For Each

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Square Flea

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Author's Note: For the second round of The SFTCOL(AR)S Summer Fic Exchange, I got tyranusfan, who suggested a fic post-FPB, but the boys never get out of prison. I hope he likes it.

So, this is going AU after FPB; the boys never escaped from prison. They've both been sentenced and sent to different prisons. This takes place around the time of AHBL.

Warnings: Dark material (eventually). Gratuitous use of creative license.

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. Or Sam and Dean. I don't even really own the prompt.

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Chapter one:

Was it the narrow way that I wended?

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"What'd he get?"

Dean Winchester refused to look up from the table. He'd had enough of this, of the visits, of the pitying looks.

"Life," that lawyer chick, Mara Something, replied from across the table, and he could hear the rustle of her papers being moved around, "He got life. No parole."

Oh, Sammy…

"But Dean—"

"Where is he?" he asked, still not looking up from that little burr in the wood he'd noticed during Mara's first visit, when Sam was sitting across from him instead of this pretty blonde thing.

She sighed, "Not here. Not after that stupid stunt you pulled. Dean, we need to talk about this. Stop avoiding it."

Sam, I'm sorry.

"They're gonna kill me," he said, "They're gonna stick a needle in my arm and watch me die. And Sam is—" he broke off, then lifted his head to glare at her, "Please, tell me what we need to talk about."

"We can appeal," she pleaded, "We can keep appealing. This isn't happening any time soon, Dean. There's hope."

Hope. He was spending every day in a cramped little cell in the middle of Missouri, waiting to be put down like a dog, and Sam was probably miles away, maybe still in Wisconsin, maybe in freakin' China. There wasn't going to be any spectacular rescue, not for either of them. They were going to spend the rest of their lives behind solid metal bars until they died.

The demon had won.

There was nothing else to talk about.

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It was two days before Dean saw Mara again, and the moment he did, he knew something was wrong. She had this sympathetic, half-frightened look on her face when he entered the small interrogation room, and she was tapping the table nervously with her pen. He'd seen many emotions on his woman, not all of them good, or pleasant; but fear? That was a first. Something was happening.

Hendrickson was with her, standing behind her chair, arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

Something was wrong. Horribly wrong.

"What'd I do?" he asked as he sat across from her, glancing at the FBI agent, "'Cause it's kinda hard to commit felonies in a cell."

"Hard, not impossible," Hendrickson spat back. Mara glared at him, then turned back to Dean.

"I need you to tell me," she said to him, "Have you been in contact at all with Sam?"

At the mention of his brother, Dean's whole body snapped rigid, chest tightening.

"What happened?" he demanded, "Is he hurt?"

"Dean, just tell me," she pleaded, "Have you heard from him? Anything about him?"

"No," Dean replied, "You know I haven't. What the hell happened?"

"There was an...incident at the prison Sam was being held at," she answered, quietly.

"An 'incident'?" Hendrickson scoffed, "A whole fucking prison was murdered last night , and it's 'an incident'."

"Murdered?"

The agent glared at Dean, eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Murdered," he confirmed, "And guess who's missing."

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Light. It was the first thing Sam saw when he came to; above him, around him, blinding.

He was on his back. There was a dull pounding in the back of his head, and when he moved his fingers, he felt rocks and dirt. He was outside. He opened his eyes slowly, letting them adjust to not being in a small dark place (if, in fact, he'd actually been in one--these days, he never knew).

There were buildings around him; old buildings that looked like they hadn't seen intelligent life in decades, their windows mostly knocked out, walls made of wood that seemed to be crumbling away. The ground he was lying on was dirt--dry and dusty--and as he looked closer at it, he thought he could see imprints of horseshoes. He was strongly reminded of a time, years ago, when his father would go on hunts that lasted for days and were far too dangerous for his two little boys, when the television would be left on late enough to play those old western movies. The brothers would curl up on the couch--Sam pretending to sleep, Dean pretending he wasn't anxiously waiting for their father to walk through the door and tell them to get their asses to bed.

Dean.

His brother was locked in a cell somewhere, waiting to be killed. Sam wasn't.

All he had to do was figure out where he was, and where Dean was, and how to break him out of a high-security prison. Death row, no less.

But Sam recognized an opportunity when he saw one. He wouldn't let this one go. He couldn't let it go. He couldn't let Dean go.

He stood, legs just a little shaky, and looked around.

First, he had to move. Then he could plan.

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TBC