waited a long time for this." The bastard says. "Kill him for me, Sammy. And make it slow."

"Wanna watch?" Sam asks, and Dean has a sudden flashback to Sam as a kid, only seven or eight, when Dad had decided to teach him how to use a knife. Gonna watch? Sammy had asked him.

For some reason, Dean remembers Sam with blood on his hands.

"You have to ask?" The demon is still smiling, grinning. Dean feels Sam smile into his ear and then pull away so that they're face to face again. He slides his knife into Dean's side, away from vital organs, and then leans forward to swallow Dean's cry of pain with his mouth.

Dean balks, throat closing up and trying to clamp his mouth shut, but Sam digs a thumb into the joint of his jaw to keep his mouth open. Dean feels Sam's tongue attack the inside of his mouth and scrambles to figure out what's going on, what's happening; Jesus is Sam kissing him? Then their tongue's brush and Dean gets the taste of something metallic. He gags when he realizes it's blood, Sarah's blood, and that finally gets Sam to pull away.

The demon is laughing in the background. There's something metal under his fingers, where his arms are wrapped around Sam for support as his blood begins to leak out of him and the weight on his shoulders gets heavier. In front of him, face inches from his own, Sam's lips curl up slightly at the corners, but the smile has no humor. That light is in his eyes again. He pulls his knife out of Dean's side, and Dean groans at the dull throb of pain that flares up and down his body. His head still hurts more than anything else, every single song from every cassette he owns pounding away all at once in a crescendo of noise and pain, the imaginary gouges on the inside of his skull bleeding into his brain. The echo of the demon's laughter makes the pounding that much worse.

"Don't like the taste of blood?" Sam asks him. Dean feels himself moving without thought, suddenly free, the word blood echoing in his head. He blinks, and then he's standing, colt in hand, and the demon isn't laughing anymore.

Sam is. He stands and pulls the empty Colt from Dean's numb fingers, laughing a dark, bitter laugh. He walks over to the man lying on the ground and examines the bullet hole in his forehead, and then laughs some more, the sound trying and failing to be triumph andvictory and I win. It doesn't sound right. Dean wonders if Sam knows that.

His head is empty of noise, the pain gone, but he doesn't understand how. The emptiness doesn't sound right either.

"You did it Dean. You killed the demon for me." When Sam smiles at him it's with dark, dead eyes and blood stained lips and teeth. "Good job."

Dean remembers. It's twenty-seven years to the day since the world ended in an explosion of flames.