Stranger-Verse 1: Raised Up Right This Time

by Ellen Joyce

I always thought Sam should have been allowed to rescue Dean from Hell. In my world he does...by summoning a freaky entity who ruled before God did, and wants to break the rules keeping Sam and Dean from being everything to each other. Warnings for language and Wincest.

Under his favorite dead thorn tree, on one of the highest hills in Hell, the demon Alistair asked a version of the Question. For the seven hundred and fifty third time. "So what's it going to be, Dean? Hmmm? Trade your agony in for someone else's?"

The golden Winchester boy, Hell's hope, hung by his own veins, teased out of his wrists and lashed to the thorn tree. He rolled his head on his skinned neck, and hesitated for a moment. Just a moment, but longer than ever before. Anticipation licked at Alistair like flames, but no. It was just a rotten tease.

"Suck my dick, Alistair." Dean grinned through sliced lips and broken teeth, his one remaining eye maniacally bright. "Oh wait, you can't. You cut it off." He coughed up blood when he tried to laugh.

"Why yes, I'd almost forgotten." Alistair kept his gaze locked with Dean's as he lengthened his arm unnaturally, segmenting joints like a caterpillar, and plucked the severed organ from the ground. As he raised the head to his lips, he blurred his face until he looked just like Sam.

Dean didn't twitch or flinch. He laughed again and spat blood. "That the best you can do?"

It was, actually. Alistair thought it would have cracked him, so bluntly vulgar a use of little Sammy. Alistair knew Dean's weak spot was Sam. Each time he stripped Dean of his skin, peeled away his muscle, he found Sam's name etched on Dean's bones. Leverage little Sammy right, and Dean would shatter into shards of broken righteousness and shredded strength. Oh, how delicious that would taste.

Alistair mutated his elegant hand, peeling back the skin of his fingers, turning the bones into ten inch claws.

Dean bared his broken teeth. Alastair plunged the claws through Dean's skull. The feral grin hung on the dead face, mocking him.

Ah well. Hell was forever, and there was always tomorrow.

(break)

Seventy five days, three hours and sixteen minutes after the hellhounds took his brother, Sam Winchester pushed the north end of a busted wooden cross - supposedly made from a piece of the True Cross - into the mouth of a weeping Virgin Mary statue. Something clicked and the statue's base slid backwards an inch. Just like in his vision.

"Holy motherfucker." Sam looked into the sad eyes of the Virgin, and hastily took the cross out of her mouth. Because wow, did it look blasphemous. Feeling creepy for desecrating the icon, and for the language he'd used in the chapel, he touched the stone face in apology.

In his imagination, he heard Dean say, "It's a statue, Sam."

And Sam felt so incredibly stupid. "Shit."

He'd had the vision of the old mission, with its secret passage under the image of Mary, after injecting himself with DMT. For the twentieth time in a week. He'd promised Dean not to use his psychic powers to kill demons. Using them to find a way to break Dean out of hell? No promises made about that.

Bobby'd been furious when he caught him, throwing the empty hypodermic against the panic room wall. "What good will it be if you kill yourself, son?"

Sam just drove off, ignoring Bobby's fourth ultimatum to never come back. He crossed the border into Colorado, and the imaginary Dean in the passenger seat said, "You better not fuck up my Baby, baby boy."

Within a week of Dean's disappearance - never death, he never even came near thinking that word - Sam's broken heart conjured up Dean's form like an imaginary friend, an uncontrollable monster of a memory haunting his every step. Certainly nothing like a psychotic break, of course. Sam had it all together. No worries.

Imaginary friend Dean badgered him all the way to Arizona, bitching about Sam's driving skills, playing air drums on the dashboard, hearing ominous phantom engine noises so he could insist, "She wants my hands on her wheel, Sammy."

Sam ignored the imaginary Dean as much as he'd ignored the real one, stopping twice to pee and catch a couple hours sleep, and now half delirious with hope because his drug-fueled vision had come true.

Sam put his back against the statue base and pushed, hard. There must have been rollers or rails, because the carved marble slid too easily. He toppled backwards, fell far enough to knock his lungs empty when he landed on his shoulder. The surface dipped sharply and he rolled, helpless against gravity, stones and dirt giving way as he tumbled down and landed in a heap in the dark.

He swallowed the blood in his mouth, punishment for being careless.

Imaginary Dean crouched beside him, hands checking for broken bones. "Sammy," he muttered like a curse. "That's what you get for motherfucking the Virgin Mary."

Sam couldn't squelch a laugh, because it was exactly what the real Dean would say. Then imaginary Dean ran the pad of his thumb over Sam's smiling bottom lip. "Sammy, you're so gonna be my hero."

Real Dean would never do that.

Sam closed his eyes. When he lifted his lids, imaginary Dean was gone. Sam got back to work. He unhooked the flashlight from his belt. The circle of light bounced off gold and silver and he squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden flash. Breathing deeply, he panned the light, tracing the edges of a room as big as the mission's chapel above, dirt walls, dirt floor, dirt ceiling braced with tar-painted timbers as thick as his thigh. Stacked from floor to ceiling in all four corners gleamed icons and statues and cups and shields, gold and silver and looking vaguely Aztec. Or maybe Mayan.

"Holy shit." Imaginary Dean cupped his hands over two golden shields like they were a willing woman's boobs. "We're rich."

Sam ignored Dean and the gold. Along the far wall were document tubes, carved from bone and polished wood, some laced with precious metals. These he had seen in his vision. One tube specifically, crusted with chips of red gems.

When he stood up, his hair brushed the packed dirt of the ceiling. The tube from his vision was buried against the wall, the others hiding it like guardians. Sam put the flashlight in his mouth as he popped open the seal on the tube's narrow end. He reached inside, pulled out a yellowed lambskin scroll.

He smoothed it out on the dirt floor. In Spanish and High Church Latin, he puzzled through a narrative describing a mission deep into the jungle. About a city of people living apart from the other natives, shunned and feared.

"Don't keep it to yourself." Imaginary Dean hovered over his shoulder, too close. Imaginary Dean had no respect for personal space.

"There was this tribe called the Outsiders, and they worshipped the Stranger." He stumbled over translating the next sentences, unfamiliar with the terms. The Stranger was...what? The priest wrote it both Spanish and Latin - ante de dios and ante deus - and neither really made much sense. The literal translation of both was before God. "How can something be before God? In a linear time sense? In like kneeling before God? What?"

Imaginary Dean got bored just as quickly as the real one. "Quit geeking out, man. Did I mention how rich we are? Room service, man. We can afford room service now."

The recording priest dutifully described the Outsiders' rituals, judging them blasphemous and unholy. But to Sam they seemed simple. Blood, of course - pre-Columbian rituals were all centered around blood. The scroll warned against using them. According to the priest, what the Stranger wanted most was to destroy the rules of the world, because, said the text, God and his angels, both the glorious and the fallen, had banished it.

Sam traced his fingers over the two phrases, ante de dios and ante deus. Fallen angels helped kick out the Stranger. This creature would have a deathmatch-level grudge against demons. It wouldn't give a crap about keeping cross-roads deals. It wanted to smash the rules of Hell.

Imaginary Dean stopped caressing the treasure. He aimed a white-toothed, gotcha now grin at Sam.

The Stranger. None of those fuckers would see it coming.

"Yahtzee," he said, in unison with imaginary Dean.

Sam turned his head sharply, not wanting to get tears on the scroll. It was already crumbling at the edges.

(break)

Alistair could barely breathe. He couldn't see. But he could hear the silky threat in Lilith's voice, laced with well-disguised desperation. She ground his face into the dirt, enunciated her words so sharply they could cut.

"Time runs out. There's only so much blood in a body, Alistair. Do you get me?"

She'd jumped him, overpowered him so easily, on his favorite hill in Hell. He could smell the Winchester blood in the dirt as it scuffed his cheek, cut his lip.

"Would you like to hear what I hear?"

No please no. He didn't dare say it. He didn't dare move. He stayed as still as a rabbit in a field full of wolves.

"I'm screening it out now. Nobody hears it but me. But I can't...do it...much longer." With each word, she pushed her foot even harder against his neck.

Suddenly Alistair's mind shattered with braying horns, crystal clear. The overwhelming rush from thousands of wings, beating against the walls of Hell. He didn't just hear the sounds. He felt them like broken glass in his eyes. They turned the air to water, clogging his lungs.

Lilith lifted her foot, shut out the sounds. "Break him, Alistair. We don't have much time."

As fast as she'd appeared, she disappeared. Alistair pulled himself to his feet. "Break him." He dusted off his pants. "Right."

In the history of Hell, had any demon been given a deadline? Wasn't the whole purpose of eternal torment the luxury of taking one's time?

Pain would never break that Winchester, not before Heaven broke into Hell. He had to get creative. Time to play the little brother card in a whole different sort of way.

(break)

Dean came back to life again, letting the wave of furious hopelessness roll over him. He'd learned that fighting it back only made it stronger. Now he just lost himself in its swell, the smallest pain he would feel before dying. Again.

He allowed the image of his brother's face to coalesce behind his eyelids. It was his version of daily prayer, each time a different memory, a different Sam. Today it was Sammy, five years old, first fishing trip, laughing up at him with that boundless baby-Sam joy. Sammy called him Dee, then pressed his unceasing smile to Dean's stomach, hugging him hard.

The internal visions burst like a bubble. Dean opened his eyes, ready for another day of torture. But no. Wait. Things were different.

First Dean saw the moon. Not the Hell moon, almost as bright as the Hell sun and just as red, but the silver moon in a deep indigo sky full of stars. Then he saw Sam standing over him, breathing hard, a smile breaking over his face, tears in his eyes.

Dean's heart turned inside out. "Sam?"

"Dean!" Sam dropped to his knees and pulled Dean into his arms.

Dean's body, so starved for any touch that didn't hurt, leaned into the embrace. But he knew. It felt like falling forever, but he knew. Alistair missed that quivering undercurrent in Sam's voice. Nobody said Dean like Sam.

"I told you I'd find a way," Alistair said in Sam's voice. "I promised. I swore."

Dean wanted Sam so badly, he doubted himself. He hoped, for a moment, and whispered a call and response challenge he shared with Sam for circumstances just like this: to confirm identity, to be absolutely sure. "Rock and roll."

Sam would have said never forgets. Alistair, in Sam's voice, said, "Yeah, Dean. Rock and roll, bacon cheeseburgers, pie."

"Wrong answer, Alistair." Even though he knew the feeling of Sam holding him was the worst kind of lie, Dean couldn't force his body to move away. He missed Sam more than he thought possible without dying from it.

"Oh come on, Dean. This is a perfect impersonation." Alistair's wheezing whine polluted Sam's tone. "You won't get any closer, ever."

Dean closed his eyes. "Let's just get on with the festivities."

Alistair used Sam's arms to pull him closer. With Sam's finger, he traced a gentle path over his brow, down his nose. Dean shook inside like Alistair ripped open a fault line.

"It must feel good, right Dean? Even if it isn't perfect? Hmmmm?" He touched Dean's bottom lip. "You could survive Hell, maybe even fight your way out, if you knew this was waiting for you at the end of the day."

Like pressure snapping a rib, Dean felt Alistair's offer crack his internal shield. Pain he could handle. Pain he understood. But this? Having something this close to Sam again, after he'd worked so hard to give up any hope...? This was fucking torture.

"I could rip you apart and it wouldn't matter," Sam crooned. "Because Sam would always be here, waiting."

Dean's thoughts scattered into meaningless white noise. He couldn't stop his hand from closing around Sam's - Alistair's - shoulder. It felt so close to real. So close.

"And this Sam would do anything for you, Dean." Sam cupped his huge hand around Dean's face.

"Please. Stop." He'd never begged before. Never.

"I'd do it for you, Dean. If you do one thing for me."

Anything. Dean clenched his teeth to keep the word from escaping.

"I just want you to cut one soul. One. Little. Soul. Then it could be an eternity of almost Sam, under the moonlight. Forever."

(break)

According to the account on the scroll, summoning the Stranger was the easy part. A little blood, a little chant. The world had forgotten about the Stranger. There were no wards keeping it out.

Getting the Stranger to work with you, that seemed to be the big hurdle. It apparently didn't like conformists, and in pre-Columbian culture, going against the order of things got your head lopped off and tossed into a proto-soccer ring.

Sam eased back on his heels, swiping his hair from his eyes. Surely the Stranger would work with him. Shit, wasn't he a portrait of not normal?

"It's true," Imaginary Dean said, crowding too close to Sam's left shoulder.

"I know, right? I ran away from you and Dad, and I couldn't fit in at Stanford either."

"You're the only emotionally conflicted hunter I know."

An uncomfortable truth, that. Sam killed monsters out of a sense of duty to humanity, but every so often he questioned the black-and-white morality of it. That werewolf was human when the moon wasn't full. Why did that ghoul have less right to eat than he did?

"You taught me all the tricks," Sam whispered. Under Dean's guidance, he learned to hustle pool, commit credit card fraud, impersonate federal agents, desecrate graves - did he ever follow any laws?

"And, of course, the demon blood." Imaginary Dean put his hand against Sam's neck, and it felt so real.

"Christ, you're right. I'm not even totally human." Demon blood blackened his veins, part of some unknown diabolical plot. "How could the Stranger say no to me?"

Imaginary Dean replaced his hand with his mouth, a tactile grin against Sam's bare skin. "Finally, you got a reason to be happy you're a freak."

With his silver knife, Sam sliced open his palm, rubbed the blood over his face. It was hot and sticky, smelling of old pennies. He got some on his bottom lip, focused on not licking it off. He put the bloody knife on the ground in front of him, as the appropriate offering. Then he said the simple incantation, in Latin, in Spanish, in what he hoped was passably pronounced pre-Columbian, per the priest's record, and finally in English.

"I open the door of my heart to the Stranger, because I am on the Outside, too."

"Dude," imaginary Dean whispered, "that's fucking creepy."

The blood on his knife sizzled, crackling. Red sparks shimmered in the air. Sam's breath caught in his throat. Between hope and fear, his heart couldn't beat fast enough.

The red sparks turned on him like a swarm of bees. Tingling jolted through the hairs in his nose and his ears as he was invaded. He felt the alien energy expand, taking up space meant for his lungs and his heart, his stomach and intestines. He gagged for air, no room in his ribs for his lungs to expand. Suddenly his brain convulsed in his skull. Pain, holy Christ, it hurt. Memories and thoughts flashed against his eyelids, completely outside his control. Emotions burst up like oil strikes: humiliation and regret, envy and anger, lust, mortification, sorrow.

Words formed in his head. He heard them. He saw them. They were colored red, and tasted like cherry cough syrup. And they were spoken in the voice of...The Trickster?

He sure got it right: you ARE Travis Bickle in a skirt. Delectable. Sam Winchester, you are with me, and I like it. Now let's go fuck their shit up.

Sam looked around for the comfort of imaginary Dean, but he was gone. The world turned upside down. Sharp cuts of terror turned him inside out. In a sudden flash of light, he swore he saw his heart and his ribs on the outside.

Then he heard Bobby shout, "What the hell?"

And he was kneeling on the carpet in Bobby's library.

"Sam? Is that your blood all over your face?"

He couldn't tell for sure, because he fell forward on it.

(break)

"Just one soul?"

Sam's skin rippled under Dean's touch. Now Alistair held him and Dean thrashed away, kicking and punching, until he stood clear.

Alistair lounged on the ground, red hell-dirt replacing the green grass. Above them, forked lightning bruised the clouds and the hell-sun blazed red. He thought of Sam's weird books, the Eye of Sauron, and he yearned for the almost Sam like he would melt away without him.

"Just one cut, Dean. One soul. One cut."

Alistair pushed himself to his feet, brushed dirt away from his slacks. He always presented so well, a lord of hell in a checkered vest and pocket watch. It was a subtle display of dominance, showing his victims that while they were stripped naked, then stripped of skin, he retained the power of looking good. Everything about Alistair was meant to cause pain.

But Dean could trust him to keep his deal, because that's what demons did. One soul, one cut, and Dean's eternal damnation would be almost Sam and fake moonlight, forever.

He didn't deserve it. If Dean knew one thing for certain in his for-now unbroken bones, it's he didn't deserve it. How long could he last, breathing cool night air with almost Sam, listening to the screams of other lost souls? How long until it all went sour, making almost Sam the worst kind of unbearable torture? The physical pain would be so much easier.

But until things went sour, could he gather enough strength to fight back? Could he regroup and recharge and find a way to beat Hell?

Or was that just an excuse to let him be weak, take almost-Sam, knowing that in the end it would hurt him more than being skinned alive?

Jesus, he was doing the Sam thing, over thinking it all. His little brother would reason his way through this, but instinct always guided Dean. He went with his gut.

"One soul. One cut."

"Then almost Sam, forever." Alistair didn't smile. He looked almost gentle, like wearing Sam's form had allowed some of Sam's endless heart to dull his demonic edges.

Dean stepped forward, not thinking, following instinct. In the shadow of the dead thorn tree where he'd died and died and died, Dean grabbed Alistair's chin and kissed him until their teeth scraped.

(break)

"It was something called The Stranger. My vision. I followed my vision."

The more beer Bobby poured down Sam's throat, the more coherent he became. Funny, that. He needed a buzz to make sense of it all.

They sat in the kitchen, Sam drinking, Bobby wiping the blood from Sam's face. Imaginary Dean was gone. Was the real Dean still in Hell? When the Stranger said let's go fuck shit up, had he meant Sam's shit, too?

"The Stranger? Ain't never heard of anything like that."

"I don't think anyone has, Bobby. It was one scroll hidden in a secret room under an abandoned eighteenth century mission in the middle of the desert. I think this bunch of Jesuits were the only ones who ever saw the Outsiders, the only ones who wrote about the Stranger."

"Yeah, and they locked it away, probably for good reason. Damn it, Sam!"

In that one syllable of his name, Sam heard all of Bobby's arguments: too dangerous, too unpredictable, too big for them to handle.

"It wants to screw over Hell, Bobby. Don't you see? I couldn't find any demon who would deal with me for Dean's soul." And it wasn't for lack of trying. The last time he'd buried a box at a crossroads, they hadn't even sent someone up. Just blurred the road sign that said "Four Corners Tavern" into dripping, bloody letters: NO DEAL. EVER. GO THE FUCK AWAY.

Imaginary Dean had said, "Well, Sammy, if anyone could break the patience of Hell, it'd be you."

"For whatever reason, the demons want to keep Dean more than they want my soul."

Bobby waved his arms angrily. "What you're sayin is that if Hell wants Dean to stay, this Stranger will want him out. Just for spite and payback?"

Sam set aside his shock at Bobby's revelation to nod. "It makes sense."

"In what frickin universe?" Bobby tossed the bloody towel into the sink and slugged whiskey straight from the bottle. "Sam. Use your head. If this thing wants to break all the rules, why would Dean - one soul in all of Hell - would be a blip on its radar? And if he is, do you think it will stop with breaking Dean out?"

Sam sat still, suffering through Bobby's angry stare until he gave a frustrated, frazzled sigh.

"Let me get this straight. Basically, you are okay with letting loose a supernatural creature once worshipped as a god, who wants to break all the rules of this world?"

Sam lifted his chin. "For Dean? Yeah. No question."

"You're crazy, boy!"

Sam didn't dispute that.

"And where is Dean, anyway?" Bobby's face flushed deeper as he shouted louder. "How will you even know if the fucker breaks Dean out? Did you even think this through one tiny bit? Jesus!"

In the next instant of silence, on the table in front of them, Bobby's personal cell phone rang. Sam jumped out of his chair, eyes locked on the bright letters that announced the incoming call was from Robert Plant, FBI.

Bobby didn't move. He just stared, mouth open.

"Bobby. The phone with that ID is in the Impala's glove box." And thanks to the Stranger, the Impala was parked out back, near the garage.

Bobby grabbed his phone, just as Sam raced to the door.

(break)

"This lovely creature is here for raping babies, aren't you sweetheart?" Alistair patted the unshaven cheek of the naked man hanging by his wrists from the dead thorn tree. Where Dean had hung and died, over and over again.

Dean stared at the man, his prison tats, his barrel chest, his half-hard dick. Dean understood. He'd reached and passed that point when the pain was all he knew, and because it was all he knew, it was all he'd wanted. He knew this man, this baby-raper, would register the pain as a kind of twisted pleasure. Alistair knew he knew. The demon was making this as easy for Dean as he possibly could. Why?

His brain screamed don't give in to what they want! But his gut urged him on, absolutely rock hard sure about the rightness of cutting this one soul. For reasons he neither understood nor cared about, he envisioned his certainty as a scattered buzzing of red sparks.

Alistair held out a wicked blade, serrated on both sides. Dean knew how jagged the cuts would be. He'd seen it on his own body, felt it with his own nerves. The man hanging from the thorn tree might feel it as pleasure, but Dean knew he'd use the knife with the intent to cause pain. There was no escaping it. Cutting that soul would push him over a line, and there'd be no getting back.

Alistair lengthened his arm - Jesus Dean hated that, it was so fucking wrong - and tapped his fingers between Dean's brows. A high-voltage vision ran through his brain: first a spectator view of what the man did to little boys, then a first person flash that left him almost vomiting. The child in his vision looked so much like little Sammy.

"Take the blade, Dean. Do what's right." It was his father's voice. When he looked up, it was his father handing him the knife. "We kill monsters. That's who we are. That thing's a monster. Don't let me down."

"Wow, you guys are desperate." Dean wanted to scream why? His brain demanded an answer. But he took the knife. And without another thought, not a moment's hesitation, he plunged it into the baby-rapist's chest. He felt the blade scrape ribs, then pulled it out. He had to set his feet and yank, because the blade's serration caught on muscle and blood vessels, fat and skin. The man grunted and blood spurted out, splashing on his now-full erection and dripping on his bare feet, on the red dirt of Hell.

"Oh yes," Alistair purred. "Dean Winchester. Yes, yes, yes."

Dean looked at the bloody knife blade, and suddenly Hell went completely, utterly silent. Like someone taking a breath. He looked at Alistair, but Alistair was looking wide-eyed all around, scanning the sky. He held up his hands like he meant to fight something off.

The tense silence in Hell broke under the buzz of an amplifier being turned up too high: fuzz and feedback, then the familiar chord flourish that kicked off AC/DC's Break the Rules, from the For Those About to Rock album, 1981, track 8.

In a sizzling flash, a figure appeared. It stood next to the bleeding, strung up baby-raper. It was unnaturally tall, sickeningly thin, with blue-white skin and no genitals, no hair, no features on its face except for a thin-lipped mouth. Two arms extended normally from the shoulders. Seven more, three on the left, four on the right, jutted out from the spine, each one with too many joints and too many fingers.

"What the hell?" The words just popped out, and Dean wasn't so freaked out that he didn't appreciate the irony.

Then Alistair wailed "No no no no no no no-" and Dean realized that this thing, whatever it was, was not supposed to be in Hell.

Lilith materialized in a ribbon of black smoke, her little-girl form visibly shaking. "What did you do?" she screamed at Dean.

Not me. Sammy.

His Sammy, kicking over Hell to save his big brother- Dean blazed with pride. But then the thing's mouth opened and its tongue poked out. Then another, another, another. So many tongues. The tips peeled and an eye bloomed out of one, a mouth out of another, mouths and eyes, dozens and dozens and Dean felt his legs give out and he sat down, hard.

No rebellion, not today, sang Brian Johnson. I get my kicks in my own way.

All the eyes on all the tips of the tongues blinked simultaneously. A huge rush of air, fresh and clean and smelling of rain and meadows, blew into Dean's eyes. Hell's sky filled with bright white light. The dirt around him darkened with shadows of huge, unfurled wings.

Lilith screamed. In it, Dean heard rage and fear and confusion. "No!"

A tongue with a mouth jutted out to Dean's ear. He felt the warmth of its breath as it said, in Sam's voice, a line from one of Sam's favorite movies. Because only Sam would love an action movie poisoned with chick flick. "Come with me if you want to live."

There really wasn't a choice. Nine hands and way too many fingers grabbed him. He heard screams, from demons and from something else. Then he hit the ground hard, landing in Bobby Singer's scrapyard.

(break)

Spitting dust out of his mouth, Dean stood up. The moon above him was a sickle. In Hell it was always full. It was the right silvery color, just like the sky was the right color. The stars, too. He inhaled rust and oil, gasoline and spilled beer, the threat of frost.

No sign of Mister Too-Many Tongues. Sam, what did you do?

Or was this an elaborate torture of Hell, making him think he'd gotten out? No, that...Thing...had Hell's head honcho demon shaking in her Mary Janes. And Alistair was way too proud to even fake screaming like a girl. It was real. He was out. He was like 89% sure. Well, maybe 90%, the way every bone ached. And he was hungry. Beyond hungry. Definitely 90%.

But if he wasn't 100% sure, charging up to Bobby's front door would earn him a silver bullet in his skull. He locked his muscles down and set his jaw. If he didn't control himself, this reunion could turn really quick into an epic fucked-up tragedy.

The moonlight glinted on the Impala's roof, and the plan fell right on his head. He climbed into the driver's seat and for an instant could do nothing but breathe: leather, road dust, Sam. Of course Sam had been driving. Probably all around the country, finding whatever it was he'd sent to break him out of Hell. Dean put his nose against the steering wheel. It smelled so much like home he had to swallow tears. "Oh Baby, I'm back. I hope."

From the glove box he grabbed a random cell phone and punched in Bobby's personal number.

Four rings, then Bobby answered in a rough whisper. "Is it you? Really you?"

Dean swallowed, throat suddenly tight. "Bring salt, holy water and a silver blade to the porch, and we'll make sure everyone's real." He paused, not sure if he could handle a no to his next question. "Is Sam-"

"Dean!" Sam's voice shouted his name. "Dean!" Sam stuttered to a stop under the pole light's bright circle. "Dean!"

Weird, how he absolutely couldn't move. His brother's voice speared him against the seat, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. What if this was another torture? He could stay in the car for the rest of his life, riding high on hope, saving himself from the unimaginable pain of Sam not being real.

"Sam wait!" Bobby charged around the corner, spilling an armful of salt can, glass flask of holy water and silver knife onto the ground so he could grab Sam's shoulder. "Do it smart, son. One more minute. You can take it."

Dean saw his brother jerk once, but no so hard as to throw Bobby off. Saw him look around wildly. "Dean!"

The pain on Sam's face as he scanned the world for a brother not meant to be in it (what the fuck did you do, Sam?) was worse than any fear Dean felt. He pushed open the car door, slowly stood up.

He saw Sam tense, heard Bobby whisper. "Let him prove himself, Sam."

Dean couldn't take another step. He could barely breathe. He was looking at Sam, into Sam's eyes. Sam looked right back. He could stay here forever, if it meant Sam would never be out of his sight again.

A plane went by overhead, soft rumbling and blinking lights, so achingly normal. It broke Dean's trance. He walked to within three feet of Sam and Bobby, all of them in the circle of the pole lamp's light.

"You two go first," Dean said. "Prove yourselves to me first."

Sam whined like a leashed hound.

Dean closed his eyes. "Please, Sam. Please." Please, please be real.

"Pay attention," Bobby said.

Dean opened his eyes to see Bobby holding a handful of salt. He took a drink from the holy water flask, and raised his eyebrows. He used the knife to cut the meat of his palm. No sizzling flesh. The blood ran red.

Dean huffed out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "Bobby."

Bobby put the holy water flask in Sam's hand. "Now you, Sam." Sam didn't move his eyes from Dean. "Drink it, now."

Sam shuddered, followed Bobby's command. He drank the holy water. He rubbed his hands in salt. When he cut his palm, Dean saw a fresh wound already there.

"What the hell did you do, Sam?"

Sam just shook his head and used the silver to prove that he was real. No demon. No shifter. No tricks.

"Prove yourself now, boy." Bobby tossed the holy water and salt box. They landed at Dean's feet. He knelt down, poured salt into his hands, drank the lukewarm holy water.

When a shadow fell across him, he looked up to see Sam dropping to his knees. Sam held out the knife. Dean held out his arm. When Sam wrapped his hand around Dean's wrist, they both shuddered out a long exhale.

"Dean..."

"Cut me, Sam." Make it real.

Sam put the silver blade to Dean's forearm and paused. "I know it's you." A smile broke over his face. "I promised I'd get you out. I swore."

Dean put his hand on Sam's and dragged the sharp blade over his skin. He bled red. His skin didn't fry. He didn't realize how much he'd doubted his own reality until he passed the tests.

Sam leaned his forehead against Dean's.

Dean gathered a fistful of Sam's hair. "Rock and roll."

"Never dies."

The most embarrassing sound slipped out of Dean's mouth, low and needy. "Sammy, did it cost your soul?" How long until the price Sam paid tore him away? Fear of loss blocked the joy of having Sam so close, the real Sam.

Sam's forehead rocked against his. "No. No. I...colored outside the lines."

"No fucking shit." Dean thought of the chaos he'd left in Hell, Mister Too-Many Tongues and AC/DC blaring through the roiling red sky.

Sam grabbed Dean's shoulders, pulled them both to their feet. He patted Dean down, checking for injuries like they'd finished up a normal hunt. It made Dean laugh, which made Sam stop and for the first time since they knew it was all real, he looked directly into Dean's eyes.

Dean recognized sleep deprivation and hunger that almost matched his own, stains over the shocked joy in Sam's eyes. His cheeks were gaunt and his eyes looked bruised. "You're a fucking mess. I told you not to throw yourself against the wall for me."

Exasperated anger crowded Sam's happiness. His chin went up. "Well fuck you, too."

Dean laughed, couldn't help it. Sam always looked about thirteen years old when he said that.

Bobby came up, put a hand on Dean's shoulder. "Damn good to see you, son."

Dean threw an arm around Bobby's neck and pulled him in for a quick head-clonk. "I'm starving." He grinned at Sam. "Feed me!"

Sam smiled back on an exhale, and Bobby laughed. "This is too much for my old man's heart."

Bobby started walking towards the front door and the kitchen, where Dean hoped he had protein, fat and sugar in startling quantities. He followed, but Sam didn't.

"Dean..."

Dean turned. Sam stood just outside of the street lamp's glow, his face shadowed. He hesitantly reached out with his left hand, catching the hem of Dean's jacket and tugging slightly.

"Sammy." He grabbed Sam's wrist and pulled him into his arms.

Sam tucked his face against Dean's neck, breathing deeply.

Dean ran his hands up and down Sam's spine, counting vertebrae, then down his flanks, counting ribs. He was all there, all real, inside and out. "You did it, Sammy. Goddamn."

"Don't ever do that again." Sam shook him, rattling his teeth. "Don't you ever do that to me again!"

Dean held him closer, wished he could pull Sam under his skin so he could be close enough. "I won't. I'm sorry." Words seemed too clumsy, too rough. "You saved me. You did so good, Sam."

"Don't get your pom-poms out yet," Bobby said, surprisingly close. "We don't know what the fuck Sam let loose to bust you out, but I'm sure it ain't gonna be all butterflies and banana popsicles." He clapped Dean's shoulder, ruffled Sam's hair. "Come on. Pancakes."

Sam lifted his face. Dean traced his finger across the tears stains on his cheeks. Stupidly he thought, never gonna make you cry again, Sammy. Out loud he said, "Pancakes."

Bobby chuckled. "The world spins on and pancakes get eaten, even without you it. But they taste better, this way."

Dean grabbed Sam's head between his hands, went up on tiptoe and planted a loud kiss on his forehead, through all that hair. He felt like his skin would burst, he was so fucking happy.

And then the sky opened up with a clap of thunder, knocking them all to the ground.

(break)

As Sam pushed himself up onto his elbows, head spinning, ears ringing, Dean jumped to his feet.

"Son of a bitch!" He beat his fists at the sky. "What now?"

Sam scrambled up, hearing Bobby ratchet the slide on his .45. Of course Bobby brought a weapon, just in case Dean hadn't really been Dean. No doubt it was loaded with silver bullets, and aimed at the strange man in the trenchcoat who'd seemingly rode down on the thunder.

Dean just walked up and cold cocked the guy on the chin, shouting, "I'm hungry. I'm exhausted. Leave me alone!"

Trenchcoat Guy reeled back a few steps from Dean's punch. Sam had been on the receiving end of Dean's right hook. That guy should be on his ass, not just slightly ruffled and working his jaw.

Sam dragged Dean behind him. "Are you the Stranger?"

Trenchcoat Guy's eyes narrowed. "How did you find the Stranger?"

"Who the fuck is the Stranger?"

"Dean!" Sam turned, put his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Chill, man."

"Fuck off," Dean snarled. "I want pancakes."

"Who are you?" Bobby demanded over the sights of his .45.

"What are you?" Sam added, because no normal human could keep his feet when Dean lashed out like that.

The man straightened his collar, seemed to gather his dignity. "I am Castiel. An angel of the Lord."

"An angel?" Sam had heard some outlandish statements thrown out among these junk cars. Things he had trouble believing. This one topped them all. The guy looked like a divorce lawyer, or maybe a tax accountant.

Bobby snorted. "There's no such thing."

"Wait!" Dean held up a hand, ruining Bobby's aim. "Just hold on." He took a few steps forward, but didn't shake off the warning hand Sam put on his arm. "Were you in on the attack on Hell?" He looked to Sam. "There were trumpets and wings in Hell, just before that thing pulled me out. Sam, what was that thing?"

"That thing," said Castiel, "is called the Stranger. A secret for millennia. Until your brother invited him into the world again."

Dean gave Sam a way-to-go face. "Nice."

Sam hadn't had near adequate nutrition or sleep in over seventy hours. He felt a little like everything was melting and slipping through his fingers.

"Look, Cassiel -

"Castiel." He frowned at the mispronunciation.

"Castiel." Sam took a deep breath, putting his arm across Dean's shoulders. "Are you here to kill us?"

Castiel frowned. "Of course not. I'm here to help you."

"Great. Let's go inside and have pancakes while we talk about it. Okay?" He turned to Bobby, glared until he lowered his weapon. "Okay?"

"Yeah," Bobby said after a moment.

"Pancakes," Dean said. "Finally."

"What are pancakes?" Castiel asked.

"What are pancakes? The fuck?" Dean muttered.

"Just. Come with us." Sam kept his arm over Dean's shoulders. After three steps, Dean hooked his arm around Sam's waist. Sam resisted the urge to stop, stop and just hold Dean until the sun came up and maybe all this new bullshit would go away.

But he didn't, because he knew it damn well wouldn't. They hit the kitchen, the most improbable gang ever: an angel (yeah, right), Bobby getting out the Bisquick and the buttermilk, Dean just back from Hell, and...the guy who summoned the Stranger. Sam slumped into the chair closest to Dean, rested his knee rest against Dean's thigh. None of this seemed 100% real unless he was touching Dean. Part of him feared the eventual push-back, Dean calling him a girl, keeping space between them. But for now, if he could get away with it...

Whisking batter, Bobby said, "Make yourself useful, Angel. Beer's in the fridge."

Castiel's face fell in a cloud of confusion. Sam pointed. "The long necks on the door. One for everyone."

Castiel hesitantly tugged at the fridge handle, studied the contents before making the right choice. He distributed the bottles. Dean tossed the cap on the table and guzzled.

"Slow down, man. It's gonna kick your ass."

Dean just smacked his lips and gave an exaggerated "ahhhh." Then he slammed the bottle down on the table, and said, "Explanations. Now. Sam, you first."

Sam took a measured drink, considering how best to provide the information without triggering Dean's temper. Hell had apparently shortened it even more. "I found out about an abandoned mission in Arizona." He shot a warning glance at Bobby. He could explain about the DMT and the visions later, when things weren't so...volatile. "There was a scroll that described how to summon this thing called the Stranger. It had a grudge against demons, so I bet it wouldn't pass up the chance for payback by springing you from Hell."

Dean stretched his leg so that it pressed against Sam's from knee to ankle. "Like I said, Sammy, nice."

"Except that the Stranger has more than...a grudge against demons." Castiel held his beer upside down, his palm around the bottom. "It stands against every rule of Heaven, Hell and Earth. It's going to tear things apart until someone banishes it again."

Bobby put a plateful of pancakes down in front of Dean, then Sam. "Told you. Idjit."

"I don't care," Sam said defensively. "I got Dean out, so I don't fucking care."

"Right, Sammy," Dean said around a huge mouthful of pancakes.

"But I was supposed to get Dean out." Castiel put the beer down sideways, so it rolled precariously across the table and thwacked against the maple syrup. "I was the one who was supposed to reach down and raise you from perdition."

"Why would an angel pull Dean out of Hell?" Sam blurted. It was so ridiculous. If there was a Heaven, if it was populated with angels...

"They were laying siege to Hell," Dean said, leaning back. He licked syrup from his bottom lip. "Why?"

"To get you out." Castiel said it so simply, like the reason would be obvious.

"Why?" Sam said it first, with Bobby and Dean like echoes.

"We have work for you, Dean." A grimace twisted Castiel's mouth. "Except now nobody can be sure what's going to happen, because Sam-" a sour glance tossed in his direction-"summoned the Stranger."

"Who, out of spite and payback, is going to cook your plans and Hell's plans?" Bobby set a plate of pancakes down for Castiel, and one for himself.

"Yes." Castiel took a bite of unbuttered, dry pancake. "I do not understand the ritual of eating these circles of fried dough."

Bobby shook his head. "Well, if you're an angel then there must be a heaven, and a God in it. Right?"

Castiel looked sideways.

Waving his sticky fork, Bobby asked, "Why can't God just, you know. Miracle the Stranger away? Why can't God just snap his fingers and poof, make all his big plans work out? Why would God need Dean Winchester?"

Sam expected a push-back at that. But when he looked over at Dean, he saw his brother drowsing with his chin tucked against his chest. His pancake plate was as clean as if he'd held it to his face and licked it. Which Sam had seen him do before.

After a moment, Castiel said, "It's...complicated."

Bobby snorted.

"Does it have to be solved tonight?" Sam asked. He hadn't looked away from Dean. He really didn't want to, and wasn't sure he could. "It's been kind of a rough day."

"For everyone," Bobby said. "Even angels, apparently."

"Then let's go at this tomorrow." Sam pulled Dean up by his shoulders, shook him gently until Dean's eyes cracked open and he grabbed onto Sam to stay upright. "Okay?"

"Hmmm," said Dean.

After a moment, Castiel said, "Yes. Tomorrow." And in a rustle and rush, he disappeared.

"An angel," Bobby said. "Right." But his tone was worried, unsure.

"Dean can have my bed," Sam said. He'd cleaned out one of Bobby's storage rooms on the first floor, claimed it as home base for his rescue operations. Now it could shelter the rescued Dean for at least one night, before the next big bad fell down on his shoulders.

"I don't know exactly what you did, Sam." Bobby rubbed a hand across Dean's arm "But I'm glad your brother's back."

Dean hummed sleepily, sounding happy. Sam eased him down the hallway. In his bedroom, there was just one queen-sized bed. He lowered Dean to sit on it.

"I kept your stuff ready." He took Dean's duffle from the closet. "Everything's clean." He'd gone to an all-night laundry at three in the morning, days after the hellhounds came. Sat in the corner while the washer agitated and the dryer spun, crying into his hands.

Dean fumbled through the bag, brought out clean sweats and socks, his toothbrush. He stood up, swaying.

"Can you make it?"

Sam reached out, but Dean batted his hands away. "M'fine."

He tottered to the bathroom, and in a moment the shower pipes rattled and water hit the porcelain tub.

Sam listened to the sound, wishing he could have hugged Dean one more time before Dean put up his walls again. Sighing, he peeled off his own road-dusted clothes, swapped them out for an old t-shirt and sweats. He went into the kitchen and ran another cold towel over his face and neck, washed his hands. Back in the bedroom, he unrolled a sleeping bag on the floor and stole one of the pillows from the bed for himself.

"What's this?" Dean, shirtless and still wobbly, waved at the floor.

"I figured you could have the bed." Sam shrugged, wishing they were eight and four again. When sharing the bed was no big deal.

"Don't be stupid." Dean pulled back the blanket and took the side nearest the door. "You aren't sleeping on the fucking floor."

Sam smiled, knowing that Dean couldn't see it. As he eased onto the mattress next to Dean, tension drained out of his neck and back. "Thanks."

Dean huffed, sounding annoyed.

Sam put a tentative hand on Dean's shoulder, expecting Dean to push him away. But he needed so badly to reassure himself that Dean was real, that this wasn't a cruel nightmare he'd wake up from alone.

"I'm too tired to fight you," Dean whispered. "Just be the giant girl I know you wanna be, Sammy."

Like Dean's permission triggered a spring, Sam pulled Dean's shoulders and back against his chest, pushed his cheek into Dean's damp hair and inhaled, over and over. "You're back." It's all he could say. All he couldn't think. "You're back with me."

"Sammy." Dean relaxed against him. "You brought me back. Never leaving you again."

Sam waited until Dean's breathing slowed into sleep, before he allowed himself to cry.

(break)

Dean woke, and for his first conscious breath he imagined Sam. Because that's what kept him strong enough to keep going. Barely. Sam.

Then the signals from his nerves sent not pain, but heat and pressure. He remembered on the second breath: he was home. No need to imagine Sam. His gigantor self was strung all over Dean, Sam's chin tucked into the crook between Dean's neck and shoulder. They'd tangled up during the night, Sam landing on top.

It felt so safe. So not wrong. So exactly what he wanted. The impossibility of it overwhelmed him, and he squirmed out from under Sam and sat on the edge of the bed, breathing deeply.

Outside the window, the stars had faded. Dawn was an hour or so off. In Hell, there's been no gentle phasing from night to day. Just a harshening from hot red moon to hotter red sun. Dean stretched, popping joints. His body begged him: lay back down, more sleep, more Sam. But his brain demanded action. He wasn't hanging from Alistair's tree anymore.

Dean put trainers on his feet, slipped Sam's hoodie over his bare chest. It was like slipping on Sam's skin. He'd missed Sam's smell so much. He stood over his brother watched him sleep. Sam's lips were upended in a small smile, drool leaking out one side.

Genius, relentless, no-fucks-given Sammy, kicking over the universe's apple cart to save his big brother. Dean ran his knuckles up and down Sam's exposed ankle. How could he ever make Sam understand how he felt? Defended? Cherished?

Oh, that was full-on fucking wiggle skirt girl. Dean had no language to explain how he felt. And it made him feel too far away from Sam. Like there was a path to be close enough to Sam, but he had no map to follow.

Dean went out into the pre-dawn light and started to run. First on the road's cracked asphalt, feet hitting with the sure, steady rhythm of ZZ Top (how how how how.) Then, when he came to the dirt bike trail into the woods, he took off. He dodged standing trees, jumped fallen ones, not slowing for thorns clutching his pants or the sting of branches on his face, until he reached the creek.

He crouched down, huffing, to plunge his face into the icy water. Came up gasping, tingling, feeling back in control. It was his body. It worked for him. And after a minute of heavy breathing, he forced his legs into a dead run again. Trees dopplered. He ran full tilt back onto the asphalt, only slowing down when he hit Bobby's grassed-over driveway.

Yeah. He put his hands on his thighs and felt the burn. I'm back, motherfuckers.

Now for Baby. He just got done checking and topping off fluids when the angel in a trenchcoat appeared in a subtle whoosh.

"Dean. I thought you would be the last one to wake."

Dean shut the hood with a satisfying thunk. "Ready to get back at it." He looked the angel over. "Castiel, right?"

That earned a solemn nod.

"I was a little rough last night."

Castiel rubbed his jaw.

"Yeah. Sorry." He wasn't, really. He still just wanted to be left the fuck alone. Inside he felt like a broken pile of glass. He needed time to glue the pieces together so he didn't keep randomly slicing himself on the sharp edges, like when he woke up under Sam.

"I'm sorry I couldn't rescue you, before Sam had to..." Castiel shrugged.

At least his apology sounded sincere. Dean leaned on the hood, looked up at the brightening sky. "Why do you want me so bad?"

"Better to ask why Lilith wanted you so badly." Castiel mimicked his stance, leaning a little too close beside him. "I warned the hosts of Heaven that Sam would not be stopped. That he would find a way. But they underestimated him."

That made Dean smirk. "Everyone underestimates Sam."

"I didn't."

That simple statement made Dean decide Castiel was alright. "So Sam sprung me. I'm free, and you didn't have to get your wings dirty. What now?"

"I can't be certain. Lilith's next move will dictate ours."

"What about this Stranger thing?" Dean remembered all those tongues, those eyes and mouths. The sense of absolute, utter glee in the chaos and disruption he'd heard when it spoke in Sam's voice.

"It broke Hell's defenses to let us in. And then stole our weapons to make sure the demons could drive us out." Castiel pushed off, walked a few paces, turned to look Dean straight in the face. "I don't know if the Stranger and your brother are linked. There is no way to anticipate its behavior. But if it does contact Sam, please. Understand, Dean. It is the single most dangerous entity alive in the universe at this moment."

"Sam, man, he doesn't do things by half."

"One could say that." Castiel shook his head and crossed his arms across his chest. He looked around, left-right-up, as if making sure no one else could hear. He leaned in to say softly, "Since you've been assigned to me, I learned all that I could about you. All I can be certain of now is that if we survive what's coming, it's because you have Sam, and Sam has you. Do you understand?"

Dean pushed himself to stand square on his feet. If we survive what's coming? "No, Castiel. I don't understand. Why don't you-"

With a rush and a whoosh, Castiel was gone. Dean rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. That disappearing act creeped him out. Castiel creeped him out, assigned to him like a social worker. And what did he mean, survive what's coming? What the hell had Sam loosed on the world? The most dangerous entity alive...

"Hey." Sam's voice reached out behind him, and Dean turned to see his brother offering a steaming mug. "I woke up, you were gone."

Dean took the coffee and deflected Sam's pout. "Never gonna be gone again, Sammy. Promise." He slurped noisily. "Thanks, man. No java downstairs."

Sam eased himself down on a bench made from an old plank of wood laid across concrete blocks. "You stole my hoodie."

"I didn't want to wake you." As if that explained anything. Dean shook his head. "I just..." He didn't have the language.

"Was that the angel? Castiel?"

"Yeah. Great conversationalist."

Sam tilted his head, waiting for more.

Dean paused to drink deeply. The caffeine twanged his nerves, knowing exactly how to play him. He hummed for a moment in profound delight.

"Dean?"

He offered Sam a smile, trying to explain that little things, simple pleasures, were so sharp they almost hurt. And the big ones, well...still no language for those.

"Dean. You're staring and you're freaking me out."

"Get used to it, Samantha." He wanted to say something like I'm so amazed, so goddamned honored, at what you did for me, for me, Sammy but he couldn't get the words off his tongue. Maybe if he had two or three dozen, like the Stranger, then maybe...

"Come on, man." Sam frowned. "Did the angel share bad news or something?"

"He shared almost no news. Obtuse little twerp." Dean sat down beside Sam, knocked their shoulders together. "He said we should worry about why Lilith wanted to keep me in Hell. And we shouldn't play with the Stranger, because apparently it is the original big bad motherfucker."

Sam hunched. "And I let it out. Or back in."

"For me." He bumped Sam's shoulder again. "Which makes you my big bad motherfucker."

Sam flicked him a shy smile. "Hardly. I mostly..." He rolled his eyes upwards. "Mostly I fell apart without you, Dean."

Even Sam underestimated himself. "Well put your pieces back together, Sammy. You did good."

"Don't be so sure about that." Bobby towered over them, exuding pissiness. He held out a cell phone. "Listen to this."

(break)

Bobby played them a voice mail. Sam recognized Rufus, practically stuttering from anger.

"Vampires, Bobby. Vampires picking their severed heads up off the ground and putting them back on their necks. You gotta help me out on this. It's like...the whole vamp world got upended and shook out, all over my ass!"

"Breaking the rules," Dean whispered.

Sam's stomach twisted, and he dropped his face into his hands. "Shit."

"You gotta put your little army of one back in the box, Sam." Bobby pocketed his cell. "And quick, if shit like that is hittin the fan already."

Sam was still so tired, soul-level tired. He needed a daisy chain of good nights' sleep before he could even think about sending the Stranger back to...he didn't even know where. "Jesus fucking Christ."

Bobby kicked him in the knee. He might not be a believer, but he didn't countenance such blatant blasphemy.

Dean clapped him on the shoulder. "We'll start with that secret room under the mission, Sam. See if we can get some more intel."

"I'll start hittin the books here," Bobby said. "Call in some help."

Dean stood up. Bobby turned towards the house. Sam couldn't move. He could barely breathe. His heartbeat against his ribs in a whirlwind of frustration and exhaustion.

"No." He croaked out the word, his throat hoarse with rising, unscreamed screams. "Just. Fucking no." He looked up into Dean's cocked eyebrows and questioning frown. Over his shoulder, Bobby frowned bigger.

"I..." played my hand, shot my wad, did my turn as hero..."can't."

Bobby snorted. "Do something about this," he said to Dean before walking away.

"Yeah." Dean waited until Bobby turned the corner out of sight. Then he crouched down, bounced his fists gently against Sam's knees. "Come on. I'll drive."

Completely out of his control, Sam whimpered. Anything, he'd do anything to snatch that sound out of the air and stuff it back down his throat.

"What? You don't wanna go back on the road with me?"

He glared up through his bangs. "Dirty pool, Dean."

Dean waggled his eyebrows.

"Not even one day..." Sam meant to think it, but he said it out loud. "We don't even get one day...?"

"Oh, Sammy." Dean stood up. After a moment, Sam felt a ghostly touch against his hair, tracing the zig-zag of his part. "Suck it up, brother. When was there ever one day for us?"

"Not helping." But Sam found the strength to stand up.

Dean shot him a grin. "It's your mess anyway. And like always, I get to help clean it up."

Why that made him feel better, Sam couldn't even guess. "Suck it up, brother."

Dean laughed, and despite it all, Sam was so damn happy to hear it. Feeling possessed by a version of a functional Sam who wasn't shattered into a million jagged pieces by disbelieving relief and debilitating joy, he grabbed their duffels and a couple of Cokes from the fridge, filled travel mugs with fresh coffee, checked and packed their weapons.

"Call us if you find anything," Dean called to Bobby from the porch.

"Yeah yeah."

How could they act as if everything was...normal? Sam felt pulled along by the undertow, sure that any second he would be dragged down and drowned by it all.

Seeing Dean behind the wheel of the Impala, sitting next to him in the passenger seat, helped a little.

"Where we headed, Sam?"

"About a hundred miles from the Mexican border." He named the obscure little town, and Dean nodded. He had a continental US road map tattooed on the surface of his brain, could find his way to any no-post office podunk like magic.

"Cheer up. Guy who rescued his brother from Hell gets to pick the music."

"You mean the guy who fucked the world in the ass by rescuing his brother from Hell..."

"Aw, Sammy. Don't be so hard on yourself."

Something in Dean's tone snagged Sam's attention. Dean didn't look at him, kept his eyes on the road.

In a strangely neutral tone, Dean said, "Be my hero for a while longer." Then he shook his head and turned his bright eyed, high-voltage grin on Sam. "My big bad motherfucker."

Sam felt himself blush. "You're crazy."

Dean beat his fists on the steering wheel. "Music, Sammy. Now!" Then he added, "Not AC/DC."

He chose Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Dean settled back against the leather. "Oh yeah."

And those were the last words they spoke for miles and miles, not counting the sporadic sing-alongs Dean broke into, no warning. Sam could almost smell his brother's happiness: whiskey and leather and cordite and salt. He just sat back, watched the trees rush by, still feeling flattened by all of it.

Dean stopped in northern Colorado for lunch, his unerring radar picking out a dive with double-bacon cheeseburgers and homemade cherry pie.

"Come on, Sammy, have one with me." Dean took the menu out of Sam's hands. "Let me get you all greased up."

"Gross." But he laughed, because it made Dean happy. He ate the double-bacon cheeseburger, pulling all the disgusted faces he knew Dean wanted to see. Dean made him get apple pie, then ate both his cherry and most of Sam's apple.

When Dean excused himself before paying the check, Sam ordered two pieces of the better-tasting cherry to go.

Dean met him by the car, grinning like a fool. "Hey, Sammy. First good shit outta hell, man." He flashed two thumbs up before getting in.

"Dude. So gross." But it was working. Dean had his hands around Sam's weakness, was crumbling it into dust and blowing it away. Just like always. It had been so hard, so fucking hard, to be strong without him.

Rush hour slowed them down to a crawl. After they traveled half a mile in an hour, Dean said, "Gotta get off this interstate."

Sam agreed. "Take the next exit, find a place and let's toss it in. We're only a few hours away. I need another hard sleep, get a jump on it tomorrow before the sun comes up."

"Wimping out on me, man."

"Yeah well."

It took another hour to get off the interstate, fight down the ramp, and wheel through strip malls until finding a suitably run-down place to crash. By the time they checked in, even Dean looked tired. They traded turns in the shower, Dean swearing he could maybe shower three times a day for the next ten years and it wouldn't be enough. They dined on Cheetos, cherry pie and cold Coronas, Dean watching back-to-back Simpsons like it was high art. Bobby called Sam's phone, reporting he'd found nothing so far, and that Rufus had got away, no vamps on his ass.

"That's it, day officially done." Sam collapsed on the bed farthest from the door. "Can you turn that AC down, it's like an icebox in here."

No answer. Sam opened one eye, no sign of Dean. Another shower? He couldn't argue. Hell was no doubt hard to wash off. Sam wondered if Dean would ever want to talk about it. He hoped Dean never asked how Sam got through without him.

Sam was almost asleep when Dean pushed him over, slid into bed beside him. "Not a fucking word. Just keep facing that way."

"Who's the giant girl now?" He heard the big goofy grin in his voice.

"Fuck you." No malice in Dean's tone, maybe even a hint of gratitude, if Sam held his head just right and listened hard.

"Goodnight, Dean." He couldn't find an acceptable way to communicate how much he appreciated the closeness, if only because Dean wouldn't turn down the AC. Not that there wasn't so much more to it.

"Oh yeah. Sammy?"

"Hmmmm?"

"First jerk off after Hell? Mission accomplished."

"Dude? Christ!" Sam jumped out of bed, grossed out and weirded out and even more weirdly, so happy he was almost crying from it.

Dean laughed in that particular self-satisfied way until Sam laid back down. "You are so gross, Dean."

Dean's laughter trailed away. Sam listened to him breathe. He missed that sound so badly, it almost hurt to hear.

"I didn't wash my hands, Sam. I like the smell."

Sam turned and drove his fist into Dean's shoulder over and over. "Jesus Christ, man, gross."

"Not at the diner, either. Same reason."

"Gross! Gross! Gross!"

Dean laughed like Sam was beating it out of him. "Alright, alright, alright. Just messin with you."

Sam lay down in a huge whump, breathing hard.

After a minute, Dean whispered, "My big bad motherfucker."

They both stopped laughing. Sam felt like a banked fire, so happy. He had his brother back.

"Night, Sammy."

Sam farted.

It was another half hour before they stopped laughing and finally fell asleep.

(break)

When Dean woke up he remembered he didn't need to think of Sam, because Sam had somehow tucked himself into little-spoon position and Dean was still smiling. Sam was awake. Dean could sense it.

"You're not gonna rip one again?"

Sam chuckled. "No. Promise." He sounded vaguely ashamed of himself.

"You can see the clock."

"Just after three."

"In the morning? Jesus Christ."

Neither one of them moved. They weren't touching each other with their hands. They were just close: Sam's shoulders leaning against Dean's chest, their calves barely brushing.

Dean knew he should get up, sit up, do something to break away. But maybe because Alistair had broken him with a fake version of this, it felt so vital, so necessary, right now.

"Mornings were the worst." The words slipped out before Dean realized he meant to speak. "I knew what was coming. I still hurt so fucking bad from the day before, and the day before that."

He rolled onto his back, and so did Sam. In silence, shoulder to shoulder, they stared at the water stained ceiling.

"You." Dean turned his head and breathed in, deeply. Once Sam grew up enough to stop smelling like powder and puke, he always smelled faintly of Coke.

"Hmmmm?" Sam turned his head, too.

Dean realized he was matching the rhythm of Sam's breathing. "I thought of you, every morning. It's how I got through."

Sam didn't blink. "I turned you into an imaginary friend. You were everywhere with me. I think I went a little crazy."

They were so close, face to face. In the white part of Sam's left eye, an almost microscopic red squiggle.

"You bitched about my driving. Everywhere."

That made Dean smile, and Sam smiled back.

"I missed you so bad," Sam whispered.

Without thinking, Dean reached for him and then, appalled, pulled back and sat up. He swallowed in a dry throat. "Missed you, too." He scratched at his hair and coughed, trying to dislodge whatever this thing was, pressing in his chest. "Do you think we're west enough to get a good breakfast burrito?"

"Awfully close to Denver. Lots of avocado and sprouts."

"Ugh."

"Hey, it'll help you shit again."

Dean turned to punch Sam's arm, giving far more gently than he'd received. "Gross, Sam."

"Ha."

Moving in unison, they started the day. Sam acted less steamrolled by circumstance, just his usual pre-coffee bumbling through the bathroom. They brushed their teeth together at the sink, just like normal. But it felt different than normal: a little better, a little worse. Dean couldn't quite figure out why, but didn't want to vaporize the good parts under a relentless spotlight of over analysis. Surely Sam was doing that already.

They filled up and coffee'd up at a gas station, where an authentic burrito truck served up chunks of pork in green chile sauce, with or without avocado. By the time the sun was halfway up its arc, they pulled off the two-lane and onto dusty ruts that rolled through the desert and right up to the abandoned mission, jutting into the sky like broken teeth.

"How did you find this place?" Dean asked as he eased to a stop in a cloud of stirred up dust. The desert stretched out for miles, nothing else in sight. "This is so nowhere it doesn't have a middle."

"The mission is from the 16th century," Sam said. "Jesuits ran it right up until the second world war, and then just abandoned it. I couldn't find out why."

Dean followed Sam through the busted door and into the chapel. The benches leaned precariously, and the altar was smashed in half. The statue of the Virgin Mary guarding the secret door looked like a Barbie that survived the apocalypse.

Sam picked up a broken cross and, obscenely, stuck it in the statue's mouth. Dean heard a mechanical click, watched the statue's base slide away smoothly.

"All the good stuff is down here." Sam flicked on his flashlight and duck-walked into the dark crawlspace.

Dean followed, bad feelings poking him like a broken stick in the mouth. "Sam," he asked again, "how did you find this -"

He trailed off, all thoughts derailed by the glint of gold and silver. "Holy shit, man."

"Yeah." Sam panned his light across the treasures. "I don't know why the Jesuits would leave all this stuff behind."

The most probable answer hit Dean in the gut. "Because hiding the information forever was worth more than all this." He waved his flashlight, making the chamber glitter. "Somebody decided people didn't need to know about the Stranger so bad they were willing to give up a fortune to hide what was under Mary's skirt." Dean shined his light on Sam's face. "You didn't think about that?"

Sam said nothing out loud. His silence and averted eyes, though...

"Which makes me ask you again, Sam." Dean grabbed Sam's arm and pulled him close, so he put the question right in Sam's face. "How did you find out about this place?"

Sam looked up and didn't look away, but he swallowed. Twice. "Don't be mad."

"Kinda already am." Nothing good ever followed Sam saying don't be mad.

Sam tried to pull away. Dean tightened his grip. Sam lifted his chin. "I swore I wouldn't use my psychic stuff to kill demons, and I didn't. I absolutely didn't."

"Oh, Sam."

"It's nothing terrible or awful, Dean. I just..." he shrugged. "I used some drugs to enhance my visions. That's all."

"Drugs? Not demon blood?"

Sam nodded.

Dean raised his eyebrows.

Now Sam looked away. "DMT."

"The fucking CIA mind control drug?"

"That's LSD. More like the South American shaman drug."

"Oh. So much better." Dean hauled himself out of the secret room and sat down on one of the teetering benches. "Did you stop to think exactly what might be feeding you such useful visions, just when you needed them?"

Sam's head popped over the edge of the floor. His eyes burned with rebellious anger. "Honestly? I didn't much care. I wanted you back."

"Sam..." The risk took the breath right out of Dean's lungs.

Sam pulled himself out of the secret room. He paced the aisle, back and forth, bisecting the broken pews. "Don't even start. You sold your soul because you couldn't let me die."

"Whole different ball game. It was my soul. You...you..." sold the entire world, plus Heaven and Hell. The enormity of it made Dean feel like a gnat. "The whole everything, Sam."

"Yeah." Sam went still, even though Dean swore he saw waves of fury rising off his brother's skin. "The whole everything is what I'd pay for-" He looked at his feet, his left arm gesturing in a hopeless way.

Dean turned away, trying to be furious. Shouldn't he be furious? He wasn't worth enough to toss the whole world, Heaven and Hell around like Yahtzee dice. How did Sam expect him to feel about that?

Certainly not like he did feel, like Sam shoved a bright white star down his throat. Even though he knew it was seven thousand different kinds of wrong, it still made him glow inside.

"Don't be mad at me about this, Dean." Sam's voice came from just behind him, low and urgent and shredded with doubt. "No demon would deal with me. I was out of options. I had to...get creative."

Dean stood up, turned around, faced Sam. Sam's stared back, eyes throwing down a challenge even as a tremor tugged at his bottom lip.

If Dean had a choice, Sam or the world, he'd never hesitate. It was his primary instinct, before food and fighting and fucking. An inborn, inescapable first principle. Protect Sam.

But this was more. This was...so much more. Extraordinarily much more. Sam had torn down the world. For Dean. It was like he didn't realize his whole life was lived in the dead of winter. Like he'd never been truly warm until now.

"Damn it, Sammy..."

Sam didn't look away, even though he clearly expected Dean to throw down a shit-storm.

Dean didn't dare try to find words that matched how he felt. So he said, "Fuck it."

Sam let out a long breath, tilting his head. "Dean?"

"Fuck the world." Dean put up his hands in a shrug. "The world's done nothing but treat you like shit, so it fucking owes you, man. This is just the karma it earned."

Sam stared. He looked like he might cry, and Dean couldn't face that. Not in the middle of the day. Not with these alien feelings sitting heavy and hot in his chest. "I say we rent a U-Haul, pack this booty up like a pair of sand pirates, and get it back to Bobby's. We'll be rich."

Sam huffed out a laugh. "Fuck yeah."

They spent the hottest part of the day ferrying priceless pre-Colombian artifacts and dozens of scroll tubes from their underground prison to a rented van. Bobby arranged for a local hunter to drive the thing back to South Dakota, and it was full-on night when they gave the keys to a huge wall of muscle and beard and tattoos called Hernandez.

"Bobby will go balls deep in all those scrolls. If there's something there, he'll find it." Dean watched the U-Haul's tail lights disappear into the darkness. "Tomorrow we can hit the local resources - library, historical society, wasn't there some little college a couple miles back?"

Sam rubbed his hand over his forehead, wiping away sweat and leaving a trail of dirt. "We?" He gave Dean a sideways look. "Go to Hell, come back and love research?"

"Now Sammy." Dean headed toward the Impala. "It's because I'm so generous that I let you do most of it. It's like my gift to you."

Sam pulled open the car door and said over the roof, "Gosh, and I didn't get you anything."

Restarting the game of one-liner one-upmanship felt like coming home for Christmas.

Dean drove to the town with the little college, stopped at the first likely Vacancy sign. Something cold down his throat, a hot shower to uncake the sweat and dirt, a double order of onion rings...oh yeah, there was no place like home.

"I'll check us in," Dean said. "You get some Cokes."

Sam nodded, headed to the vending machine glow around the office corner. Dean watched him. Sam so rarely stood at full height, always slumping slightly. He didn't even know what an absolute force of will and heart he was. Suddenly, the need to make Sam see how Dean saw him made Dean's hands shake.

He went into the motel office, paid a kid so stoned his eyes were red as a cross-roads demon's. When Dean came back out with the key, he saw two plastic bottles of Coke on the asphalt surface, rocking slowly on their sides. From the far end of the parking lot he heard an engine rev, tires squeal. There was a distinct sense of absence in the air, like a hole in the sky.

"Sam?"

(break)

Sam regained consciousness to find his wrists and ankles bound to his chair, but not too tightly. His blindfold smelled pleasantly of lavender fabric softener. He heard uncertainty and nerves, not malice, in the breathing around him. Three people - he sensed one woman and two men by smell and sound - held him captive in a heat-regulated space with no echoes or drafts. The bitter deliciousness of brewing coffee tickled his nose.

Well, he'd been held hostage in worse ways.

Since he'd been not subtle about waking up and none of his captors spoke, Sam went on offense. "Do you know who I am?"

There were many ways his captors could answer. He hoped whatever they said provided insight on who they were, and why they grabbed him out of the motel parking lot. Where Dean, no doubt, was frantic and furious, looking for leads. If a vicious motherfucking could kill from a distance, Sam was sure this trio'd be dead.

"Yeah," said one of the men. Sam caught a whiff of garlic and sauce on his breath. Nice. They'd had Italian before felony kidnapping. "Sam Winchester."

"Then you know what's going to happen, when my brother tracks you down?"

"Yeah," said Spaghetti Breath. "We took care of that."

The bottom fell out of Sam's gut.

"He doesn't mean we killed him or hurt him." That was the woman, a low and throaty alto, peppermint on her breath. "We just didn't leave a trail for him to follow."

The other man sighed loudly. He'd had the alfredo. "We have a problem you can help with. You're probably the only one who can."

Glumly Sam thought do you need me to fuck up the world a little more, maybe break a flask of flesh-eating virus, accidentally trigger a nuke?

"We've broken some rules..." said the woman.

And Sam felt the weight of that like a piano falling on his head. "Why do think I can help?"

Fingers - thick and strong, a man's - pulled down his blindfold. Sam blinked away fuzziness until he focused on an almost empty room: the chair he was tied to, an old iron bedstand, blinds tight over a window. The two men were Dean's age. One was much taller and shockingly blonde in a Scandinavian way. The other man looked faintly Asian, Vietnamese maybe, with a shaved head. They both held themselves in a way that put Sam on alert. If they'd be in a bar, Sam would have assumed they had knives or guns. The woman was very young and petite, a pocket-sized red head with eyes that did not match the innocence of her face.

Spaghetti Breath, the Scandinavian, said, "We're hunters." He gestured to the other man, "Iggy," and to himself. "Ian."

"I'm Sally." The girl's green eyes snicked completely black. "I'm on the run from Hell."

Iggy said, "Because we're in love."

Ian finished it up. "All three of us. In love."

Sam immediately rejected it. "Demons can't love."

Sally's eyes stayed black, but her voice was wrecked with helpless grief and wonder. "Not until now, anyway."

Both Ian and Iggy reached out to her, touching her arm and her shoulder.

"Fuck," Sam whispered. "I'm sorry."

All three went into defensive mode, almost teen-level angsty anger. "Because it's so horrible, to be in love with a demon?" Iggy challenged.

Sam shook his head, feeling his heart break. "No. Because it's my fault."

(break)

Nothing. No clues, no hints, no leads. Sam's disappearance wasn't magical. There were scuff marks where he'd struggled, deeper ones where he'd been dragged - Dean assumed alive, because why bother taking away Sam's dead body?

Just thinking that raised cold sweat on Dean's skin.

The hotel didn't have security cameras, and the ones at the convenience store across the street didn't tape at the angles he needed. The guy at the front desk remembered a redhead walking around the parking lot earlier, young and cute, but he was so fucking high Dean couldn't be sure he didn't just see what he wanted to see, and it had been a 300 pound trucker surveilling the lot.

Worst of all, he'd found Sam's cell by the vending machines, taken out of his pocket and left behind by his kidnappers, making Sam virtually untrackable.

Alone in the motel room, Dean stopped swearing and sat with his head in his hands. Sammy was right: not even one fucking day...

Loud rapping at the door. Dean jumped, his gun in his hand automatically. He eased over to peer through the peephole at an unfamiliar dark-haired girl.

"Who's there?"

The girl threw up her hands and tried to burn down the door with the contempt in her eyes. "You're back, what, less than a week, and you lose Sam? Seriously?"

Dean closed his eyes. Ruby. He opened the door because he didn't have a better option.

"He told me he wasn't doing his mojo with you," he said instead of hello.

"He wasn't, thanks to you, and now he's all fucked up." Ruby slammed the door shut behind her and smirked at Dean's gun. "Gonna shoot me, are you?"

"It would be deeply satisfying." But Dean put the gun back into his waistband.

Ruby collapsed onto the bed farthest from the door - Sam's bed - and glared at him. "What the fuck did Sam do to get you out? Hell is still picking up the pieces."

"Who's got him?" Dean had been hoping the Stranger was the kidnapper, and it wouldn't harm the guy who let it back into the world, right? "Do you know?"

"There's a demon involved, so yeah, I know."

"A demon has Sam?" Worst nightmare take what, twelve, thirteen?

"Oh if it were just that simple." She grabbed one of the Cokes from the nightstand, cracked it open. "Ewww. Warm."

Dean locked his muscles so he wouldn't go for his gun again. "Ruby."

Ruby held up her hand like a ward against Dean's tone. "Here's what I know. It's kind of sketchy, but it's more than you got. Sam's with Salsnesne, and she's gone rogue."

Dean frowned. He'd seen that name in Bobby's books, which meant...

"Yeah, she's a major player. She's amused herself the last few years playing cat and mice with two hunters. Then all the sudden she's caught doing a tonsil-tango three-way with them. Now everybody wants her neutralized. The bounty is huge."

"So it isn't Salsnesne..."

Ruby nodded. "It's the eight or nine dozen specialists who want to drag her back to Hell we gotta worry about."

"And Sam's her human shield." Hell still had a plan for Sam. They had killed Azazel, but there was still something. Whatever the fuck that was.

"Oh he's more than her shield." Ruby leaned back on her elbows. "He's the guy who can kill demons with his mind. If he gets enough demon blood."

The floor fell out from beneath Dean's feet. He whumped down on the bed and stared at Ruby.

She smirked. "He kept that little secret from you, huh?"

"Kill?" Sam had just been exorcising demons with his mojo, which was weird enough.

Ruby waggled her eyebrows in a passable impersonation of his own expression. "It's the original dose of Azazel's blood that lets him send us back to Hell. Give him more demon blood and some practice, he can kill us with a wave of his big bear paw."

Dean's stomach twisted. "He said he wasn't..."

"No, he wasn't. He kept his word to you, Dean." Her tone was ugly with envy. "So because you didn't trust him, because you treated him like a child, Sam is in the clutches of one of Hell's demi-queens. Who isn't going to be nice and easy on him, let him work up his powers, let him learn. No, she's gonna pour demon blood down your brother's throat, and hope he doesn't choke to death before he makes all her problems go away."

It was like he was back in hell, hanging from Alistair's thorn tree.

Ruby sat forward, her eyes on fire with fury. "Dean, if Sam dies, it is all your fault."

(break)

"The Stranger. So that was the big kick in Hell's ass."

They sat around the dining room table, everyone drinking coffee but Sally the red-headed demon. It had been easy enough to talk them into untying him. The guilt in his gut was a far more effective chain.

Sally whistled and said, "You don't fuck around with half-measures, do you, Winchester?"

"Dean's my brother."

Ian raised his white-gold eyebrows. "Because people make resurrection deals with cross-roads demons all the time for their brothers."

"And so often raise ancient, vengeful entities as Hell-bound rescue squads." Sally stared at him.

"So we think maybe," Iggy said, "you have a unique perspective on our predicament."

Were they...comparing his relationship with Dean to a demon/hunter ménage au trois? That was all kinds of wrong. Sam squirmed in his chair, took a drink of coffee, spilled some because his hand was shaking. He changed the subject pointedly. "What the fuck do you want me to do for you?"

"There's a massive bounty on Sally's head," Ian said. "Before too long, this place is going to be under siege."

"And we are not running." Sally traded a long, meaningful look with Ian. "We are not hiding. I am not some twink pit soldier."

Sam cocked his head, and she answered before he could articulate his question. "I am Salsnesne. I command sixty legions of Hell. I am She Who Burns Like Ice. I don't run from pissy repo men."

"Holy shit." Sam recognized that name. More importantly, he recognized that a demon of her stature, just a few rungs down on the satanic power ladder from Azazel, would have a head full of state secrets. Hell would never let her go. "You need my help to kill the demons who'll come after you."

"Word is you have astonishing talents." Sally stared at him with eyes much, much older than the face she wore.

"I...I don't..." Sam had cut ties with Ruby. She said saving Dean was impossible so they should focus on killing Lilith. He hadn't been able to admit that saving Dean was impossible. Within hours of accepting that as truth, he would have swallowed a bullet and let Bobby burn his corpse. Instead, he abandoned his demon-strike powers and enhanced his visions with DMT. And it worked. After a fashion. "I don't do that stuff anymore."

Iggy and Ian crossed their arms over their chests. Sally put a hunting knife with a jagged edge on the table, near Sam's hand. "Not an acceptable answer."

(break)

Dean ripped the hem of the shirt Sam slept in the night before, and dropped it in the center of the circle Ruby'd drawn on the kitchenette floor.

"Okay, just stand back," Ruby said, her eyes shuttering into impenetrable black slits.

Dean wanted to throttle her and scream this better fucking work. He wanted to just beat her for having resources when he felt so helpless. But more than that, he wanted Sam back. Safe. So he kept his fists rigid at his sides, and kept his mouth shut.

Ruby muttered Latin that Sam would understand. The strip of Sam's shirt burst into blue flame. In the rising smoke, Dean saw a street name, a house number. He used the GPS locator on his phone. Sam was less than twenty miles away.

"Don't go running off," Ruby said, her eyes shifting back to human. "Charging in and getting killed won't save Sam. Not in the short term, anyway."

Dean's temper snapped. He felt it, like a tendon fraying under too much stretch. He grabbed Ruby's throat and held her perfectly still.

"Are you listening? Cause I'm only saying this once."

Ruby stared, her eyes and her expression betraying nothing. But Dean felt her pulse kick under his palm.

"If you're helpful, I don't send you back to Hell. Grate on one of my nerves, which by the way are still pretty fucking raw, I will beat you with all the right Latin words. Then it's red sun and red moon until you claw your way out. Got it?"

Ruby breathed out hard through her nose. Then, as much as she could as Dean throttled her, she nodded. Once.

Dean relaxed his choking fingers, and Ruby slid down to land awkwardly on the bed.

"If you think you can help, come along. If not, get out." He didn't look at her as he grabbed his weapon's duffel.

When he opened the room door she said, in a throat-damaged voice, "Dean."

He paused, but did not look back at her.

"I care about Sammy, too."

"You don't get to call him that." If he turned around, if he looked at her, he'd beat that body so badly she'd have no choice but to smoke out. There wasn't time. Sam. "Are you coming?"

She pushed by him on her way out. "No. I'll just go where I'm appreciated."

"Fine." Dean got behind the wheel and laid down rubber, just like the kidnappers did.

(break)

The three of them stood at the bay window in living room, staring out into the night. Salsnesne looked too young with the two hunters at her shoulders. They touched each other in a restless way. Her right hand grazed Ian's shoulder. Ian's arm curled around her, his hand rubbing the back of Iggy's arm. Their hips bumped without rhythm. He could see by the rise and fall of their shoulders that they breathed in sync.

Sam wanted to tell them he was sorry, and he really was, because their situation was worse than hopeless. They could fight their way through this first salvo from Hell, kill the demons that stood between the three of them and the road. But what then? Was Hell just going to give up and let a demi-queen go AWOL? No way - especially after Sam called the Stranger and left Hell in chaos.

He sat at the edge of an uncomfortable sofa and felt his heart break and break for the three of them. Against impossible odds they'd found love, but it was going to kill them. "Salsnesne."

"Sally." Both Iggy and Ian said it together, as if using that name made her theirs and not Hell's.

"You have to bargain. Demons understand contracts right?"

She sat down next to Sam. Both Iggy and Ian tracked her movements as if they would come apart, molecule by molecule, if they weren't sure she was safe. Sam recognized that look. He'd seen it in Dean's eyes. He was sure Dean had seen it in his.

"Hell is not in a bargaining mood." She laughed. "And no, before you claim guilt, and seriously, you reek of it, not because of you calling the Stranger and breaking Dean out." She stayed silent for a while. Ian turned back to the window, watching for enemies. Iggy stayed with his back to the window, his shoulder pressed against Ian's, watching Salsnesne.

"Sally..." Sam tried again, but she held up her hand.

"What you don't know, what none of you know-"

At that, Ian turned back to watch her.

"It's started." Salsnesne walked away from all of them, stopping at the doorway that lead to the kitchen. "Lilith broke the first seal."

"The Apocalypse?" Every hunter knew that legend.

"No way," Iggy said.

"Fuck," said Ian.

"Exactly," said Salsnesne, her eyes too hard and hurting for the innocent face she wore. "Right before the Stranger turned everything inside out, she got it done."

So...Lilith triggered the apocalypse and angels showed up having plans for Dean. Sam asked Salsnesne a question, all the while whispering in his mind please say no please say no. "Do you know about Lilith's plans? Her strategy?"

She returned to stand between her human lovers, her eyes blazing with pride and anger. "I am She Who Burns Like Ice. I am a demi-queen of Hell. Of course I know about Lilith's plans."

Fuck. Fuck-fuck-fuck. There just wasn't a curse strong enough. "Bad news. There's probably more than demons lining up out there to get a hand on you."

(break)

"Hello again, Dean."

The angel just appeared in the passenger's seat, announced only by a subtle whoosh.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean jerked the wheel and straightened the Impala out on the road. "Stop doing that!"

"I'm here to help you free Sam. If we don't help each other, we all risk the chance of a devastating failure."

"Not liking the sound of that, Cas."

"Castiel."

"Too many syllables."

The angel looked confused, opening his mouth without speaking. Then he blinked. "The demon holding Sam hostage is in possession of information vital to Heaven."

That sounded just too ominous. "Great. You can have the demon. I can have Sam. Everyone wins."

Castiel cocked his head. "You truly believe things can be that simple, don't you?"

Dean sighed. "If I keep hoping, maybe one day they will be. Look, Cas." Dean flicked his eyes from the road to look the angel straight in the face for a second. "Why should I care what Heaven wants, or what plans you have for me? I just want Sam safe."

Castiel's sigh seemed far deeper and sadder than Dean's. "I know. I wish I could make this...about you and Sam. But there are bigger events unfolding."

Dean wanted to argue that nothing, nothing was bigger than Sam being rescued, Sam being safe. He'd been trained since Sam was six months old to prioritize his little brother. But he'd been trained from birth by a mother and father who believed in fighting evil at any cost. For an instant, he felt himself straining inside, spiritual muscles stretched to near ripping by opposing imperatives. Castiel's hand on his shoulder was an unexpectedly welcome warmth.

"Dean. I know how you feel about Sam, even if you don't. I will do everything in my power to protect the two of you. And my power is not inconsiderable. But if we don't extract the information from Salsnesne, millions of people will die."

Most people would take comfort in having an angel pledge allegiance to their safety. But that angel answered to a boss Dean didn't trust. He trusted himself, his own aim, his own will.

Cas said, "Demon bounty hunters are closing in on Salsnesne's position, but they don't have it pinpointed yet."

Dean blinked, the truth coming home. "And neither does the wing brigade, right? You're here because I am the only one who knows."

"Dean. Ruby knows too. I doubt the demon bounty hunters will put saving Sam anywhere near the top of their priorities. We will."

Dean didn't like any of it, but he recited the address.

"Thank you, Dean. I will keep Sam safe." With a rustle, Castiel disappeared.

"Son of a bitch." Dean drove faster. In a far, dark corner of his brain, Castiel's words replayed. I know how you feel about Sam, even if you don't. What the hell did that mean? Dean shook his head. Until Sam was safe, nothing else mattered. He shut the door on that far, dark corner, pushing the question behind it.

(break)

Sam cradled his head in his hands, feeling that overwhelming exhaustion and bewilderment threaten him again, like a pack of wolves circling closer.

"What else is coming, Winchester?" It was the third time Ian asked, his tone harder and colder each time.

He couldn't force the word out of his throat. It was too absurd, too huge. It stuck there, making him cough.

Salsnesne looked up suddenly. "Well, fuck me."

With a soft whoosh, Castiel appeared in the living room, blocking the front door.

Both Ian and Iggy drew pistols. Sam closed his eyes, but Salsnesne's voice stopped any shots.

"I'm hidden from everything infernal and celestial. How did you find me?"

"Hello, Salsnesne," Castiel said, his voice oddly warm.

"She goes by Sally now." Iggy hadn't dropped his weapon, still had it trained on Castiel.

"She's with us," Ian added, not standing down one bit.

A grin flashed over Sally's lips, so adult, so knowing and sensual. "Oh no. You two are with me."

Ian and Iggy showed their teeth in grim smiles. Sam sensed he witnessed an inside joke, as painful as it was intimate.

"Once upon a time, she was with me." Castiel seemed to be aware of no one else in the room but Salsnesne. "If I could have imagined this happening, sister, it would be nobody but you."

Pride sparked in Sally's eyes. "You haven't answered my question. How did you find me?"

Castiel gestured at Sam. "He has a surprisingly resourceful brother who doesn't appreciate abduction scenarios quite like you always did."

Iggy broke out into a fit of coughing.

Ian stared, slack-jawed.

Sally laughed, genuine and warm and far too sensual for comfort. "There's nothing as thrilling as power exchange."

Both Ian and Iggy blushed bright red. Neither had lowered their pistols.

Sam felt sticky with in-jokes and secrets. He cared only about one thing. "Dean's coming here?"

Castiel nodded. "When I promised I would protect you, he gave me your location. To get that location, he used an unfortunate resource. The demon Ruby."

"Lilith's skinny skank?" Salsnesne's eyes narrowed as she looked from Castiel to Sam. "I'm not the only hell-bitch who sees Sam Winchester as the gold at the end of the rainbow."

"We haven't much time before Ruby shares the location with Lilith. And the rest of the garrison will follow Lilith's soldiers. Salsnesne." Castiel reached out a hand. "They won't be as gentle with you as I am. You know that."

Sally moved between Ian and Iggy, placed a hand on their wrists. She held them lightly, fingers stroking, until they reluctantly lowered their weapons. "All I want is out, all three of us. Out and safe."

"Neither side will let you go with the information you have," Sam said. "Castiel, can you help?"

Suddenly the back door broke open with a resounding bang. Ian and Iggy's weapons came up fast, but neither Sally nor Castiel reacted aggressively.

"It's okay," Sally whispered.

Dean's voice yelled, "Sam!" in that particular rough way that made Sam swallow in a tight throat.

"It's okay, Dean." He walked to the interior doorway leading to the kitchen, so Dean could see him. "Castiel's here."

Dean lunged gun-first into his side of the doorway. When he saw Sam he inspected him visually for injuries, then looked into Sam's eyes. "You okay?"

Sam started to say yes, but then the world shifted under his feet like something shook the Earth's crust. He felt like he stood on the edge of a cliff, and when he looked down, he couldn't see bottom. He didn't know why.

"Sam?"

Sam blinked. Everything seemed water-color blurry. What was going on?

Dean stood beside him, steadying him with a hand under his arm. Sam turned back to the strange tableau: two hunters and the demon who loved them, and an angel bargaining to make their forbidden dreams to come true. It was all so fucked up, the colors off. Was there something wrong with his eyes?

"If you permit me, Salsnesne," Castiel said. "I can transfer the information that threatens your happiness out of your mind and into mine."

"Is he serious?" Iggy asked in a whisper, as Ian blindly groped to wrap his hand around Iggy's arm.

"I am completely serious. When I joke, people rarely laugh. That makes me uncomfortable."

Beside him, Dean huffed out an impatient breath. "Demons on their way. Chop chop."

Salsnesne stepped so close to Castiel that her nose almost touched his shoulder. She looked up at him. "You always did find ways to make things work the way you wanted."

Castiel blushed faintly.

"Do it." Salsnesne tilted her face up to Castiel, as if inviting a kiss.

Castiel raised his hand, but before he could touch Sally three arms erupted from the sofa, pearly-gray skin, too many joints. Bright red sparks danced around the twenty-three fingers as they grabbed Castiel and pulled him away from Salsnesne.

Dizziness hammered Sam. He would have fallen like a tree if Dean wasn't there to catch him. Dean pulled him up, keeping him on his feet by pinning Sam's body between his body and the wall. Sam rested his cheek against Dean's hair and tried not to throw up.

Jerry Lewis' voice screamed, "Oh how no way no! Too easy peasy!" The third arm with seven fingers wrapped around Salsnesne's face. Sam thought of the facehugger from Aliens. He shivered on his feet, and Dean pushed against him harder.

"Fucking Jerry Lewis?" Dean muttered.

"That precious info is all mine now, ha ha!"

The third arm released Salsnesne. She stumbled back. Both Ian and Iggy caught her.

The voice changed to Don Pardo, so loud it stung Sam's inner ear. "Salsnesne, She Who Burns Like Ice, you've won an all-expenses paid lifetime tour of where you want in the companionship of these fine, courageous hunters, somewhere they'll never, ever find you. Think hard, Demi-Queen of Hell. What kind of place will it be?"

"Forest," Iggy said.

"Mountains," Ian said.

"What they want." Salsnesne's eyes were bright with tears. She looked at Castiel. "I don't remember any of it. Any of it at all."

The hands holding Castiel drew back, and all twenty-three fingers snapped. The sound was so loud, the windows shook.

The three arms, the twenty three fingers, Salsnesne, Ian and Iggy disappeared in a puff of game-show applause.

The dizziness cleared from Sam's head immediately. "Holy fuck."

Dean took a half-step back, keeping one hand against Sam's chest. "Holy motherfuck."

"I do not know enough human curses to adequately express my bewilderment and fear."

(break)

Dawn cracked at the edges of the horizon when they returned to the motel with tacos. Castiel had consented to ride in the back seat and not disappear, though Dean had checked the rear view about every other second, not wanting to be freaked out.

"What is up with all the pop culture references anyway?" Dean folded a soft taco in half, stuffed the whole thing in his mouth, and washed it down with huge gulps of beer. "It's so fucking creepy."

"The Stranger is not from here," Castiel explained. He neither ate nor drank, nor sat down. He stood, radiating uncertainty. "He must borrow local culture to communicate."

Sam picked at his taco. "When I summoned it, I didn't know how bad I would mess everything up..."

"You did know. Or at least had an idea." Castiel's words were harsh, but spoken in a tone so gentle and loving it made Dean's hackles rise. "You were saving Dean from Hell. It's...understandable."

Sam stuffed his mouth full, as if he was trying to avoid any expectation of a reply.

Dean wondered what he might have said. "So the Stranger is in town, breaking all the rules. Like demons don't fall in love."

Castiel's lips quirked. "I can only imagine the hysteria in Hell over it."

"But it doesn't pick sides. Sooner or later he's gonna fuck you guys over, too."

"And enjoy it immensely."

"Multiple orgasms, huh?" Dean grinned, knowing his teeth were strung with shredded lettuce.

Sam whispered, "Dean. Jesus."

"No, it's alright." Castiel stared Dean down calmly. "Maybe if we interact more often, I will learn the trick to making funny jokes."

Sam laughed, spewing bits of guacamole.

Castiel raised his eyebrows.

Dean made a yeah-yeah-very-funny scowl. As he gathered up some fighting words, Castiel disappeared.

"Son of a bitch. I hate that." He took another long gulp of beer, then let out a long, satisfying belch. "I didn't burp the whole time I was downstairs. Just realized that."

He got up from the little table by the window and started laying salt lines. Thick ones, because he figured they pissed off more demons than just Ruby tonight.

After a moment, Sam stood on his chair and put salt in the wall vent. Ridiculous unease trickled through Dean's nerves, as if Sam were taking a reckless risk and a fall from that chair, all of two feet, could kill him. He shook his head sharply. Sam was right. They needed more rest after Dean's escape from Hell, all the risks Sam took to break him out.

Sam was right about so much so often, but Dean always felt the inescapable need to ignore his perspective, his viewpoint, his advice. It was like if he gave in to Sam, the consequences would be too great. He spent his life hiding behind a wall that let him get just so close to Sam, but not too close. It was an uncomfortably introspective thought, not at all in the Dean Winchester rulebook.

And that thought stopped him cold. "Sammy?"

Sam popped his head out from the bathroom, his toothbrush in his mouth.

"When Castiel says the Stranger can break whatever rules it wants, do you suppose he could mind-fuck us? You know, push us out of our headspace comfort zones?"

Sam's eyes widened, then he shrugged. He ducked back into the bathroom. Dean heard him spit, heard the water run. But Sam did not reappear to give an answer. Was the Stranger mind-fucking him, too?

"When we wake up," which Dean hoped wouldn't happen for at least six hours, "we gotta get cracking on the put the Stranger back agenda."

Sam came out of the bathroom, nodding. He stripped off his jeans and his overshirt, hunched down on the edge of the bed furthest from the door. "Dean, did Castiel tell you anything big? About what was happening in Hell?"

"Those are my socks. Why are you wearing my socks?" Sam bought special weave cushion socks that came up to his ankle. Girl socks. The classic red and green tube socks were Dean's.

Sam ignored him. "Salsnesne said that Lilith had broken the first seal, and she was starting the apocalypse."

The words smacked the breath out of Dean. For a long moment, he refused to believe them. "Seriously? Shit." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "That's why the God squad was so keen to get Lilith's plans out of Salsnesne's head."

"And why the demons were so keen on killing her before they did."

"Your buddy the Stranger fucked them both good."

Sam didn't speak for several long, deep breaths. Dean watched his shoulders rise and fall with them, then Sam lifted his head. "Yeah. It did. Fuck them both."

Dean waited in silence for Sam to go on.

"The apocalypse, Dean. The end of the world. Heaven-Hell death match. Maybe the Stranger..."

Dean's eyebrows crawled up into his head. "The Stranger might be on our side, humanity's side."

"It sure isn't on Team Demon or Team Angel."

"So maybe we don't close the door on the possibility, until we find out more."

Sam nodded.

"That's good thinking, Sam. Damn good thinking."

Sam blushed, looked away, looked for anything else to do but acknowledge the compliment. Weirdly, Dean felt brushed off. He meant to make Sam happy, show appreciation for once, and he just freaked Sam out.

He brushed his teeth, strip down to boxers and t-shirt. Sam always slept in socks, because he'd get killer leg cramps if his feet got cold when he slept. Dean hated sleeping in socks. His toes needed air. They needed space to stretch and wiggle. Sometimes he slept commando. Not just his toes needed to be free now and again. It drove Sam into a bitch face every time, bitter mumbles about the rank smell and who needs to see that thing anyway? Of course he'd never do that when he was sleeping with...

Dean stopped in the bathroom doorway. Was he going to sleep with Sam again tonight? Christ, wasn't there a better way to put it? He wasn't sleeping sleeping with Sam. He was just...sleeping. In close proximity. Next to. Not with.

Sam was sitting at the little table, so like every other little table in all the motel rooms across America. As if a little dinette set belonged within spitting distance of two queen beds. As if somehow that made the rooms more homey, the curtains less horrific. Where did motels get their ugly curtains? Was there one main US retailer? Were they made in China?

Dean sat down in the other chair. They both sat looking at the beds.

"Salsnesne said something - "

"Cas said something -"

They talked over each other into an awkward silence.

"It's Cas now?" Sam quirked an eyebrow.

"Jealous?" Dean regretted the word the instant it left his lips.

Sam stared at him steadily. Dean could hear how hard he was thinking.

Dean spun the little pencil that came with the notepad with "Starshine Motel" printed across the top. Not all motels did that anymore. He considered it a throwback sign of class. The glove box was full of stolen little notepads, pencils that Sam chewed the erasers from. He crushed the brass eraser holders with his teeth, making them pointed little weapons he used on his hangnails.

"When we were little," Sam said softly, "it didn't matter."

Dean knew exactly what he meant. In the Impala's backseat they used each other as blankets and pillows. When they camped out, they shared a green tent so small they had no choice but to sleep all crammed up together. If Dad was in the motel room, they had to share a bed. When Dad was gone, they shared a bed anyway because they were two kids alone in a dangerous, uncertain world.

"Why does it matter now?" Sam asked, lines etched deeply into his forehead.

When Dean turned thirteen, Dad chased him out of the shared bed to the sofa or the roll-away or the floor. You're too big for that now.

When things got hairy, Dad gone too long, they went to sleep on the same bed. When they got caught, Dad freaked out like they'd been eating babies or something. You're making Sam weak, Dean. You think you're helping because he's scared, but someday it's gonna get him killed. That will be on you.

"Dad's rules," Dean said.

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

Silence stretched between them. Dean imagined how their father would react to Sam breaking Dean out of hell. Ain't nothing weak about Sammy, Dad, Dean would say. But John would find something, some criticism. Probably along the lines of maybe Sam's not weak, but Dean, look at you.

"Salsnesne and those two hunters, Ian and Iggy," Sam said.

"Iggy?" Dean didn't like the undertone in Sam's voice. Too uncertain. Almost afraid.

Sam quirked his eyebrows as if to say I didn't name him. "Dean, they were really in love. The three of them."

"Demons can't love." His own voice didn't sound certain, either.

"I saw them." Sam shook his head. "They really were in love. They broke that rule. What's that mean?"

"Like for us?" The words hit the air, and Dean tried to bite them back.

Sam stood up. His dinette chair wobbled, threatened to tip over. "What's it got to do with us? She broke her rules."

Dean looked at the bed. He looked at Sam. Sam was looking at the bed. When he looked at Dean, he turned bright red.

"What's different?" Sam put the question to his socks, keeping his head ducked and hidden.

"What do you mean?" He wasn't going to spit out something totally wrong again. This whole conversation was a minefield, burned tree stumps and sprays of blood.

He sensed Sam almost say never mind. Then, "You're home. Something's different."

A big, heavy hot something centered on his chest, making it hard to breathe. "Yeah." Having Sam stand over him made Dean twitch. He stood up.

"Yeah." Sam still wouldn't look at him. Was he afraid? Of Dean?

Dean didn't feel fear. It was more like...when you meet a big, snarly dog, you hold out your fist, careful, cautious. You didn't want bit. "It's different. Is it bad different?"

Sam's head snapped up. "No." His lips curled into a slight smile. "Not at all."

Dean smiled back. "Good different?"

Sam looked down again. His next words were too low to be called a whisper. "Maybe too good?"

Dean pretended not to hear. "Know what? I'm beat." He turned out the light, checked the lock on the door.

"Yeah. Yeah. Long day." Sam crawled into the bed furthest from the door, his bed, by their long-standing definition.

"Fucking long day." Dean paused by the unoccupied bed. He looked over at the lump of Sam under the covers.

Why did it seem so absolutely necessary to sleep...next to Sam? The first night, he got it: a matter of logistics and, well, first night back from Hell, so. He flexed this new introspective muscle developed by the Stranger and his flaunting of rules, social and personal. What was he trying to get, being close to Sam while being unconscious?

Yeah, that sounded too fucking creepy to introspect anymore. He took the pillows and tossed them onto the bed beside Sam. When he pulled the blankets back, Sam scooted over to make room without being asked.

"No farting."

"No promises."

Dean tucked one arm under his pillow. He lay on his side, staring at Sam's back. Sam was as far away from him as he could get, precariously balanced at the edge of the bed. Did Sam really want that distance?

Did Dean?

"Sammy?"

"I'm scared, Dean."

In all his life, Sam could only say that to Dean. Admit fear to their father, and the punishment came down like a hammer. He could break them both with words, so bad they learned that nothing they could ever fear was worse.

"Man, I don't see why. You just turned the world on its head."

Sam coughed up a laugh. "Maybe that's why."

Dean couldn't stop himself. He flattened his palm against Sam's back. When Sam's muscles tensed, Dean felt it like a gut punch.

"Sam. I'd never hurt you."

Which was a huge lie. He'd run away from Sam when Sam ran off to Stanford. He'd sold his soul, made every day for a year a time bomb strapped to Sam's chest. What he meant to say is this is safe. All Dean wanted was to be close. After Hell, he needed to be close.

Sam turned so they faced each other, but didn't narrow the space between them. His eyes glittered in the neon light spilling past the curtains.

Dean didn't know what to say. This was just so...weird. "I can't explain it, Sammy. I just. Need. To be close. I guess." The words tasted sour and pushed sharp edges against his mouth. "Okay?"

When Sam's fingers touched his hand, Dean jumped just a little. Before Sam could pull all the way back, Dean caught his hand. Sam didn't jerk away. Dean heard him sigh.

Dean threaded their fingers together lightly, no clutching, palms barely touching. He relaxed his arm and after a moment, so did Sam. They lay on opposite sides of the bed, their hands together in a kind of unspoken demilitarized zone under the sheet.

They did not say good night.

Dean fell defiantly asleep.

(break)

Sam dreamed of lightlessness and silence. Motionless air that carried no smell. He couldn't hear his own heartbeat. There were no shadows. Only dark stillness. The sensory deprivation lit a fuse of panic.

Wake up wake up wake up!

Two red eyes opened in the darkness. Not red like crossroads demons' eyes. More like sparks contained in wide, round irises. Two more. Then two more. Then a seventh. Sam knew then who hosted this dream.

The Stranger spoke in Dean's voice, teenaged Dean, even more invincible and cocky than he was now. "Sammy."

"Did I...break the world by letting you in?"

"Yeah, cause you are so fucking important, so fucking strong that you could break the world."

The reasoning would have taken Sam's breath away, had he been aware of breathing.

"Hey Sammy? Do you remember that nowhere ridge in Iowa, ass end of winter, Dad hunting those ice monsters?"

Iowa and the ice monsters. Sam tried to never remember. He'd been thirteen, growing so fast his bones hurt. John broke into a cabin, built a fire, and left for what he estimated would be two days, tops.

On day three, it started snowing and didn't stop for five more days.

An hour after it started snowing, Dean found a weird red blemish on his arm and said, "Man that's itchy."

Of course, Sam started itching half a day later. With hard, icy snow clicking against the windows, they fought fevers and went crazy with the itch. John didn't come back for eight days.

"'Remember what I did for you, Sammy?"

Sam had been so weak and despairing from hunger and thirst, from high fever and claustrophobia and fear. They were both mostly naked, covered in all the calamine lotion they had in their first aid kit. Sam had been crying silently, as he'd trained himself to do to avoid cuffs to the head and derision about his lack of manhood. But Dean always knew.

Without saying anything, Dean scratched all the itchy red pox marks on his back and shoulders, where Sam couldn't reach. It felt so good he'd sprung a hard on, had been too miserable to be embarrassed.

Until Dad finally did come back and went into a rage about finding them asleep in a heap, under all the blankets they could find, the first real sleep they'd had in a week.

I oughta send Sam to Bobby, and I will if this doesn't stop.

It was the first time Sam remembered feeling something like hate for his father. From that moment forward he never truly trusted John again.

"I know you buried that memory pretty deep, huh?" The red eyes all blinked at once. "But this one's deeper. You remember Asteroid?"

Dean had just turned nineteen, long since given up on school. There were multiple vamp nests in northern California that summer, and John let them know they'd be staying in one place till the job was done. Winchesters always finished what they started. Sam made plans to attend summer school, and was headed home to tell Dean how excited he was.

Home was a little beach house they got for no rent - Dean would spend his summer fixing it up in payment. He found Dean in the living room, a woman old enough to be their mother - so ancient to Sam's fourteen year old eyes - on her knees giving him a blow job. Sam froze by the kitchen door. He froze and, with no one the wiser, watched. What he saw got him iron hard. With no one to see, he jerked off.

"Man, you came the same second I did." Not that Dean could have known that. Weird, to hear Dean's voice say it. "And Sammy?" His tone melted like chocolate into cream. "I know you didn't watch her. You were watching my face."

"I did not!" Hearing a fourteen year old reaction burst free in his twenty-something voice stung like a swarm of bees.

"You liked to see that, me coming so hard. You wanted to make me do it, too."

"Shut up!"

"All these rules in your head, Sammy. Not like gravity. Not like if you walk off a cliff you're certain to fall."

The woman, a beach hippie, was named Aster. It was Dean's summer of love school, and she was the chief instructor. Sam hated her, called her Asteroid. He stayed out of the house as much as he could, and made a lot of noise when he came in, for the rest of the summer. Sam stole her weed. She never said anything, glad he was scarce. He stayed high for days, watching the surf.

"All these fucking rules, man," Dean's voice said. "Who the fuck cares, really, if you're a crier?"

Sam sat straight up, gasping awake. Three blinks to orient himself, feeling Dean's weight close beside him. He jumped out of bed and stared, breathing hard. It was like Dad was at the doorway, that horrible moment stretching on forever: the time between Dad opening the door and seeing him in bed with Dean, and opening up with automatic weapons fire of words. The look on his face: they'd never, ever be good enough. Even though all they were doing was trying to survive. Nothing more. Why did he take their closeness so personally? Like they were slapping him in the face.

In his ear, Barbara Walters whispered, "You do understand your father was stricken with jealousy?"

Sam whirled, looking for evidence of the Stranger. Multiple arms squirming under the door, maybe. An odd number of red eyes staring in the window. But except for Dean, Sam was alone.

Dean gasped awake, thrashing off the covers and jumping out of bed. His wide eyes looked at the empty bed, then darted around wildly until he saw Sam. His chest rose and fell like he'd been running from something awful.

"What memories did it make you see?" Sam asked. What rules did you break, long ago?

Dean gave Sam a panicked look, then ran to the bathroom. In a moment, Sam heard the pipes rattle and the shower turn on. He looked at the clock: just after noon. At least the Stranger gave them the courtesy of five solid hours of sleep. Together. Because Sam knew for sure it would be the last time Dean laid down with him again.

(break)

One of Dean's most useful psychic defensive systems was an off button in his head. Before the hot water hit his sweaty back, Dean turned the dream off. With no motherfucking intention of ever flipping the on switch. Never. Not for any reason.

When he got close enough to Sam for him to frame up that "Dean we better talk this through" face, he shut it down with a glare. Sam snapped his jaw shut, blinking owlishly.

They chewed through diner sustenance in a militantly enforced silence Dean broke only when they returned to the Impala. "I'll drop you at the college, you can research there. I'll hit the historical society."

"I thought we weren't going to send it back just yet. Not until..."

"It goes back."

When Dean dropped him off at the college library, Sam had nothing to say. Dean drove around until he found the town's darkest, grimiest dive. He waited until the perfect kind of girl arrived: short, curvy, bottle-blonde, saccharinely feminine, comfortingly dim and about as deep as a mud puddle. Perfect. Six beers deep, he turned on the charm full-wattage. Within an hour he took her back to the motel room and fucked her on the bed he'd shared with Sam. He left bruises on her thighs and hickeys on her neck, huge neon signs, Dean Winchester was here.

Hours later, when he called her a cab, she said, "Man you need to get laid more often, so it isn't quite as..." she shook her boobs more comfortably into her bra, and winced," ...intense."

When she was gone, Dean looked at his phone: six missed calls from Sam. Texts. What the fuck dude? Are you okay? One message. "You better be wendigo meat, because I'm so fucking pissed."

Dean loaded up his shit, all of it, put it in the Impala, 100% ready and committed to running. Just getting the fuck out. Driving until he hit ocean, and then maybe just rolling down the windows and driving into the surf.

His phone buzzed with another message. Dean please. I'm at the Blue Sky coffee shop. Please be okay.

He wanted to hurt Sam like he hurt that girl. No. No no no NOT like he hurt that girl. But he wanted Sam to just...feel pain. So he'd get further away. Close had felt so fucking good that he'd forgotten just how unsafe it really was. He'd lose everything because he'd lose Sam. Sam who'd told him while sharing a bed how scared he was.

He put his gear back in the room and went out the Impala. He waited another thirty minutes, just sitting behind the wheel, stewing in a meaty broth of unconscious rage. Then he drove all around campus until he found the Blue Sky coffee shop, closed now, Sam sitting on the sidewalk under the shopfront window, under ridiculous cartoon finger paintings of clouds and sun and rainbows.

Sam slammed himself in the passenger seat, radiating pouty anger from his epic bitchface.

Dean said nothing. He locked his jaw, refused eye contact. Wanted to put the Impala in drive, but was clueless about where to go. He was so hungry his stomach trying to chew his spine. He embraced the pain like a penitent.

"The Stranger gave me nightmares, too," Sam said, his voice shaking. "It made me remember things."

Dean peeled away onto the road, needing to be in motion, in flight. "Just shut up, Sam."

"In Iowa, when we got the chicken pox."

Dean laughed. It was an ugly sound and he couldn't help it. That was the Stranger's torment for Sam? "That was your horrible rule-breaking memory?"

Sam snapped his jaw shut, the muscles working.

Oh so there was more than being alone and sick and afraid in that stupid cabin. Dean wondered what it was. He was also sure nothing Sam ever did could be as horrible as what he did. What the Stranger made him remember.

"And the summer of Asteroid." Sam barely squeezed the words out between his clenched teeth.

So it was about sex for Sam, too. Dean's stomach cramped.

"Are you going to tell me what the Stranger made you remember?"

"No!" The word exploded out of Dean.

They sat in simmering silence.

"Dean, where are we going?"

Thick stands of trees lined both sides of the road. Dean had unconsciously driven away from town, into the darkness, somewhere maybe the Stranger wouldn't follow. He didn't want to sleep, maybe would never sleep again. He just wanted...to run. But no matter how fast he drove, Sam never got any further away.

"Pull over." Sam's voice was all command, take no shit serious.

Dean coasted into a wide spot, probably carved out by deer hunters looking for a place to park their pick-ups. Certainly not curious teens looking to make out. The thought made the car's interior so small, he had to get out. He had to get air. He was going to suffocate on all these weird-ass feelings.

After a moment, Sam joined him. He leaned against the hood while Dean paced.

"Dean you need to tell me..."

"The fuck I do!" Dean felt one of the iron bands of control he kept around his heart crack, then snap. "What is this, Sam? It's like, it's worse than anything those fuckers did to me in Hell. If this is what it means to be back, I wish you'd just fucking left me-"

Sam moved fast, striking out, grabbing Dean's arm and shaking him hard. "Don't you ever fucking say that." He was so furious, face flushed, lips trembling. For an instant, Dean swore his eyes went red.

Then a third eye, definitely red, bloomed on Sam's forehead, half-hidden by his hair. Sam gasped like it hurt. He let go of Dean, poked at his face, his eyes crossing like an idiot, trying to see.

The third red eye blazed. Sam went rigid. Dean reached out for him because that's what he did: Sam was hurting, Sam needed him.

Sam's own eyes were wide in panic when he grabbed Dean by the shoulders, spun him around, slapped him face first against the hood. He pressed his hips up against Dean, bent over him and sank his teeth into the back of Dean's neck.

All the blood in Dean's body went straight to his dick. He felt Sam pushing against the small of his back, hard through two layers of denim.

Then Sam pulled away. "Jesus fuck!"

Dean turned, standing straight. Sam's third eye was gone, but the Stranger's message...Dean's skin felt electrified. He could barely breathe.

Sam stared, wild-eyed. Unconsciously, he palmed at his crotch, trying to push down his erection.

This, Dean thought, is not safe.

Suddenly Sam lifted off his feet and slammed into a tree. A force punched Dean in the chest. He flew against the Impala, head shattering the windshield. The world went wavery and dark just as two men, leather-vested bruisers with tats and black eyes, grabbed Sam.

"Dean!" It was the husky voice that meant don't you dare fucking die.

One of the demons waved his hand and Dean jerked forward, out of control. His head hit the dirt, jaw cracking. Blood splattered against Dean's teeth. He turned his head, fighting nausea, to watch a demon hit Sam on the back of the head with what looked like a piece of pipe. Sam lolled forward, and they dragged him to the Impala. Stuffed him in the back seat.

"Sam!" The name came out of his throat along with bile. He choked and spat.

The headlights flared and Dean rolled away, barely escaping the churning tires. SAM! He couldn't yell. Couldn't speak. So he screamed in his head. SAM!

Behind him lights flared, and he waited to be run over, churned to bloody pulp by some unsuspecting civilian driving on a country road at night. Then, hands on his shoulder, rolling him onto his back. Pain, holy fuck.

Right before he blacked out, he recognized the face of Castiel the trenchcoat angel.

(break)

Regaining consciousness was like climbing a ladder into pain. Down in that delightful, senseless pool of passed out cold, Sam felt nothing. But as he linked into the waking world, the pain throbbed. He was inside, somewhere dark. His shoulder burned, probably dislocated. He heard a train rattle by, close enough to feel the vibration in his teeth. That made his head hurt even worse. He wanted to try to remember what had just happened, but something full of fear living in the back of his brain hissed no memories, no more memories.

The memories. Dean wouldn't tell him what memory the Stranger forced on him. Then the Stranger had taken over Sam's body, and Sam forced himself on Dean. Then demons, pain, and now this.

His last clear impressions of Dean were kaleidoscope frames of Dean hitting the Impala hood, Dean's head fracturing a starburst into the windshield.

People could die from head trauma like that.

Rising fear demanded Sam keep his eyes closed for fuck's sake, he'd been taken by demons. He willed his lids to open, and he blinked into focus. He saw three pairs of knees and shins, ankles and feet. When he rolled his eyes up, he saw the floor. Saw blood splatters. He was hanging upside down, his arms secured to his sides, a scratchy wide collar keeping him from moving his neck. Might as well be naked and hard, he felt so fucking vulnerable.

He concentrated on details. Details were power, like ratcheting back a trebuchet. One of his captors was female, her smaller feet encased in throwback Converse. The other two captors were male, trousers sharply creased, one wearing brown loafers, the other black alligator skin lace-ups. He assigned them names in his head, so he felt a little power over them. Brown loafers = Prepster. Alligator skin = Casino. That's the only place he'd ever seen anyone wear shoes like that. Dean and his love of the Vegas strip.

Casino stepped forward. He dropped something on the cement floor, into Sam's field of vision. It was a severed human finger, not cleanly cut. The bone stuck out jaggedly, the skin puckered and ragged. The nail was broken and crusted with dried blood. On the finger was a familiar silver ring.

Sam lost his breath and couldn't catch it.

(break)

Even before fully regaining consciousness, Dean was talking himself down from the penthouse window ledge of panic.

Those fucking demons have a plan for Sam. They aren't going to waste all their time and effort. They won't kill him. Sam isn't dead.

He gasped fully awake, sitting up and then throwing up, leaning to the side and heaving up his guts in a spiral of pain and dizziness. When the shudders subsided, he spat trailing threads of phlegm and looked around. He'd been placed on a low and narrow bed. He'd puked onto the floor. It smelled like acid and beer, so horrible he almost puked again.

He was in a room without windows, without enough room to pace, nothing but the bed and the walls. No door. That, too, almost made him puke.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Castiel!" His voice sounded like he'd swallowed razor blades. His ribs ached when he took a breath, and pain stabbed his temple with the rhythm of his heartbeat. He felt a swollen egg behind his right ear. "Castiel, goddamn it!"

He waited, swaying on his feet. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know where Sam was. Being drawn and quartered by monster trucks would hurt less.

And he had to piss.

Vengefully, he lined up against the corner, pulled it out and let it fly. He wrote Sam's name on the pristine white walls.

"Cas, you motherfucker!"

He heard that whoosh behind him and Dean whirled. It wasn't Cas.

"You really are an embodiment of vulgar desecration." The man pursed his mouth in a condescending tut-tut.

"Who the fuck are you? Where's Castiel? What happened to Sam?"

The man answered the questions in order, speaking with precise, careful diction like Dean was some kind of short-bus moron. "I am Zachariah. Castiel isn't here. Sam is being held by Lilith's henchmen."

"I want Castiel here." Dean pointed to the floor. "Now." He imagined all kinds of ways he could make death last for this Zachariah. Starting with ripping out handfuls of what was left of his hair. Didn't that look go out with seventies porn?

Zachariah rolled his eyes and said in that mother knows best voice, "You've blasphemed and cursed. You've vomited and urinated. What's next? Defecation?"

Dean grabbed the man's lapels, pushed him against the wall and pressed his elbow into Zachariah's throat. "I'm gonna rip off your head and jerk off into your bleeding neck hole. That's what's next."

With what looked like the tiniest of shrugs, Zachariah flung Dean across the room. He hit the opposite wall with his spine, pain exploding up and down his vertebrae like a chain of firecrackers. He crumpled face first to the floor.

"This is the rightful vessel of the most holy archangel?"

Dean tried to focus. Zachariah's wavering form lifted his palms up beseechingly. "Our Father works in mysterious ways, but come on." He pointed at Dean. "You. Just stew here in your filth until you can show some respect."

With another whoosh, Zachariah was gone.

"Fuck you and your Father and your stupid hair, you fucking fuck!" He meant to shout it, but it came out in a strangled whisper. "Fuck." The word just wasn't strong enough.

Dean carefully rolled onto his back and started at the meaningless mocking white of the ceiling, trying to think things into a sensible order. Which wasn't his gig. That's why he had Sam.

Please, Sam, be okay. Don't be hurting. Hold on, man. I will fix this.

Sam was the hostage of demons. Again. Demons were like his paparazzi, never letting up for a minute.

Dean was imprisoned by angels, one who destined to experience unimaginable pain. Dean wanted to slit Zachariah's throat and pry it apart with his fingers, just to feel the spray of blood. Did angels bleed? In his violent fantasies, they sure as fuck did.

Thinking of all that angel blood splattering his face put Dean into a weird calm, the eye of his personal rage tornado. Zacha-fucking-riah said Dean was a vessel for an archangel. That must be why Heaven was knocking down Hell's door to get him out. He was apparently destined for angel possession, which made Hell seem not so bad.

Didn't the Apocalypse end with some cage match between champions? Lucifer would be Hell's prize fighter. Did the demons want Sam for...

A sudden pain flared across the surface of Dean's stomach. It felt like someone held a blowtorch to his skin. He scrabbled his shirt up and bent to look. Red letters rose on his skin like invisible claws scratched them: ZACH. Then around the letters, a circle. Then a horizontal line across the diameter, crossing over ZACH. It was like the no smoking sign, or the Ghostbuster symbol.

Then, underneath, the letter "C."

Dean let his head fall back, breathing hard. At least Cas hadn't tried to use all the syllables.

So he and Sam were caught between Heaven and Hell, never once asked if it pleased them. Just thrown around like not even chess pieces. Like chew toys. They could choose Heaven or Hell, and neither choice would let them live.

Don Pardo's voice blared in the little room, "But don't you want to know what's behind Door Number Three?"

(break)

They just stood there, all three demons, doing absolutely nothing, saying absolutely nothing. Sam couldn't twist his head, so he couldn't see their faces. Couldn't see anything of them above their belts.

The room where he hung upside down was walk-in freezer cold. Sam's teeth started chattering, and he began to swing ever so gently from the force of his shivering.

The silent staring was far more unnerving than being alone or abandoned. He shivered and tried to keep breathing evenly, not looking at the severed finger wearing Dean's ring. Because that was not Dean's finger. It wasn't. Even though he recognized the pattern of wrinkles around each knuckle. Not Dean's finger. No fucking way.

Prepster stepped towards him, blocking his view of anything but creased tweed slacks, a brown leather belt, the first few buttons of a tan shirt. He wore too much cologne, over-sweet with musky vanilla. It made Sam want to choke.

Prepster crouched down, putting his forearm into Sam's field of vision. He cut a wide, deep gash into the flesh. Blood surged. Prepster put the wound against Sam's mouth.

Sam tried to twist, but the neck collar was too constricting. He sealed his lips tightly, blowing the gathering blood out of his nose.

Prepster stepped back, returning to the ominously silent line-up. Blood dripped around his shoes.

Sam spat and snorted as much of the blood away as he could. Now he understood why the demons had him trussed. They didn't want him using his demon-blood powers on them. But what did they want from him, all hopped up on demon blood?

Sam heard a knock. The girl demon with the Converse sneakers left his field of vision. He heard the squeak of a door behind him. It was an unexpected source of hope, knowing there was a door, a way out.

Sneaker girl came back to him and crouched down to look into Sam's face. It was Ruby, eyes black. For just a moment, her eyes went human. They radiated sorrow, hopelessness, pity. She opened her hand and rolled something small onto the floor. It was an eyeball, trailing nerves like tentacles. It skidded to a stop against the silver ring on the severed finger. The eye was the most familiar green.

Ruby flicked the black screen over her eyes, stood, took her place with Casino and Prepster.

Sam stared at the eyeball. The blood clinging to the nerves was still wet. He couldn't look away. He felt like everything he had left was draining out of him, pooling invisibly on the floor beside that severed finger, that excised eye. What would be next?

He swallowed a whimper. When Casino cut his arm and pressed it to Sam's face, he sealed his mouth around the wound and sucked in the blood.

(break)

Dean pushed himself up on one elbow as a cloud of red sparks coalesced into a human form. The Don Pardo voice still echoed through the angel prison. It ping-ponged like an electrified razor blade between the part of Dean that knew the Stranger was his best, only hope, and the part that wanted to kick its ass for that dream.

The human form solidified into a familiar one, a little thick in the middle, rolled up jeans, flannel shirt, trucker hat.

"Bobby?"

It was Bobby's voice. "I thought you might like Robert Plant more, but this is the one face you'll mind."

If Bobby's face had seven red eyes. "Get me out of here," Dean demanded. "Get me to Sam."

"Put it in neutral, bucko. You don't get back to Sam till you earn it."

Dean pushed himself to his feet. "Earn it?" Didn't trading his soul for Sam's life bank enough markers? Jesus!

"I got the power, kiddo. But I have demands." The eyes flared red. "Absolute requirements. No negotiation."

Dean's survival alarms blared trap trap trap!

"You up for it, boy?"

The Stranger managed to mimic Bobby's rough-edged compassion, but Dean heard an undertone of challenge, are-you-man-enough spinning around the words.

Dean squared his shoulders. "This about the dream?"

Bobby's lips quirked in a familiar what-are-you-an-idjit way. "About the memory. About what really happened."

Dean tried to will his heartbeat to stay even and steady. "Why?" But even he heard the tremor in his voice when he asked the question.

The Stranger wearing Bobby's form adjusted his trucker hat. "Cause that big galoot brother of yours brought me back, and that makes me partial to seeing him happy."

Dean felt anger crawl over his skin like stinging ants. "He's being held by demons. Do you think he's really happy? Let's go save him, damn it." No goddamn sense at all, talking about feelings and ancient history when somewhere, Sam suffered.

"Me and you, Dean Winchester, we got two things we share. We ain't big on rules."

Dean couldn't deny that. He only played by the rules if cheating didn't tip things in his favor. It didn't make him proud, but it had kept him - and Sam - alive.

"And we both love that great big idjit, Sam."

Dean flinched, physically and emotionally. "Look, why the fuck do you care about shit like that? You are the Stranger, man. You are so outside human that love shouldn't - "

"Love always does." Bobby's form shrugged. "It's the universal virus, boy. Don't matter where you're from or what you are. Makes us all sick."

The hair on Dean's arms stood up straight. "I'm not sick."

Bobby tapped the tip of his nose. "And now begins the lesson."

Frustration and fear boiled over inside Dean. "Sam is out there. He's hurting. He needs us!"

"He needs you," Bobby's voice said, grumpy gentle. "Don't you see that, boy?"

Dean said absolutely nothing. He began shutting himself down until he was one thing: Sam's protector. "He needs me right now to save him from demons!"

"And after you do save him from the demons?" Bobby cocked his head, red eyes staring Dean down. "You gonna be what he needs then?"

"I don't know what the fuck you are babbling about. Sam - "

Bobby crossed his arms across his chest, and then sprouted a third arm with five joints from the base of his spine. That arm struck viper-quick, seven fingers closing around Dean's throat. "Don't try my patience, boy."

Dean went rigid, stayed focused on regulating his breathing. Nice and easy. Nobody gets hurt.

"Let's talk about your...dream. Shall we?"

Instinct and self-preservation pushed good sense and self-control into the ditch. Dean jerked and lunged, trying to get away, just choking himself in the process. The Stranger's fingers dug into Dean's windpipe, cutting off air. He went dizzy with anoxia, the edges of the world disappearing in wavering white sparks. Bobby and the white angel prison, the bad smell and the fear, faded. All his senses blacked out for an instant, one gloriously, restful moment.

Then he was like the first-person shooter in his own damn head, playing through that one night that would almost kill him.

(break)

After Casino, there was a parade. The door behind him opened and closed with a rhythm like the heartbeats he felt against his mouth. Demon after demon after demon cutting open their forearm and giving the wound to Sam, Sam sucking it dry again and again and again, his world reduced to the systolic thumps and the finger and the eyeball on the floor. Dean odd-fingered, half-sightless: the rage and sorrow built like pressure in his blood, shivering like heat mirages on his skin.

This was way more than Ruby ever gave him. Each time a demon showed him a bloody cut, his hunger flared. And the more he drank, the greedier he got. He needed more and more and more and more.

He felt like if he wasn't restrained he would physically swell, hulk out. Held rigid in his inverse bondage, he felt reduced to a man-sized cock teased harder and harder, and when he came he'd rip apart the whole world.

He cringed from the thought. The demon blood was knocking down barriers he used to hide parts of himself he hated. If he let go his self-control, Sam recoiled in shame at how wanton and vulgar he could be, like a high-minded, intellectually snobby Beavis. He hated that aspect of himself. It drove him crazy with disgust when he saw it mirrored in Dean. In Dean it was just a lust for life. But Dean knew his boundaries. Sam didn't. He had to keep these secret parts of him on strict lockdown, or he'd Jekyll/Hyde and who knew with what consequences.

If Sam wasn't such a reprehensible freak, Dean would be whole right now. He should have pushed Dean away when he showed up in California. He should have stayed trapped in the cage of normal life, where the worst thing he could screw up was his 401k or maybe a mini-van transmission. He could have just gotten a divorce like everyone else, become estranged from any kids before he had time to do too much damage to them. He could have been neutralized.

Instead, he was swallowing demon blood like plutonium. Who would do more damage when the atoms split and the explosive reaction dominoed: Sam or the Stranger. Who was all Sam's fault, too, because that hungry beast inside him refused to live without Dean. He'd let it run wild for a few months, and everyone, everyone, paid for it. And it still hadn't saved Dean. Was he dead, or was he lying in a heap somewhere, bleeding out slowly, not having the sense to motherfuck Sam for all of it.

He heard the door open. Ruby, Casino and Prepster stepped back as one, making way. Heels clicked. A pair of marabou slippers, pink polka-dot ribbons wrapped around the ankles, came into view. Lilith's little-girl face pushed into Sam's.

"Hey you." She rubbed her nose on Sam's.

Sam snorted and tried to jerk away.

"We're breaking those seals faster than I thought we could, thanks to you, Sam Winchester. The angels are distracted by the Stranger, and he doesn't seem to be getting in our way. You think he's picked a side after all?" Lilith patted his cheek. "We're gonna trick you out and keep you purring until we're ready for you."

"What about Dean?" He couldn't stop himself from asking.

"Dean?" Lilith laughed. "He's a fucking hero, Sam. He broke the first seal. Again, thanks to you." She caught his chin in her hand, and twisted his neck as far as the collar would allow. Pain spasmed through Sam's muscles. "The first seal: a righteous man spills blood in Hell. Dean agreed to torture another soul. He wouldn't do it to end his pain, and trust me, we had the expert on the case. No, he agreed when we promised to give him a reasonable facsimile of you every night, a fake you to hold under the silver moon."

"He wouldn't-" Even as Sam spat out the words, he knew that Dean would.

Lilith let go of Sam's chin, sliced open her wrist. "Have some high octane. Keep you primed."

Sam wanted to seal his lips, refuse. But the hunger inside was too strong, and his will too weak with the finger and the eyeball on the floor. Sam sucked deeply, energy flaring inside him, pleasure-pain almost unendurable.

Lilith pulled away and to Sam's shame he tried to wriggle after her, wanting more. She laughed, retreating, turning into just another pair of shoes and ankles and knees watching him. She stood so close to Ruby and her Converse that they had to be in each other's arms.

So fucking unfair. He wanted to be in Dean's arms. So fucking bad. The honest realization snapped something, and Sam started screaming words that ripped his throat on the way out. "Gonna kill you, gonna fucking vaporize you! Nothing left! Nothing! Not even stains!"

Lilith laughed. She stepped forward and deliberately put the toe of her shoe on Dean's eyeball. She pushed down. With a horrible squish, she destroyed it. Nothing but blood-streaked goo, sticking to her sole when she moved away.

Sam kept screaming, giving up words. The demon blood burned him. He thrashed like a great white on a hook, biting at the air, wishing he could just come apart, explode, and strafe them all with shrapnel of his bones and joints and skull.

"Oh shut up," Lilith said, sounding bored.

Sam's jaw snapped shut and he couldn't force it open. He couldn't scream. He couldn't do anything. He was dynamite with a fuse that wouldn't burn all the way to the end.

The floor under him rippled. At first Sam thought it was a hallucination, the frustration had driven him mad. But then fingers, seven of them on a hand, pushed through the floor, and the demons didn't seem to notice. A skinny arm with too many joints ratcheted towards him. He saw it. He wasn't crazy. It was the Stranger. Still the demons didn't move, didn't react. They couldn't see it.

The Stranger's hand fiddled with his collar, the restraints holding binding his arm and his legs. In his ear, his father's voice urged him to "Kill em, Sam. Kill em all."

Sam blazed like a star. He tumbled to the floor in a heap of light, fought to his knees. Energy and power and hatred and frustration contracted inside him into a point of fire. Then he went off, and no orgasm had ever been better.

(break)

It was weird, how differently Dean perceived the world just five years ago. Newly minted twenty-one, no constant hum of ache in his left knee. His bones were iron and his skin was Kevlar and the world just quivered to drop at his feet. Invulnerable Dean badass Winchester. He killed monsters. Nothing could touch him.

Except Sammy. "Don't be mad, Dean. It's Stanford. It's everything I ever wanted."

By then, Dean had suffered broken ribs, a broken arm, multiple busted noses, contusions and scrapes so deep they exposed bone. He'd been concussed approximately eight times, twice severely. He was already a pro at relocating his own shoulder, stitching up his own skin.

But nothing, nothing hurt as bad as what Sam just said. He got in the Impala - a gift from Dad, his own baby now - and disappeared for three days. Drove till he hit city lights, a maze of city streets to hide in, a city full of people who were angry and hurting. Here he blended in. Didn't feel like he alone occupied the Universal Spotlight of Fucked Up and Fucked Over.

He found a ratty motel as home base, parked the Impala in a short-term garage, got drunk and stayed that way, lurching from bar to bar until they all closed. The next day, he did it again. Only the next day, he met Jack.

They met as rivals over the pool table. By nightfall they were the bestest drunken friends. Sometime before midnight, Jack started to get handsy. Astonishingly, Dean didn't mind one bit. They made out in an alley, Dean surprised to find out that kissing a guy and kissing a girl had no fundamental difference in technique. It bolstered his confidence back in his filthy motel room, when Jack gave him a blow job.

His back against the door, Dean watched. Jack's hair was a glossy light brown and he wore it long, so it wasn't a stretch to imagine him a girl. But this felt different with a guy. A woman's lips were thinner, skin softer. If a woman was velvet, Jack was fine grit sandpaper. His hands wrapped around Dean's thighs, much bigger than any woman's. Much stronger. Jack seemed wilder about it, too, one hand jacking his own cock so that when Dean came, so did he. And Dean came looking at that brown hair, mystified as to why his pain had driven him so far off his usual path.

Jack stood up, and Dean slithered bonelessly to the carpet. Jack grinned at him, stretching out his lower back. Dean kept thinking, my god his hands are huge. And I wish he wasn't taller than me.

"In my duffel. Whiskey." Dean wasn't at the full-sentence construction stage.

Jack went after it, still grinning, clearly high from blowing him, jazzed and utterly unself-conscious about going down on another guy. He pulled out the bottle, and also the picture Sam had given him a week ago. Sam was all about taking pictures. Normal families did that, so he did, too. Annoyingly often, even worse in the last few months.

"Did this guy break your heart?" Jack held up a picture of Sam, his face scrunched in a grin, flipping his middle finger at the camera. He shook his head. "Now I get it, you and me tonight."

Dean, drunk and sex-stunned, said, "No, man. That's my little brother."

And it was like he stopped the world from spinning with those two words. Little brother.

Jack dropped the picture. Then he picked it up and ripped it in half. "You sick fuck." He grabbed Dean by the collar, hauled him up and hit him hard on the jaw.

Dean's head snapped around. His cheek hit the door. He didn't feel anything. The realization hurt more than any punch. Jack was Sam. They looked more like brothers than Dean and Sam did. They could have been stunt doubles for each other.

He felt it when Jack sunk his fist into Dean's solar plexus. He hated gut punches. His body lashed out by instinct. Dean threw three punches, gut, upper cut, nose. Jack stumbled back and went down. Dean hauled his semi-conscious ass up and pushed him out the door, breathing hard.

Jack was Sam.

He grabbed the whiskey bottle and methodically drank himself into a coma.

"And when Sam left you didn't stop him. You didn't call him. You broke his heart, Dean."

Dean came to sitting on the floor, cross-legged, his head in his hands. "He broke mine first."

"Do you know why going to college was all Sam ever wanted?"

Dean never thought about it. He only knew that Dean wasn't all Sam ever wanted.

"Come on, son," Bobby said impatiently. "What is the one thing your brother says he wants the most?"

"Having a normal life." Something Dean could never, ever provide. It was only a matter of time before Sam left again, because people went after what they wanted. In an uncharacteristic flash of insight, Dean realized why it seemed so natural to sell his soul for Sam's life. Being in Hell was better than living without Sam. And way better than living through Sam leaving him again.

What kind of total fuck-up has problems that get solved by going to Hell?

"You're not fucked up, Dean. The rules is what's fucked up." Bobby's hand rubbed Dean's hair. "Sam wants the normal life because he thinks it's the only place he can be loved."

The words rolled through Dean's mind, far off thunder getting ominously closer. Then the hand on his head went from gentle stroking to angry gripping.

"All you stupid idjit motherfuckers, suffering because of rules that don't mean nothing."

Dean pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars. Sam deserved all the good that came with a normal life. A woman to love and care for him. A home base making him feel safe. The kind of stuff that mattered: a legacy through babies, making the world better by leaving new good people in it. Sam was always about helping people, making them safe, leaving them better than when he found them. He did that for Dean just by breathing.

"Your thinking brain tells you all that shit," Bobby said. "But what's your heart screaming at you, Dean?"

How the fuck would I know, I don't speak heart. Dean didn't interact with his emotions. He hated them. They were waves crashing against him, pushing him around. He had no control when he gave into feelings, and invariably he got hurt. He got gut punched by Jack, over and over again.

"Oh, tough guy Dean doesn't listen to his heart?" Bobby sneered. "Let me do some translating." He pushed Dean's head down, hard, held him still. When he spoke again, he used Dean's own voice. "Me, Sammy, not a normal life. I can give you all you want, more, in fucking spades!"

"No." The raggedness of his voice horrified Dean. He had to run, get away, this wasn't right, this was all kinds of wrong. But the Stranger had some kind of magic hold on him. His muscles weren't listening when he screamed at them run motherfucker run. In a second he was going start to cry, and the humiliation would vaporize him into nothing. Every muscle tensed, he sat and almost came apart from shaking.

"Why the fuck not?" Bobby asked.

"It's against the rules!" The words came out of Dean's throat, but they weren't the ones he was thinking: It's sick, it's wrong, it's fucked up. I'm sick, I'm wrong, I'm fucked up. "It's against the rules!" He screamed it involuntarily until his voice cracked, until like a mantra it echoed in his mind, blocking out his own thoughts. The last repetition came out in a strangled whisper. "It's against the rules."

"Fuck the rules." Dean felt lips against his ear. Sam's voice, broken and hurting, murmured, "Save me, Dean. Please."

Dean tried to wail, to scream. All he did was throw back his head. No sound came out.

"Dean?"

Trenchcoat Angel stood across the room, head cocked in alarmed concern.

The Stranger was gone.

(break)

"Sam." Dean grabbed Castiel by the lapels and levered himself up. "We have to get to Sam."

"You'll be of little use to him like this."

Castiel put his fingers to Dean's head, and in a quick bright flash all of Dean's aches and pains disappeared. His mouth didn't even taste like puke anymore. It was all such a physical relief that for an instant Dean sagged against Castiel, overwhelmed.

Cas just pulled him closer, wrapping his arms around Dean and whispering, "Hold tight."

For a long minute Dean felt like Yahtzee dice shaking in a cup, then he rolled onto the gravel of a parking lot. A train whistle ripped through his ears as Cas urged him to stand.

"Lilith is prepping Sam for Lucifer. Sam's Lucifer's vessel, like you are for the archangel Michael. She's so close to breaking all the seals."

Dean just really didn't give a fuck about any of it. Just that somewhere in that abandoned mill Sam needed him.

"There are wards," Cas said, "I can't-"

The basement windows glowed, flared, crashed into a million pieces. A shock wave hit Dean, knocking him to the ground. Cas disappeared: destroyed or banished, Dean couldn't guess. The glow faded. Dean ran into the old mill, looking for a way down to the epicenter of that explosion.

Skeletons with ragged flesh sprawled all over the concrete floor, draped over the abandoned machinery. The bones were singed black and smoking, as if their demon smoke had been burned into a carbon crust. The stench was worse than anything Dean remembered from Hell.

When he found the stairs, he took them two, three at a time, tilting headlong, grabbing the rail to keep from falling. He skidded into a hallway littered with overcooked demon bones, ran towards a narrow metal door. The closer he got, the more ragged and unidentifiable the remains. Just dust and bone fragments, greasy stains on the walls.

He eased the door open, feeling naked without a weapon, and slipped into a room that was painted glossy black with dust that he guessed was once demons. One small body was still intact, stripped of skin, singed muscle and bone wet under the swinging, still intact light bulb. One hank of singed yellow hair clung to its skull. Lilith.

"Sam?"

"NO!" Sam lunged at him from the shadows in the room's farthest corner. "I killed you all!" He raised his hand, but almost fell forward onto his face.

Dean felt a tug at his clothes, like an unexpected breeze.

Sam shrieked, a broken sound. His eyes were shot with jagged red, his chin and cheeks crusted with blood.

"Sammy?" Dean knew better than to rush him, no matter how badly he wanted to. "It's me."

Sam picked something up from the floor and threw it at him. "You're dead!"

The whatever it was bounced off Dean. He picked it up, then tossed it down. It was a finger. His finger, still wearing the silver ring. Freaked, he looked at his own hand, completely intact. A shiver ran through him as he looked at Sam's face, the train wreck expression.

"They tricked you, Sam. It's really me." He had no way to prove it, and if he didn't get his hands on Sam now, he'd die. Dean was sure of it.

"I want it to be you." Sam listed forward, then back. His eyes were so full of blood, Dean wondered how much he really saw. "I want it to be you so fucking bad."

Dean imagined Sam saying those words to him in an entirely different, entirely forbidden context. They were both breathing so hard, they sounded like the world's least sexy dirty phone call.

"They made me drink so much of it..." Sam's eyes suddenly went wide, and he lunged at Dean.

Dean instinctively threw up his hands in defense, but Sam crashed into him, knocking him back. He hit the floor, air whooshing from his lungs, his head spinning. Sam's body pressed against him, holding him still. Sam's hand scrabbled at the collar of Dean's t-shirt. He sank his teeth into the cords of Dean's neck.

Understanding brightened Dean's manic confusion. The blood. Sam could tell if Dean was a demon by the taste of his blood.

Dean wrapped his arms around Sam's shoulders and bared his neck, breathing hard, completely lost to this insane moment. Sam's tongue swirled on his broken skin, igniting shivers.

"Dean, it's you." Sam mouthed the word across Dean's throat, then he kissed both Dean's eyes with gentle reverence. "I love you. Love you so fucking much."

Dean gave up all control. He jerked his hips against Sam. He grabbed Sam's hair, pushed their mouths together, their teeth clicking. Then Sam slid his tongue into Dean's mouth and they were kissing and clutching and grinding, Dean feeling Sam's tears on his own cheeks.

Sam slid from atop Dean's body and Dean pulled them tight and flush against each other, lips resting together, sharing breath. Still he didn't feel close enough.

"Sammy..."

Sam touched his tongue to Dean's lower lip. "I'm so tired. They hung me upside down."

The hollowed out sound of Sam's voice scraped Dean's heart, now that the fucking Stranger had him listening to it. "You wanna just rest for a while, little brother?"

"Here?" Sam pulled back, his hair flopping in his eyes, his face filthy with dried blood.

"Yeah." The place was warded against angels, and after Sam's detonation, what demon would come within a mile of the place? "C'mere. Just lean on me. For a minute."

Sam melted against him, hand sliding under Dean's shirt to connect with bare skin.

"Did I say a minute? I meant forever."

(break)

"Dean? Sam?"

Bobby's hoarse shouts roused Sam from where he drifted, half-asleep, muscles limp, cock half hard because Dean, so close, so close. He ached everywhere, inside and out, for so many different reasons.

"Make him go away," Sam whispered. He didn't want the real world back. Not yet.

Dean surprised him by smearing a kiss over his lips. "Don't you let me go." He hauled himself up to his elbow, shouting back, "Bobby? In here!"

The instant Bobby stepped into the room, Sam knew this version of Dean would disappear, the Dean without walls, physical or emotional. The Dean Sam yearned for, always.

Bobby stepped into the basement room, bringing reality with him. "Are all these...dead demons?"

Dean helped Sam to his feet, braced him with an arm around his waist. "Sammy went off."

Dean hadn't pulled away. Despite his exhaustion, Sam glowed inside. "Boom," he said. "Felt so fucking good."

"You don't look so fucking good." Bobby cast a questioning glance at his brother. "Dean?"

"Hell, Bobby, it's us. A good sleep, a good drunk-"

"-a good shit," Sam murmured.

Dean giggled, sounding more than a little mad. "Let's get out of here."

Bobby put himself on Sam's right, with Dean on his left, everyone helping him keep his feet, keep moving forward. He shuffled, listing, so tired, so sore.

"Speaking of good shits, that angel poofed into my ever-lovin bathroom, screaming I had to come with him."

"Angel wards," Dean sad. "He couldn't get in."

Bobby hrumped. "So he's really a real live angel?"

In a soft whisper, Dean said, "Get closer, Sammy. You're too far away."

Sam felt Dean tighten his grip on Sam's waist, put his other hand low on Sam's stomach. Sam put his arm around Dean's shoulders. They slotted flush together.

"Better," Dean said.

They were so close strength seemed to flow out of Dean and into Sam. His head cleared a little, and he looked up.

What he saw took his breath away. "I warned them. I told them there'd be nothing left but stains."

The hallway looked like an atomic blast zone, dark shadows, blurred human figures, cast on the floor and walls.

Upstairs, Sam saw the charred skeletons. I did this. Vicious joy set him trembling. Lilith used all her powers to chain him, make him her weapon. Now they were all dead. Burned. Gone. That despised, feral part of himself growled with satisfaction.

Dean and Bobby guided him out into the night. Castiel stood beside the Impala, and his face broke out in a smile.

"Sam Winchester." The angel put a hand on Sam's chest. "Thank you." He looked to Dean, then Bobby, then back to Sam. "You killed Lilith before the seals were all broken. Her attempt to free Lucifer with the apocalypse has failed."

They stood in silence for a moment, Sam feeling like he should really care more about that, the saving the world thing. But all he cared about was Dean. Dean touching him, warm beside him, Dean with him, together.

Bobby said snidely, "Does he get to go to Disney World?"

Castiel blinked. "Does he..." He looked at Sam. "Do you want to go to Disney World?"

"No," Dean said. "He doesn't."

"Not without you," Sam whispered. Then, for everyone's ears, "Might be fun. Get pictures with Snow White."

"Fucking girl," Dean said fondly, pulling Sam even closer.

"How's this instead," Bobby said, ever practical. "I'll drive the Impala home. You two take the Castiel express, take care of each other."

Dean said, "Don't break her. And no racing."

Bobby chuckled.

"And no country music. Country music hurts her speakers."

Sam tried to keep his eyes focused, but the world slid in and out of blurry with his heartbeats. Bobby behind the wheel of the Impala looked so wrong. Castiel looked practically blissful, casting benevolent smiles at everyone and everything. His eyes were exceptionally blue. Sam felt like he was falling into them, falling into a sparkling ocean, with Dean's arms around him. He blinked, and they were in Bobby's sitting room.

Wildly dizzy, he let Dean guide him to the sofa. He stretched out gratefully, feeling Dean sit down and put Sam's feet in his lap. The world swung away from him, then towards him. He caught little bits and pieces of voices, Dean and Castiel.

"...factions in Heaven, perhaps even a civil war..."

"...no clue yet on how to send the Stranger back..."

"..how much of the blood?"

Sam muttered, "Shitloads."

Dean rubbed his ankle soothingly.

Castiel said something, but Sam couldn't make out the words. He felt a gentle touch to his forehead, then a delicious cool sensation flowing through his body.

"...should help."

"Thanks..."

The uncanny sensation eased the pain in Sam's muscles, made it easier to breathe deeply. The coppery tang in his throat sweetened, then faded. The world solidified enough for Sam to register Dean's face leaning close to his.

"Let's get you cleaned up a little, okay?"

"Sleep." Sam just wanted to let everything go. "With you."

Dean eased him to his feet, walked him to the bathroom. "Sammy."

Dean gently peeled off Sam's clothes, crusted to his skin with sweat and blood and demon ash. He sat Sam down on the edge of the tub, quickly took of his clothes as well. Stunned, Sam looked at Dean's body, blurred by his exhaustion. He put a hand on a ridged scar running up Dean's thigh. He remembered that wound, so close to the femoral artery, black dog almost getting Dean before Dean killed it. Dean's cock responded to Sam's touch. The intensity of it made Sam shiver all over.

Dean got into the shower and helped Sam stand beside him. He turned on the water, and pulled Sam into his arms under the spray.

"No more fucking stupid rules, not Dad's, not anybody's." Dean put his hands on Sam's face so he could look into Sam's eyes. "Yeah?"

It felt like chains falling away, Sam going a hundred pounds lighter. He smiled, and Dean kissed it.

"No rules, Sammy. Just us. Whatever we want. Whatever we want to be."

"Together." That was Sam's new first principle. No more running. No more hiding. Just being exactly who he really was: a man who loved his brother without limits, nobody's limits anymore.

Dean grinned, and Sam gasped because it almost hurt.

(break)

Dean gently washed away the crusted blood from Sam's hair and face, wanting nothing more than this tenderness. But Sam crowded against him, pushing his thigh between Dean's legs. Dean rubbed himself on the soft, wet hairs and the flexing muscle. He reached down, encircled Sam. In a haze of hot water and gasps, Dean moved his hips and his wrist in perfectly matched rhythm. Sam's hands crushed his shoulders. He pushed his mouth onto Dean's, and he shuddered uncontrollably. Dean fell right behind him, orgasm tearing him apart so wide he could engulf Sammy completely, mix their bones and muscles so they would always be touching.

Sam's head lolled against his. "I didn't think I could do that right now."

"My big bad motherfucker."

Sam huffed. "Big bad brotherfucker."

Dean lit up like the sun, laughing, delighted at the rawness, the realness. He felt himself, impossibly, start to get hard again. "Sammy, what you do to me."

"Just starting. You wait."

An empty threat: Sam leaned against him, boneless and heavy. Dean got them out from under the water, spray starting to go cold. He toweled them both dry, Sam humming with sleepy contentment. Dean held him steady, watching the easy happiness spread over Sam's face. It was that same baby-Sam joy, no inhibitions, pure delight, and Dean kissed him like he wanted to eat him, get Sam inside him, somehow close enough finally.

Sam pulled away, whispering, "Whoa man, too much." His eyes, opened to slits, looked dazed.

Dean forced his hands to gentle, stroke Sam's hair like he wasn't turning into a wild thing. "Too much is what I want."

Sam's eyes came all the way open, dark and feral. "Yes. Everything and more. Dean."

"Sammy."

They wobbled and tripped over each other on the way to the bed, landing in a heap, Dean on top. Sam hissed and Dean remembered all the bruises and the welts he'd seen in the shower. Sam grabbed him and arranged him just how he wanted, Sam's head tucked against Dean's shoulder, his arm and leg thrown across Dean's body.

"Yeah." Sam breathed the word out on a sigh.

Never had Dean thought how wonderful it would feel to be trapped under Sam's muscles, his weight and his warmth.

"When I wake up," Sam said. He sank his teeth into the meat of Dean's shoulder.

Dean nestled his hips closer, so that their cocks were touching. "Whatever we want, Sammy. No world, no dad, no angels, no demons. Not anymore."

"Our rules." Sam bit him again, harder, and Dean's cock twitched. Sam laughed to feel it.

Dean held Sam close, feeling his brother relax into sleep. Wondering how he'd survived without it for so long.

The room suddenly filled with a wash of red, light from dozens of blinking red eyes. "Ain't gonna be easy, boy," Bobby's voice said. "It's gonna hurt sometimes. Hurt a lot."

Dean grinned into the darkness, feeling a thousand feet tall. Sam in his arms, he was a superhero. He was Batman and more. "Fuck you. Bring it."

END