The Temptation of Dean Winchester or, Forty Days

by tami3

Dean Winchester resists the temptations of the devil, newly christened "Sam," for forty days. Includes incest.

Warnings: A little bit of language, underage sex, biblical sacrilege, etc.

Summary: Dean Winchester resists the temptations of the devil (newly christened "Sam") for forty days.

The Temptation of Dean Winchester (or, Forty Days)

The First Day

The devil approaches Dean Winchester as he's getting ready mow the lawn. He's tipping gas into the machine and his mind's on Lisa threatening a night on the couch if he puts it off one day longer. That's why he doesn't notice at first when someone walks in through the front gate. He's understandably a little taken aback when a very big man (bigger than him) walks up to him and hugs him.

"Dean." The darkly colored gent greets him solemnly. He's beautiful. He has a little rugged bristle grown out just the right way. His worn-in plaid and denim clothes smell of some kind of musky cologne. When he smiles, his teeth shine like he belongs in a television show. "It's good to see you. It's been so long."

Dean stares.

"No fucking way." He says.

The Second Day

The devil takes him to Wendy's. Goddamned Wendy's. He'd tussled with Dean for the keys this morning and wrested them out of his hands. After taking especial care to see that Dean buckled up in the passenger seat, he hit the gas and drove Dean to Wendy's. Now they're sitting in the same booth, separated only by a plastic yellow tabletop. Dean wants to pick up the ketchup bottle and bash it over his head. But he can't.

The devil crunches annoyingly on his third dollar menu salad. When he grins, there's a sliver of carrot nested in his pearly front teeth. Dean wonders if he should attempt to phone Lisa with bathroom as cover. When the devil came a-calling yesterday afternoon, he'd looked over Dean with the can of gas and the mower with only the faintest glimmer of interest.

"You need a hand with that?" he'd said. With one idle lift of his hand, six inches of grass sliced off cleanly from the top. Dean still has the cut in the shin of his jeans. Lisa and Ben were in the house going over math homework. The devil had waved as if to say hello to the Impala parked by the curb, and her locks had flipped up and her doors had swung out. Dean had gotten in.

They spent the night in a roadside motel with Dean struck dumb by tension and danger. Just like the good old days. After brushing, showering, and packing them both in the car, the devil explains the rules to Dean over breakfast.

"Each day will be a new temptation. You say no, we move on to the next day."

Dean remains silent. While he waits for Dean to finish thinking on what he wants to say, devil plays with the salad dressing. It begins to boil inside the plastic. There's an acid smell of vinegar cooking.

So Dean says, "That's it? You give me a list of forty things, I say no, we time warp, we're done?"

"Well, no. A couple days might go like that. But it depends, mostly."

"Depends on what?"

"My mood. And if you say yes. Then you'll have taken one of my gifts. Persephone hath eaten from the fruit of Hade's realm and all that. You'll belong to me."

He quirks his eyebrow when Dean puts down his egg and bacon sandwich at that. Even the eyebrows are weirdly immaculate. Like, they're the right shape, but perfectly groomed to be the right shape. Not a single errant hair straggling in a distant bit of skin anywhere. The devil seems surprised that Dean reacted to something that should have about as much as impact as "I dusted my living room today."

"You're not Sam."

The devil's face contorts with a flash of annoyance, heady and swift like lightening splitting the sky. Dean gives him a hard stare, a "Who do you think you're fooling?" When his little brother's sulky he takes a good long squat on it and puts on a squinty bitch face for hours. This guy hasn't done his research.

"You're Lucifer. And you can eat me."

When the devil frowns, Dean can't deny there really is something of Sam in the stubborn set of his jaw. It last came around when Sam was snarling: "No, you listen to what I say" to their dad those last few miserable days when they were all together.

"It may very well be that in my past I was Lucifel bringer of light, or the dread Morningstar, or Iblis the judge of honor and love. The devil has changed names many times. What does any of that matter to you? I'm Sam." The devil, Sam, grimaces like he's just bitten down on a beetle hidden in his fast food vegetables. "Are you going to be calling me 'Sammy' again?"

Dean wants to deck him, but he sees Bobby's neck scrunched like a wrung towel, and Lisa crying. So he settles for,

"You're not Sam. You can't be."

"Why not?"

"Sam wouldn't say something like that."

The devil laughs. "I read a lot. Or I did, before I got back into the family business. I used to say lots of things you wouldn't think I would say."

"No. I mean. Sam wouldn't be so selfish. He wanted me to have a family. He told me to…" and Dean trails off as the devil reaches into Sam's inside coat pocket and extracts a flask (Dean didn't ever see him order a drink, come to think of it). He takes a swig. When he pulls away from the lip, his gums are ringed in red. Like cherry Lifesavers.

"Not selfish? You sure?" and even though the devil is being pleasant, Sammy's issues are showing under a veneer of reasonableness and sanity. It was façade that was tissue sheer even when Sam was still Sam. I am your family, it's yelling at Dean. Demons can be good actors, Dean tells himself desperately.

The devil goes on, "You want to walk away from me because, for some reason, you think I'm being uncharacteristically selfish?" and Dean flinches at the sarcasm, the implied I left you to go to college, I did dark arts behind your back, I did…

Then the devil laughs with his teeth caught full of lettuce and blood, entertained by his own foolishness. "Why am I even asking you like you have a choice?" he asks.

The Third Day

Dean finds himself in a too-short purple kimono thing that's emblazoned with acid-green dragons. There are dozens of exotic women preening on mismatched couches and beds. They're dressed in bikinis, cut-offs, or nothing. They smear themselves and each other with bottles of coconut oil, their fingers cleverly thorough. From their two-wall movie background, they shoot Dean coy looks.

There are some saggy-stomached filming crew people ducking their faces into the viewfinders and then glaring at Dean like he's interfering with the shot. But he can't be, because he's standing in the middle of a patch of taped down wires, nowhere close to the girls. The devil is on his left, exhibiting the boring classiness of a mid-level exec in a suit and loosened tie.

"Where are we?"

"On the set of Busty Asian Beauties."

"What for?

"You know how when I was thirteen, I asked you what you wanted to be if you weren't a hunter, and you said 'a porn star'?

"We went to the library and looked up our porn actor names." Dean remembers suddenly. "You were Maxx Nastee."

Sam breaks into a huge grin, like he's just been tickled. "And you were Butt Spankalot," he fills in with glee. "Yes Dean, you remember!"

"So…you're giving me the chance to be a porn star?" Dean's question is answered by a peeved flabby cameraman sidling out from behind his equipment and stomping up to him.

"Hey Spankalot, you wanna get started here or just waste everyone's time?"

Dean is spared having to answer by the devil holding up his hand, the universal imperative for "back off". The guy mutters to himself and shufties off back to his position as the least glamorous member of the porn industry, with possible exception of the fluffers.

"This isn't the kind of thing I was imagining."

"I know. But it's just your third day. I thought I'd lob you an easy one."

"Yeah? Believe you me, buddy, it's not easy to turn this down." Dean wonders if he has the stones to actually enjoy this a little. "…But you're right, I'm taken. I'm a one-woman man now. I, uh. I'm kinda proud of that, actually."

"Take a little time to think about it." Sam says lightly and brightly, like that's not good enough of a "no". "We've got a while before this day has to be over. You can take in the sights if nothing else."

"What's the catch? Am I going to get some kind of freaky eye herpes just by looking?"

"No. Why?"

"Because…you're doing this to torture me, right?"

"No! I never said that this was going to be all bad. Why would you think that?" Sam the devil demands to know, grossly offended.

"Because…" Dean's brow wrinkles from the age of the memory, back when he and Sam had been forcefully enrolled in Sunday school class when it was Pastor Jim's turn to babysit. "…Jesus seemed to have a shit time of it?" he offers. Well, he did, right?

"Oh, him?" Sam is cool, like a girl talking about the ex's new wife. "That when he was just starting out. Terrified that dad wouldn't love him anymore if he wasn't absolutely perfect. Took that fasting and ultimate humility thing literally, poor boy."

Almond-eyed beauties lift their heads at the commotion as they walk through a whole menagerie of them laid out on the furniture. At Sam's mention of "dad," their heads bloat the size of watermelons; by the time he's done carefully enunciating his pity for Christ, their skulls pop. Brains drop down the loose open lapels of Dean's slutty bathrobe.

"Fuck!" Dean yells. The cameramen scream and break rank, heading for the exits. Sam doesn't seem to notice anything wrong. He slogs right through gray matter and spinal column bits wound into the carpet plush. His points his eyes straight into glaring stage lights that would blind normal men, and continues conversing with Dean amicably.

"He dropped the goody-little-two-shoes act after a while, though. Everyone knows he was spreading them for Judas by the end. I've always wondered how Judas had any room for his dick with that massive stick already in there." Sam pauses to laugh heartily. "You should have seen our daddy cry when his baby came home."

Sam is acting like he belongs to a sitcom family. But except for when Gabriel dropped them into the MeTV channel, Sam's always been a big, mopey pile of serious about their crap family. It makes Dean queasy, more than the slurried actress dripping down his chest.

"You don't…like that guy, do you?" he mutters, just to keep it going. He's not afraid, exactly, but he's a little concerned where Sam's going to turn his spontaneous combustion powers next. "Not like you like Michael."

Sam snorts, amused. "Oh come on, Dean, we've read Wuthering Heights together."

(Ok, that…that is supposed to be a secret. Sam was in fifth grade and because he was a little bitch he insisted to his teacher that he could handle it for his book report. When he came into Dean's room all teary, they'd worked it out together. Sam felt sorry for Isabella but Dean did not because she didn't listen to her big brother and this guy is so not Sam because Sam swore he would never bring it up again. Which makes him exactly like Sam, actually.)

"Jesus was like Heathcliff. Not a biological brother but some creepy kid dad picked up on a business trip. You come from good British blue blood stock, and he's molded from gutter slop and fleas, and papa puts him in your room and tells you to play nice and share your things. And then the rest of your family falls for him, including your own brother who's supposed to love you first! That's why we hated that book, right Dean?"

The devil turns to him waiting for him to agree. Dean can't remember any kind of opinion on the Bronte novel but he's pretty sure the betrayed son in the family had a sister, not a brother. Catherine being a girl's name and all. He just nods, but Sam's lost interest and is toeing a chunk of thigh that still has a crotch-less panty looped around it.

"Oh damn." Sam says mildly, looking around at the carnage of previously gorgeous and sexy ladies. "Looks like I sabotaged myself on this one. Automatic pass for you today, Dean. Lucky you." He reaches down and picks up a length of intestine, his expression thoughtful and sanguine.

"I don't suppose you could get into the mood if I put them back together?"

Dean shakes his head no.

The Fifth Day

Sam's singing voice sucks as much as it ever did. He parks his butt on the Impala door and warbles along to the radio, off-key about his mama just killing a man and the silhouette of a man and nothing mattering to him and other nonsense. Meanwhile, Dean grumpily scrapes off what meager meat he can from the inside of the of a lizard's rib cage.

"Dean don't—"Sam impatiently scuffs his shoe against the red gravel of the nameless desert he's dropped them into. Dean has no idea how he managed to fabricate a sense of deep aching starvation, but for all the effort the devil put into forcing Dean to beg for a bacon cheeseburger, he's awfully nosy about how Dean can best forage a meal from cacti and reptiles. "Why are you doing that from the viscera? Look…"

He squats to where Dean is sitting with his catch. He wraps his hand around the knife handle, Dean's fingers and all, intent on taking it away and doing the job himself. Dean's insides squirm uncomfortably. He shoves the devil back. Dad taught him survival skills cobbled from his time in the military and the more Crocodile-Dungee ilk of his hunter associates. He doesn't need the devil—or Sam—helping him out. But the devil smacks his hand and picks up the dropped lizard and knife.

"You go from the outside—make a slit in the skin, pull it back little, run the blade along the connective tissue against the grain of the muscles blocks and—there! Slides off like melted butter." Sam practically scoops the animal out of its hide like an avocado. He buries his teeth into the exposed flesh immediately, showing off how much easier it is to eat it his way. He grins at Dean with a pulpy mouthful of lizard meat. Dean isn't impressed.

"Hey! I was going to eat that!" Dean snaps at him. Sam laughs.

"Fine, I'll catch you another one." At Dean's look, the devil wrinkles his nose tipped with lizard blood. "It won't count as saying yes!"

Dean has to admit the jackrabbit Sam hilariously chases down and pounces on (and insists on skinning for him) is better eating than the scrawny anole he caught himself would have been.

The Seventh Day

The thing is, sometimes Sam, the devil, looks sad, and Dean has no idea what to do about that.

"Do you want some coffee?" Dean says the day he refuses to take a reliquary the devil claims has all the powers of the Colt, the knife, and the short swords the angels use to stab each other combined. He chooses the question because it's neutral. You could offer your worst enemy and your best friend coffee. He knows that he can't be risking the devil's temper for the sake of the family waiting for him to come back. But he owes his brother who leapt into a pit of hell for him to be silently, relentlessly resentful of the thing responsible for it.

He is, mostly. But when the devil is sad he reminds Dean of Sam so much that he can't bear being mean.

"Do you remember what I said to you before I left?" the devil asks him only when he's like this. Just like Sam when he's upset, the way his eyebrows knit together and his mouth twists around a problem.

"I'm going out for coffee." Dean repeats in a mutter, because he's not going to answer that. That belongs to him and Sam alone. Lucifer wasn't riding Sam yet when they said those things. He has no right to rifle through the imprint of the words in Sam's memories, using them for whatever he wants.

"I said I didn't want to leave you. Hell, I didn't even want to leave dad. That wasn't the point. I just wanted to be who I was meant to be. Dad was the one who said I'd never come back, not me. It's not my fault you believed him."

Oh. He's not talking about hell. He's just talking about Stanford.

"It's the same thing here. I don't want to have to take you away from Lisa and Ben if it'll make you unhappy. You're my brother, Dean. You really think I want to do anything that'll hurt you?" It's the same as always. It destroys Dean when Sam fights with him like this because Sam hurts himself so bad. He brings tears to his own damn eyes.

"You don't understand. You never understand. Don't you remember? I told you to visit." Sam blinks out two tears, one for each eye, one chasing the other. "Why didn't you visit? You never even called me."

"I told you." Dean says in spite of himself. He doesn't forget that this isn't Sam. Not for second. It's only like talking to a ghost of him, or his photo. An image, a faint impression of Sam. His icon. Not him.

What? He's grieving, isn't he? He's allowed. Sam, I'm allowed to, right, he begs his poor departed brother's soul squished up in some hidden pocket of the devil's brain, weakly trying to crawl out of Sam's ears and to heaven while Sam's crying face looks straight at him.

"I was hunting. I never had the time-" And. And yeah, there was that other thing that made him avoid Sam for four years, until he was pretty sure Sam would have found a nice girl to love and cherish and all that. It's bad, the devil is playing on his greatest weaknesses, and fair enough, he's the devil. If he can look into men's souls and see their deepest fears and their most shameful memories, it's his right to use it. That's been his game since the beginning of time.

But that's not how it was, Dean's conscience niggles at him defiantly. What had happened had come out of a lifetime of being starved of affection from all the places where it should have come from. Hunters had lonely lives, even when they traveled in packs like the Winchesters. The comfort they found wasn't always wholesome. Things happened. Too bad, too sad, they all made their own excuses and put on a game face for the next grueling day.

It hadn't been a big deal at all. Even Sam had said so, before he left. Dean swallows, holding onto what they both agreed on all those years ago.

But maybe he's wrong, because devil Sam is charging right on ahead, ignoring the obvious if he really is probing Dean's soul.

"You didn't want to get on dad's bad side, that's what." Sam accuses him. "When he told you I was out of the family, you listened. What about Lisa? I think you really love her. You must have told her the things I've done after Lucifer took me over. She won't want me coming near her and Ben. And you'll listen to her, just like you listened to dad. That's why I'm doing this. I can't trust you, Dean. If I let you go now, I'll never see you again."

The voices of the news anchors on the TV drop, like they're reading out soft lullabies about typhoon victims in Indonesia. The lights don't go dim so much as they go blue, and Sam gets up and goes over to where Dean's standing with his hand frozen on the door handle. When Sam pulls him close, Dean strains to catch a whiff of sulfur, or even that weirdly classy cologne he smelled on the first day that he knows Sam would never wear. Today, the devil smells of nothing.

"I can't take that."

He lets go and takes a short jog to his mattress and plops down. The volume of the news report soars. The man and woman on screen confidently recite the latest on the progress of Asian carp. Dean stares at the cheap carpet.

"You really need that coffee? We should get ready for tomorrow."

The Tenth Day

Oh tenth day Dean has an easy time turning down a bank account with limitless funds and the devil makes a decision while Dean's in the bathroom. Sam's already got the covers pulled up when Dean comes out, mouth rinsed clean of the Chinese take-out they just had. As Dean gets into his own bed, Sam sleepily says he has something he needs to explain.

"I think I've just about exhausted your earthly weaknesses. I can't think of any more ways to present physical pleasure and need."

Dean eyes Sam stirring slightly under the thin felt duvets, worn at the edges and pilling everywhere else. He pushes down an impulse from older times to throw his own blanket over him.

"That's what I've been telling you, you don't have anything I want. These cheap tricks aren't going to work." The devil rudely yawns over Dean's last few words.

"I'm not worried about that. It was only doing that because it's traditional. Come on Dean. You're my big brother. I've been worshipping you ever since I was four. I know you. I know everything about you."

Dean really wishes them back to a time when Sam phrased that nicely instead of threateningly.

"Meaning what, exactly?"

"Meaning, I know what you really care about."

"That so?"

"Yeah. You're a people person. And warning: I have access to all the planes of existence: the earth as you know it and both kinds of afterlife and all throughout time."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Dead people, Dean. I'll be raising the dead. We'll see if you want to keep them. Or if you can let them go."

Dean's heart pounds in chest. He's imagining dad taking one look at his little boy turned into the devil and turning a shotgun on Dean for letting it happen. Not like that makes much sense, because their father shooting him wouldn't be something Dean would ask for and therefore not a scenario the devil would cook up. Nevertheless, it rattles him. He tries to sound casual, unconcerned.

"They'll just be illusions. Like the genii. Or they'll go rabid like Bobby's wife."

"Who do you think I am?" the devil shoots into a sitting position. He looks insulted. "I was once Lucifel, most beloved seraphim of the Lord, bringer of light himself! The third-rate pigeon Castiel was able to raise you intact from your grave when he wished, and you doubt me?"

The lights, coffee maker, and TV stand all begin to rattle grimly. Dean pulls away from the wall just fast enough to avoid the ugly wall art made of weed fluff and feathers from smashing on his bare feet. Sam sees that his pontificating is putting Dean off, and stops. He lies down and turns on his side facing away from Dean. The room accents settle.

"Yeah Dean," he says to the wall softly, like he's been on the verge of drifting off all along. "They'll be real. I'll give them back their bodies and their souls and they'll be just as much themselves as you were when you came back."

"I didn't come back myself. I wasn't okay!" Dean argues with the devil's back, but the devil quiets him.

"Sh. Go to sleep. When you wake up, your loved ones will be with you."

Dean can't shake the funny feeling ingrained from dozens of movies that it's supposed to be the opposite thing; "No, don't go to the darkness, stay here, your loved ones are here!" The way Sam puts it, it sounds he's the one who's been dead, with people he's going back to instead of the other way around. But there's nothing he can do about it. So he turns off the lights.

The Eleventh Day

On the eleventh day, they go to meet Pamela at the beach. She seems mildly surprised to find herself torn from the blissful planes of eternal rest, but she's game. She's especially delighted that Sam saw fit to resurrect her in a Victora's Secret swimsuit that links up with gold chains and is tastefully revealing.

"Hello Pamela." Sam goes forward obediently for her customary groping of his buttock. But she backs off a few steps into the surf.

"Oh no. Don't you come near me, Nick Slick." She wraps her arms around Dean like she's seeking out his protection. But Sam only laughs and Dean can feel her fingers creeping across his back muscles.

"That's right Pamela, I thought you'd be like this. You don't miss a thing with your powers, do you? But I'm not looking to hurt or fool anybody. Didn't you say you don't have too many hard feelings about the end of the world and all? Come on and give me a hug, you can't be too pissed at me. I'm keeping your favorite package nice."

"Can't stand to be teased, can you boy?" and to Dean's chagrin, a happy Pamela obligingly abandons stroking his shoulders to give Sam that squeeze after all.

They spend the day swimming, skipping rocks, and Pamela gossiping handedly. Ash has been getting small coughing hints from the higher ups to stop voyeuristically skipping around in other people's soul spaces. When Sam makes a run to the car to get dry towels for them, Dean tells her in an undertone that she can't stay.

"Oh honey, it's alright!" she encourages Dean warmly with a squeeze to his thigh. "I had a nice day. Heaven's nice and all, but it's more of a Zen garden nice. Hard to come by two delicious men and a beach up there."

Dean chances it. "Is that really Sam?"

Pamela's wide grin gets a little tripped up as she fumbles her answer.

"Well, that's-"

And then she's smelted down into red sand pile that dampens Dean's rolled up jeans. Sam stands behind it with a little bit of petulance to the way he crosses his arms.

"What? You said no." the devil says defensively.

The Fifteenth Day

The day with Agent Henrickson almost feels like a hunt because it turns out the man was never as over his last ex-wife as he made out in his last conversation with Dean. He really wants to stay alive to reconcile with her. As soon as he sees that his pride-be-damned begging isn't going to change Dean's mind, he calmly asks for an hour to come to terms with it. Come back with an arsenal of guns more like. Dean can't blame him, it's what he would have done.

Still, Dean can't remember why he's on he's on the list of "I wish I'd been able to save that person" at all when the man is sinking close-call shots into the upturned café table he and the devil have taken cover behind. Sam's shoulders are shaking cheerfully. Dean suspects he just likes the chaos more than the humor in the situation. Meanwhile, Dean has no intention of giving in, but it does ache a little to know that someone he liked, hell, admired, left the world with so many regrets and that it's his fault and he can do something to fix that, but won't.

"You sad?" the devil throws an arm loaded with sympathy around his shoulder. Dean shudders unwillingly. "I can go out there. Tell him he can keep his second chance. Won't matter if he shoots me, I won't die."

Dean takes a deep breath. "End him." He says. Sam looks disappointed, but he has Henrickson's arterial blood hissing out of his jugular and warming the pavement in seconds.

The Seventeenth Day

Cassie is startled as hell when they drop onto her doorstep, but her mama taught her southern hospitality. Dean is furious with Sam for planning this incredibly embarrassing home visit, especially when she says she can have dinner ready in a few hours if they don't mind waiting for her boyfriend to come home from work. Meanwhile, she's got some iced tea and snacks if they want them after their long drive.

"Dude." He hisses at Sam. Cassie's in the kitchen the next room over and he's counting on the solid whacking of her knife going through carrots to shield their words.

"Hm?" Cassie's always been a bit of a health nut. Sam/the devil is chomping down serenely on diet-approved homemade zuchinni muffins.

"What exactly is supposed to be on offer here?"

Sam shrugs, his sentences an inarticulate and graceless shower of moist muffin crumbs onto his plate.

"Arranged accident for the boyfriend. Involving lots of demons. And Cassie getting swept away by how you save her life, even if you couldn't save her man. Lots of hot 'my condolences for your loss and you're welcome' sex."

"Are you insane?"

Sam shrugs again, reaches for another teacake. "Hey, that's the way you two worked. You're the one who has the semi–conscious desire, or else we wouldn't be here."

They get that delicious healthy dinner, shake hands with the boyfriend who's a school administrator (Cassie artfully introduces them as "important friends of the family, saved my life and my Mom's) and head out.

The Twentieth Day

"Seems to me that you've lost a lost a lot of heart since that day you broke into my house at Stanford. You don't get worked up for minor acquaintances anymore. That's sad, Dean. That's real sad." the devil says, shaking his head at Dean's loss of chivalry, or compassion, or whatever. Dean just pops an egg half that takes the devil's name into his mouth.

They're at the baby shower for Jo's first kid. It's going to be a boy. And hotdamn is Ellen ripping her daughter a new one for even thinking about making Dean the godfather. Dean and Sam munch peacefully on the appetizers and listen to Ellen sass her daughter about compensating for a man she could never have.

"You were a real hell raiser before." the devil mourns. Jo is getting red in the face. "But sweet, too. Such a sweet man you were, Dean. You're different now. My poor Dean, running without a heart like a lonely tinman ticking along on small metal cogs. Did you lose your heart somewhere?"

Dean doesn't say anything, lets the devil compose.

"That'll be my fault, I guess." He says with Sam's resigned mouth, heaving a mighty sigh. Dean makes a paprika peppered face at him. Okay, he hates it when this guy hijacks his brother's voice and gestures to get in good with him. But getting too creative like this can be even worse.

The mouthful of yolk and mayo in Dean's cheek slides down his throat, and he comments back, "That's a good thing for you, ain't it? It's what you do. Make people lose heart. Break men down so it's easier for you to jerk them around. That's what you did to Sam."

"I AM Sam, Dean. Why do you keep saying that?" the devil protests. It's Sam's face that looks so wounded, so Dean almost apologizes. But Sam quickly switches back into his good mood, fiddling with wrapped box in his hands that Dean somehow knows holds a picture book. It'll be a good while before Jo's kid will be able to use it, but it's the kind of thing Sam would give an expectant mother.

"And no, it's not good," the devil corrects him. "Not good at all, actually. I'm going to help you get some of it back."

The Twenty-first day

The devil is clearly pleased with himself. He cracks open the leather cases for Dean so he can take a look. A gold necklace with a ruby pendent, a gold watch with ruby accents. They look expensive, the kind someone would have to get a second mortgage for, unless he's pulling down six figures a year. Sam winks at Dean so Dean knows he is. He 's taken the traditional route for the fortieth wedding anniversary. Sam can be so fucking bland sometimes.

He's still pretty good though. Dean feels a twinge of real resentment Sam when he turns to their working class parents sitting under the big banner on stage. They exclaim in predictable gratitude. Mary even holds fingertips to her lipsticked mouth of a modest shade, tears shining on her lashes. Dozens of John and Mary's working class friends sit in folding chairs below the platform clap their approval for their taller, younger, richer son.

When the applause dies down, Mary looks over at Dean. John follows her lead, clasping her very faintly liver-spotted hand in his big, grizzled one. The look he gives his elder child is too warm, too happy for someone who's been let down so much, had such a long stint in hell. So is mom's, for that matter. But maybe Mary took all that away from her husband after the devil raised them together.

Dean is a little confused about this one. Mom's friends are all supposed to be dead, but she could have made some new ones. And there might be a few hunters mixed into the crowd, but they could just be fellas from the garage. Dean doesn't know how much and how far the devil has reached, what he's changed in the past if anything. So he's a little disoriented on how traumatized the people sitting next to him are supposed to be.

"And you, Dean? Where's your present for us?" Mary coaxes gently when he's silent.

Dean coughs, straightens his tie. He stands and puts his mouth right on the microphone.

"I'm sorry, mom. I didn't get you one. This isn't really all that important to me. "His amplified voice fills out the rental hall. Nearly everyone gasps, but Dean's got eyes locked on Sam. His brother's scowling.

Dean gives his mother one last glance. Alternate universe or new universe Mary only has a second before she disintegrates, but she uses it to flash Dean a look of shocked disappointment.

It's not fun.

The Twenty-third day

Castiel is a bit hard to reach now, even for the devil. The head honch of angels can't be coerced to showing up to any party he doesn't feel like attending. The best Sam can manage is a not strictly within the rules phone call.

Castiel isn't exactly happy with the situation. He uses his "thou shalt not behold my true being lest you go mad from its holy grace" voice and nearly blows out Dean's eardrums before the devil pokes the phone with his finger. A modulating filter tones Cas's voice down. It's still abrasive, like Dean's sticking a cotton swab made of glass dust into his ear canal, but tolerable.

"What evil have you wrought upon this world, Dean Winchester?" Castiel scolds him. Dean doesn't even bother getting indignant. Castiel has very good reason to believe that Dean's responsible for the devil in his brother's body strolling out of his cage to start up a spate of biblical wars again, after all. He just speeds through a rundown of what's been going on.

"Cas, I don't know what's going on. What should I do?" Dean grills Cas through the phone, not caring that that Sam has been openly eavesdropping on the entire conversation.

There's a long pause. "Shall I descend to Earth and assist you?" Castiel says finally. The unexpected concern in Castiel's voice (which also comes with a different kind of sonic discomfort, like a the rasp inside a small child shrieking miserably for its mother) throws Dean off. He drops the phone.

"Dean, are you in immediate peril? Do you require help? Dean!" he can hear Castiel calling urgently as the phone dangles on the wire. He sounds so distant, swinging in and out of hearing range. Dean's about to snatch the phone back up, yell into the mouthpiece yes, fuck yes, does he have anything that will repel pesky life-ruining princes of darkness, come down right away. But there's something sinister to the way Sam is smiling approvingly to all this. Dean understands just in time.

Taking a long calming breath, he shakily gets back on the line.

"No. I can handle it."

"Dean—"Dean hangs up.

It's been a long time since Dean's had a real friend. It's hard saying no to this one.

The Twenty-sixth day

The twenty-sixth day is a "the devil is sad" day.

"What's the plan?" Dean asks at last, because it has to be late afternoon and a few hours since Sam instructed him to turn off the barely-there dust prairie road a like the wheel-worn path made by covered wagons rolling along the Oregon trail. Dean has his misgivings about what it's doing to the Impala's tires. They'd driven deep into a sea of waist high grass before Sam told Dean it was okay to put her in park.

"There is no plan."

The devil is slumped in his seat. He watches the sky outside the front window. It's two hours til' dusk, and the white blare of noon has cooked down to a golden orange. Clots of rain-pregnant clouds run off to the west like airborne orange creamsicles, Sam's favorite as a kid. (Dean had preferred the fruitless, tongue-dying red-white-and-blue rockets). When one passes right over the Impala, there's drumming on the roof like a bucket of nails being dropped. Then there's silence and light-shiny dew on the glass as it leaves them behind.

"I need to think. Can we just sit here?" the devil requests quietly, apparently transfixed by the strange, fluid beauty of it. Dean says sure, because since when has he had a choice about anything? Dean takes the moment of peace for what it's worth, looking out at the same fickle-natured clouds as Sam.

"We're past the midpoint." Sam says like someone's dying. It's like Dean's told him all over again that they have only one year left together. There's a familiar bone-deep desperation in his voice that Dean can't bear. "I don't want to lose you, Dean."

He turns to Dean, and even though he isn't crying, the shadows of the water on the window mark his skin. It's like someone's projecting a drawn show of tears on Sam's face. They're even rolling down.

He holds out his hand, and Dean knows what he wants. He just looks at it for long moment, though. In the meantime, there's a long drawn-out shuffling like a snake slithering through a field of wheat. Sam doesn't take his eyes off of him, but Dean can see water cresting up against the rolled up windows over his shoulder. The floor is flocked with red and blue threads like the blood vessels of a cut-open animal. It's also not really possible, with the ground around them being level for miles and the rain being tranquilly sporadic and scattered outside.

He takes Sam's hand. Their clasped hands dangle silently between them. Dean thinks about how Sam used to do this when they waited for the news about dad in the emergency room waiting room. And he'll be damned if it isn't the same: Sam's hand warm and a little sweaty, the grip asking Dean to not to say a thing, but to hold him down. Keep him anchored. Keep them together if they have no one else left but each other.

It's a free day anyways, so Dean almost gives in to the urge to pull Sam into his arms. He wants to press Sam's face into his shoulder so he doesn't have to see that expression that so clearly says that this man is afraid of being alone. This man, whatever else he is, reminds Dean so much of his baby brother. But Sam curls his fingers more protectively, more possessively, around Dean's and says:

"I'm going to have to start hurting you."

There's nothing to say to that. Dean waits out the day with what is physically his brother's hand in his.

The Twenty-Seventh Day

The devil is considerably cheered when Dean breaks down crying as their dad yells, why, why, why did Dean put them back in hell when they were happy? When he had Mary back? They knew what was going on—of course they knew, they were both hunters, weren't they? They knew the devil had brought them back and there was something strange going on, but it didn't matter because they had each other and even their kids. They've all made sacrifices out of their principles, out of their lives, out of themselves, before. They had to, if it was for family. That was the Winchester way.

What was wrong with Dean, all of a sudden?

He keeps asking this as Sam nonchalantly holds him back, making a show out of using his 6'4 mass. Even so it can't possibly as easy as Sam's making it look with their dad raging like this. Probably it's half psychic-barrier or something. John doesn't even take note that his younger son is the dark lord wielding dark lord powers. His fury and terror are focused completely on his older son.

"I'm sorry, dad. You're going to have to forgive me. I can't pay the price for your and mom's mistakes anymore. I've made peace about you two. Please."

Dean doesn't quite know what he's asking for, but he thinks his dad gives it to him. Something like understanding seeps into John's dark eyes behind Sam's thrown-up arm. And maybe there's even love in the way he stops fighting it. He falls limply to his knees, keels over.

This time, Sam lets Dean keep vigil for a few hours before helping him get the funeral pyre going.

The Twenty-Ninth Day

It's easy to see that Adam hates both their guts. The devil is a sick fuck and when Adam comes back they meet in the same little diner that he never met his brothers for the first time in. Sam says it's because he wants that fresh start the ghoul took away from them, and the second fresh start that Michael took away too.

Dean wonders where Adam's girlfriend is. He wonders if Adam loves her enough to get emotional about possibly seeing her again. He proceeds with caution with his explanation of why Adam's suddenly alive and angel-less and his big brothers are treating him to whatever he wants for lunch.

Adam doesn't even ask to see the menu.

"Just kill me." he says contemptuously.

The Thirtieth Day

"You realize there's only ten days left." the devil says as he strides out of the pool. His black graduation gown clings to his thighs. Even through the slippery folds Dean can tell how muscled they are. He waits for him at the white metal lawn table with a cold Budweiser Lite in his hand—yeah, suck brand, but it's not his house. You get what you can steal.

Sam has a funny-looking wide red ribbon riding on his shoulders. Apparently, that means he's the hot shit. As an even better accessory, Jessica Moore is climbing the little metal ladder after him, breathless and soaked to the skin.

She's one year below Sam (Dean hadn't known that) so she isn't one of the hundreds of students ruining their bodylines with those ugly robes. She's dressed in her it's-my-boyfriend's-special-day summer best, a blue flowered dress so thin that Dean can see her how even her tan is, and the shape of her nipples peeking through. Her hair is a beautiful wet blonde net pulled away from her temples. Whenever Dean looks at her, he can hear Lisa singing in falsetto: "Ca-li-for-nia gurls, we're so incredible, dai-sy-dukes bi-ki-nis on top!," She does it to send him and Ben into frothing rage. Right now, Dean misses it.

Jess the California girl is radiant with admiration for her man. She stares at him in absolute worship, which gives Dean the sneaky thought that Jess was either a total boob (no pun intended) or a sign that Sam really is the devil, complete with massive ego. Either way, she doesn't seem to mind that Sam is completely ignoring her.

"You've already passed on some very tempting offers." Sam comments thoughtfully. He strips off the gown and his button-up shirt underneath with logic-defying ease. Then he steps out of the wet pile of clothes. He's in his flowered swim trunks bought for the summer that'll bridge college and law school, and Dean's invited to join him.

"Yep. Reckon I'll make it home free." Dean predicts casually, even though he's noticed at every interval of ten the devil gives him a little break. It's like a rest point because the boss battle is coming up. But Dean suggests optimistically, "This mean you ready to give up?"

The devil smiles and takes one of the shitty beers from him. Dean's cocky smirk falters at the brush of Sam's bony hand. It's minus gun calluses and few years from the time he last felt it.

"Of course not." He says pleasantly, giving him Sam's crisp 22-year-old smile. It still has some battery life, charged with a few years' worth of a good life. "I just have to raise my game." Dean declines Jess's cheeky suggestion that he also shed a few layers before they continue pool-hopping. And so ends the thirtieth day.

The Thirty-First Day

Bobby does his best to understand when Dean tells him in a cracking voice that he's sorry, but he can't let his wife stay any longer than she did last time. Bobby doesn't do such a good job. Karen herself is much more kind. There's real forgiveness, and even pity in her eyes as she holds her husband's hand quietly and listens to Dean haltingly explain to them why she's back, and what kind of trouble he's in.

"I'm sorry, Bobby." Sam tells him, and sounds like he really means it.

"Don't even—"It looks like Bobby can't kick the habit of keeping a civil tongue around his wife. Instead his eyes, going wet, darkly dart around the room as if he's considering all the evil-vanquishing tools he has squirreled away in hollowed out books and beneath the floorboards. Sam notices.

"Hey now." He says, frowning. "None of that's going to work on me. You're like a father to me, Bobby. I don't want anything bad to happen to you. But you try to kill me, I'm going to break your legs again."

Bobby obviously doesn't buy the expression of good will. He breathes heavily, stares Dean in the face. Dean knows that look and the fact that he doesn't agree with Bobby makes him real scared of what Bobby's going to try without any help. Dean's not going to lay a hand on Sam; they can't win, and Lisa and Ben are still out there. He's sorry, and he's hurting real bad for Bobby. But Karen's already dead.

In her gentle courage, Karen breaks the silence. She speaks directly and frankly to the devil as if Sam, Sam before Lucifer, is listening. It's more than what Dean and Bobby have tried.

"Sam. I don't know if you can hear me. And if you can, I know we don't know each other very well. But I know you're a good boy, Sammy. Bobby told me so." She releases Bobby's hand and reaches for his. She holds it like a mother telling her misbehaving child she stills love him. Sam looks sad again. She smiles bravely at him. "It's alright if I have to go. But please don't bring me back again just for something like this. Please don't hurt my Bobby any more. And please stop hurting your brother."

Sam blinks. "I'll try, ma'am." He tells her.

The Thirty-Second Day

The limbs of baby Mary Samantha Winchester Braeden are wonderfully fat. Dean lets one trembling finger trace her calf where the folds of her rosy flesh make a kink. She makes a surprised sound, a squeaky vowel. Her leg kicks out like a puppy. Sam watches with limpid eyes, his large hand caressing his niece's dark downy hair. She rests his head on his shoulder and he rocks her.

Dean takes her from Sam with shaking hands. It's just not fair that she's dressed in a pale pink terry onesie so soft it feels like it could melt on his skin like cream. It's not fair that she's not like real newborns with pouchy faces and smudged features making whom they resemble in the family anyone's guess. She so obviously and perfectly has Lisa's willful pout of a mouth, Dean's pointed nose, and Sam's sad, sweet eyes. Hazel and hopeful, so hard to fight.

It's hard, so hard, even knowing that she's so beautiful and makes Dean's heart ache like this precisely because she can't possibly be real. He can't let her be.

Dean lays her down on a flat rock and searches for another put over her. He doesn't want Sam to touch her. Sam stands a little ways off, staying clear of the splash of blood. He is impassive at the sight of Dean wetting his work further with his tears.

Dean wonders what Sam would say if he knew that Dean's crying mostly because he can remember Sam as a baby, and that way his curled leg would kick out under his touch.

The Thirty-Third Day

Dean stands helplessly in the nursery. His daughter's room is dressed elegantly in white and lace and Lisa pinned to the ceiling. Lisa's mouth is sealed with a soundless scream, her but stomach weeps openly, blotting the nightgown he bought her.

"Sorry." Sam mumbles as he idly works open the skin of his thumb open with his teeth. "Thought I'd go for a theme. Forty days is a lot to fill up." He holds it over the pink shiny curve of Mary Samantha Winchester Braeden's toothless mouth. It gapes open like an oyster and collects several black pearls. Her small tongue curls uncertainly around her uncle's blood, as if she can't decide whether it tastes good or bad.

Ben is wrapped tightly around the leg of the rocking chair in the corner. His eyes flick from the baby girl in her bed to his mother stretched out above him. The flames light sluggishly on his mother's hem and the first hints of seared flesh enter Dean's nostrils. Little Mary's playthings start to smolder bright on the shelves like teddy bear shaped lumps of coal. Sam looks fondly upon the boy now staring at him suckle Mary from his hand. It's as if he knows Ben won't ever again look into his little sister's face without seeing the eyes of his mother's murderer.

Dean shoves Sam aside and scoops Mary up from her crib. He unwinds Ben from his crouch on the floor, and runs down the stairs and out the door with one of his children in each hand. Sam stays in the room and politely averts his eyes from the fleeing family. He watches Lisa burn to the end.

"Dad…" Ben hiccups from inside Dean's arms when they're outside. Mary fusses in a firefighter's blanket. "What are we going to do?" he asks. Dean looks at him. He sees the guns and prayer books in storage, and the Impala in the garage. He sees how Ben is smart and brave and strong. He could be such a good fighter if only Dean taught him right. Maybe the hunter who could take down the devil. Just maybe, if he wants to save his sister bad enough.

Dean grips him tighter and Ben starts to cry. Mary joins him.

"Forget this ever happened. Forget, forget, forget…" Dean chants a prayer, a plea, a promise over Ben's head.

The Thirty-Fourth Day

Dean nearly goes out of his mind with worry when he wakes up and he's not in Lisa's friend's guest room and Ben and Mary aren't next to him. The outline of Sam's form is in front of the room window. The dawn fringes him in purples and blues. There's something off about him, the way he looks blameless and vulnerable, scrunched up with his hands gripping the sill. But Dean can't pay attention to that right now.

"Where are my kids?" Dean demands. He expects the smoke in his system to make him feel chaffed and burned from inside out. Instead, to his consternation, he feels cool and clean. Like months of pure alpine air has scoured his insides until they sparkle.

"Don't worry about them. They're not born yet." The devil says vaguely, almost like he doesn't intend for Dean to hear. He turns around, and he's all smiles. Dean gets up because he's going to slam his fists into the devil's skull and ribs until organ smoothie comes out of the orifices. He doesn't care about the consequences anymore. He's already killed Dean's family over and over again. It doesn't matter if it didn't count. Dean's not letting him do it anymore.

Sam meets him halfway. He puts a hand on where Dean's shoulder meets his chest. He tilts his chin up, because, it hits Dean suddenly, Sam's smaller than he is. The shape of his face is softer all around, and lines of muscle are only just starting to appear on his bare torso. Dean jerks his head to the view through the window. Tall pines, and the rippling peeps of frogs trying to find each other in the lake rushes, and oh God, he knows where they are. He knows when they are.

Oh. Oh god, no.

"No." He say abruptly. He throws Sam off, backs up, hits the wall. "No. Goddamn you. No. This isn't happening. Make it stop. I'm telling you I'm turning this one down. No!" Sam watches him, the pain in his eyes newly-minted bullet bright because he hasn't lived his godawful life yet and doesn't know what real pain is.

"Make it stop!" Dean clenches his fists against the rough logs, screws his eyes shut. Sam creeps up closer and closer.

"Dean, shhh, it's okay. We were just kids. We didn't do anything wrong. We didn't hurt anyone."

"We didn't hurt anyone? That's a fucking load of bullshit! Why…why do you think I came after you? Why couldn't I let you die, why couldn't you let me die? Why do think this is the..."

"It's the thirty-fourth day." Sam murmurs. He goes to Dean and wraps his arms around Dean's waist. He presses his head to Dean's chest like he wants to melt into him. Dean gets the memory back, of how that moment was better than any of the open-mouthed, frantic tongued kisses he'd had up to that point. "You didn't do anything I didn't want you to, Dean."

Dean can feel Sam wetting his chest that's missing a shirt that he can't remember removing.

"Please, Dean."

And oh god they're back to those days when Dean was eighteen and Sam was all brazen boxer shorts running around like a stray dog in the woods because dad left them alone here and there'd been no one to see. He'd been so jumped up on his own youth and the first hot surges of hormones and want. Dean had wanted to calm him down with long swims in the lake, maybe throw some of that energy into shooting at cans and sparring matches more crazed than they'd ever done under dad's watch. Get their whole skins buzzing. Sam had taken it, loved it, needed more.

He'd climbed into Dean's bed at night and said he needed Dean.

When Dean slipped his hand inside Sam's thigh, it'd been so perfect, still so smooth like a girl's. Like silk, he'd thought. That was an invention of his imagination because Dean's never touched silk before but he'd needed a word for this.

And then Sam's on his knees in front of him, his lips and teeth catching nervously as he lets Dean tell him what he needs to do until he can't talk anymore and he's pushing helplessly into his little brother's mouth and oh god oh god it's Sammy and he loves him and he's all he has but he knew then and he knows now he can't keep him and it hurts.

The Thirty-Fifth Day

Dean does something he never did before the devil strolled onto his lawn. He gets Sammy on his back and his legs pushed up and his little brother's breaths get fast and close together. It's scary but then Sam's hips jerk and he pushes against Dean to bring him closer, as close as possible. And yes oh yes this isn't just pleasure it's a spike of white-hot sin being nailed right into the base of Dean's spine.

After that Dean gets his jeans back on. He drinks like a fish and vomits and vomits like he can puke out all the shame and guilt and the time paradox. But he can't stop himself being eighteen and Sam being fourteen. He's not the man he was (or is, will be?) in his thirties. He's hasn't seen enough evil in the world yet. He's not tough enough for this.

And he can't take himself away from Sam so open and loving, hugging him fiercely and fearfully in between the sickness. He wants to drink with Dean but Dean won't let him. Dean also won't promise him that they can stay like this even after dad comes back. It's something that Sam begged for all those years ago and begs now. And Dean still says no.

The Thirty-Sixth Day

Sam reads the summer homework he's assigned himself, finally calm enough now that some of the restlessness and lust has been fucked out of him. As Sam gets to the final pages of "Heart of Darkness," he accepts Dean's cup of coffee with a dimpled thanks that means "I-love-you-you-mean-everything-to-me-don't-ever-go-I'll-never-leave-you". Dean looks down at him and sees the flush Sam used to get in his cheeks when something brilliant's been sparking in his brain. It takes a little effort to ignore how Dean now knows that's also how young teenaged Sam looks like when he's at the height of ecstasy, just about to come with someone fucking deep into him.

Dean just absently and wordlessly ruffles Sam's hair. He's only saying: "I'm proud of you," which was common enough in those days. But Sam beams up at him like Dean's just saved his soul without any consequences to his own.

And then with a sudden rush of loneliness, Dean realizes that much more than he wants this doe-eyed, worshipful young Sam unharmed by all the bad decisions of their adult life, he wants the man that this child's presence prompts the absence of. Yes, this Sam is as beautiful as he remembers him. Graceful long limbs winding everywhere, brash unbroken spirit clearly already blazing the trail to a bright future Dean and dad won't be able to hold him back from.

And yeah, he still has that sweet, unconditional love for Dean. It hadn't been without its own complications, if this arrangement is any indication, but it was only complicated because of Sam's dreams trying to take him somewhere. Not because his every nightmare came true (with some of it being Dean's fault) making everything complicated. Dean used to yearn for the return of this love when his Sam was running around his back with Ruby. Now that he has it, Dean feels acutely that he was an idiot.

He wants his Sam. His Sam, who, during a long, boring ride to a new state, had flipped off the radio. That, like everything else small and unexpected of Sam back then, had given Dean a little shock across the back of his neck. He kept remembering when Sam was fourteen, when a departure from the normal had ended with Dean's hand around Sam's dick, and then Sam's lips around his, and so on. The way they never brought it up after Dean picked up Sam at Stanford had been putting Dean on edge with every lull in conversation. Sam was finally tired of it.

"Okay." He'd said. "I think we need to talk."

They hadn't talked, per say; Sam had more or less dictated to him. He said that he'd been thinking a lot about himself and their family. He said that he'd picked up few things from case studies in college (He'd wanted to go into criminal defense law. Who knew?). He now knows what a fucked-up past can do to a person. So yeah, he's not mad at Dean or himself for what happened when they were kids. He doesn't blame Dean or dad for being able to give him the right idea on where to find love.

But he knows better now. A person had to make the conscious decision to accept indiscretions of the past as in the past, and to pursue mentally healthier relationships. What had happened when they were teenagers was already healed over. It had scabbed up with Sam's newfound knowledge on what it was like to be an appropriate relationship, thanks to Jess. Did Dean get what he was saying?

Dean said he got it.

And Dean did get it, in his own way. He got the chance to see Sam act as a young man during the years they hunted together. When it came to deep burning romantic love, Sam reached out and fell quickly for the kind of person he needed at the moment. Normal life steady Jess. Rebound Sarah. Really-ready-to-move-on Madison. Cutting sorrow and need-for-power Ruby.

Hero the-only-one-who-truly-loves-me Dean, Dean thinks as he watches this Sam scribble into the margins of his book.

Dean misses his practical, wired-for-logic-right-down-to-his-passions Sam so bad that this young fiery Sam, whose youthful senses are sensitive to slight changes in the wind, must be able to sense it. By sheer instinct, his jealousy is tripped. He lifts his head from the pages and his eyes narrow in suspicion.

Dean drops a kiss on his forehead and says that he has to go. He says he's not coming back. He throws open the door and walks into the forested night. He's counting on the devil to understand that this is a more final no so they can move on. Even though he can hear Sam sobbing behind him, asking him what he means and nopleasecomeback, he's strangely at peace.

The Thirty-Seventh Day

Dean hates himself. He thought he was so smart and had it all figured out what he really wants. He can't stand that he briefly and naively believed that he'd steeled himself to turn it down anyways once the devil reworked reality to get rid of young golden Sam and give him a sadder, wiser, older Sam who theoretically has no interest in what's in Dean's pants.

Because it's ten years later and Sam's crying because Dean is going somewhere he can't follow. He's begging Dean to take it back. He wants Dean to go the crossroads with him and get a refund for Sam's soul and hell, maybe throw someone else's into the trade if it's not enough.

Dean tells him no like he did before. His head's all messed up. He doesn't know what saying yes to anything means anymore. But it looks like this Sam's unaware of any month-and-a-half long marathons of biblically inspired trials because this just makes Sam cry harder. He pushes Dean onto the bed and Dean finds out sex with notes of "I love you so much I hate you because you hurt me" and "I love you because you'd die for me" has a deeper, more grounded meaning than young stupid love ever did.

As Dean lies in bed with Sammy that night, he wonders where the devil's gone. He has questions. He wants to know whether the original Sam was just bluffing back then. Whether he'd put on a show of decency and scorn for adolescent Freudian desires while salivating wordlessly for Dean the entire time they'd blasted their way through ghosts and cut their way through vampires and bickered with angels.

Or is this Sam in his arms really a modified Sam with modified desires, tailored to maximize how tempting he is? Was he changed from the real Sam to make it as hard as possible for Dean to turn him away? Did Dean break his heart once already by leaving him in a cabin in the woods, or did that never happen? Is Sam only getting his heart broken this time because he never managed to fix it the first time?

Dean would almost say yes just to know. He's sick of this reality within a reality.

The Thirty-Eighth Day

The devil comes back to take his questions. He's generous because Dean doesn't really get anything out of it outside of what's happening within these forty days. He promises it won't count.

"It's real. All of it." He says simply, like Dean's taking issue with his name again. "Real is just real. What else do you need to know?"

The Thirty-Ninth Day

Sam, twenty-six years old if he is a day, is with him in the dark, his shoulders braced above him easily like they've been doing this for years.

"Why can't you choose me? You always chose me before."

Dean lies underneath him, worn down to the bone.

"Sam…I promised you."

"Yeah, but you've lied before. You always broke your promises if you needed to save me. Please Dean. Please. I miss you so much."

Dean thinks around Sam's hands twining around his, his mouth kissing him pleadingly. He thinks about a whole eternity of Sam being alone, being scared, waiting for Dean to come back.

It's what it's been like for him without Sam all this time.

"Sam…no."

The Fortieth Day

Dean comes to but then he's sure that he pissed Sam off so much that Sam cursed him with magic flesh-eating virus. His stomach feels like it's been chewed off by hellhounds. Wait, the devil probably has an entire kennel of hellhounds. Okay, it feels like Sam sicced hellhounds on him, then. Yeah, Dean already knows how likely surviving that is. Okay, Sam's killed him. Great. And he's probably in limbo on the waitlist to hell because it's pitch black and there are stygian black mountains all around.

But the pain just keeps getting sharper. Dean takes a moment to recognize it as extreme hunger, not death. After that he realizes the mountain range is just a decent salvage yard a couple hours north of town with cars stacked several vehicles deep, and he's on his back on a pile of hubcaps. He took Ben here a few months ago for his birthday with the promise Dean would have anything he picked out up and running for him the morning he turned sixteen.

Dean recalls wishing mightily that he could've take Ben across the country to meet Bobby instead. He would've let Ben run wild in Bobby's huge dirty candy store. Bobby would've hovered in the background, all clucking mother hen and back-seat mechanic to Dean about how hard it'll be to fix any lemon Ben pokes at. But Ben would've ended up earning a pat on the back from Bobby for picking out a real beauty all his own. Bobby would have known for damn sure that he taught his boy right.

But that would have been too long of drive and Ben had school on Monday. Dean doesn't mind Ben skipping a few days of class. But as it is, the rusted shell of Ben's 1990 Ford Thunderbird sitting in her garage had been practically enough for Lisa to put Dean's things out on the overgrown lawn. Except that Ben kept hugging Dean around the waist and yelling he loves him and that he's sooo cool. And Lisa kept looking at the Dean and the car like she better be the first one Dean gives a ride to after he's fixed her up. So Dean's been saving the trip to Bobby's for when Ben turns ten and Dean's got enough of Lisa's good graces to burn. Doesn't matter now, he supposes. He'll never be in Bobby's good graces ever again.

There's a clanking of several lids being knocked loose, and then a comfortably familiar voice of complaint as someone lifts him up.

"Walk. Come on Dean, walk. Careful. You remember the last time you ate anything?"

That's ridiculous. Hasn't it already been established that Dean hasn't been taking the fasting and praying route that Jesus Christ made so popular? But then Dean realizes that he really can't recall the last time he had any food. Just a lot of sex. Pebbles crunch as his rescuer slowly force-marches him forward, taking on most of his weight for him.

"Is this where you spend all your time? Jesus, help Lisa out around the house a little more, would you? I didn't tell you to go to her just to be a jack-off and a slack-off."

The Impala's parked right in the middle of a ring of broken down trucks. As soon as the door's open, Dean topples into the backseat. He's too tired to care much that he takes his supporter down with him. There's a small grunt of surprise as the man moves to catch himself and prevent his body from crushing Dean's. Out of what feels like several years ingrained habit, Dean reaches out to run his hand down Sam's face in gratitude, letting his fingers linger on his lips as a prelude to a kiss.

Sam ducks, leaves Dean's grasp empty. "Whoa. Let's…let's not do that." he says too quickly, pushing Dean back, onto the seat. Dean gets it.

It slugs him right in the heart, balls, brain, and solar plexus. Below the belt and right in the kisser, to infinity and beyond.

"You're him, aren't you? The real one this time. The real Sam."

Sam hesitates. His words are gentle. "It's like what I've been saying, Dean. I've been here all along."

"You're my Sam." Dean tells him. He's insists. A tree shudders with a whoosh of wind and oh God Sam it's his Sam is looking at him, and Dean knows that he's crying again.

"…Yeah, it's me. It's me, Dean. So…so, please don't…you know, do that." Sam clears his throat, and yes, it's definitely him. He's even got the Winchester helplessness over tears. In the long awkward silence in which Dean can't do what he says, Sam gets to feet and takes off his shirt to wrap Dean in it. "Here, you've gotta be cold…"

"…Sam…do you know what I did to you?"

Sam doesn't look up from buttoning, but he blinks twice. Dean can see the yard lamp lights winking in his eyelashes. His cheekbone and chin are flashy orange triangles; the rest him is lost to perfect black cutout, his nose and lips curving the edges. "Yeah. Of course I know. I was there, right? It's okay."

"Fuck." Dean groans. "Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck…!" He throws up his hands, shields Sam from his idiot tears. He feels like a broken bottle is trying to push its way out of his throat. The frustration beads hot at the corners of his eyes, slowly seeping through the cracks of his fingers.

"I'm sorry, Sam. I'm so fucking sorry." In the unseeing darkness Dean can feel Sam's fingers awkwardly bumping into his knuckles, clumsily stroking his hands over his face.

"Hey. It's okay Dean. It doesn't matter. Really. It's okay. I promise."

Dean hears a rustle. He takes his hands away and Sam is straddling him carefully, getting enough leverage to fumble at the roof of the car. He flips on the overhead light. Dean gets a good look at him last when Sam ducks his head down and smiles wanly. There's a five-o-clock roughening his jowls and early crows-feet veining his eyes. A spot on his lip like a speck of blood, but that's just a weird freckle. A forehead and a nose that are both just a little too big. His Sam. His imperfect, aging, always suffering little brother.

"Shhh, it's okay." Sam soothes him. Dean stays still, not willing for them to touch in any way while they're like this. "You did good. You did real good. I'm so proud of you. You kept your promise. Thank you, Dean."

Dean feels like telling Sam he can shove his stupid "there, there" cooing sounds up his ass. He doesn't want them. He wants Sam.

Right this moment, Dean feels like he can give up his soul five times over, give up everything he has in the world if that's what it'll take. Sam needs to open his big fat stupid mouth and ask. Sam just needs to…

Dean has to say it to him. He has to say: this is it. This is what I'll fall for. Deal. I'll fall.

I fall for you. Sam.

He doesn't say it.

Sam runs a finger gently through Dean's hair. He touches the freckles just on the tips of Dean's ears like he's trying to memorize them.

"I've got to go." He says.

"Sam—"

"Your family'll be in danger if I stay." Sam presses, and Dean can see this logic in this. Every hunter in the world knows the devil has Sam's face. So he just lies back. "I'm going to be okay. I'm going to keep him under control. You'll see me again. And I—"

He stops when he sees Dean's face. "Well, you know." He says softly.

And he's gone. There are white flashlight beams swinging all around the yard. Bobby's, Lisa's, and even Ben's nine-year old voice are calling for him.

Epilogue

Ben got that car for his sixteenth birthday but he leaves it behind because Dean and Lisa have got enough saved to splurge on plane tickets for the entire family. Okay, it's not exactly the best time to go to Disneyworld right after Ben's first love splits on him for college. But soon his sister's going to be too old to want it and they did promise her someday.

Little Karen has gold hair, not dark hair, but she did get her mom's sharp brown eyes. She doesn't look much like Dean except for the freckles. With Ben practicing WWE moves with her since she was four and depriving video games or TV shows doing nothing to make him stop, she's a already a tough little cuss who likes beating up boys who say she's pretty and stands her ground in swear-downs with her brother. It drives Lisa crazy. Dean's a little weirded out to see his princess growing up so rowdy (because what dad wouldn't be?) but mostly he thinks it's really funny.

Like right now. She's going off on for Prince Eric for almost marrying someone other than Princess Ariel. Ariel in her long red wig is grinning approvingly.

"Honey, can we just get a picture?" Lisa half implores Dean, half implores their self-righteous daughter who's glaring up at the uncomfortable looking park-employee in costume. She picks up Karen and Dean waves them all into the frame. Ben slouches unhelpfully and angstily by his side.

Dean's about to take the picture when he sees Sam standing on the bridge over the mermaid's grotto, just over Lisa's shoulder. He hasn't aged a day and he doesn't wave, but he smiles and doesn't disappear in a second like Dean would've expected him to. There's time for him to stare, and stare, until Ben catches on and looks in Sam's direction. Dean's son squints and maybe there's a slight sense of familiarity, but he'd been too young when Sam breezed into town for day.

Even though Ben's usually kind of proud that his rugged step-dad can catch the eye of much younger hot women, he's not the most cheery of Disneyworld visitors right now. He groans: "Da-ad, if you start picking up gay guys too, I'm disowning you."

"Nah, your mom would kill me." Dean jokes back. He takes the picture.

A/N:

OMG I can't believe it's done.

I've written a lot of SPN fic before this. A lot. Most of it sucked and with each one I told myself: this is it. This is the last one you're going to waste your time on because good goddamn, you just can't write this series! And it was true. With those fics, every sentence was a battle that I couldn't tell if I'd won or not. I want to take those fic down now, and I might.

It took me some time to realize why I couldn't do it. For a long time I've written fic for series like Loveless, -man, and Air Gear. All the characters were of the same type I might have created on my own. Somewhat quirky, very idealistic teenagers. In other words, I've realized that I was struggling with SPN because I've never written in the voices of bitter adult men before. Ha!

Like Freud says, identifying the root of the problem is the first step to curing it. Writing this one did feel a whole lot more natural. Another big fight was finding an appropriate "concept" to work with because SPN is so episodic in nature. Well, I've pretty much ended going with the flow on that one. I really hope this SPN will be the last for the while because it feels like all those crap fic were time invested as practice for this one.

Pleeeease let me know if you enjoyed this. It'll give me hope that I'm not inherently stupid at SPN fic and could do another if I tried. –Insert grim smile here—