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After a month, Dean saw how far John and Mary were willing to go to help him help Sam.
It wasn't far at all. They looked at books in the Men of Letters' library with Dean, but they were more focused on each other and the years lost between them than they were on the words written on the ancient, yellowing pages. Words that could potentially spare their son an eternity of torment at the hands of The Devil himself.
"Dad had a son with another woman," Dean said when he finally had enough of their pretend perfection. The stolen glances and whispered sweet nothings that they thought he couldn't hear.
"What?" Mary asked, pulling away from John. "When?"
"How do you know about that, Dean?" John asked, glaring.
"After you died, he called your old cell for help. Except that he was already dead at that point and eaten by ghouls who wanted to get back at you for killing their family by killing your family," Dean said. "It was really nice to know that you would drop everything and go to Kate and Adam when you found out he was your son, but you couldn't be bothered to help when I was dying after receiving an electric shock strong enough to give me a massive heart attack. And you can't be bothered to put real effort towards helping Sam now. Would you change your mind and help more if I told you that Adam was in The Cage? That he's been there since the first time Sam trapped Lucifer because Adam said 'yes' to Michael, and there probably isn't a single piece of his soul left to be salvaged?"
Both of his parents turned several shades paler.
"John, what is he talking about?" Mary asked, her tone cold and demanding. The kind that Dean imagined she would use if Sam and Dean got in trouble growing up with her still around.
"Dean, keep your mouth shut about them," John said.
And John could try and silence Dean all he wanted, but the truth was already out and Mary heard it. Did she feel like it was a betrayal towards her? Because Dean sure as hell had felt that way when he found out about Adam and the normal life he'd been allowed. That Adam had gotten to know the John that Dean only got for four years and Sam never got.
"No, Dean," Mary said. "I want to hear more about this. Please, keep talking."
The look that his father had on his face would've scared Dean into silence years ago, back before John's death and before Dean realized that his father hadn't been the hero he once believed.
"Which part? Maybe that Dad was probably fucking Kate while Sam and I were alone in a motel room somewhere else?"
"Mary, look—"
"I don't want to hear it, John," Mary said, storming out of the room.
John turned his attention to Dean. "I don't know who you are anymore," he said.
"Did you ever?" Dean asked. "Did you ever once take the time to get to know who I was? I'm what you made me into!"
"I'm going to talk to your mother," John said.
He walked away, and Dean yelled after him, "Why don't you both just leave and take your second honeymoon somewhere else if you're not going to help me save Sam?"
And they did. They left, and Dean continued looking for answers on his own.
Two months after Sam's sacrifice, Mary knocked on the bunker's door. Alone.
"I thought you were off with Dad," Dean said.
He stepped aside and let her in, helping her with the single bag of belongings she had.
"I don't know who he is anymore," she said. "So much has changed."
Dean shrugged. "He lived without you for more than twenty years. I'm not sure he remembers how to live with you."
"Maybe that's the problem," Mary said. "He had twenty years without me, and he became a stranger. He had a child with another woman. I didn't expect that to hurt as much as it had, and it's ridiculous to think that he'd become a monk or something after I died. It's just… it hurt to realize that there was another woman and a son who wasn't mine. It still hurts."
"We've all changed," Dean said.
"I never got the chance to," Mary said. "I'm still expecting to wake up at home with an infant and a four-year-old. Safe and free from the hunting life."
"Hate to break it to you, Mom, but this isn't a dream that you can escape by simply opening your eyes."
"I know," Mary said. "That's why I'm here. If this isn't a dream, then I should be helping get Sam out of his nightmare. A mother should always do anything she can to keep her children safe, or get them to safety."
"And Dad?"
"I don't know. We felt it better to go our separate ways for now."
"Well," Dean said, "I'm glad for the help."
Mary's small smile was as soft as he remembered from his short childhood. "Let's get to work."
Three months after Sam's sacrifice, Dean and Mary had gone through every book in the library even remotely related to angels, Hell, and The Cage. Dean didn't want to lose hope, but it was getting harder and harder to hold onto it, too.
"Dean, maybe we need to try something else," Mary said.
"Bobby would know what to do."
"Who's Bobby?"
"A family friend. He was like a second father to us."
"What happened to him?"
"Shot in the head," Dean said. "Of all the ways for a hunter to die."
"I'm sorry," Mary said.
Dean nodded. "Thanks, but he's not gonna be helping us, so we have to figure out something else."
"I'm not sure there are any books left that would be useful."
"That's fine. I've never been a bookworm like Sam anyway. We'll just have to get a little more hands-on."
Four months after Sam's sacrifice, it became clear to Dean that no demon would be willing to deal with him. It became a systematic process. He summoned a demon in a Devil's Trap, told them what he wanted, then killed them when they said nothing could be done.
He hoped that he could at least draw Crowley's attention, but he seemed more willing to let his demons die than he was to poke at The Cage.
Rowena was the strongest witch he knew, but she had been completely out of contact (and hiding away somewhere tropical, Dean assumed).
No angels would answers his open prayers. Cas refused to answer prayers or traditional phone calls.
He was on his own, and Sam had been in Hell for what would feel like forty years for him (and what felt like four hundred years for Dean). The duration that Dean had been there. The problem was that Sam's total was now at two hundred twenty years in Hell. For a soul that was flayed from the first trip, he didn't want to think about what an extra forty years would do.
What if Sam was irrevocably broken by the time Dean saved him?
Sam's letter still taunted him, and Mary had to hide it from him when she found him rereading it again and again when he was supposed to be sleeping.
Not that he slept any better without it.
Dean didn't remember the fifth month after Sam's sacrifice. He drank and drank. Mary tried to stop him on more than one occasion, but she always ended up sitting at the table with him, a drink of her own in hand.
"Time in Hell moves differently," Dean said.
"I know," Mary said. "You tell me that every time you've had a little too much to drink."
"I broke after thirty years… I don't know how Sam will handle all of this. It's been too long."
"You told me that you've saved him from his memories of Hell before."
"Yeah, well," Dean said, "that only worked because I had help from Cas."
"You have me this time," Mary said.
"I know."
The problem was that Dean didn't know if their mother would be enough to help Sam heal from Hell.
Six months after Sam's sacrifice, John showed up at the bunker. Dean let him and Mary talk in private. Whatever was going on between them, he had more important things to deal with. He didn't need their relationship issues piled onto his own mountains of issues.
John didn't apologize to him. He didn't say much at all, but there was a strange role reversal between them.
Dean was the one who drank until he couldn't remember his own name, then passed out and had to be helped to bed.
John stayed silent and let him, taking care of him when he finally reached his limit.
But it was still Sam that he asked for when he was too drunk to remember any other words.
"You're drinking yourself to death, Dean," John said.
"You're one to talk."
"I know that I've messed up more times than I can count, but does that have to mean it's too late for me to try making up for any of it?"
"Sam?"
"From what Mary tells me, you've tried everything you could to get him back. It might be time to let it go."
"I can't let Sam go," Dean said. "I never could."
"I know," John said. "Because that's how I raised you, isn't it?"
Dean tried to speak again, but only incoherent noises escaped his mouth.
"Just get some sleep," John said.
No matter how he felt about John, he'd always been pretty damn good at following his orders.
Seven months after Sam's sacrifice, Dean was close to losing the remaining remnants of his hope. But he refused to give up. No matter how hopeless it seemed, he knew that Sam would endlessly try to save him if their roles were reversed.
He spent the day cleaning Sam's room, getting rid of the dust that accumulated over the months and straightening the few belongings that Sam always kept in their proper places. It wasn't a difficult task, but Dean took his time doing it.
When he was done, Dean sat on the edge of Sam's bed. He changed the sheets and tucked in the blankets. It was ready to be used, but its owner wasn't reachable by humans, and demons, angels, and witches didn't want to take the risk brought about by trying to reach him.
He had one last plan. Desperate times called for desperate measures, even if those measures might mean drawing divine wrath upon himself.
Dean cleared his throat and took a deep breath.
"Look," he said, "I know you're in the middle of a family reunion and all, and I'm not even sure if you can hear me. I'm not sure if you're listening, or if you even care. But Sydney, that babysitter back in Fall River, said that when she prayed to you, she knew that you were listening. Well, I'm desperate and I think it's worth a shot.
"Amara, we had a connection between us. I was the first face you saw after you were released from the Mark of Cain. As much as I want to take credit for it, it was Sam who freed you, accidentally or not. I don't know if you still feel a connection with me, or if I still mean anything to you. After all, what's one human's life in the grand scheme of things?
"Whether you care about me or not, I need your help. You're my last resort. Sam is in The Cage with Lucifer. He has been for seven months, and I need to get him out. I can't live knowing that he's going through unimaginable torment. Every second that he's down there, I can feel myself die a little more inside. I don't know how long it will be until there's nothing left. And I know you've already given me the gift of my mother, but I learned to live without her through the years. I never learned to live without Sam. I'm begging you. Please."
Dean took another deep breath when he finished, and let his head hang when silence was all that filled the room.
"Dean, you prayed… to me?"
Author's Note: Amara is Dean's final, final hope. Will she help him get his brother back like he helped her get her brother back?
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