They were sitting in the impala, driving down some nameless highway as suddenly Sam noticed movement on the backseat. Dean was still not sober and therefore riding shotgun so Sam motioned him to take a closer look at Castiel.

"Cas, are you ok?", he heard his brother ask with honest worry - when exactly had Dean started to care about the Angels?

A foreign but also familiar voice answered totally frightened: "I'm not Cas. Not anymore."

They had just entered a small town so Sam had to concentrate a bit more on the traffic and let Dean do the talking: "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm Jimmy. Jimmy Novak And I swear you, if you don't stop at that diner over there I'm gonna die of starvation. And your precious Angel won't have a vessel anymore."

Sam decided to stop the car as requested. There were a hell of a lot questions on his mind that needed immediate attention so he thought it safer to take a break from driving. But before he could do much more, Jimmy had left the car and hurried towards the diner leaving Sam alone with thousands of questions and a still drunken Dean.

~*~

Being not quite on the sober side did not stop the elder Winchester from pulling two beers out of the trunk and offering one to his brother after taking a healthy gulp from his own. They had decided to stay outside the diner as they had witnessed how Jimmy started to wolf down everything the waitress was towering up on his table. Both brothers really didn't feel like eating or even just watching.

"Can't believe we made it out of there...", Dean stated.

Sam saw his chance. He really needed to talk to his brother but therefore the older Winchester had to be more than just tipsy. He needed Dean drunk, really drunk. "Yeah, me too. You know, I don't think this is not anywhere near what I need right now."

His brother just grinned and took Sam's bottle to the trunk again only to return with a slightly bigger one. Whiskey. The younger Winchester nodded in approval and both sat on the impala's hood. Sam made sure it was only Dean drinking from the bottle while he frantically was searching for a way to bring the conversation around to the right topic. Before he could come up with a plan - and when the bottle was already half empty - miraculously Dean began talking on his own accord. Sam sent a quick glance to Jimmy who was still eating like he was participating some kind of contest. They obviously had time for talking. Than Dean had his unshared attention.

"I know you heard him." He didn't look at Sam, pretended to watch the neraly empty parking lot of the diner.

Although the younger Winchester had a pretty good idea whom his brother was talking about, he asked: "Who?"

"Alastair. What he said... About how I had promise."

"I heard him." Was Dean really going to spill his guts?

"You're not curious?"

"Dean, I'm damn curious. But you're not talking about hell, and I'm not pushing." That was the truth. Sam nearly burst with curiosity but he would rather die than force Dean to talk about. Getting his brother drunk did not count.

Dean nodded and took another huge gulp of whiskey before talking again. His voice was steady, strong and so Sam was so much more taken aback by his brother's words: "It wasn't four months, you know."

"What?"

"It was four months up here, but down there..." Dean again shook his head, searching for words before he continued: "I don't know. Time's different." Sam knew now that Dean had started he would hear at least a bit of what was up inside of Dean. "It was more like 40 years."

Sam really did not know what to say at that one. So he went with "Oh, my God." How lame...

"They, uh... They sliced and carved and tore at me in ways that you..." Dean's voice was heavy with emotion.

Sam knew how hard it was for his brother to talk about such grave things.

"...until there was nothing left. And then, suddenly... I would be whole again... Like magic..." Although there was lots of sarcasm it was clear that Dean was still fighting deep down inside of him. He had build massive and strong walls over the years and now he had to let them down. At least a bit, enough for him to be able to talk to Sam but not so much that they let everything out. It was like walking a tight rope. " Just so they could start in all over. And Alastair... At the end of every day... every one... He would come over. And he would make me an offer. To take me off the rack... If I put souls on...if I started the torturing." Sam held his breath he had not even guessed... Unshed tears glistered in Dean's eyes and the elder Winchester's struggle with his own emotions was clear to see. "And every day, I told him to stick it where the sun shines." Sam knew his brother would never have accepted Alistair's offer. "For 30 years, I told him. But then I couldn't do it anymore, Sammy. I couldn't."

The younger Winchester was shocked. Not only by the tears now flowing unhindered from his brother's eyes but by his words. Dean had tortured others? Then again it was hell. Sam had no idea if he had even lasted 10 years of torture.

"And I got off that rack. God help me, I got right off it, and I started ripping them apart. I lost count of how many souls."

Sam really did not know what to say. He would have hugged his brother, but...

"The -- the things that I did to them."

He had to say something. His brother needed him now... "Dean..." Oh god... what should he say? "Dean, look, you held out for 30 years. That's longer than anyone would have." Although that was the truth, Sam knew it was not enough for Dean.

The older Winchester was fighting hard to regain his composure. And it took him a full minute before he was able to say something again. "How I feel... This... inside me..." This was exactly what Sam needed to know and really did not want to know at the same time. "I wish I couldn't feel anything, Sammy. I wish I couldn't feel a damn thing."

Ok, the hell with Dean's no-chick-flick-moments-rule. This already was a heavy chick flick moment so the hell with the no-hugging-rule either. He stood, made two quick steps to his brother and was just about to extend his arms, as he heard it. The unmistakable sound of someone going to the ground. He turned to see Jimmy slumped down on his knees half way between the diner and their car.