This story is a fan fic of Crimson1's fan fic Incubus, and is posted with her permission, or encouragement. It's set after chapter 23.

I own nothing.

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire,

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I've known enough of hate

To stay that for destruction ice,

Is also great

And would suffice

~Robert Frost

"Dean, you're starting to scare me. What's wrong?" Moments before Sasha had felt truly warm and happy, satisfied, for the first time in a long time. He had everything he wanted, a purpose, friends, Dean… Now a cool wind of doubt was pushing at him.

"You're gonna hate me. You should hate me- I hate me right now. I…"

"I'm not going to hate you, Dean. Now whatever it is, spit it out before I decide you're dying of brain cancer or something." The joke fell coolly flat as Sasha took in Dean's response.

Silence.

"Oh, lord, no," Sasha said in calm, patient denial. "You have fucking cancer and you didn't tell me!" Sasha didn't hate Dean right then. He was mad, but he didn't hate him. He should have told him. He should have been told a long time ago. But it's not like Dean had chosen this fate. Something might change. Sasha had a few ideas that could keep Dean with him…

Dean wouldn't look at Sasha as he muttered his response. "I don't have cancer- and I'm not dying of mad cow disease or anything like that," he snapped the last bit as he briefly met Sasha's eyes. He couldn't stand Sasha's kind, questioning stare and pulled a pillow into his lap. Dean didn't realize that he was clutching it like a shield, or a teddy bear. "But the truth is… The truth I should have told you a long time ago, meant to tell you on your birthday before Gordon showed up again…- I was going to tell you earlier but you weren't listening…" Dean paused in his apologetic, defensive ramblings, wondering how exactly he was going to actually say this.

Sasha broke the awkward pause. "Yeah, well after all you're bullshit take it slow talks, I wasn't really in the mood to let you talk yourself out of this- again." They were both sitting up by this point, and Sasha reached over to rub Dean's shoulder. The incubus wasn't surprised how much it hurt to have Dean flinch away from his hand. Maybe the whole Incubus thing had been too much for him after all.

Sasha sighed, refusing to doubt in something that was still so new. He had his own black secrets. "Look Dean, how bad could this secret of yours be? You said you're not dying and I'm pretty damn sure you're not married and I can't think of much else that could possibly make me hate you right now- unless you and Sam have been fooling around on the sly…"

Dean's face was tortured and Sasha trailed off, realizing that the humor was doing no good. Dean surely would have reacted to the last bit of his ramble. It didn't seem like he'd even heard it.

"I'm not dying,"

"Well, I'm glad." Sasha said with a warm grin.

"But in a year- six months really, a little less than six months- I'll be dead. Worse than dead. In hell. Because I sold my soul."

Sasha was frozen. He felt his heart turn to a block of ice, his own soul felt brittle and frost bitten. His skin grew pale and then winter white. His bright, incandescent blue eyes cooled until they held all the warmth of a polar wind, and even his anger was a burning cold rage. He was alone and frozen in the world once more. How could Dean do this to him?

"What?" Sasha's voice was soft and clipped, like the clacking of an artic wolf's claws on the ice. "I believe I deserve more of an explanation than that."

Dean had never imagined a situation where warm, puppy-dog Sasha could frighten him so much. Sure it had been scary when Lust had locked him in a room with the sex crazed Incubus, but it hadn't really been Sasha. Dean wasn't physically scared right then- he wasn't sure if it was possible to be physically scared when you wanted to beat your own brains out. But he was terrified because he knew he was standing on the edge of an avalanche, and avalanche he knew he'd caused, and knew he could have prevented, and now he was about to be buried alive, and the worst part was he knew that it probably wouldn't be quite worth staying alive after the mountain was done falling around him. So with nothing else to loose, he knew he had to stop being scared, and had to stop apologizing. Instead he got mad.

"Don't you dare be angry with me. I did try to tell you earlier. Hate me if you like, but don't blame me, and don't think for a second I wouldn't make the same deal again right now!"

"Why Dean? What in the name of hell, yes Hell, could possibly be worth throwing everything away like that?" Sasha hissed. He wanted to know. He wanted to know why at the end of the year the demons would be the ones to have forever with someone as wonderful as Dean. He wanted to know why he himself was cursed to be alone, to leave and be left, his own personal hell. He wanted to know why his best friend, his lover, hadn't come with a fucking warning label and an expiration date.

Dean met Sasha's eyes now, and his eyes blazed as much as the Incubus' own. "To. Save. Sam. That's what I do. Would saving the world be worth enough to throw everything away? I take care of Sammy. I am the person who makes sure Sam is okay, because then I still have a world."

"Pretty small world," Sasha spat.

"Yeah, well, it's mine. It's what I've had since before I was in kindergarten, an if Sam's okay, my world's okay, even if it doesn't have me in it anymore." The heat of his anger kept Dean from thinking, from hearing what he was saying. All he heard was the roar of flames, and he felt the injury, the insult that someone who didn't know, hadn't been there, would dare to question the foundations of his universe.

There was silence.

"And, putting aside the glaring omission you've been leaving out of every conversation we've ever had-" Clipped, icy, sharp words cut into the quiet.

"Right, like I was gonna introduce myself as Dean Winchester, gonna die in nine months and counting."

"Putting that bullshit aside- how does this save Sam? Cause I'm sure he'd going to be perfectly happy to have you die to save him. That's totally going to assure he'll live happily ever after all right? Did you even think about that? About who you'd be leaving behind?" Part of Sasha watched in horror as the venomous words that sprang from his mouth. Dean was wrong. But he was wrong too. Everything was wrong. This conversation was wrong. They needed to stop, pause, start over, just end it now before things got even worse.

Dean couldn't read Sasha's mind. All he saw was Sasha pulling further away, that frozen expression still on his face. Saw him getting up and haphazardly putting on clothes. "Sam's alive now, and that's more than he would have gotten if I hadn't made the deal. I'm not going to apologize anymore. The price was worth it."

Sasha just glared at him. He knew he was dressed in a hodge-podge suit of armor made of whatever clothes had come to his hand first. Wishing Dean thought he was worth more, Sasha held back his angry response.

"I need some air, some time," he said, heading out onto the balcony. As the door closed, he added, "I'll be back."

Dean didn't hear him. All he heard was a dull, final thud as half his world was vanishing slowly into the night.

A/N: Okay, so this is pretty much a year later than I promised Crim, but yes, I did post it.