Firstly, I want to thank my-spirit-animal-is-the-impala for the inspiration (Go look at his/her stories!) and letting me use their idea.

On to business: this will be AU. There will be no Annabeth (she never existed, AT ALL) because if there were, I would have to write romance, and I'm no good at writing romance. This said, I'm not writing romance, just so you know. Even if I do ship people (not saying who!;) ), I am no good at writing romance, sorry. There will be familial-ness, but again, NO ROMANCE!

It will start while Dean is in hell and Percy is in Tartarus (in this AU he's there alone). Timelines are tricky so I'm just saying it's 2001. Percy is born in 1984, Dean in 1972, Sam in 1976.

Percy: 17 years old
Dean: 29 years old
Sam: 25 years old

Disclaimer: These are not mine. Obviously. If they were, I would be floating in a chocolate jacuzzi right now and eating marshmallow and syrup cookies, which would ruin this computer and thus destroy this story making it impossible for me to type this right now!

Percy had seen people in the Fields of Punishment. He had paid no attention to them because, well, why should he? They were paying for their crimes, and he had no time to waste staring at their pain.

He did notice one though. This one was obviously fresh dead, he still had spirit, and he didn't look like he'd committed some heinous crime. In fact, he looked pretty honest, and actually seemed like a good guy.

Now, before you go shooting him down on account that he'd only ever seen this guy, keep in mind that Percy was an excellent judge of character. He had a weirdly accurate intuition and could easily tell if someone was a good person or not by just a glance. He'd been able to tell who monsters were just by meeting their eyes, and had a little twinge in his gut whenever someone lied to him or was about to try to kill him (and it was handy too! He should've- no would've died hundreds of times before if it weren't for the feeling in his gut when he'd seen someone untrustworthy.) When he thought of this he remembered the man with the kind eyes and the knife, and the girl with the high pitched, whiny voice, and the dagger, and the ladies with one metal leg and too-sharp teeth and the little voice had warned him of every one. That feeling was actually what had brought his attention to the man, or rather, the lack of the feeling. He didn't feel any taint in his intentions, which, believe it or not, was incredibly rare among adults in the real world, much less monsters in Tartarus.

When he looked around in this world of pain and fire, he felt sick constantly. Every person (or monster in disguise, you never could tell) he looked at made him wince, but when he looked at the suffering man, he felt nothing. Well, curiosity, sure, but no twist of his stomach. Percy looked at him for a minute, before turning to slice of an empousa's head with Riptide. He left quietly after that, no more time to spare. He had to get to the Doors, to kill or put to sleep Gaea.

He didn't know anymore. All he knew was that if he let the fire of purpose and urgency in his heart go out, he would just want to rest and not have to worry about extinction.

But he couldn't do that. So he hurried, and he didn't think about what lay ahead.

Dean lay on the racks, refusing to scream. He twisted his head to the side to avoid looking at the demon carving up his bloody rib cage. He saw a kid. Why was there a kid in hell? He wasn't getting tortured, and sure wasn't a demon either. There was no way the kid could be in hell for real, anyway. He'd seen the look on the boy's face on some of the older hunters. The sort of world weariness mixed with a determination and will to survive so old they didn't know its purpose anymore, they just stuck to it. It was the look of a good man, a righteous man.

That look was only on the face of the war-torn. Why was it on the face of a child- no, a man? Why did the children have to suffer in this world? He hated God at that moment. The one who was supposed to love the world. No, that was wrong. He had hated God when he'd gone hunting at age 10 with his dad (who was more like his general) to find the creature -that god made, that he must have made, because didn't God create all things?- that killed his mother. He'd hated God all those nights Sammy had cried in the dark, pulling the covers over his head and trying to hide from the world and thinking Dean hadn't heard him. Dean had heard him. And now, where was he? Hell. Having a (quite blasphemous) heart to heart with himself. Sammy would be proud: He's finally "opening up" to himself. Joy.

Dean had closed his eyes during his inner monologue and when he opened them again, the man was gone. Good, he thought, he should leave this miserable place. His eyes bled as the demon removed them slowly, with a rusty knife. He abandoned all thought to again focus on the pain, and only the pain. He was tired, but sleeping was impossible with a demon shoveling out your brain. He did not know if he was dead or alive. He wanted Sammy. He wanted the mother he had only known for four years. There wasn't any hate in him at that moment, just weariness and longing and sorrow, and he wanted to be free. To die or to live, it made no difference, as long as the pain was gone and he could sleep and, and, and he was home.

But that wouldn't happen for a long time.

Because angels aren't merciful.

And God is not kind.

Because they are more human than they would have us think.

A year later Percy had left camp. He knew it was reckless. His mom wouldn't have approved. But she wasn't there anymore. Hades had her soul and it wasn't fair. He had given his life over and over for the gods and they send monsters to kill his mother. Apparently getting rid of "human ties" might help him give in to their "suggestion" -but it was never a suggestion, was it? No, it was a command- of becoming immortal. She never stood a chance. Her only weapon was kindness and where does that get you with cold-hearted, murdering beasts? Nowhere but the Underworld. So she went to the Underworld.

And Percy wanted to die. But the gods had taken it upon themselves to grant him immortality, as their greatest soldier, to be used forever, whether he liked it or not. He'd tried to kill himself over and over and- and why couldn't they just stay out of his life? so he left camp, I mean, what could kill him? He went traveling, killing monsters. He wanted revenge for his mother, and since he couldn't kill gods, monsters would have to do.

He'd gotten good at it. He'd learned how to hack them apart with Skia (Greek for shade, sorry if google translate messed it up), the knife Nico had given him before he'd left.

He'd thrown Riptide back when they'd tried to "reason" with him ("We gave you the sword that saved your life so many times. We were the ones that kept you alive." like he'd wanted to be kept alive) as if he needed Riptide, a symbol of their control over him.

He'd never known that he was better with a dagger than a sword, never been able to try it. But he could tell that the blade was made as if for his hands only. It was so easy to slice and stab and Percy cried because he knew how to kill and he'd never wanted to hurt people but he'd had no choice and now he was helping people when he killed and otherwise more would die and it was monsters he was killing so he couldn't just stop. But that didn't change that he was killing. So he told himself that he was being a baby and to stop hurting and to man up and don't cry and so he didn't cry. His eyes were dry. His heart was screaming. And he kept on walking (and kept on killing and later he would look back and cry and be glad that he was crying because it hurt so much more when he didn't).

Percy also learned which he had to burn the bones of as well as carve up and other weird things that he cursed the gods for. I mean really, you slice it up, it should be dead, right? No. It turned out, there were other monsters other than the simple Greek ones. Greek monsters, you just sliced off their head and then they were gone (for at least a few years). Monsters from other religions, you had to salt and burn stuff. There was holy water and these things called Devil's Traps which could be useful against demons but also trap him because he wasn't all human (but he didn't curse his god's blood because it was so useful.)

He traveled across America killing. Revenge didn't make him feel better. He had nothing else to do, though. He could stop or go backwards. Just accelerate, like a snowball. It would've been funny if it weren't so true.

Dean was upset. Well, he was happy. Very much so (physical torture had been nothing, but being without Sammy was everything), and now that he had Sam back he was so happy. But he was upset too, mostly at the way Sammy was when he'd got to him.

**Flashback**

Dean had found Sam. He was in a hotel room, on a hunt. Dean had knocked on the door.

"Sam, you there?" Dean had called in a rough voice when a minute had passed. Just as he was doing so, the door opened. Sam stood there, and he looked like a corpse. He had huge bags under his eyes and looked thin and gaunt. He looked tired, and like he'd been crying. He hadn't even looked this bad at Jessica's death. His eyes narrowed and an expression of hate twisted his face.

"Who are you? Why are you posing as my dead brother? Get out, demon! You think you could fool me?" He brought a gun up to Dean's head and Dean lunged forward and held him against the wall, wrenching the weapon out of his hands.

"I am Dean! I don't know how, or why, but I woke up in a coffin, and the only thing I could think of was to find you!" Sam's head snapped up as he studied Dean. The face and voice were the same, but Sam knew how easily demons could replicate that. He glared at the obvious imposter.

"Believe me, Sammy," Dean pleaded in a softer voice. The use of the childhood nickname (and the fact that he wasn't already dead) made Sam pause.

"Tell me something only Dean would know."

Sam hurled the request at Dean, who didn't blink before replying, "You were four. Snuck out once when Dad was on a hunt. I had to go find you and lucky I brought a gun because you'd run into a werewolf. I killed it and Dad never knew we were gone. You cried the whole rest of the night."

Sam looked at Dean for a long minute and then pulled him into a tight hug. He started sobbing and Dean felt his shirt get wet. Then Dean started to cry as well.

Later he would curse at Bobby and want to kill the one who'd sunk Sam into such a depression before remembering it was himself (and he considered it until he recalled that it was his death that had hurt Sammy in the first place).

**Flashback End**

Dean watched as Sam filled in hollow cheekbones and the skin stretched tight over his ribs filled back up again. He slept now. Well, at first he'd had nightmares, but Dean would sooth him and hold him close and soon, there were no more night terrors (but Dean would never forget the way his Sammy had screamed, the way he'd cried and how Dean had had to lay in the bed with him so he could even sleep and he thought he was going to be sick because this was his fault). But he was getting better. And really, Dean was all that he'd needed.

When Dean had died, Sam had shattered. But now Dean was gluing the pieces back together, one by one.

Okay, that was a bit depressing . . . and dark . . . but whatever! Trust me, they're is going to get better. I figure that once they meet, I can have a little Percy/Dean brotherly-ness! I'll try to update soon (ish?) but no promises!

One more thing. No Ruby. Sam will have his powers, but Ruby isn't going to be a part of it. She's just, not going to exist. Also, while the apocalypse will probably happen, a lot of things won't be canon.

Next chapter: one word: Castiel. Also, Percy and Dean and Co. may meet!