The demon hissed at the two hunters as they stood in front of him. The Winchesters stubbornly held their ground during the stand off. Dean's sweaty palm made the gun hard to grasp and Sam could feel his sweat making his shirt stick to his muscular back.
"Here's the deal, boys." The woman with ink black eyes purred and flicked her curled blonde hair over her shoulder. "One of you will leave alive."
Dean raised a challenging eyebrow with a snarl, "The only way you're leaving here, bitch, is dead."
"Oh please. As if you two could do any harm to me." She hissed.
Sam glanced around the empty room of the warehouse in an attempt to find some form of exit. A dark emergency exit door was on the wall that stood behind the demon so she efficiently blocked of their only way out.
Sam frowned as he processed her threat, "What do you mean, only one of us will leave?"
The demon laughed and threw her head back. She gave Sam a sympathetic look as though he was stupid, "One of you will leave. The one left behind will be killed."
She smiled innocently at the two men that were beginning to shift uncomfortably. Dean's eyes shot across to his baby brother protectively. Sam was doing the same to his elder brother. They shared a brief worried look before peering back at the demon wearing the pretty girl.
She noticed Dean's eyes scanning the outside of the building, just like Sam's had only moments before. A firm scowl formed on her pale face.
"No point trying to weasel out of it… You two are in trouble, you two filth bags." She sang.
She looked into Sam's eyes and they seemed to share a thought. Dean was about to question it when Sam spoke out to the demon. His voice was soft as all defensiveness and aggression had seemed to leave the tall man. The elder brother's frown deepened creating small creases between his brows.
"How long do we have?" Sam steeled his features.
"10 minutes." She laughed.
"Only one of us leaves?"
She nodded and her blonde curls bounced around her face. Smile lines appeared around her bright smile.
"…Okay." Dean could practically hear the cogs spinning in Sam's head. The taller man's brow furrowed slightly as his mind raced through every piece of information that he had ever collected about demons and deals.
"Sam?" Dean asked, tension clear in his voice.
Sam turned his body to face his brother but kept his eyes on the demon. Dean took this as a sign to talk.
They shared a look that spoke more than words before Dean gave a minuscule nod. Sam suddenly turned his body. He wrenched Ruby's knife from the back of his waistband and threw it towards the demon. It flipped through the air as it barrelled towards her chest. She barely had time to blink before the blade pierced through her thin t-shirt and into her chest. The demon jolted and light flashed through her body like lightening as she began to fall. The body collapsed into the floor in a heap with the knife still lodged in her chest. Sam couldn't help but feel bad for the girl that had been possessed.
"… Well," The boys peered at the body, "That was easier than expected." Dean let his shoulder relax but he remained suspicious of the situation.
Sam hesitantly shuffled closer to the body just to check if it was moving. He bent down and pulled the blade from her chest and wiped the blood down his jeans. He glanced up at the door, their only exit, to see blood, sam assumed from a virgin, above the frame. The hunter's face fell in realisation. He recognised the dry markings that had been painted there; he knew what they meant. He'd read about those markings in depth from a book that he'd found in Bobby's collection of books.
Sam peered at his brother to check if he had noticed the markings. He sighed in relief to see that the elder man hadn't.
"Hey… Could you just go and grab my duffle?" Dean raised an unimpressed eyebrow, "I just wanna check something from dad's journal."
Dean could never say no to his brother's puppy eyes. With a quiet sigh he began to walk towards the small exit. He glanced back at his brother who gave him a sad smile. It made Dean frown in confusion and slow in his step.
"Here, take this." Sam chucked Ruby's knife. Dean caught it with practiced ease before opening the door.
The elder hunter stepped out and had barely walked a meter before a loud explosion set off behind him. Instinctively, Dean leapt forward onto the floor as his arms wrapped around his head and neck. The heat from the explosion inside the building hit the Winchester's back. His cheek scratched across the Tarmac as he fell.
As soon as the initial shock wore off, Dean flipped over and peered up at the burning building.
"SAMMY?!" The hunter cried as he hauled himself onto unsteady feet. "SAMMY!"
He ran towards the door but had to jump back as flames licked out of the building. The heat encompassed him making him sweat almost instantly. He went to step into the flames again but the fire roared, getting bigger almost as if it were stopping him. He realised that it was actually a possibility since it had been started by a demon.
"SAM!" The cry ripped from his throat as he fell to his knees. Sobs ripped through his chest as he stared up at the burning building. There was no possibility for anything that was in the building to now be alive, "Sammy!" The shouting died down as his throat burned.
The sobbing continued until the fire brigade arrived. People crowded around to see the fire and watch the commotion. Dean ignored them as he knelt on the cold road and sobbed. After a few moments, a fireman helped him to his feet and led him away from the fire.
The next few hours passed in a blur. He couldn't remember what questions were asked or what answers he gave. He just hoped that he'd used the alias that was printed on the fake ID in his pocket.
/
Dean savoured the burn as the whiskey slid down his throat. The burn had dulled as he consumed more and more of the golden-brown liquid as the night drew on. He swirled it around the glass, watching it slosh, before tipping his head back and swallowing the remaining down.
He glanced around his empty motel room and sighed. He wondered why he even bothered using a glass when he was alone; there was no one to give him unimpressed looks for drinking from the bottle but he knew that Sam would have scolded him so continued using the glass.
"He knew." The English voice filled the previously silent room making the hunter jump.
Dean turned quickly to see who had created the unwelcome noise. He was more accustomed to the stagnant silence. Crowley held something between a soft smile and smirk on his lips but sympathy was in his eyes. Dean did not want his sympathy.
"What?" He hissed at the King of Hell.
"He knew." Crowley peered around the room in distaste.
"Yeah, I'm drunk not deaf. What do you mean by 'he knew'?" Dean studied the demon carefully but with an air of distrust.
"Sam knew that the building was going to blow up when you left." Crowley put on a look of boredom that perfectly suit his features.
The hunter puffed out a guff of air in a pathetic excuse for a laugh. His eyes were tired and bloodshot; he'd been struggling to sleep since Sam had gone. He could feel the tension coiled in his shoulders.
"No he didn't. He killed the demon so thought that it'd be over, like me." Dean pawned off the excuse that he had been using constantly over the last few months.
Crowley laughed and scowled at the hunter, "No. I spoke with him myself. He did it to spare you."
Dean blinked at the demon in shock. He'd been desperately trying to ignore the truth. It had crossed his mind more than once that maybe Sam had known. Each time it had occurred to him he had ended the thought by winding up blindingly drunk.
Crowley shot a smirk at the drunk hunter before vanishing from the dank motel room leaving the man alone with just a almost empty bottle of whiskey for company.
He blinked down at the table top as his vision misted up as tears threatened to spill over. The words printed on his bottle label blurred. A single tear dripped down his cheek as he bit onto his lower lip in a feeble attempt to stop himself sobbing.
The silence of the motel room made his next mumbled words seem like a shout into the quiet.
"Sammy," He dragged dry air down his throat as sobs broke through, "No, Sammy."