AN: Hey guys. I know it's been a while, over a month! School started back up, and this semester is a workshop semester; I have to produce actual pages of prose and apparently they want it to be like… good. I've been spending my creative currency in that venue lately. But! Without further delay, here's episode five!

Episode Five
"Time is Gonna Come"
Chapter One

THEN

"We got good news yesterday, in case you forgot. Your little brother doesn't have to die to close the gates. We figure out what his greatest sacrifice is, close the gates, he gets better, no one dies. But you're what, sad because for like an hour he didn't love you?"

...

A thump of something onto his bed, the zip of his backpack or duffel, rummaging, and then a lid was being screwed off of something and Dean opened his eyes a slit to see Sam with his back to him, arm up as he downed a shot of something, and-

...

"Who are the others?"

Who are the others... in Sam's head? Lucifer, and Cas maybe. Along with Sam. And now John Dee. Clearly it was too much for Sam's noggin, because blood came trickling down from his nose in a sudden thick dark stripe and Dean's heart seized up.

"You must discover their true names. The Wise Men. The doers of Good and Evil. You must. You are on the path." Sam's face actually showed an emotion then, as the ghost of John Dee beseeched Dean to pursue whatever his own unfinished business was that kept him tied to earth.

...

Death shrugs, smiles at him like a grandfather. "It means, short of letting him die, Sam's already living his best case scenario, and that's with you, broken head and all. He's the Job of his generation, Dean. He's lucky to have you. As I recall, Job had no one by the end."

NOW

"You know, I hauled that big-ass desk upstairs for a reason."

Sam didn't even look up from the notepad he was scribbling in, at the conference table in the war room. "I'm fine, Dean."

Dean swigged from his bottle, stayed put in the doorway from the kitchen. He watched Sam tap at his laptop, write another thing down. Kid had been working non-stop in the week since the surprise birthday thing, he seemed better, ish. No need, Dean thought, to bring up the whole Abaddon thing. Not yet. Not when Sam was just starting to feel better. Yeah. Give him another nice full week of feeling good before dropping that bomb, if it even needed to be dropped.

Because the answer to Abaddon's little offer was no. Always no. In fact, it did not bear thinking about.

"Where're the kids?"

Sam frowned into space. "Uh... Kevin's out getting groceries with Crowley. Cas is... I think he's with that angel lady, actually."

Dean's brows went up in surprise, as much at the prophet and demon palling around as he was at Cas' bull by the horns approach to human sex-ed. "I hope you gave Cas the birds and bees, dude."

"I thought you did that on your wild, wacky trip to the friendly neighborhood brothel."

Whoa, with the hostility. But then again, he'd spent that whole trip laughing at Cas' antics and making light of how long it'd been since he'd had fun with Sam, while Sam had apparently been dream-tripping Lucifer, working in a bar somewhere. Kid was probably jealous. And of course, that moment was sorta permanently carved into his memory, Sam saying he'd go off on his own, get straight, so serious, and looking back it was clear that it had been a test, a test Dean had failed; Sam had wanted him to fight, Sam had wanted Dean to tell him he didn't want him to go.

And the problem was that, at the time, Dean had been so pissed and disappointed, he hadn't even cared. He saw it was a test even then, and he just hadn't had the energy. Hoo boy, okay. Subject change.

"Kevin and Crowley, huh?"

Sam shrugged. "Kevin's a good kid, Dean. He isn't like us."

"What, like he's not jaded like us? He hasn't been completely screwed over a thousand times, like us?"

Sam's face was unreadable for a moment, then he sighed and went back to his notebook. "Yeah, something like that."

"What's that supposed to mean?" And he hadn't meant it to sound so accusatory, but he saw the set of Sam's shoulders stiffen up and well, fuck, fine.

"Nothing. Listen, we got a call. I think we have a case."

"A case? You just got out of that sling like yesterday."

"Which means I'm good to go," Sam said.

"Then we can investigate the men from the Federal BI?" Cas said, coming in from the library.

"The... What?" Sam said.

"Jesus, Cas."

"The F is for 'federal'," Cas informed Sam. He took a seat at the conference table and looked at Dean. "The F is for 'federal.'"

"Uh," Sam said, and he nearly looked like he was about to laugh, so you know, little victories. "Yeah, we know. Listen-"

"They took you, Sam. And you." Cas looked at Dean but it was brief, turned his attention back to Sam. Yeah, Cas didn't spare much more than a glance his way anymore, and while yeah, okay, Dean was more or less pissed at him for virtually everything he'd ever done, the last thing he wanted was this intense OCD angel-focus on his little brother.

"Cas, we looked into this, man," Dean said. "We couldn't find anyone in town who fit your description-"

"But we did get nailed in wherever, on the way to Boston," Sam said. "And Feds took our files, and broke into my computer, and there were all those cops waiting for us at the mausoleum."

"Death said Enoch had protection. Maybe that's all it was," Dean said.

"Enoch had government protection?"

Dean shrugged.

"Okay... then why did they let us go so easily?" Sam shifted. "I don't - really remember that much."

"No shit," Dean said. "You were uh... pretty out of it." Sam looked at him, expectant. "Look, I told you, dude. They let me sweat for a few hours, then the Fed came and asked me some questions, then they took me to you, and we got out of there."

"That reminds me. We have the key, right?" Sam asked.

"Y...eah? Why?"

"Because Death wanted Enoch for a reason, and I want to figure out what my life cost us, or the world, or whatever."

"Whatever it was-"

"It was worth it, sure. Whatever. But we should probably try to figure out what's coming."

"Why does something have to be coming?"

Sam looked at him, like seriously? and said, "Uh, because we're involved? And because nothing is free? And since when do I have to tell you that? We both know what it means to make a deal, man. You made this deal with Death, and we need to deal with the fallout. I, for one, would like a heads-up this time."

"Okay, okay, sheesh."

Cas nodded. "So the Federal-"

"FBI, Cas. Just FBI, okay?" Dean said. "And yeah, fine, whatever. But we can't exactly investigate them, can we. We'll have to just be on the look out. And we will, okay?" Dean caught Cas' eye, waited for him to nod. "Hey, I thought you were hanging out with that angel chick-"

"Lethaniel. We were... 'hanging out.' Yes, that's accurate."

"Uh..."

Dean looked at Sam, saw the flush creeping up his neck, grinned. "You mean you were hanging out. Right?"

"Uh... yes. For a moment."

"Oh my god," Sam groaned.

"And then I was not-"

"Oh my god." Sam put his head down on the table, buried his face in his arms.

Cas looked at him in alarm. "Are you all right, Sam?"

Dean laughed. "I'm glad someone is getting some on the regular."

"Yes, it has been very regular. My vessel- er, body - appears to be able to engage in copulation approximately once every three hours or so. Lethaniel's vessel may engage in copulation whenever she desires it." He tilted his head in thought. "It seems unfair. It is very different from angel intercourse."

Dean raised a brow. "I thought you didn't knock boots."

"I said I hadn't had occasion. It does happen."

"Guys. We have a case-" Sam said.

"Sure you're up for that?"

Sam didn't look up, but his tone was stern. "Yes. Unless you don't want to work for some reason."

Dean frowned. He hadn't actually thought about it much, beyond a fleeting thought that maybe Sam had wanted to hunt, which he clearly did. And yeah, okay, maybe a part of him, a large part, wanted to get his machete sunk deep into some fugly's neck, sure. But another part of him couldn't help but picture Sam chained up in a dungeon, and the pumping adrenaline, and the singing in his muscles, and the memory carved into his bones, the satisfaction, the pleasure of creating pain-

But uh.

"Course I wanna hunt," he said. Drank his beer. Needed something stronger. "I'm just-"

"Worried about me. Nothing changes." Sam rolled his eyes and looked so exasperated and refocused on his laptop like the petulant little brother and Dean grinned, okay, just a little.

"Damn right, it doesn't. So what do we got?"

"Came in on the landline - we still don't know how that number got out, huh?"

Dean shrugged. "When Henry tried to make a call on my cell phone, he asked for the operator."

Sam chewed on a lip, in thought. "So someone updated the system after Henry vanished-"

"But everyone died."

"Except Larry."

"Blind Larry took the time to update the bunker's telephone lines after everyone was dead?"

Sam shrugged. They were quiet a moment.

"Anyway," Sam said. "The call came in-" He thumbed at the phone on the wall over by the massive ancient communications station. "A girl named Erica, says she found her brother wandering the streets, missing his memory."

Dean lifted a brow, drank. "What's supernatural about that?"

"Doctors can't find anything medically wrong with him, Erica says he's been steadily losing more. Kid says someone 'took' his memories."

"Kids say the darnedest things," Dean said. He shook his head. Sam was literally a day out of that sling, probably too early considering what the doctor had said - taking Sam into town had been a trick, yeah, but the doc had been real, had said some stuff about how poorly Sam was healing not just the shoulder, but the black eye, the brittle bone, the hairline fracture, the flutter he heard in Sam's heart, and maybe the worst thing was how absent Sam had been the whole time, following simple instructions but completely checked out of the whole thing. Sam had no idea how beat up he really was.

"I don't know, Sammy-"

"She's desperate, Dean. She offered to pay us. It's two hours away. We need to check this out."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Fine. I guess I can get behind someone worried about her little brother. God knows I know what that's like."

Sam knit his brows and gave him this look. "He's her older brother, Dean. You guys don't have the monopoly on desperate, okay?"

"Okay, sheesh." Dean blew out a breath, but Amelia's words rang around in his head: so he's been fighting back? and he just had to take Sam's bitchfest as a good sign. "So how'd we get on her radar?"

"Said her uncle told her we could help. I never heard of the guy. Russell Etole ring a bell to you?"

Dean shook his head. "Not even a little. Okay, we're burning daylight. If we leave now, we can get a room and start right and early in the am. Get your stuff together, you can fill me in on the rest in the car."

"Thanks, Kevin. I'll let you know if I find anything." Sam hung up the phone and sighed at the road, twenty minutes now out of Beatrice, Nebraska. He didn't drive anymore. Once upon a time, they had taken turns, but now there was too much risk that he'd have a dizzy spell and run them into a tree.

So why was he rushing them into a hunt?

Sam glanced over at Dean, saw him smiling there, singing softly to the music, tapping on his steering wheel. He pressed the gas, and maybe it was the trials power singing in Sam's blood, but he thought he could feel the rush of the road traveling from the rumbling engine up into Dean's foot, his leg, his body, energizing him.

Dean needed the road. Why the hunt? For the look on Dean's face, for the tapping of his fingers on the steering wheel, for that old carefree Dean who never deserved a weight like Sam around his neck. Despite the ache, Sam smiled a little.

"What?"

Sam blinked, cleared his throat. "Uh, Kevin says they're working on a sort of spiritual prophylactic-"

"Ghost condom?"

"Uh, basically. I told him the basic area of the archives to look in, and I've got some of my notes here. It's been done before, but this case is a little special. We need the spirit to have some power, or else the key won't be able to light up the photographs. But we have to protect Kevin from possession. And we know tattoos won't work."

"And why is that again?"

Sam got the distinct impression that Dean didn't care so much as he was just trying to engage Sam in conversation he thought Sam would enjoy. Fine. Sam would bite. He watched the lights of the small town approach them against the black starry sky.

"Demons and angels, stuff we can ward against - they aren't human. Okay, demons started out that way, but they are physically and spiritually different from humans. Our souls are- different."

"Different enough that it took an eight hour blood ritual to get Crowley even as close to human as he is now."

Sam nodded, shrugged off the lingering sting of failure. "But ghosts are just manifestations of human souls. It's a thousand times more difficult to protect against them, because our bodies are their natural hosts. Usually it doesn't matter; it takes a lot of energy for a ghost to possess someone, usually on the order of a vengeful spirit kind of manifestation-"

"Okay. Glad I asked."

"If you didn't want to know-"

"How do you even know all this?"

"It's all ghost physics, basically."

"Right," Dean said. He pulled the car into a parking lot and scanned the sparse population of cars. "Okay, we're here. Why don't you go get us a room, and I'll unload the trunk-"

"I can unload the trunk, Dean."

Dean turned to him, that look on his face. "Don't get pissy with me, dude. I know you can. This isn't about that."

"Well then what's it about, Dean?"

Dean stared at him, then laughed just once. He put the car into park and said, as they got out, "I'm trying to be nice to you, Sam- Don't give me that face. I'm not saying I'm being a nice guy by not rubbing your face in crap. I'm saying, I'm trying to ... to help you. But if you wanna be a little bitch about it-"

"Help me?"

Dean looked at Sam over the roof of the car like they were a completely different pair of brothers, brothers who'd never called each other weak or unreliable or untrustworthy or undeserving. Like he was shocked Sam might have some trouble believing him.

"Yeah, dude. Maybe you missed it, but you just got over a serious case of the crazies, and you've still got the Flu from hell. Er, heaven. Whatever. I know you can unload the car, dude. You think I'd even let you near a hunt otherwise?"

"Wait, let me-?"

Dean shook his head, put his hands up in surrender. "Fine. Whatever. I'm just trying to help you. Carry whatever you want."

Sam leaned against the car. And even though his blood boiled at the insinuation that he needed Dean's permission, that Dean would condescend to help him- he had to admit that even the argument had taken his breath from him. "Dean, wait."

Dean rustled around in the trunk, cursing under his breath. Probably looking for their most reliable IDs and the least battered credit card. Or just making a show of being pissed. Whatever. Sam took a step. "Dean, man-" And cascaded into a coughing fit that had him grabbing the backdoor handle for support.

A moment later, Dean's boots entered his field of vision, Dean's warm heavy hand on his back - a balm, it had always been a balm, if only Dean had known how the coughing stopped as soon as his hand was on Sam's back, Sam thought Dean might never have let him go - Sam caught his breath and stood back up, leaned against the car.

"I got this stuff," Dean said, but his eyes were hard, glittered in the streetlights. He shoved Sam's bag at him. "You can get us a room and carry your own shit." And he was stomping back round to the trunk to load up his arms.

Sam blew out a breath. Shouldered his bag, headed with the credit card and matching ID to the front office and it occurred to him about halfway across the parking lot that his bag was a lot lighter, that the can of salt had been removed, that his box of shells didn't sit heavy in the bottom, that there were no bony spines of books jutting from anywhere, and at first the anger came hot and he whirled to storm back over to Dean and tell him not to touch his stuff, tell him that he could be trusted with a gun, but the world spun, just a little. Not enough to tilt him over. Just enough to remind him.

That this pack was his and he was carrying it, but he didn't have to carry everything, even if it belonged to him in the end. That Dean hadn't taken his only means of defense, and what he had taken, he'd just borrowed for a while, so that Sam didn't have to carry more than he had to. That when it came down to it, Dean was always going to at least try to take on whatever of Sam's he could.

That he knew better, okay, that accepting help didn't mean you were weak. Hadn't he told Dean that a million times?

He met Dean at the room and slid the keycard into the door. Dean had everything except Sam's lightened load, and Sam found that he was grateful.

Dean clapped him on the shoulder on his way to the bathroom. It hurt, a good kind of hurt, a robust, you can take this kind of hurt. Dean must have seen him smiling. "Done being a little bitch?" he said, and Sam rolled his eyes.

He woke up to Dean shaking him. Swallowed tang out of his mouth, washed a hand over his face, jaw, blinked into the light.

"Get up and get ready for bed, Goliath. It's too soon to sleep in your clothes. We haven't even killed anything yet."

"Was I - Did I-?" Dean was looking at him like he was trying to translate Sam into English. Sam started again. "I wasn't dreaming?"

Dean raised a brow, came over to him as he rubbed a towel through his hair, looked concerned. "No, why? I mean, were you?"

Sam searched his memory. He felt light. He felt like nothing. He raised his brows back at Dean, surprised. "No. I guess I wasn't."

"I take it from your amazement we're calling that a good thing?"

Sam breathed a laugh. "Yeah. A really good thing."

Dean nodded. "Good. Oh, Kevin called. Says he's got a lead on your ghostly rubber, but you need to sort through some stuff to ... blah blah blah. Call him back yadda yadda."

Sam sat up blinking, nodding. "Yeah, yeah I will." He yawned. Dean hit him in the face with a dry towel. "Thanks."

"I'll order grub. Triple deep fried beef burger with extra bacon, right?"

"Gross, Dean." Dean laughed and perused the take-out menu, and before Sam closed the door to the bathroom, he said, "Dean, you know 'prophylactic' just means protection from-"

Dean looked up. The warm smile stopped Sam from finishing his thought. Dean winked. "I know what it means, Sammy."

Tuesdays had become movie nights. None of them had jobs, which was a perk, Kevin guessed, for having no friends and no life.

But movie nights weren't a perk, not anymore. Not now that Cas was snuggled with Lethaniel on the big couch and Crowley was glaring daggers, muttering about vultures and other bird-related things. And Kevin couldn't even focus on the movie - The Big Lebowski, which he'd never seen but had been told it was a classic - because he was constantly trying to work out a ritual in his head for a ghost shield. It was almost like math - actually, it was really like math, because math had been like a second language to him once upon a time when things like that had mattered. But now, tablets and codes were like a second language to him, and he was working out that math in his head even as Jeff Daniels or Bridges or whoever that was walked around in a bathrobe sounding totally stoned.

He needed help. He pulled out his phone and wrote a text.

You got a sex?

A moment later, his phone pinged and he laughed out loud and texted back: AUTOCORRECT Jeez. But yeah, I need help with a spell.

Charlie was cool. Kevin had talked with her a little at Sam's party. She was into some of the same stuff he was, and she was gay, so he didn't have to try to flirt or anything, but he could still notice that her hair smelled nice, and that was... nice. She understood his videogame references and he understood her tv show references, exchanges he couldn't hope to have with Sam or Dean.

Well, maybe Sam, but that he didn't seem to have any interest in that kind of small talk. Everything was "big talk" for Sam, or more often "no talk," and Kevin wondered if it had always been that way, or if it had changed after he'd gone to hell, or if it had changed with the trials, or-

A ping. Charlie's leet speak sounded excited to be doing magic.

He texted her a couple of questions, trusted her google-fu where his own eyes were overtired. She told him how the movie ended when he questioned the accuracy of her "precious stones" research. But wiki wasn't a good source, okay, even if she had followed up on the footnoted references.

By the time he was telling her she'd remembered the end of the movie wrong, they'd figured out a basic idea for something that might protect him from getting possessed by the ghost of John Dee, and by the time he'd figured out that she'd trolled him about the ending just to mess with him, they'd worked out some latin. The rest, he'd have to work out himself, or check with Sam.

"Movie's over, munchkin. You can stop diddling your doodle." Crowley eyebrowed suggestively at Kevin's hands in his lap.

Kevin rolled his eyes hard and pulled his phone up. "I'm texting."

"Sure. Hey what's your number, pet? I want to be able to send you naughty selfies."

"Screw off, Crowley," Kevin said, but it was without heat. They'd been shopping together, and there was something about that ordinary task that had kind of shelved a lot of Kevin's crap. Basically, if he thought of Crowley as something entirely different from old-Crowley, it was much easier to not want to murder him in steaming bloodrage every five seconds.

Another ping. He read the text. "No way."

"What."

"Apparently there are these books?"

"Oh. Oh." The look on Crowley's face was rapturous. "Yes. Indeed there are. Come my little dumpling-"

"Are they really about everything they did for like five years?"

"Oh yes, all the gritty nitty-"

"Uh. That's. Creepy. I'm not reading that." He looked at the phone. Texted Charlie back.

Maybe I'll check them out. But I'm not really into that kind of stuff, so. And I have to live here.

She pinged back that it was his loss, and she gave him a kind of creepy vibe and asked him for details about what Cas and Lethaniel looked like on the couch and okay, he couldn't be choosey with his friends, and she was super nice and interesting, so. He texted her a brief goodbye, claiming he needed to call Sam with what they'd figured out. Not even a lie.

Sam got out of the shower and wanted to face-plant, but he overheard Dean talking and stopped at the door. Dean stopped, there was a moment. Sam turned on the water in the sink and waited, and Dean went on, apparently satisfied that Sam was still primping in the bathroom.

"Uh huh. About how often?" he was saying. A long pause, and Dean said, "Dude, you know that's not normal, right?" and Sam realized he was on the phone. "Just because, Cas- No. Aw man no I don't wanna talk about that-"

Yeah. Okay. No more hiding in the bathroom like a coward. Sam opened the door and came out in a towel, rubbing another one through his hair. "Talk about what?"

"Nothing."

"Uh huh." He watched Dean, stood there and dripped on the floor and watched him, because if Dean was going to do this song and dance about Sam having to keep on living, if he expected Sam to figure out how to do that, he was going to damned well do it on his own terms.

Dean rolled his eyes, went to the table to set the phone down, hit the speaker. "Cas, I got Sammy here. We need to all have a little chat."

"Is this about the drinking?"

"Yeah, kinda. Listen." Dean took and blew out a breath. "Cards on the table here."

Sam lifted a brow in concern, question, because cards on the table? Meant one or the other shoe was about to drop.

Dean grinned at him; Sam recognized it as his play it off, no one knows nothin' face. "Call it sympathy chick flick pains. You're in therapy, I'm in therapy." He turned a shit-eating grin to the phone and said, "It's called solidarity."

Sam sighed. "I'm not 'in therapy,' Dean. It's just..." He shrugged. "Medicine. I'm not interested in talking. Not to her." He still wasn't sure whether he missed Amelia or her hair or her body or her smile or whether he was glad she was gone or upset that he had to see her again in a few weeks, or-

"Fine. Whatever. But listen, I just want to check something. Back when Zachariah was messing with us, you know, you'd gone off to work in some bar or something. Right before we met back up-"

"We were visiting a brothel," Cas supplied helpfully.

"Yeah, I remember," Sam said. He turned away toward his bed, toward his duffel, he put a hand out to steady himself on the mattress. He remembered. And now he thought he knew what had triggered this little attempt at an emotional full monty from Dean. They'd just been talking about this, about Dean and Cas' little happy funtime, Dean letting Sam go without so much as a let's talk about this. And while they'd been off reenacting the 4,000 Year Old Virgin, Sam had been finding out about Lucifer and forced to drink demon blood and there'd been a girl who might have liked him before she found out he was a monster - but Dean didn't know those last parts, and he had no idea what Dean was getting at, bringing that whole crapfest up again. "What about it?" He busied himself with sorting through for a shirt.

"Zachariah showed me the future."

Sam shrugged, pulled a clean v-neck over his head. "So? We've changed whatever it was."

"Dean, Zachariah would have shown you anything in order to-"

"I know, I know. He's a real dick. But I just have to check, okay? The future he showed me, it's only like a year away. And you were human, Cas. And you were acting... really human."

"I was engaging in intercourse, you mean."

"Full on orgies, dude."

"I don't believe I would engage in orgies, Dean."

"Yeah, and regular human dudes don't do it every three hours, either."

"Where was I in this future?" Sam asked.

"Man, Zach would have showed me anything, like Cas said-"

"Dean. Where was I?"

Sam knew - the look on Dean's face, and he knew. Zachariah had showed Dean a future in which Sam said yes to Lucifer, and Dean must have caught the moment Sam figured it out, because he didn't try to sugar-coat it, which was kind of a relief.

"He gotcha man. In that timeline, he'd been wearing you for a few years, and the city was a wreck - the world was a wreck, and - I hadn't found you again after we split up back then-"

"That's why you agreed to meet back up with me," Sam realized. He turned toward his duffel, turned his back on Dean, so he could hide the sting of the realization. How stupid could he be? Dean, choosing out of the blue to meet back up with him? Of course it was all about Dean trying to stop him from doing something terrible. Of course it hadn't been about something so trivial as missing him or loving him. Sam felt sick, stupid.

"Listen, dude," Dean said. "He was messing with me, okay? Zach tried to drive us apart by showing me a future where I didn't say yes to Michael and the world burned. But you gotta know that all I heard was, 'you belong with your brother.'"

Sam nodded, but didn't look up. Dean was good at the little speeches. In the church, in Boston, in Sam's bedroom. But it didn't mean anything other than I was cursed with you as a brother, and I'm dedicated to that hopeless, pointless task of keeping you alive. "Right, well. You never did learn what anyone tried to teach you."

Dean frowned at him. Whatever, Dean.

"If you're worried that that could still happen," Cas said, "I can assure you I will engage in no orgies."

Dean chuckled briefly. "I don't think that's the linchpin in this mess, Cas, but thanks for the sacrifice play."

Cas was right, Sam realized, and that meant - "You're worried Lucifer could get free." He looked up at Dean, could almost see the ghost of Lucifer carving away Dean's face from his skull.

Dean's voice when he spoke again was soft, that soft growl of concern. "But it's not possible, right? Cas?"

"There are many Seals remaining. Only sixty-six of them were required to open the cage. But the final Seal is already broken and cannot be broken again."

"Lilith wouldn't be the first person to come back to life," Dean said.

"Who would bring her back?" Cas asked. "We are all here because God wanted it. I'm certain of that."

"Lucifer said he'd just bring me back over and over again if I killed myself to escape him," Sam supplied.

"You threatened to kill yourself?" Dean said. "When was the last time you didn't want to die? Jesus-"

"What do you expect, man? Yeah, I would rather have died than say yes to him. Don't forget that I did it anyway, okay?"

"Oh, I'm not forgetting - apparently there are a lot of fates worth than death for you-"

"Dean. I'm not doing this with you right now. My point is that if Lucifer could get out using the Seals again, he'd have resurrected Lilith already and we'd have been out minutes after I jumped us in. There's no way out. I'm telling you." His hands shook and he tried to hide them by pulling his duffel over and looking for jeans, but Dean sighed heavy and Sam knew he'd failed. He felt faint. He felt the rapid thump of his heart like a parasite. He blinked hard at his bag. Because.

Dean said, "Okay, settle down. I'm just trying to make sure, Jesus."

Sam didn't reply, just kept staring at the yawning mouth of a bag which emptied into black.

"Because if he did get out," Dean said, and Sam lifted his head.

"I know." Sam blinked, heavy, eyes glassed. "I know. I've already said yes."

"No harm will come to you, Sam," Cas said. "Lucifer is shut tight in the cage, and I have been connecting Lethaniel and her company with my old command, and they will follow her lead when it comes to your safety. Do not fear. We would protect you to our deaths if it became necessary. But it won't. Become necessary."

"Uh. Thanks Cas."

"Yeah, thanks," Dean said. "Listen, I gotta go. I'll call you later."

Sam stood from his bed, dumped his duffel out and sorted through the clothing, numb. To his credit, Dean glanced up but didn't get up to help him. If he marked Sam's progress with narrowed eyes, if his knuckles went white where they gripped the arm of the chair he sat in, ready to spring into action, if those hard lines in his face suddenly reappeared after a drive in the car to a job had smoothed them out, all because Sam couldn't keep his feet under him - well. Sam was pretending those things didn't bother him, remember? He was trying to remember how not to give up. He remembered being good at that, some 200 years ago.

He fished around in his bag, giving his shaking hands something to do besides send alarms through his brother sitting there on alert. But god he was tired, and his body ached, and of course he hadn't forgotten that the trials had been a difficult business, but with Lucifer and the sleeplessness and everything, this overall general feeling of just being nothing, just dragging himself from moment to moment, this constant ache and hunger and sick and the rattle in his chest of failing lungs and starving swollen heart - it'd been overshadowed. And now it was almost worse, because it was all there was.

"Sam?"

Sam closed his eyes, realized he'd stopped sorting through his duffel, had just been standing there, swaying, and he said, "I'm fine."

"Sure you are." Dean was suddenly right beside him. Sam hadn't noticed him move. His hand on Sam's back, stopping the coughing fit before it'd even started. And Lucifer in his memory had vanished, and Dean's vision wasn't going to happen, because Lilith was already dead. And.

Dean pushed at his shoulder. Sam flopped onto his bed, one leg draped awkwardly over his duffel. He felt half-asleep already, and then he felt the duffel get yanked out from under him, and a hand on his forehead, and heard the click of a light switch and it was dark and a blanket draped over him but he was laying on a blanket so it must have been Dean's and-

Dean sighed. "G'night, Sammy."

Sam was asleep practically before Dean could get a blanket over him. Still soaking wet, wearing only a tee shirt and a damp towel, and he felt warm to the touch and his hands shook; his teeth chattered, and Dean thought he didn't even realize it. He patted Sam's chest, prodded his shoulder just a little and watched Sam's face for signs of discomfort. Sleeping Sam was a lot more open about things like that. But he only made an annoyed sound and resettled, and Dean smiled.

Sam was right. Lucifer was shut up in a cage. There was no escaping. The only two people who had ever gotten someone out of the cage - Cas and Death - were on their side.

Dean's phone rang. Cas calling him back, wanting more advice on pleasuring women - and there'd been a time Dean had been more than willing to dispense such advice, but now the knowledge that Cas was actually using it gave him the heebs. He snatched up his phone before it could ring again and potentially wake the sleeping sasquatch and said, "Cas, what-"

"Try again, sweetie," came the sultry feminine voice on the other end.

Dean reined himself in, threw a look at Sam. He was definitely out cold. Still. "What do you want," he hissed, letting himself out of the front door of the motel room. He stalked into the parking lot, some urge to get this conversation as far from Sam as possible.

"I gave you a week to make up your mind. I need an answer."

"The answer's the same sweetheart. No. Uh uh. Get bent. Not a chance. Fuck off. Is that clear enough for you?"

There was a concerned sigh. "I have to say, I'm surprised. I thought you do anything to keep Sam safe-"

"I am keeping him safe. And we are done with demons."

"Yeah? Then what's with the pet salesman?"

"That's - different."

"Because Sam said so, right? Come on, Dean. We both know you left your own moral code behind long ago. If it's for Sam, you'll do anything. Don't try to pretend. We want the same thing here."

Dean strangled the phone, tried to keep a lid on his frustration. When he put the phone back to his ear, he had it handled. "Listen, bitch-"

"He's rising, Dean. I know you think it isn't possible, I know you think two humans and a fallen angel somehow shut him up for good-"

"We did."

"And you're willing to take that risk?"

Dean was quiet. She'd already made this argument. But he wasn't going to help her. Demons lie. And somehow Sammy always paid for Dean's mistakes. He wasn't going to get taken in again.

"Dean?"

"Answer's no. Don't bother calling again."

He hung up on her, resisted the urge to throw the phone into the darkness. Cas said Lucifer was shut up tight. Sam said Lucifer would have sprung himself immediately if it was as easy as raising Lilith from the dead. Dean had no idea what way was even up anymore, but he trusted Cas, he trusted Sam. He looked back at the motel room, bedside lamp still on, felt the doorkey in his pocket, struck out for the nearest bar he could walk to.