Sunday Bloody Sunday

by Sojourner84

Still reeling from the revelation of Dean's deal, the brothers hunt down the Hell Gate demons. But one hunt sends them to a place where secrets kill, sins are punished, and Sam and Dean feel the impact of an ageless war. Co. Gaelicspirit and Sojourner84

4. Thursday: Sloth

Disclaimer/Spoilers/Authors: See Chapter 1.

a/n: A belated thank you to our beta, Kelly.

We're very sorry for the delay; time and circumstance unfortunately don't always allow for luxuries like storytelling – but this time you can blame me (Gaelic) because I multi-tasked to finish writing my next episode for the VS. hides under desk

If you stick with us, we promise a full-on thrill ride of a story. This chapter is the threshold to a lot that will be revealed over the next few "days" for the boys. After "today"… all hell breaks loose.

Thanks for reading and especially for reviewing. Knowing that you all are enjoying this story makes the late nights, the plotting, and the scheming all very, very worthwhile.

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"Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright."

-- Benjamin Franklin

I like the sound of my own voice
I didn't give anyone else a choice
An intellectual tortoise
Racing with your bullet train

-- "All Because of You", U2

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Thursday: Sloth

Sam didn't remember setting an alarm. He didn't even remember going to bed, or caring enough to take the time to make sure he was up in the morning, but somehow the incessant bleating of the clock on the nightstand between the beds was puncturing through his ears and pulling him up from the depths of sleep. He cast out his arm, knocking his hand listlessly onto the snooze button, then took a moment to soak in the relief granted his ears.

He didn't open his eyes, simply reburied his head into the pillow, willing sleep to return and quickly. The setting of the alarm clock had been an obvious error on his part. Especially after the night he'd had researching until his eyes had grown so much like sandpaper that he thought his capillaries were going to burst.

He heard a movement to his right, between the two beds, and felt a light breath of air curl against his arm, which was now hanging off the bed. Sam wondered why Dean was up so early. Especially since Sam knew Dean couldn't have been in bed before midnight—hell, two a.m.—because Sam hadn't even gone to bed by then. He could remember that even if he couldn't recall setting an alarm, or even when his brother had come back to the room…

"Dean?" Sam grunted into his pillow. Go back to bed, you freak, and lay off the coffee!

Sam heard papers being shuffled around, a few muted footfalls, then the sounds of their weapons duffel being sifted through.

He lifted his head, shifting to his elbows and pressing against his eyes with his fingers until pinpricks of light danced behind his lids. He then pulled his knees into his chest so he could maneuver his long legs and put his feet on the ground. He sat at the edge of the bed for a few minutes, massaging more sand granules out of his eyes, left over from the night before.

"Now who's gung-ho about this case?" Sam grumbled. "Why'd you set the alarm, Dean? What time did you get back?"

There was no answer, and Sam looked over at the table with bleary eyes where he'd last heard the movement. No one was there. The whole room was suddenly void of sound. Sam was alone.

"Dean?"

Sam's gaze snapped back to Dean's bed, all desire for sleep gone as he became conscious of the fact that Dean wasn't in his bed. Dean hadn't even slept in his bed. The research Sam had been doing the night before was still laid out across Dean's tussled sheets and wadded up comforter.

Sam sensed another presence move behind him between the bed and the bathroom door, heard the groan of the floor under someone's shoes, saw a shadow cast against the morning light as someone passed in front of the window. Someone not Dean.

Sam suddenly startled awake, every muscle tense and the hair standing at attention on the back of his neck. He sat up in the bed, confused, sheets pooling around his waist, and tried to reorient. What he'd experienced had felt too real to have been a dream. As his eyes darted into every corner, picking apart every shadow, Sam thought he could still feel someone watching him.

He kicked off his blankets, heart hammering in his chest at the silence and lack of movement in the room. The light filtering in through the windows was brighter now, indicating that it was much later than when Sam had first awoken. Had that even been… real? Had someone really been in the room?

Real or not, one fact was clear: Dean was missing. It didn't even matter if Sam had been dreaming the first time, because at that moment he couldn't shake the heart-choking panic that had settled in.

He stumbled to his feet, crossing the space between the beds and lifting the papers on Dean's bed to feel the sheets. Cold. Dean hadn't come home after Sam had fallen asleep… which was when, again?

Sam fisted a hand in his hair, spinning again to search the room. He was still dressed in his jeans and T-shirt, but his boots were sitting next to the bed. He couldn't remember taking off his boots, or getting under the covers for that matter. He tried to remember Dean's last phone call to him. Had Dean said he'd be out for the night?

Sam pivoted and faced the open bathroom. Nothing. Pivot. The table. His research was stacked there, and Sam knew he hadn't put it there. He ran a hand through his long strands, trying to remain calm, before his eyes came to rest on his cell phone. He grabbed it up, dialing Dean. C'mon, c'mon…

After a few rings it went to voicemail.

"Dammit, Dean!" Sam hissed before shoving the phone in his jeans pocket.

Sam practically dived for his boots, pulling them on without tying the laces. He pulled a handgun from their small stash in the weapons duffel, tucking it in the back of his waistband and concealing it with his shirt. He reached for the door, tearing it open just as Dean was about to grab the handle from the other side, almost barreling into his brother's surprised face.

"Aw, you didn't have to greet me at the door," Dean said, sliding his confused expression quickly into a smile.

"Dean? You… what possessed you to—where the hell?!"

Dean tugged the corners of his mouth down into a frown. "Is that anyway to greet the hand that feeds you?" He then grabbed the brown paper bag out from under his arm and held it up with the drink carrier in the other. "I brought breakfast. Can I come in now? Or is there a password?"

The password is my boot up your ass…Sam grumbled in his head before shifting to the side so his brother could get into the room.

Sam shut the door after his brother had entered and sunk his shoulder into it, his eyes following Dean to the table. There was something up with Dean. Sam could see that his brother didn't—couldn't—stop moving. Dean set the food down, went over to the bed throwing off his jacket, then returned to the table and moved Sam's research to the side, setting out the food he'd brought like a buffet. He was moving too much for Sam, especially when Sam was still reeling from his experience that morning.

So… he brings food and suddenly he's Teflon? Sam wasn't going to let Dean's absence go unanswered.

"You're a… lookin' good, Sam," Dean commented, pausing only long enough to shoot Sam a concerned look before grabbing a pastry and taking a huge mouthful. "You sleep okay?" Dean asked, before chasing the bite with a large gulp of coffee.

Sam looked down at his half-tucked in shirt, the unlaced boots, and the wrinkled jeans. He caught his reflection in the mirror above the dresser, his unruly hair sticking up in tufts, and his face imprinted from the sheets. Sam straightened his hair the best he could with his hand, eyes boring holes into Dean who was munching away.

"Did I sleep okay?" Sam repeated Dean's question with exasperation.

His fear about what had happened earlier was slowly fading. Logic had him sliding toward thinking that everything had been a dream. He'd just imagined it. Everything except Dean missing sleep. Sam hadn't imagined the cold sheets and he definitely wasn't imagining the slow tremors in his brother's hands, or the way he couldn't stop moving.

"I think the question is did you sleep… at all?" Sam frowned.

Dean was sitting now, but still moving, tapping his fingers against his thigh rapidly to some rhythm in his mind. Sam wondered if he was tapping to the same beat of his caffeine-infused heart. Dean appeared to have heard Sam's question but shrugged and Sam knew he'd pursue some half-truth with his typical artfulness. Sam sighed inwardly, placing a mental bookmark on his question, knowing he was in for a long haul of Dean Winchester's famous bullshitting and dodging the truth.

"When I came in and found you last night, you were dead to the world," Dean teased. "Found you sprawled out across a bunch of papers. All that was missing was a river of drool."

Sam was somewhat put at ease knowing now why he couldn't remember going to bed that night. He tilted his head to the side, looking between the bed and the window where he'd felt someone watching… thought he saw a shadow... Dean's coming and going must have been confused in the sleep-induced fog that had coated Sam's mind.

Dean was up again, and Sam wanted to take him by the shoulders and force him down onto the chair so he'd stop moving for just two minutes and answer a damn question. If Dean thought 'when I came in' was going to satisfy Sam, he was wrong.

"So what did you do last night?" Sam asked, mustering the strength to keep from being overly frustrated. If Dean wanted to dance around this, Sam would just keep throwing out different questions. Sam would get his answer whether Dean liked it or not.

Sam picked up his own coffee, peeling back the lid and letting the aroma smack him in the nostrils like a shot of adrenaline. He needed this to keep up with Dean, who looked like he was already at least fifteen cups ahead of him. He took a mouthful, before snagging up a bagel and sitting on a chair at the table, watching Dean pace. If Sam wasn't so concerned about his brother, the scene might have actually been comical.

"I was doing my own kind of research," Dean beamed.

He leaned on the dresser and Sam wondered if maybe this would be Dean's final stop on his tour of the room. People on caffeine had to crash eventually. Sam searched his brother's face for any signs that the crash was soon. Dean's face was drawn and bruised, but his eyes were bright, coherent, and energetic. With no sleep and God knew how much coffee, Sam knew it wasn't if Dean crashed, it was when. And it would be ugly.

"You were doing research?" Sam asked with arched brow. He set his elbow on the table, resting his head on his opened hand. "You go to that bar down the street?"

Dean's mouth turned up in a sly grin. "There is more than one way to hustle information, Sammy." He brought more of the caffeine-rich liquid to his lips, and paused, something remembered flashing through his expression. "Oh, but, uh… we might want to avoid the diner for a while."

Sam lifted his head off his hands. "Why?" he asked, worried.

"Let's just say that I may have flirted with a waitress who… may have been married to a guy four times your size."

"Swell…" Sam sighed through his fingers as he rubbed at his mouth. God, Dean, can you focus with one head for a while? At least until we get done with this case?

Dean switched his weight from one leg to the other, trying hard to stay still. His skin was crawling, muscles twitched, eager to keep moving, and his heart was beating like he'd run a marathon. Dean didn't expect much less after how much coffee he'd thrown back over the past few hours. He didn't want Sam to pick up on it too much… but it already looked like Sam was onto him. His brother was trying hard to stay patient. Dean could tell by Sam's thin lips, the way he'd set his jaw, and the periodic sighs that left him.

Last night Dean had been able to focus for about fifteen whole minutes on research. It wasn't long after that he realized selective ADD had set in and he needed to get out of the room. He'd kept up with Sam through a few cell phone calls, but every time he'd started toward the hotel to sleep, he found himself back on the road and heading into town.

It had been a little after two a.m. when he'd slipped into the room unnoticed. He'd found Sam, asleep on his papers, his long limbs spread out across the bed. Dean had taken off Sam's boots, rotating his lanky body around until his head hit the pillow, and pulled the covers up over him.

All of this occurred while Sam remained unresponsive to the world. The kid was tired. Exhausted. And Dean understood. He felt the same weariness and ache in his joints and muscles, many of which were still trying to heal underneath the purplish tissue of his back.

It should have been so simple to slip into his own bed, shut down, and get the rest he needed, but staring at the covers, Dean had found he couldn't force himself to move toward them.

Dean dragged a hand down his face, pulling at his tired eyes. Sam was waiting for an explanation. Dean didn't see why it mattered so much; either way—sleeping or not—he wouldn't have gotten any rest.

"Hey, my version of research paid off," Dean defended himself. "I may have gotten us in trouble with one waitress' husband, but I bet I have more than you got last night."

"Oh?" Sam rose to the challenge.

"Ye of little faith," Dean smirked.

"Hey, I doubted your coffee house source." Sam held out a hand in surrender. "Never again, Dean. So where did this one come from? Gwen the pie goddess? Shelly the hunting blind mistress?"

Dean almost choked on the bolus of pastry he had crammed into one cheek. "Want some more piss and vinegar with your coffee, Sammy?"

Sam waved toward Dean, signaling him to continue.

"Okay, so, get this: Sara's greenhouse was a front for Daniel's drug habit," Dean announced.

Sam stopped his thin-lipped, skeptical look long enough to show genuine interest. Now that Dean had his brother's full attention, he continued with confidence, practically rolling in the glow of his accomplishment.

"In exchange, I guess the guy paid her really well… Well enough to keep her greenhouses from going under."

"How the hell did you find this out?" Sam drew his head back, his eyebrows up, his expression dancing between impressed and skeptical.

Dean's grin widened, the story of how he'd conned information burning at the tip of his tongue and sparkling in his eyes. "You forget, Sam, that I'm a Desert Storm vet. A few war stories and some beer will buy a lot of information down at the VFW."

If Sam's eyebrows could arch anymore, they would, but Sam had maxed out his I can't believe I'm related to you face. "War stories?"

Dean lifted a shoulder, downing the last of his coffee and reached for another cup. "I've watched Blackhawk Down."

Sam dropped his head, a scoff accompanying the action.

"So, Sara's accountant," Dean continued, "was in Korea, and he was taking her death pretty hard—hard enough that it only took about three whiskey sours to get him to reveal that she was making sizable monthly deposits from our very own Daniel Gibson—and he wasn't taking any plants home."

"I can't believe you took advantage of a grieving man," Sam replied, then shook his head. "Even though… it is more than we had before…"

"Oh, I'm not finished."

Sam got up and looked at the food Dean had spread out on the table. He picked up one of the breakfast sandwiches and offered it to Dean, not satisfied with the pastry Dean had just eaten being the only thing to combat the caffeine. Dean held up a hand in protest, trying to continue on with his story.

"Eat something other than sugar and coffee, Dean," Sam said, offering the sandwich again.

Dean wrinkled his nose. "Not really hungry."

Sam blinked in disbelief.

"Would you just listen?" Dean asked, shoving the sandwich back.

He pushed away from the dresser and started to pace again. He needed to keep moving. For a moment he'd felt his energy drop into his legs, pulling the will to stay upright from his mind and the strength from his shoulders. He needed to stay awake. Ever since they'd gotten here, sleep had only brought him…

"Hell, I'm all ears, Dean," Sam shot back, dropping the sandwich back onto the table.

"Uh… where was I? Oh yeah! Okay, so this other guy sitting with me and the Korean War vet was also in Desert Storm, just not in the same place I was stationed."

"You weren't stationed anywhere, Dean. You were twelve."

"Dude, it's called playing a role… method acting or something... Besides, it was dark, they were drinking..."

"You should have just said you were in Iraq," Sam muttered.

Deflated, Dean frowned. "Didn't think… of that… Whatever." He shook his head, turning back to face Sam. "Back to the Desert Storm vet. He's hearing the Korean War dude talk about these sizable checks from Daniel to Sara, right, and he's reminded of his mom."

"Natural thought progression," Sam threw in with a roll of his eyes.

"The guy's mom had just paid Father Simons three grand to exorcise a demon from the guy's niece."

Sam opened his mouth to reply, then shut it quickly, eyes urging Dean to continue.

"So, our Desert Storm vet is pissed, right? He said that if his mom had just waited a week, then she wouldn't have had to have paid the guy at all—since he didn't actually do anything. Guess his niece had like… epilepsy or something. Anyway, he told me about a candlelight vigil at the church last night, so I went to check it out."

"Why didn't you call me?" Sam frowned. You don't have to do this on your own, Dean…

"You were… busy." Dean motioned toward the bed, the bed stand, and then the table, all littered with papers. "Where was I?"

"Candlelight vigil for Father Fraudulence…"

"Right! So, I get there and the place is packed. Figgin' everyone in Mercy is there to mourn Father Simons. I was this close, Sam," Dean said as he held up his index finger and thumb, almost touching for emphasis. "This close to telling everyone what he really was."

"But you didn't," Sam interjected. Please tell me you didn't…

"'Course I didn't… under the radar, right? Anyway, it was unbelievable how many people worshiped the guy."

He paused, shaking his head in wonder, his hand snaking up to hesitantly rub the back of his neck.

"I'm sitting there… candles all around making everything really… surreal… and this woman next to me asks if I knew the good Father. So I tell her I knew him briefly and I was there to pay respects because of Sara Tyler. This woman suddenly looks like she's been sucking on a lemon for an hour."

Sam cocked his head to the side. "Who was it?"

Dean's grin returned before the reveal. "Anna Gibson. She said that she knew it was wrong to speak ill of the dead, but she was glad Sara Tyler was gone—she was nothing but trouble for her family and is probably the reason why Daniel was killed. I ask why Anna is there, and she says…" Dean paused for dramatic effect. "That Father Simons called her husband the morning Daniel was killed."

"No friggin' way," Sam breathed. Puzzle pieces began to fall together quickly in Sam's mind, joining to create whole picture.

"So I'm thinkin'," Dean continued. "Sara's greenhouse was a front for Daniel's drug habit, and in turn he paid her, which helped her finance her drinking habit, but she broke, told her priest, who just happened to be a money-grubbing scam artist, and he contacted the soon-to-be mayor for money."

Sam huffed in amazement. Dean grinned, basking in his own glory.

"I'm freakin' Columbo, Sam."

"Or Nancy Drew," Sam mumbled into his coffee. He ignored Dean's glare and kept rolling with the new information. "Where's Daniel's money coming from?"

"I don't know, but all this makes me think that we're dealing with a human psycho-killer, hell-bent on making this town pay for its dirty little secrets."

"Yeah… I'm not sure, man. We know how the victims are connected, but we still don't know why the person or thing chose them or who it'll choose next," Sam said. He went over to his notes, flipping through them. "Y'know… to really get this, Dean, you'd have to understand Dante…"

Dean held up a finger to stop Sam from starting into a literature tirade, went over to his jacket on the bed, and pulled out a book from the pocket. He held it up so Sam could read the title, before having a seat in the chair next to the small table.

"You bought The Portable Dante?" Sam asked. "Wait, you went to a bookstore, too?"

Dean nodded.

Sam studied Dean for a minute, but Dean just blinked back at him, blank-faced and innocent-eyed. Sam finally gave a short laugh and returned to looking through his notes. He found the page he needed and pulled it out.

"Okay, so we know that the virtues we found correspond with the next murder, right? We know that whoever is doing this is following Dante's Purgatorio, but not the same order… more like… just the punishment fitting the sin."

Dean flipped through the book, opening to a page that was similar to the one that Sam held in his hand. "This version has similar drawings to the one's you got from the library," Dean pointed out.

He showed Sam, grabbing the photocopied version and holding them side by side. He then set down the paper and started to leaf through the book again. "So… basically we get to know how these people are going to die… then show up too late to do anything about it. Not to sound overly pessimistic, but we just stumbled onto Sara, Sam. There's nothing guaranteeing that we're gonna be that lucky with another lead, and who's to say the last four aren't already gone? I mean… Sara was dead days before we found her."

Sam sighed, grabbing up the photocopy of the Slothful, whose punishment was to run without ceasing… They were apparently on whatever Dean is on. He dug into his messenger bag hanging on the back of the chair Dean sat in, pulled out a thumbtack and pinned the picture to the wall above the dresser next to Greed, Pride, and Gluttony. Their room was beginning to look rather macabre.

"The victims knew each other…" Sam said, studying the pictures. "You have any idea what kind of ingenuity and planning something like this has to take, not to mention strength. This thing or person has to know this town inside out…"

He paused, chewing on his bottom lip in thought. "I mean, people are being punished for the Seven Deadly Sins. It has to know all these secrets. Sins that wives and families don't even know. Sins that these people paid to keep secret. And this… whatever or whoever it is, knows about them. Not only that—it seem to know who is connected to whom."

Sam paused, thinking again. His mind working through what he knew and what Dean had told him. The virtues almost seemed to be the focal point. "They want someone to find these virtues… either so someone gets the message, or so that the town can stop the deaths by changing their ways…"

Dean had stopped listening to Sam somewhere around the word, 'ingenuity.' He'd flipped back past the Purgatorio and into the Inferno, studying the pictures.

"Did you know that according to this, the center of Hell is ice?" Dean asked.

"Did you hear a word I said?" Sam asked. He then gave into Dean's curiosity. "And, yeah, I did. Something about it being as far away from the sun as you can get…"

Dean was studying something in the book, eyes pinned to a new page and Sam wasn't sure he'd heard him yet again.

"Dean?"

"Dude, Dante wrote the first zombie thriller," Dean joked. "There's a part in here about two guys frozen in ice. The one just eats the other's brains all day."

Sam resisted the urge to take away Dean's new 'toy.' Only his brother would use 'Dante' and 'zombie' in the same sentence.

Dean continued to read, suddenly engrossed, when his eyes caught on a passage. A man was so evil that before he died his soul was cast into Hell, buried in ice, while a demon walked around in his skin on Earth. Now that… Dean could believe. He shuddered, flipping backwards again. Dante was one twisted son of a…

Dean paused, fingers hovering above more artwork. His eyes were greeted by men and women crying out in a desert as fire fell down on them from above, their mouths twisted in anguish, screams falling on deaf ears.

Your daddy was fun to play with…Took a while for the man to break, but boy was he a sight when you dug into the right places. The way he'd scream… until his fucking throat bled.

He kept moving through the pages, taking in the suffering, the pain and hopelessness. These were images from his dreams. They were reasons why he was filling his system with a steady stream of coffee, why he refused to stop moving. They all smashed into him in a wave of nausea and disorientation, stealing his ability to breathe, speeding up his heart in painful spurts. It was too much, too fast, and it caused him to rock unsteadily in his chair.

"Dean?"

Dean blinked, slamming the book shut and tossing it onto the table before pressing his fingers against his eyes. That was too close to home; it was what he'd fought so hard to avoid all night. It had all been returned to him in the instant he'd laid eyes on the drawings. Frustrated and teetering on the edge, Dean pushed to his feet again wanting nothing more than to run away from what had become a tortuous reminder of what awaited him.

This wasn't part of the deal, bitch, Dean thought. He wouldn't survive a year—eleven months—if these dreams continued in their vivid ferocity.

Once again, he was motion. He began to cross the room, away from Sam, away from Dante, rubbing his fingers across his lips. He felt his heart rock in his chest, beating against his ribs, slamming into the base of his throat. It rattled inside of him like a bird trapped in a cage, as if trying to break itself against the barriers he'd so carefully constructed.

Pulling in a breath, he scratched at his jaw line, then moved his hand to rub distractedly at the back of his head. The healing cut there was a harsh reminder of what dealing with the reality that Dante had imagined resulted in more times than he cared to remember. Without really being conscious of it, he resumed the pattern between Sam and the opposite end of the motel room, rotating when he reached either destination and headed back the other way.

Sam twisted sideways, one elbow braced on the table, the other on the back of the chair he sat in, watching with calculating eyes as Dean paced. His brother was moving like he was in a cage. Sam could see Dean's T-shirt stretch as the muscles in his shoulders coiled tighter with each step, the tremble in his fingers as a result of the near-overdose of caffeine, and the shadows lurking at the corners of his eyes growing darker.

He's been gone for hours, Sam thought, and he looks like he's ready to climb the walls.

"Dude," Sam said softly, his tone puzzled. "What's with you? I haven't seen you this edgy since… you were on lock-down in Providence." Too bad we don't have any vibrating beds here… might keep him from running around Mercy without me…

Rubbing the back of his neck as though trying to erase a mark there, Dean sighed, his back to Sam. "What if we just... left, Sam?" He shook his head. "Gave all this evidence to the police."

Sam slumped back in the chair, sighing. He rubbed his aching eyes, the grit from the night before still trapped at the edges of his lashes. He was getting so damn tired of having this conversation. Tired of spending half of his time trying to convince Dean that this was their kind of evil... God, Dean, why the hell can't you just believe me? What was it about this hunt that made Dean doubt him?

Dean turned to face him, dropping his hand from his neck and spreading it out in a helpless, questioning gesture. "Sam, I... don't think this is something we should get caught up in, okay?"

Dean's thoughts bounced to the guys at the VFW, their sorrow over losing Sara… about Anna Gibson and the venom in her voice when she said Sara's name while at the same time mourning Father Simons and her husband. The case was too real… too close.

It was getting hard to breathe—the deeper they got, the heavier everything seemed. He wanted to move, to be gone, to get Sam out of there before something crazy happened. Before his own sins got the best of him…

"We should be staying under the radar, not doggin' a police investigation. I just—"

His eyes dropped to the copy of Dante sitting on the table near Sam's elbow, then danced quickly across the room, looking out of the curtained windows. He couldn't seem to keep them still. The more he tried, the more he felt ready to jump out of his skin.

Sam tilted his head in question. "What else did you do last night, Dean?"

Dean frowned, not meeting his eyes. "I told you."

"You were gone for like... twelve hours, man," Sam said, resting his forearms on his knees, gripping his hands tighter. "Didn't take you twelve hours to do all that."

"Yeah," Dean said, looking at him with shadowed eyes. "It did. You ever been to a candlelight vigil?" He shook he head, eyes shooting away again. "Things take for friggin' ever with the talking and the singing..." He stepped back over to the table and reached for the remaining coffee.

Sam shook his head, darting out a hand to cover the top of the cup and stop Dean. "Where else did you go?"

"Nowhere, Sam." Keeping his hand on the cup, Dean rolled is eyes. "I just… walked around some."

"Why don't you want to sleep, Dean?" Sam asked suddenly.

For one brief moment, Dean stilled. Everything stopped—his dancing fingers, darting eyes, rhythmic breaths. Everything except his heart. It hammered so loudly in his ears that he was sure Sam could hear it. Dropping his hand from the cup he turned away from Sam, facing the bed. Images of fire, heat, pain, loss—courtesy of Dante's vividly drawn landscape—shifted over his eyes once more, veiling the inviting sight of soft pillows and cool sheets.

"Not tired, Sam," Dean mumbled, resuming his tour of the small motel room, his hand once again going to the back of his neck.

"You're not tired," Sam scoffed, his tone disbelieving.

"Yeah." Dean paused at the opposite end of the room from Sam, then turned, tilting his head out at his brother, hands open, eyes annoyed. "Sometimes you're just not tired."

Sam pushed himself to his feet, a cold anger building low in his belly, fueled by the realization that Dean was hiding from him. That he was lying to him. A stranger could see by the purple smudges under Dean's green eyes, the pale, drawn face framed by a forgotten scruff of beard, the set of his shoulders, the roll of his stride that Dean was skidding along the edge of total exhaustion.

And Sam wasn't a stranger. Most days he was closer to Dean than his brother's shadow and yet… yet there was always a part of himself that Dean held in check, that he kept back from Sam, that was only revealed when the dark stripped defenses and leveled the playing field. Even when he slept, Dean didn't rest. Sam knew that his sleep hadn't been peaceful since Wyoming. Since Cold Oak.

"You're dreaming about the deal. About what's gonna happen?" Sam asked, tucking his fingers into his jean pockets, squaring his shoulders, facing his brother, waiting. "That's why you won't sleep."

Dean slid his eyes to the side, shaking his head. His fingers tapped restlessly against his legs. "I don't know what you're talking about, Sam."

"You sure as hell do," Sam countered. "I know it tears you up at night—I've seen the nightmares, Dean. I've stopped them."

Dean looked back at him, his jaw hard, his eyes hollow. Sam saw his words drop into his brother and fall through the emptiness in Dean's eyes until they crashed and broke against the concrete wall he had built around his heart. He'd seen this look before.

I'm not alright… not even close… but neither are you, that much I know…

When Dean stayed silent, Sam tried again. He felt like he was slowly chipping away at stone with the strength of a fingernail. "Dean, I…" he swallowed. "I know you went through hell that night."

Dean tipped his head, his eyes narrowing slightly, intent on Sam, waiting for his brother's next words.

"That night in Cold Oak," Sam clarified softly. The set of Dean's shoulders, the staccato ticking of the muscle in his brother's jaw warned him that he was making a hole. He just needed to be able to fill that hole with the right words. Be careful… "I know how you're feeling—"

"Stop it, Sam," Dean growled low, his voice rolling across the room with the power of a punch. "Just… stop it."

"Dean, you gotta… you need to talk about it, man," Sam pushed, stepping forward. "It's killing you. I've been watching it eat away at you for weeks now and—"

"This fuckin' case is what's eating away at me!" Dean deflected, pushing Sam away with angry words. Tooclose… he's getting too close… "Focusing on that… book, this pattern, who's next, why it's all happening… that's eating away at me…"

Dean narrowed his eyes, his forehead folding to bury a line of anger between his brows. He could feel his muscle bunch as if his body belonged to someone else and he was simply an observer. He felt the rush of blood through his heart and into his head. He could feel his body ticking.

Sam felt an answering heat lick the edges of his patience. "Stop fighting me about it, then!" He yelled, spreading his arms out and leaning forward. "God, Dean. People are dying, and we're the only ones that—"

"Oh, don't give me that we're the only ones that can stop it crap," Dean shook his head, pointing once to Sam. "This isn't like before, Sam!"

"What?" Sam pulled his head back, confused. They were facing each other, eight feet apart, their words shooting from them and bouncing against each other in the void.

"Sending these goddamn Hell Gate demons back to the pit isn't going to get me out of the deal," Dean snapped.

Sam took a breath. "You think that's what this hunt is about?"

Dean turned to the side, shaking his head. He held his right hand in his left, twisting the silver ring distractedly. "I think you're trying to do the same thing you did when you thought you were going to go… darkside."

"Oh yeah?" Sam dropped his shoulders, his eyes narrowing. "What's that?"

"The more people you saved, the less of a chance you had of turning evil," Dean looked over his shoulder at him. "Right?"

Sam felt the heat in his belly grow, an oddly familiar burn that settled at the base of his throat. He knew this feeling. He'd embraced it in Wyoming when he pulled the trigger over and over, ending Jake's life. Only this time, it was focused on his stubborn brother. Sam took a breath, working to quell the desire to lash out.

"Don't turn this around on me, Dean," he said. "This hunt isn't just about the Hell Gate demons. It's about saving this… town, these people from a demon. A killer. It's about doing our job, man."

Dean shook his head, his eyes darting past Sam to the pictures pinned to the wall above the dresser. "This is just… it feels wrong, Sam. This job… it's messing with us."

Sam thought about the presence he felt in the room that morning—before Dean had gotten back. Gotta agree with you there... His face pulling together in concern, Sam unconsciously shifted his body forward, watching his brother.

Dean turned to the doorway that led to the bathroom and leaned a hand on the doorframe. "It's messing with me," he said so softly that if Sam hadn't been listening for it, he would have heard nothing more than a sigh.

Sam pulled his lower lip in, thinking. He dropped his eyes to the worn carpet, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose and ward off the ache building behind his eyes

I'm gonna burn, Sam… they're waiting for me…

Sam had to do something… something to bring Dean back to him. To pin him down, stop him from bouncing through this hunt, stop him from running away even as he stood next to him.

"Dean," he started, feeling his brother tense even several feet away. The air in the room suddenly became tight, the space between them quickly filled with the heaviness of sacrifice. "I know it had to have been hard on you the night when I… I died."

Dean felt the muscles in his stomach tighten, felt his heart pound. He tightened his grip on the doorframe. He's doing the only thing he knows how, he told himself. Go easy on him... He knew how Sam felt right now. He'd been there, had gone through hatred, guilt, and forgiveness in thinking about his father's choice. He knew his brother felt betrayed about the deal he made to save his life. But there was no way that Sam could know how that night felt.

"I know how it must've felt for you to have to see me... see that."

The words were innocent, the meaning sincere, but hearing them caused something inside of Dean to snap. He turned around so fast that Sam stepped back in surprise.

"Don't you say it! You don't!" Dean barked, pointing his finger at Sam, crossing the room with purposeful strides. "Don't you fuckin' say you know how it had to feel to watch you die! To feel you die!"

Dean didn't stop until he was toe-to-toe with Sam, his angry eyes boring holes in Sam's face.

"Dean, I—" Sam tried again.

Dean fisted his hands in Sam's shirt, turning him, and with a heave that sounded like the cry of a wounded animal, shoved Sam against the wall next to the table.

"Stop it, Sam," Dean demanded. "Stop!"

Sam felt Dean's hands shaking against his chest, trembling with the effort to reign in his anger, his pain. Shaking from the copious amounts of caffeine he'd ingested in an effort to remain on his feet, to remain awake, to deny his dreams the power to take him down in to the dark. Sam reached up and wrapped his hands around Dean's fists, forcing them away.

"Let go," he demanded, surprised to hear the tremor in his voice.

Amazingly, Dean did as he was told. He backed away from Sam, rubbing his fingers across his mouth in a familiar gesture of helplessness. Dean shook his head, his eyes looking around the room, seeing nothing.

"You aren't allowed to say that you know how I felt, Sam," Dean said, his voice hard. "You can't say you know what I went through." He shifted his haunted eyes to meet Sam's briefly and then let them drop.

"Maybe I can't now," Sam retorted, his lips twitching. "But you sure as hell made sure that I'd be able to one day."

Dean's brows met in across the bridge of his nose. "What?!"

"You're such a hypocrite, Dean," Sam snarled. "You don't think I remember how messed up you were when you found out what Dad did? That he did it for you? That you didn't get a choice?" Sam's voice rose by increments, his body leaning toward Dean as his anger burned hot and bright with indignation. "What happened to what's dead should stay dead, huh? What about thatlittle nugget, Dean?!"

"Fuck you, Sam!" Dean yelled, pushing him away. "You don't get it!"

"Why don't you tell me, then!" Sam yelled back, pushing against Dean harder than he'd intended.

Dean stumbled back, his legs hitting the bed. As he started to topple, Sam fisted his hands in Dean's T-shirt to keep him from falling and Dean reached up, grabbing his shirt once more, surging forward.

Fueled by pain and anger, Dean growled, slamming Sam against the wall once more. They faced each other, fists tangled in T-shirts, eyes raw.

"You want to know so bad?" Dean barked, his jaw so tight Sam was sure he was going to break his teeth. "You want to know what it felt like to walk in to that diner and see all those bodies, all that blood… and you're nowhere!"

Dean's voice broke. His fists trembled against Sam's chest. His jaw shook. "You want to know what it was like to look for you—again—and find nothing!"

Sam felt his heart drop, sinking into the lava that was his stomach, as Dean's eyes pooled with tears of memory.

"You want to know what it felt like to get to that town one second—one second—too late?!"

Sam swallowed, air leaking from him in a slow exhale of sorrow. He loosened his fists, pressing his hands flat on Dean's chest, smoothing the wrinkles in his brother's T-shirt with clumsy fingers. I take it back… He didn't want to know. He didn't want to know any more than he already did, anymore than his own fears, his own imaginings, and Dean's nightmares had already shown him.

Dean dropped his hands and turned his back as if he knew that Sam was backing down and was unwilling to accept the apology Sam held at the back of his throat. Walking away with slow, measured steps to stand between the beds, Dean took a breath and Sam heard him pull the emotion back inside where he could control it.

"I carried you in that house... and laid you on that bed... because there was no way in hell I was going to let anyone else touch you." Dean's voice was quieter now, the hard edges softening with confession. "I just... sat there. I watched you and you weren't just sleeping. You weren't breathing. You weren't moving. I've watched you sleep for years, Sam. And this was… I looked at you lying there and… I saw… my little brother. But you were… you were gone."

Sam felt the fire inside of him quench as his heart burned, bubbling up to fill his throat with a lump of emotion. He'd never heard Dean's voice like this when he was awake. His words carried the same haunted devastation Sam had heard the night before. Sam's eyes blurred and he blinked rapidly, realizing that they were tears. Looking away from Dean's stiff back, he swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand.

"You shouldn't have done it, Dean," Sam sniffed, knowing his brother wouldn't listen to him any better now than he had four weeks ago.

"I didn't have a choice, Sam," Dean finished softly.

"Yes, you did," Sam argued, his voice tight. "You did."

Dean looked down and Sam watched him shift his body into a familiar stance: Dean was preparing for a fight.

"Yeah, well. I'd do it again." He turned to face Sam and his exhausted eyes were dry, flat, steady. The fading bruising on the side of his face offset the paleness of his features. "I'd do it again in a second."

"Dean..." Sam whispered. When Dean simply stared back at him, Sam took a breath. "After we finish this job, I'm getting you out of that deal."

Dean's eyes shot over to him, incredulous. "What?"

"I'm not letting you burn, Dean," Sam stepped forward, his hands curling into fists at his sides. He consciously relaxed them, and felt them curl tight again of their own accord.

Dean blinked, his eyes widening with obvious surprise.

"I told you, man," Sam's tone was softer, watching Dean react to hearing what haunted his nights thrown back at him in his brother's voice. "I've seen what the nightmares do to you. I know you're scared—"

"I'm not scared of dying, Sam," Dean interrupted. He'd always been prepared to be the one to go first. He'd somehow always known he would live hard and die young. It wasn't dying he feared...

"No," Sam shook his head. "You're scared of going to Hell. Of going through what… what Dad did."

Air left Dean's lungs in an audible rush. He felt like Sam had hit him, as if Sam's words had the power to bow him with their weight. If you could see your poor daddy, hear the sounds he makes 'cause he can't even scream. He felt hot and cold at the same time. His chest was tight and his eyes burned. He trembled.

"I'm not gonna let that happen, Dean," Sam said, his voice stronger.

Dean was spinning. Desire for Sam to be right, for there truly to be a way out, was quickly extinguished by the knowledge that the deal was a binding contract—and Sam's life depended on Dean's fulfilling his end.

He rubbed his aching forehead, pulling air in through his nose. "No, Sam…"

"You said it yourself, man," Sam stepped forward again, his words beginning to tumble over each other in their urgency to escape. "We've got work to do, right? This Deadly Sins demon, this town, Daniel Gibson, Father Simons, Sara Tyler—that's only part of the job." Sam folded his fingers down one at a time, ticking off the checklist in his mind that had to be handled before they could focus on the most important task. "We send this demon's ass back to Hell, then we figure out how to—"

"Sam," Dean barked, pinning his brother's eyes with his own, his breathing steadier, his body calming, combating the effects of the caffeine, the exhaustion, the strain of this hunt with the need to focus his brother, to keep Sam from doing something… something Dean might do. "For the last time. No."

Sam set his jaw. "What do you mean, no?"

"There's no out of the deal for me, man," Dean said.

The fire in Sam's belly flashed hot. "Yes. There. Is."

"Sammy," Dean shook his head. "This is it for me. This year. The sooner we both deal with that, the easier it's going to be." Nightmares not withstanding…

"Easy?!" Sam yelled, watching as Dean jerked slightly with the impact of his denial. "You think it's easy to wake up every morning and know that you're one day closer to dying?!"

"Sam—"

"How can you just… how can you say that?" Sam stepped back, his eyes hot, his brows pulled to a tight line. "I know it scares the hell out of you, man! I know why you're not sleeping."

"Yeah, okay, it scares me, Sam!" Dean shot back. "Is that what you want to hear? If I think too long about this year being over, I can't breathe—happy now?!"

Dean reached both hands to cup the back of his head, his brow twisted with the ache that always accompanied this line of thinking. He dropped his hands, then pointed at Sam. "Dammit, I would do anything—anything—to save you! To give you a chance." He took a breath, dropping his arm as if it weighed a ton, feeling the muscle in his jaw bounce. "But that doesn't mean I'm… ready for what's going to happen, either."

Sam pressed his lips tight, his fists clenching and loosening in impotent frustration. It's not fair... He felt a rage building, fueled by Dean's words. He wanted to strike out, to hit something, to scream. To do something to try to control the frenzy of emotions that resulted from the complete inability to do anything to save his brother...

He looked away from Dean, his eyes lighting on the paperback Dante Dean had left on the table. With a growl he turned, picked up the book, and threw it at his brother. Dean jerked sideways, the spine of the book missing his cheek by inches and smashing into the lamp behind him.

The room was plunged into semi-darkness, the only light filtering in through the gauzy curtains over the windows on either side of the door. Dean heard Sam breathing. He heard the shake as he breathed in, the whimper as he exhaled.

Dean swallowed. He'd known this was coming… had been avoiding it for a month… and he still hadn't been ready. They'd just kept moving, kept fighting, kept doing their job and Dean had hoped that he could put this off.

But this job—this hunt—dug deep inside both of them and Dean knew that not only was it not going to let them go until it was over, but it was going to turn them inside out if they weren't careful.

"Feel better?" Dean asked.

"I'm not going to let them take you, Dean."

In that moment, the quiet heat in his brother's voice scared Dean more than any Dante-induced images of fire and death. He crossed the room in three strides, surprised when Sam took two steps back. Pressing his advantage, he grabbed the front of Sam's T-shirt and shoved him. Sam's hips hit the table behind him and he would have toppled had it not been for Dean's grip.

"You listen to me," Dean spat. "I get out of this deal, you die. Just like that."

"I don't care!" Sam yelled, pushing at him.

"I do!" Dean fired back, not releasing him.

"Dean, please," Sam whispered, wrapping his long fingers around Dean's strong wrists. "Don't… don't give up on this. Don't give in to this…"

"Sam, it is what it is, man," Dean said. "We just… we have to deal with it."

"No," Sam shook his head. "I've seen enough in my lifetime to know that nothing is inevitable," he argued, his eyes pleading.

Dean ticked his head to the side, taking a step back, forcing Sam to let him go. "You sure didn't think that way when you thought you were going to go evil—"

"Exactly. Turns out I didn't—"

"—practically begged me to kill you, more than once, even after I told you—"

"—didn't happen and neither will this. I couldn't handle it—"

"—rather die."

Their voices had risen by increments as each worked to shout over the other. Finally, they stared at each other, silent, spent, both desperately trying to pull in breath, slow the angry beat of their hearts.

"Dean…" Sam tried, his voice strangled. "I don't want to do this without you. If you go… if we don't figure out a way out of this… I'll go, too."

"Don't say that, Sam," Dean said, sweat breaking out on his face even as his heart went cold. He knew Sam meant what he said. "You can do this without me. You have to."

"Why?" Sam's voice was low. It shook with remnants of anger and frustration. "Why do I have to? Why do you have to be the one to sacrifice?!"

"Because it's my job!" Dean yelled.

"Well, then, you're fired!" Sam yelled back.

Dean blinked at him, surprised into silence. Sam swallowed, then suddenly, his lips quirked. Dean felt his fingers twitch. He remembered vividly what it was like to walk into that cabin, the taste of the Crossroads Demon still on his lips, and see Sam standing… standing. He remembered what it had felt like to wrap his arms around his brother and feel him breathing, feel him warm and alive.

He turned away from Sam, leaving him leaning heavily against the wall. This was all too much, too heavy. He needed an out, a way around this subject, a way to distract Sam from the idea that he could help Dean escape his fate… His eye hit the broken light between the beds, pieces of glass scattered on the nightstand, around the alarm clock and on top of the copy of Dante that had started this whole thing.

His thoughts bounced from memory of how the Crossroads Demon tasted like graveyard dirt—which, he had actually tasted before—to the conversation with the Korean war vet and his recollection of loss, to Sam's emphatic denial that Dean would ever reach the center of Hell and burn in the icy fires that waited for him there. He stared at the book, silently cursing its power to weaken defenses twenty-four years in the making.

He tilted his head. That book...

"Why would a demon pick a book written by some guy almost a thousand years ago?" Dean suddenly wondered aloud.

"Huh?"

Dean picked up the paperback, shaking off the glass from the broken lightbulb and flipped through the pages, thinking. "Why would a demon even care if people are sinning?"

"Don't change the subject, Dean," Sam pushed away from the wall, his stance slightly unsteady in the wake of the emotions that had just been expelled and were still wafting around him.

"I mean… wouldn't it want people to commit these sins?" He turned to Sam, a true look of confusion on his face. He held the book out, but Sam didn't move. "What does it gain by—"

"What? Torturing them? Humiliating them? Exposing their deepest secrets to people who had no idea while they were alive?" Sam pointed out. "Are you kidding me? This thing's totally getting off on what's going on around here."

Dean dropped his arm, the book still in his hand. "I don't know, man, I mean… this whole thing is really… complicated. People are complicated. Demons—"

"Create elaborate scenarios to pull a group of special kids together and get them to fight until there's only one standing," Sam said, bitterness heavy in his tone.

Dean was quiet.

"The police don't have squat, Dean."

Dean looked at the pile of research he'd moved from Sam's bed to his own early that morning so that he could maneuver Sam into bed.

"We give them our evidence and… hell, they'd probably arrest us to just have something on the books. We know how to be invisible," Sam continued. "I mean… Agent Hendrickson only caught us because we let him."

"Yeah, I know." Dean pulled in his bottom lip.

"We can't keep fighting each other on this, man," Sam sighed. "We can't hunt like this. And I know you can't walk away. Not now."

Dean sighed. "Yeah, but… that's what gets me, Sam. I mean some guy—or, okay, whatever demon—is walking around… playing judge and jury on these people's lives and then just dishes out the punishment according to this?" Dean held out the book.

Sam took it from him and stepped back as Dean moved toward the table and picked up the half-cup of coffee. He swallowed the rest in a gulp, grimacing at the bitter aftertaste. The coffee was lukewarm and tasted nasty, but he needed another shot of caffeine. He needed to keep moving forward, keep alert, keep awake. He didn't know what would happen if he stopped.

"You're right, Sam," he said, his back to his brother, his eyes on the pictures Sam had pinned to the wall. "I can't walk away." No matter how much I want to... No matter how much we need to… "Nobody has the right to punish like that. I mean, hell," he turned slightly, not quite looking at Sam. "Not even God does that." He set the coffee down, his eyes vacant. "Far as I'm concerned, God doesn't do much of anything these days."

"That's not true, Dean," Sam stepped over to him.

"Oh, yeah?" Dean looked up. "You still pray every day?"

"Yeah," Sam nodded. "I, uh… do." Out of habit more than anything…

"You pray the day Jake… killed you?"

Sam stilled. He saw the challenge in Dean's eyes, knew what his brother was leading up to. "Yeah," he said softly. "I did."

"Didn't do you much good, did it?" Dean's smile was cold.

"Dean… I don't pray to… get what I want," Sam tried to explain. "I just… ask for help, I guess."

"Well, I'd say that was a big fat no to your request," Dean shook his head. "Sara Tyler went to confession every Friday—she was still tortured to death. Hell, Father Simons was a goddamn priest…"

"Faith isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card, Dean," Sam said, frowning. "God can't get directly involved. It would be… well, cheating. That's why there are angels."

"Angels," Dean scoffed, shaking his head. "Thought we covered that back in Providence."

"Just because you've never seen something doesn't mean it doesn't exist," Sam argued. "Most of the people in this world have never seen a demon and we know they exist."

"See? Right there," Dean stepped forward. "Demon's sure don't give a damn about getting directly involved."

"Well, yeah," Sam shrugged. "'Cause they're… demons."

Dean rubbed his forehead. "This conversation is giving me a headache."

"Maybe you should eat something else," Sam tried, glancing at the table still laden with now-cold food.

Shaking his head, Dean crossed to his bag and dug out a bottle of ibuprofen. Swallowing two, he turned back to Sam, his eyes on the book in Sam's hands. Sam seemed to notice and tossed it on the table.

"Dean," Sam's voice was a plea. "I'm not letting this go."

"Nah, I know," Dean sighed. "We just have to figure out who—"

"That's not what I meant," Sam looked at him. "I'm getting you out of this deal… one way or another."

"You aren't dying for me, Sam," Dean stated, his tone a clear end of discussion.

Sam clenched his jaw. You still pray every day… He did pray, but lately it had all been questions and demands. Dean had saved him and doomed him in one single selfless act. How am I supposed to live with that?

"Sam?"

Sam just shook his head, looking away. It's not fair… They were the good guys in this story. They did everything they were supposed to do in the fight against evil. For twenty-four years they struggled and lost, survived and persevered. And all they had to show for it was one soul saved after a year of torment, one soul doomed to an eternity of torture, and one soul struggling to not fall over the edge.

"Nobody's dying," Sam finally said, his tone a mirror of Dean's. His eyes were hard. "Not you, not me, and… if we do this right… nobody else in Mercy."

They regarded each other silently for a moment in the dimly lit room, weighing the conviction each saw in the other's eyes. Sam felt the unspoken words, the unresolved tension swirl around them. He knew that as long as the Crossroads Demon held the contract on Dean's soul, this discussion would not be over. But he also knew that he had nothing in this moment to convince Dean, to get him to believe in something… believe in Sam.

Believe that there was hope for him.

Finally, Dean scratched at the cut on the back of his head. He closed his eyes briefly. Focus, Dean… This wasn't going to go away. No matter how many doors he stood outside of, or how many showers he retreated into, Sam wasn't going let this go. And a small part of Dean didn't want him to.

"Well…" Dean looked over at the pattern of evidence Sam had laid out the night before. "The only thing we do know is that someone else will either die or be found dead today."

"Unless we find them first," Sam pointed out. "The last clue was Diligence."

"Right," Dean said, picking up the St. Patrick's pendant from the table and sitting on the edge of the bed. He rolled the pendant over his fingers like a coin. "Well… so far, all of the victims have been connected… really bizarrely, but connected."

Sam sat on the chair opposite him, watching Dean's hand.

"I know we found Daniel first, but…" Dean frowned. "Something tells me that Father Simons is somehow key to this whole Mercy killing."

"Or you just don't like him," Sam muttered, his eyes on the pendant.

"Well, yeah, I mean, he was a rat bastard… but I still think it's weird that both Daniel and Sara were connected to him." He shrugged, "And each other, I guess… which leaves us with a big steaming pile of nothing."

"Oh my God!" Sam said suddenly, straightening as if hit with a bolt of electricity. "Dude… we're so… blind!"

"We are?" Dean's brows pulled together.

"Yeah! I mean… it's… holy crap!"

"You mind sharing with the class, there, Sam?"

Sam ran his hand through his hair. "The clues aren't just for the next sin—they're for the next victim. Like… who they are!"

"How do you figure?" Dean frowned, moving the pendant along his fingers, his leg bouncing in an unconscious rhythm.

"St. Patrick wrote a rite to cast out demons," Sam started.

"Huh?" Dean lifted an eyebrow. "I thought he was the dude that… chased all the snakes out of Ireland."

"Well, that's… forget it," Sam waved a hand at him, crossing over to the pile of papers on the bed next to Dean. "A rite—one like we've read at every single friggin' exorcism for the last four weeks… Here, he wrote that." He handed Dean a paper.

Dean took the paper from him, palming the pendant. He scanned the Latin rite, then looked up at Sam.

"The pendant was under Daniel Gibson," he said slowly, "and it led us to Father Simons—"

"Who was running a scam about exorcising demons," Sam finished his eyes lighting up with possibility.

"So what about the video tape?"

Sam pouted out his lips in thought, then grabbed up the tape, crouched in front of the television set, and punched the tape into the VCR. "Let's find out."

Sam rewound and fast forwarded around the distorted area they'd found, watching the people, the background, Father Simons, looking for something to jump out at him. He repeated the tape several times over, then finally paused just before the place where frenum was burned into the video.

"There," Sam said, tapping the television screen with his finger. Father Simons was paused in mid-walk back to his pulpit. Sam's finger was resting on a sign behind him that read "Fruit of the Spirit." On both sides of the sign were two plastic-looking trees. Father Simons was posed just right between them, arms outstretched in emphasis of his current point.

"You think?" he asked Dean, glancing over his shoulder to see his brother's reaction.

"Seriously?" Dean recoiled a little, his face twisted in skepticism. "That's like playing the Wizard of OZ to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. It works because it is what you are looking for. Vague and convenient coincidences."

Sam sighed. "Okay, agreed. I could be seeing exactly what I'm looking for, but… come on, Dean! He just happens to be spreading his arms between two trees and the next victim was hung between two trees…"

"Think we can get a copy of Oz? I've got Floyd out in the car..."

"Dean."

"What? Okay, fine," Dean surrendered, waving to the screen. "So, our demon is leaving us two bread crumb trails with these weirdo clues. We know what sin… and maybe, we kinda know who the next victim will be… kinda if we were freakin' psychic, but I'll go with it… So, with Sara…"

"We have a wine cork…" Sam said.

"I swear to God I would take on a pair of Wendigos over this case," Dean sighed, rubbing again at the back of his neck. "Yes, we have a cork. So our next victim will be a… lush? We've kind of already been there and done that."

Sam pushed up off his knees and stood, going over to retrieve the cork. He turned it over in his open palm with his fingers. There was a stamp on one end, and Sam traced it slowly, thinking.

"Okay, so… maybe it's not a description of the victim so much as the location…" He thought out loud, closing his hand around the cork and going for his laptop. He flipped it open, a low hum growing as it whirred to life.

"What… like a winery?" Dean asked.

"Maybe…" Sam said, waiting for the computer to warm up.

He brought up the internet from the waning wi-fi signal of the motel. He found that if he triangulated the computer in just the right way, he could at least get something. The joys of cheap motel wi-fi were limitless… if you had limitless patience.

Sam typed in the name on the cork stamp and saw that there was a winery about twenty miles outside of town. He rubbed at his mouth, eyes going to his brother.

"Guthrie, Oklahoma… Moonstone Winery. It's not far from here, Dean…"

Dean shook his head, disbelief present in the way he shrugged up the corner of his mouth and gave a short, forceful breath through his nose. "If you're right about this…"

"I know…" Sam started. "Then it… wants us to know." Sam let out a long sigh, his shoulders sagging. He raised his eyes above the screen of the lap top to Dean, his face conveying the prominent thought currently on his mind. We doing this or what?

Dean's gaze slid between the television, paused on Father Simons, and the pendant in his hand. It was right there in front of them; if they were right about this, and in the face of what they now knew, there was no was to just ignore it, then they had to do this. There was one question that tugged at Dean, lending extra weight to his body, keeping him momentarily still, silent: Would they be able to do anything, or would they just find another corpse?

After a beat, he looked up from the pendant and met Sam's questioning eyes. "What the hell? Let's go check it out," Dean said. "You want to grab a shower first?" He smirked at Sam's disheveled appearance.

Sam stood, frowning, and tucked his shirt in quickly. "No," he said. "I'll grab one when we get back." He knelt quickly to tie his boots. "What about you?"

"I'm good," Dean shrugged. "But we're stopping for coffee on the way."

Sam didn't reward that with a response, just shook his head before grabbing the Impala keys. He was pretty sure that if Dean kept this up, then they really wouldn't have to worry about the deal. Dean was going to blow out his heart and his adrenals before the year was up.

Sam waited until Dean was bending down to grab his jacket before he tossed the keys at him. Dean didn't look up, stuck in mid-motion of retrieving his jacket, but he still caught them one handed.

"You're not completely out of it," Sam smirked.

Dean grinned as he made his way to the door. "Reflexes like a cougar, Sam."

His foot caught on the leg of the chair Sam had been sitting in, and he tripped.

"Reflexes like somethin'," Sam teased, opening the door for his weary brother.

They stepped out into the crisp air, Sam taking it in for the first time that day and enjoying the way it ran around in his lungs, re-energizing him. He looked back into the small, poorly-lit room they'd just come from. The range of discussion that had occurred seemed to hang thick in the air. The door shut and Sam took in another long drag of fresh air, exhaling the morning's events that had swelled, almost unbearably, inside of him.

They weren't five steps out the door, when Dean sped up to a light jog toward a man in a gray custodial suit. Sam followed, unaware that Dean had been making friends with the motel staff.

"Bob, hey—"Dean said, approaching with one hand clapped to the back of his neck.

Sam watched the man squint, trying to recognize Dean, then the lines in his face softened. A smile of kind acknowledgment crossed Bob's lips.

"What can I help you with, sir?" Bob chirped.

"Lightbulb," Dean said with a wincing smile.

"Lightbulb? Got one burnt out?" Bob looked back and forth between the two brothers, regarding them with gentle eyes. "I can replace it, no problem."

"Yeah, we were, uh, messing around, broke the one between the beds."

Bob lifted a brow, then grinned politely at Sam.

Sam squirmed and bumped Dean's shoulder. Dean's eyes went wide with realization, which he quickly tried to conceal.

"We were, uh… throwing a football around, man…" Dean laughed nervously. "Broke the bulb, not the lamp. Actually, if you just give me a new one, I'll fix it myself."

Smooth Dean... Sam thought, trying to keep a straight face.

"Not a problem, I'll get to it."

Dean remembered the condition of their room. The pictures tacked to the walls, their weapon's bag sitting open... It was the whole reason they always had a Do Not Disturb sign on the door to steer away housekeeping.

"Nah, it's okay… let me fix it…" Dean implored. "Feel bad making you clean up."

Bob nodded, turning down the hall and stopping a few doors down to unlock the supply room. He brought a bulb back to Dean.

"You two take care, now. Let me know if you need anything else," Bob smiled, handing the bulb off.

Dean stared at the lightbulb after Bob left, blinking with a blank expression. What the hell am I gonna do with this now?

Sam nudged him again, trying to get him to move toward the Impala. Dean finally shuffled forward, thought about shoving the lightbulb in his jacket, stuffed it in and then thought twice about that action. Sam simply strode beside his brother in silent amusement.

"Nice guy," Dean said when he pulled open the driver's side door. He set the bulb in the back seat and then looked up and saw Sam shaking his head.

"Messing around…" Sam grumbled. "You couldn't have asked for the lightbulb when we got back?"

"Hey, I just saw him and thought of it," Dean gave him a look. "What do you want from me?"

Sam looked out of the passenger window as Dean started the engine. "Dude, that was officially the last decision you get to make today. Leave the thinking to someone who isn't functioning on a blood supply composed of coffee."

www

Forced to bypass Mercy's only diner because of Dean's flirtatious antics the previous night, they pulled through a fast-food drive-thru on the way out of town. Sam snagged the large coffee as it was handed through the window, holding it ransom until Dean grudgingly consumed one of the four hamburgers they'd ordered.

Grumbling about pain-in-the-ass little brothers while gulping down the steaming beverage, Dean had to admit that he did feel a little better with more food in his stomach. So much so in fact that he decided to eat another of the hamburger before Sam inhaled the rest.

The drive to Guthrie took less than thirty minutes, but the fresh air, music, and food did wonders for both of them. Remnants of the torment both were experiencing because of forces beyond their control skittered to the edges of their consciousness as they focused on the task at hand.

Dean reached over and turned down Led Zeppelin's Communication Breakdown, as they drew closer to Moonstone Winery. The flashing red lights from the emergency vehicles and police cars was not a good sign. Sam slid lower in his seat, shoulders drooping as soon as his eyes picked up on the red strobe in the distance, flickering in and out; he felt like it was laughing at them.

Dean cast a sideways glance at Sam, knowing before either of them said anything that for one, they'd both been right, but never-the-less, they were too late yet again. And, to make matters worse, they were once again faced with sharing a crime scene with the police. The church had been too close for Dean's comfort, but he could see by the way Sam's eyes were fixed on the factory in front of them with stone-like determination, that they were going in there.

Dean parked the car toward the back of the large lot, and they exchanged knowing glances before ambling toward the growing crowd near the front entrance of the factory, shoving their hands into their jean pockets and trying to look as casual as possible. Dean had checked the time in his cell quickly, thinking that if worst came to worst, they could claim coming in on shift change.

They stopped at the edge of the crowd just as the two metal doors everyone was congregating around slammed back against the side of the building. A body bag was being rolled out and Sam tilted his head, confused by the shape hidden beneath the cloth. There wasn't much to it, and he suddenly got a sick feeling at the base of his stomach. Is that a whole person?

Dean tipped his head to the right and Sam nodded his understanding. Without a word, they split off in separate directions, starting to question those in the crowd.

Dean found a girl slightly separated from the group with long, jet-black hair and large brown eyes. Holding her arms and rubbing them up and down, she looked like she was trying hard to stop crying—and failing miserably as a few more tears slipped when she sucked in a hitched breath.

Dean approached her, making sure she saw him coming so he didn't startle her.

"You okay?" Dean asked.

She wiped at her face with the back of her sleeve, looking almost annoyed by his question. She sniffed and shook her head with a short laugh. "I don't know why I'm even crying… Didn't even like the guy… Just, you know, shit… no one should have to go that way."

Dean drew nearer. "You saw what happened?"

She looked up at him, her eyes pooling again. "Yes," she said quickly, nodding fast and throwing her arms down to her side in frustration. She waved toward the open ambulance door, eyes wild. "Paul fell on one of the friggin' box belts."

Dean didn't understand, and questioned her with his expression, brows raised. She caught on that he had no idea what she was talking about and pulled in another shaky breath before explaining.

"We—we pack and cork the bottles here, then put them on a conveyor belt to be boxed and loaded up on the trucks…"

Dean frowned. "So he just… fell on the belt?"

She shrugged, sniffing unabashedly. "Guess he fell asleep or something, went over the railing… He didn't—or… couldn't—get off the belt. The guy wasn't exactly fit… and when it got to the box toppers, he was…" she sighed. "Smushed…I guess. Flattened. Pounded-out. Pulverized. Mashed…"

"I get the idea," Dean said quickly, not really wanting her to go into all the ways to describe what had happened to her co-worker. It was safe to say that Paul was a whole lot thinner.

He squeezed the girl's arm sympathetically. "I'm sorry."

She smiled weakly, shaking her head again. "I'll be fine. Really, I don't know why I'm so upset. Just… seeing that…" she said with a shiver. Her hands were suddenly back up on her arms, rubbing away at a personal cold.

"Not like I'll miss him…" she said absently, then realized how harsh that had to sound, her eyes bounding up to meet Dean's. "Oh shit, that sounded so…"

Dean shrugged a shoulder. "You two didn't get along?"

"He was…" she huffed, seeming to find her own callousness sad in light of what had happened. "The guy was a loser," she finally got out. "I'm sorry, but he did nothing. He just, took up space. Made lewd comments, and was always finding excuses to be on break. Hell, out of an entire work day, I'd say he did about one hour of actual work," the girl said. "And that's on a good day."

She sighed, now more angry than sad, the memory of Paul setting her off in a big way. "I mean, I go to school and I sometimes pull doubles here. Guy was just… lazy."

Dean suppressed a laugh at the word she'd just used. If there'd been any doubt in his mind that this was their guy, that this was somehow not related to the Seven Deadly Sins, it was thrown out the window in that instant. Paul was lazy. Dean bet if he asked, the girl would agree that he was downright slothful.Dean gave her another sympathetic glance before looking back through the crowd for Sam.

"You'll be alright?" He asked.

"Yeah," she smiled weakly.

Dean headed back through the mass of bodies to where he could see Sam, standing head and shoulders above everyone else.

Sam was looking for him as well, and by the expression on his face, he was dying to say something. When he locked eyes with Dean, the two of them broke away from the crowd, making their way back to the Impala and out of ear shot.

Dean leaned against the car, as Sam made quick glances to make sure no one was around. He was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, bursting to get what he knew out in the open. Dean wasn't about to steal the floor or Sam's enthusiasm.

"You wanna go first?" Dean asked, his lips quirking into an amused grin at the look on Sam's face. He dropped his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. "Or… maybe swallow that canary before you choke on it…"

"Dude," Sam's whisper was urgent, but his eyes were dancing. "You are not gonna believe this, but—" Sam glanced at the crowd dispersing to their cars behind Dean, then grabbed his brother's arm, pulling him away from the people, toward the back of the Impala, out of earshot. "The dead guy's name was Paul Simons."

"Paul Simon?!" Dean barked out a quick, quiet laugh. "No shit. I would have jumped onto a conveyor belt, too—"

"Not Simon, Simons." Sam stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets to keep them still.

"Whoa—wait," Dean held up a hand, ticking his head to the side. "As in 'lemme exorcise your demons' Father Simons?"

"Exactly," Sam nodded vigorously. "That lady over there," he tipped his chin in the direction of the crowd. Dean pivoted, glancing at a fortyish woman shaking her head in the direction of the winery. "She said that his uncle was just killed this week."

"So… what? She thinks he off'd himself?" Dean's face pulled together in an incredulous frown.

"Nah," Sam shook his head. "I didn't get a suicide-by-conveyor belt vibe… but she did say he'd been acting depressed." Sam lifted a shoulder. "In the Divine Comedy the Slothful were forced to run without stopping," he reminded Dean.

"Yeah, well… guess he didn't run fast enough," Dean's lips folded down. Looking over at the crown, he nodded. "My turn."

Sam looked from the lady to Dean, waiting.

"See the pretty girl over there in the pink jacket?"

"Dude," Sam warned. "Tell me you got more than her phone number."

"Sam! I'm a professional!" Dean feigned hurt. "And besides," he shrugged. "I didn't have anything for her to write it on."

"Since when has your hand not been good enough?" Sam scoffed.

Dean simply looked at him, his expression one of disbelief layered with an undercurrent of amusement. Sam blinked back, uncomprehending.

"Anyway," Dean said, glancing again at the girl. "She said that the dude—er, uh, Paul—wasn't exactly employee of the month. In fact, she said that they could probably get a lot more done without the other half of Garfunkle around to slow things down."

Sam's eyes jerked up from Dean as two winery employees drifted away from the crowd and moved toward them. He grabbed Dean's arm again and pulled him to the other side of the Impala, further into the shadows. As they turned their backs to the employees, they heard snatches of their whispered conversation.

"—serious waste of space," said one. "I mean… you know the only reason he even had this job is because of his uncle."

"Dude, the guy is dead," the other admonished. "Stop bashing him, okay? I mean, jeeze."

"Why?" the first retorted. "Not anything you haven't said before. Man, he fell asleep at his station. I mean, seriously, who does that? No wonder he couldn't get off the friggin' belt in time."

"But… he had to have been… drugged or something, I mean, right?" the other queried, his voice fading as they moved away. "No one would just… let themselves be crushed…"

Dean looked at Sam, raising his eyebrows. Sam jerked his head toward the Impala. They hurried to either side of the car, closing the doors in unison. Peering out into the fading light of the day, they watched the crowd around the building and the ambulance disperse, their expressions ranging from shock to relief.

"Dean," Sam said, his voice low, his blue-green eyes intent on the view through the car's front windshield. "One of us has to check out that body."

"What?" Dean twisted in his seat, looking at Sam incredulously. "Why?"

"Why?" Sam shot back, his face fisted in disbelief. "Clues, Dean."

"Ugh, Sam," Dean sighed, shaking his head. "What about the… conveyor belt… or… the dude's locker or something?"

"You're right," Sam nodded, looking back out of the window. "We'll have to search both."

Dean's momentary flash of relief was thwarted by Sam's final sentence. He groaned softly. "The guy was… smushed, Sam."

"Yeah, so?"

"So… not like there's gonna be… much to search," Dean grimaced.

"We've gotta be sure," Sam argued, glancing at Dean out of the corner of his eyes. "This is four, Dean." His voice tightened on the number, on the knowledge that they'd been too late once again, on the realization that all they had was the hope that they could find out who the next victim was going to be and get there before the killer. And Sam knew that hope wasn't enough to fuel both of them.

Dean sighed. Not if we get there first… this is our job… saving people, hunting things… His memory was a kaleidoscope of voices that constantly pushed him away from comfort and toward pain.

"Fine," Dean said, his voice betraying none of his reticence to looking at the body bag of goo. "You go check him out, Mr. I Know All About Dante. I'll take the locker."

"What?" Sam looked over at him. "No way. I had to pull the cork out of Sara's mouth. It's your turn."

"Oh, so we're taking turns on the lose-your-lunch parts of this hunt, is that it?" Dean pulled his head back, his eyebrow up.

"You're the oldest, man," Sam pushed. "It's your job."

"Thought you fired me," Dean shot back, the corner of his mouth quirking up.

Sam sighed. "You know there's only one fair way to decide who looks at the body."

Dean rolled his neck. "Man," he whined, shaking his head. "Fine! But I do not always go with scissors."

"Whatever you say," Sam smirked, holding out his fist. On a soft count of one, two, three they bounced their fists in the emptiness between them.

Dean glowered at Sam's fisted "rock" as it smashed his two digit "scissors."

"It's gonna work one of these days," Dean grumbled. "Fine! I'll go look through the bag of goo for a friggin' Latin word."

Sam grinned. "Be careful out there," he said as Dean slid out of the car, gracing him with one of the digits of the scissors as a parting shot. Sam got out of the car and headed toward the winery in a crouched run.

Dean cast furtive glances to either side of him, watching as Sam made his way through the lingering observers toward the packing area and the employee lockers. Taking a breath, he turned his attention to the ambulance and the black bag sitting silent and still—and much too flat—on a stretcher in the back.

Here goes nothin'…

Dean moved forward as if he knew exactly where he was going and needed no one's permission to get there. Sliding quietly through the dispersing crowd, he listened to bits and pieces of conversation about the dead man—centered, he realized, more on how this event had managed to end their work day several hours early and not on the fact that a life had reached a very violent end.

Four cops stood nearby, two smoking cigarettes, one talking to the lady Sam had pointed out earlier, and the fourth—who looked vaguely familiar—writing in his notebook. Dean saw a paramedic step from the opened door of the ambulance and allowed himself one moment to ponder why they were loading up an obviously dead man onto an ambulance. Probably doubling as a coroner's vehicle… small enough town…

Dean slunk through the shadows, stepped up onto the running board of the ambulance, then swung inside quickly and sat on the side of the black body bag protected by the closed rear door. Staring at the bag, Dean took a breath. Just a body, Dean… nothing you haven't seen before… just unzip it, look for Latin… c'mon, man, Sam's counting on you…

"Suck it up, you big pansy," Dean admonished himself under his breath. He reached for the zipper, saw the tremble in his fingers and cursed his need for caffeine to fuel his constant motion.

That's it… coffee intake is officially decreased… after tonight, he thought. He knew he couldn't afford to keep going like this much longer. He could feel his body periodically threatening to simply shut down if he stopped long enough to listen to it. Between demon-possessed butchers introducing him violently to warehouse walls and his own self-destructive methods to avoid the not-so-secret fears lurking at the back of his mind, Dean knew he was dangerously close to an edge… and he didn't want to fall.

Clenching his hands into fists, he took a breath, forcing it out through his slightly puckered lips. Slowly relaxing his hands, he reached for the zipper of the body bag and pulled it down. The shhhrrt sound made him wince and he looked over his shoulder toward the opening of the ambulance.

Hurry... He licked his lips and took a steadying breath, then looked back toward the bag.

The sight that met his eyes was worse than anything Landis, Zombie, Tarentino, or even Ramero could have thought of—or gotten away with. It was real, visceral. A person's body was lying before him, but everything that could have identified it as human had been stripped by either the machine that killed him, or the efforts of getting the body from the belt to the bag.

"Uhhh…" Dean uttered, trying to breath through his mouth.

The sickenly-sweet warmth of the odor from the insides of Paul Simons assaulted him. He immediately pressed the bend of his elbow across his face, breathing in through the filter of leather, choking back the urge to hurl the contents of his stomach into the stench that radiated from that bag. He held his breath.

Prying away the edges of the body bag with careful fingers, he searched first with his eyes, finding nothing but a lot of blood and body fluid. Exhaling quickly and tucking his face into his shoulder to pull in another breath to hold, he pulled out his knife from its sheath at the small of his back and used the tip to pry away what could possibly be… clothes? A ring? A belt?

Nothing. No Latin. No clue that he could see leading them to the next sin, the next virtue, the next victim. I hope you've found something, Sammy, he thought as he slid his knife back into place. Because I ain't found sh—

"Hey!" The bark of authority caused Dean to jump. He whipped his head over and saw the cop that had been writing in his notebook—crap! from Father Simons' crime scene… Dare? Dade? Dane!—standing in the entrance to the ambulance, looking at him with a suspicious glare.

Dean's heart jumped from his chest to his throat with barely an effort. He knew they were too close to the inside of this investigation... he'd tried to tell Sam... He licked his lips, tasting the salt of the sweat that had immediately gathered on his upper lip.

"What the hell are you doin' in here?" Officer Dane barked, his face twisted up in a look of disbelief.

Without missing a beat, Dean let his face crumble into a completely devastated expression. He allowed tears to form, allowed his breath to hitch, lifted his hands toward the cop to show how they shook.

"I-I… just n-needed to see him on l-last time…" Dean sobbed, standing on shaky legs and moving toward the cop.

Officer Dane looked uncertain. "Well, you aren't allowed in here, man," he said, reaching for Dean and helping him step from the back of the ambulance to the ground. "You a friend of the… deceased?"

"Uh," Dean sniffed, wiping a hand across his eyes. "Yeah. We were, uh… good—good friends. We worked together for—"

Before he'd finished the sentence, Dean knew he'd taken the act one step too far. He felt the cop's hand tighten on his arm.

"You aren't dressed like one of Paul's coworker's," Officer Dane growled.

"I was… off… shift?" Dean tried. Shit…

"Uh-huh," Officer Dane shot back, shoving Dean against the side of the ambulance. "Let's see some ID, pal."

Dean opened his mouth, but the cop pushed at him again. "Okay, okay," Dean patted the air with his open hands. "Just let me get it."

He stepped slightly away from the ambulance, searching his memory for which fake ID he had stuffed in his wallet last. As he grasped his wallet, preparing to pull it out, the cop who had been interviewing Sam's source called to Officer Dane.

"You just wait here," Officer Dane pointed a threatening finger at Dean.

Dean flicked a two fingered salute back at him, rotating as he watched the cop walk to his buddy and lean in close for information. Out of the corner of his eyes, Dean caught sight of the Impala pulling close, Sam at the wheel. A grin broke over his face like a wave cresting beachhead. That's my boy…

He darted cautious hazel eyes to Officer Dane's back and tensed to run just as Sam whipped the car around, the passenger door swinging open. Dean broke into a run, ignoring the shouts behind him, diving head first into the open door. Sam didn't wait for him to situated himself; he flattened the gas pedal, tearing out of the winery's driveway and away from the cops. The forward motion rolled Dean to the back of the seat, and as Sam turned a sharp right out of the driveway, Dean's legs curled in, avoiding the slam of the passenger door.

He ended up in a pile on the floor of the passenger seat, looking up at his brother.

"I take back everything I ever said about you driving her," Dean gasped out. "I'm so happy to see you."

"That was close, man," Sam breathed.

"You're telling me," Dean agreed, climbing into the passenger seat and turning around so he faced front. "No more live crime scenes, man."

"Y'know," Sam said, checking the rear view mirror. "This whole fugitive gig ain't all it's cracked up to be."

"Says the guy who wanted to be just like his big brother," Dean retorted, twisting around to look behind them. "Get on the FBI's Most Wanted list."

"Yeah, well," Sam said, adjusting in his seat when he saw that no one was behind them. "I take it back."

"Barn door is open and horse is on the loose, Sammy," Dean said, twisting around and settling back against the seat with a sigh. "You're in this as deep as I am. They aren't following us."

"Probably just think you're some weirdo with a fetish for bodies," Sam smirked. "Or a CSI wanna be…"

"Nice," Dean shook his head.

"What did you find?" Sam asked, reaching for the radio.

"A whole lotta nothing," Dean said, watching Sam's hand. "And goo. What the hell are you doing?"

"Your rules, man," Sam grinned turning up 30 Seconds to Mars' From Yesterday. "Driver picks the music; shotgun shuts his cakehole."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "This is why you never drive. You and your emo rock."

"Whatever," Sam glowered. Then a grin broke out across his face. "Ask me what I found."

"Are you serious?" Dean turned in his seat, an arm on the windowsill, the other across the back of the seat. "I have to dig through human gunk and you find the friggin' clue?"

Sam grinned and reached over to turn up the radio.

"On a mountain he sits, not of gold but of sin, through the blood he can learn, see the life that it turn. From council of one, he'll decide when he's done with the innocent…"

"Spill it or I'm going to veto the rule for tonight only," Dean grumbled.

Reaching into his jacket pocket, Sam pulled out a black matchbook with iridescent lettering and shimmering flames on the front and tossed it to Dean, who caught it with his left hand. Dean looked at the cover of the matchbook.

"The Inferno," he read. "No friggin' way…"

"I know," Sam chortled. "Can you believe it? I saw that in his locker and I… I just knew…"

"But what—"

"Open it," Sam instructed.

Dean flipped the cover of the matchbook open. Written in the scrawl of an ancient man was the word Castitas.

"Sam, The Inferno is a dance club," Dean said, closing the matchbook again, frowning at the cover. "Back in Tulsa—where we found Andre."

Sam cast a quick glance in his direction, his eyebrow raised in question. Dean raised a shoulder.

"I notice these things," he said.

"Yeah? Who worked there?" Sam countered.

Dean grinned. "Remember that girl we met at the storage lot? When we were looking for the warehouse that Andre had bought?"

"The brunette?" Sam asked, his brows pulling together.

"Well… what do you know," Dean chucked. "There is a red-blooded American male inside of my baby brother."

"Shut up," Sam scoffed. "I only remembered her because—"

"She was hot," Dean interrupted.

"No," Sam retorted. "She wore the same perfume as Jessica." Sam finished.

Dean was silent for a moment. "And… she was hot," he said.

Sam chuckled. "So… you're saying she… what? Went to this club?"

Dean shook his head. "She works there, man. Beer trough girl or something."

"Beer what?"

"Stands behind a huge trough of whatever beer is sponsoring the night… dude, c'mon… you went to college," Dean scoffed. "Don't tell me you don't know what a beer trough girl is."

Sam lifted an eyebrow and looked over at Dean, silent. Dean shook his head.

"Anyway, yeah, club's in Tulsa," Dean said, sitting back. He looked at the inside of the matchbook again. "Castitas…"

"Chastity," Sam muttered, his eyes on the road. He glanced once at Dean. "Lust."

"Oh, swell," Dean muttered, slouching further into the seat. "We gotta go to a friggin' dance club and find one person guilty of Lust?"

Sam nodded, tightening his grip on the steering wheel.

"You do realize that is… impossible," Dean said, turning his head against the seat to look at Sam. He felt the cut at the back of his head pull with the motion, so he lifted his head, adjusting the pressure as he rested it back against the seat.

"The person is going to have to be from Mercy," Sam muttered, his eyes darting in thought.

"That's still a helluva lot of people, Sam," Dean pointed out. "What are we gonna do? Go up to every person and ask them where they're from? We'll sound like freakin' game show hosts."

Sam glanced over at his brother, slouched in the seat, staring at the matchbook. "Thought you were Columbo," he teased.

Dean just shot him a look.

"You'll think of something," Sam reassured him.

"Me?!"

"Yeah," Sam nodded, checking his mirrors. "You're the ladies' man in this outfit."

"What if it's a guy, Sammy?" Dean said, his lips curling up in a grin. He pushed himself up in the seat. "You gonna take that angle?"

"Shut up," Sam said, turning serious. "We got three left, Dean. We've been too late to every single one."

"We're not the only ones, Sam," Dean pointed out, turning in the seat to face his brother's tense profile. "The cops haven't even put the pattern together!"

"Yeah, exactly," Sam pointed out, turning into the parking lot of the motel. "We have. And we're still too late."

Dean sighed, resting his hand on the door handle as Sam shut off the car, plunging them into silence. "We'll figure it out, Sam," he said. "I promise you, we'll figure it out."

"We'd better," Sam looked over at him with haunted eyes. "Because I'm tired of losing people we're trying to save."

"Sam…"

"I'm serious, man," Sam's voice was soft. "What's the point of fighting so hard if we're just a step behind the bad guys?"

Dean closed his eyes for a moment, finding his balance. He opened them, staring hard at Sam. "Listen to me," he said. "Are you listening?"

Sam nodded.

"We're gonna find this demon, Sam," Dean said, his eyes steady, his jaw set. "We're gonna find it and we're gonna lay a little of St. Pat on its ass, send it back to Hell. And we're gonna save as many people as we can." No matter if that's three… or one… he thought.

"And then?" Sam asked softly, his eyes young as he regarded Dean, his older brother, his protector, his hero, his guardian. "What happens then, Dean?"

Dean looked down, gathering his strength, then looked out the front window away from Sam. "Then… we pick up where we left off," he said softly. "Saving people. Hunting… things."

"I don't know if I can do that," Sam said.

Dean looked back at him, his eyes ancient, full of sorrow and honesty. "You may not have a choice, Sam."

www

a/n:

Hope you're enjoying the ride… stay tuned! The weekend is going to be… positively sinful. wink