Chapter Eight: Death Camp

Dean was having a bad day.

It started in the mini-mart, which was really a hoarding station with a backlog of food imported from one the big cities, Chicago or maybe Dallas, Dean wasn't sure. He knew that the fights had driven most people from their homes, isolating cities until they'd turned into graveyards. What few people hadn't migrated to the big cities—New York, Chicago, Dallas, Orlando, San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Seattle—were living in the middle of nowhere, like Dean's family. The isolated, last-man-on-earth feeling was generally ruined when need called for a supply run. Like today.

That was how Dean found himself perusing the shelves over an assortment of cream-filled cupcakes, and finding out he wasn't the only one with an appetite.

Her name was Maggie; she had red hair, sparkling eyes and a cheerfulness Dean wasn't used to seeing outside of a Pit.

"The ages-old debate, the question that launched a thousand ships." She said to him by way of greeting. "Ding-Dongs or Twinkies?"

"What, are you kidding? Ho-Ho's are God's friggin' gift to mankind." Dean rolled a package off the shelf.

"I'd be careful with those," She advised. "They expired a week ago."

Dean checked the packaging, deflating with disappointment. "Well, there goes every happiness I ever lived for."

"Vicarious death by rotten Ho-Ho." She poked out her bottom lip and nodded slowly. "At least you'll make a name for yourself." She hitched her purse over her shoulder and held out her hand. "Maggie Robertson. Here, let me buy you a Twinkie."

"Dean Winchester." He shook her hand, liking that smile more and more. "And no offense, sweetheart, but I don't let a girl buy me Twinkies until at least the second date."

"Define a date. We're here alone in a mini-mart except for the half-asleep cashier, and I just saved you from food poisoning. You must have exceptionally high standards."

Dean shrugged exaggeratedly. "I mean, I don't take a girl up on that kinda offer unless she's slaying dragons for me by this point."

"I stepped on a gecko once, if that counts."

"Yeah, but you didn't do it for me."

"I did it with the intention that one day I would meet an extremely attractive man in a mini-mart fifteen miles from anywhere, and he'd say exactly what you're saying, so I could say exactly this, back."

That left him stumped for a second. "You got an answer for everything, girl?"

"Ask me a math question." She reached past him, the sheer sleeve of her shirt wrapping around her elbow, and Dean spotted a gash of darkness against her inner forearm that surprised him.

He ducked his head, clearing his throat. "What breed?"

She shot him a confused look, then glanced at the brand on her arm. Her face softened. "Siren."

"Explains why you're so damn beautiful."

She blushed. "I've been in this form as long as I can remember. There's no point in changing; men will always look at me like I'm some piece of meat, even if I look like a ninety-year-old grandma."

"Sucks, being a monster." Dean's voice adopted a cutting edge.

Her eyes flashed up to him. "Humans have an awfully cynical viewpoint on my kind. Those things you call demons are even worse. But tell me something, Dean…does it make me a better person than you, that I don't kill?"

Dean's jaw shifted. "What?"

"I have so much potential. I could tempt you with my song; I could've kissed you and had you under my spell, and you would've fallen right into it. But here I stand, talking to you about Twinkies. And you stink like a Handler. You throw us under the tires, over and over again. Now you tell me, which one of us is more human?"

Rattled, though he refused to show it, Dean tried to adopt a lazy smile. "Underneath all this, I'm not some scaly freak. Strip me down, and I'm just flesh and bone. You're something else. You're not human."

"And that's all that matters? The skin, the bones underneath it? That's your equation for humanity?"

The immediate, vehement Yes got lost on the back of Dean's tongue as he thought of Sam; Faceless, timid and introverted, for the most part, but the longer they trained the more Dean felt like he was seeing a different side of Sam emerge. It was something open, compassionate. As human as anything Dean had ever seen; sometimes more human than humans.

"Seems like you know this place pretty well. Means you probably live nearby." He changed the subject, and Maggie nodded. "You on the run?"

"Not so much, not anymore." She rubbed the burn on her arm. "My Handler was killed by men he owed money to. I escaped. They stopped looking for me a few months ago; it pays to live in the middle of nowhere."

"You got a job?"

Maggie shook her head. "I sell things. You'd be surprised what some people leave in their houses when they pack up and move to the big city." She plucked a Twinkie off the shelf and crinkled the wrapper between her hands. "What about you, Dean? Do you enjoy being a Handler?"

"It has its perks." Dean quipped; she watched him patiently, and he cleared his throat, racking his brain. "Can't think of one off the top of my head." He cleared his throat again. "You make it a habit of jumping down a guy's throat the first time you meet him?"

"Do you make a habit of talking to monsters like they're human?"

"Every damn day." The words somehow lacked the sarcastic punch he'd intended; mostly because they were true.

"I guess we're both the odd ones of our species." Maggie tossed the Twinkie to him and walked away, calling over her shoulder, "Cream-cake's on me."

"Maybe I'll see you around." Dean replied.

She turned to walk backwards, another brilliant smile curving her lips. "You only want me because I'm a Siren."

The conversation haunted Dean in the quiet of the truck cab, all the way home; the radio was broken and no songs came to mind to fill up the void. He drove with the windows rolled up against the cold and the heater on full blast; even the incessant hum of the vents and the snarl of the engine weren't loud enough to erase Maggie's voice from his head.

Dean didn't like the thought of going soft; didn't like the suggestion that he was down on a monster's level. Sam was different, Sam was the exception; he was Dean's charge, the one thing Dean had to protect. Mary was in her element in the old house, more than she'd ever been in New York. Isolated living suited her better; she didn't need him anymore.

Sam was the one sleeping on the floor; Sam was the one who sometimes couldn't sleep because nightmares from his captivity chased circles around his mind. Sam was the one who needed a trainer and a friend, an older brother to watch his back out there. Dean couldn't land a job, couldn't make John proud, couldn't take care of Mary. But hell if he couldn't take care of Sam.

It wasn't a one-way street, either; Dean had done more dumping in the past three weeks than he had in the three years before that. He'd never unloaded on Mary before; Bill and Ellen Harvelle had been too stressed by the job to listen to him. That had left Jo; and while Dean had told her some things, bits and pieces, most of it she'd lived through with him. Things he could never tell John, or Mary. Things that tasted like alcohol and bitter loss, back rooms and flushed green lighting. They stung like cuts and burned like cigarette smoke and felt like Jo's body tucked against his side, and his knuckles beating against someone's face.

Sam could understand because he had a past to match, secrets and dreams that were tinged red instead of green, and felt like a broken neck in his hands or a jetting wound that peeled back his skin. They were two broken halves of a dirty whole, and somehow it felt like evacuating an infected wound when they'd drive out to the river and trade secrets for stones, hurling rocks into the current.

It never mattered which one was talking; they were finding out that on their base level, they were both jaggedly semi-human, at best. And Dean had never felt it as strongly as he did now, driving away from that mini-mart when any other Handler would've taken that girl in and made her his next great fighter.

He didn't know right now whether he was the human or the monster.

It wasn't until he pulled up at the house that Dean's day went from bad, to worse.

The warning signs were there: the old firepit beside the shed was smoking languidly, lit for the first time since Dean and Mary had come home in September; the screen door was bolted shut from the inside. Dean yanked on the handle a few times, then knocked. "Hey, anybody here?"

He heard a distant crash from inside the house, pounding footsteps that made him stiffen tight with awareness. The inside door ricocheted on its hinges, and Dean caught a glimpse of Sam's panicked eyes, his long fingers fumbling at the latch, before a hand grabbed onto his collar and threw him backwards into the room.

Dean yanked the screen door open, almost catching himself across the nose with it as he sprang into the living room, looking for something to fight, someone to beat down.

Confusion snagged him in his tracks when he realized there wasn't an enemy: there was Mary, standing with her hands braced on the doorposts of the kitchen's narrow entryway; there was Sam, crawling backwards into the corner of the living room, his eyes frantic and hair falling across his forehead; and there was John, standing over Sam with a sparkling red-hot crowbar in his hands.

"Whoa, whoa!" Dean snarled. "Time out!" He stepped between John and Sam, arms outstretched defensively. "Dad, what the hell is goin' on? What's with the flaming sword, huh?"

John was breathing raggedly, his eyes smoking with anger. "He demolished the bathroom upstairs."

"So, what, you're gonna set him on fire?"

"I need to brand him, Dean." John's voice was measured with forced patience but his expression told tales of fury. Sam's back had hit the wall by now and he wasn't moving, but the foot that brushed against Dean's leg was trembling.

The brand. Right. Sam had been with them for two months, now; Lilith's mark couldn't stay on him forever. But with the air hanging bitter with unease and his own anger making him see scarlet spots, Dean planted his feet and didn't move.

"Nobody's branding anybody."

"This fight is just starting." John insisted. "If you want him out there, people need to know who he is. Out on the circuit, that matters. You saw the way Gordon treated that Shifter because it was wearing Rufus Turner's mark instead of ours."

Dean didn't miss the inflection, the plural, that this was him and John and Mary instead of just John. He wasn't sure when they'd taken that step, but they'd crossed a line. Right now, they were straddling another one.

"Dean," John's voice was a rasp. "We need people to know he belongs to us."

Dean glanced at Sam over his shoulder; Sam's frantic eyes darted from John's face to Dean's, an unspoken plea masked under his stare. He scooted closer to the wall, hips, spine, shoulders hitting the wood, head tilted back. The same scared animal they'd brought in the first day.

Property. Sam thought he was their property, just some piece of meat. And what were they doing that would prove him wrong? The first time they needed something of him that he didn't want, he went back to just being their monster piece in the big game.

Property.

Sam's eyes begged him, No, Dean. No.

The choice was slipping out of their hands and making them say Thank you while it left. "You do this, that makes him one of us. You get that?" He silently cussed out Maggie Robertson for being right about him.

John's expression flickered with untold emotion. "Just do your job and hold him down." Without turning his head, he addressed Mary: "Could you grab us a wet rag, some of those bandages from upstairs, and rope?"

"You don't need to truss him up, I'll do it!" Dean growled.

"It's just in case." John said soothingly.

Dean didn't feel soothed as he turned his back on John, blocking him out; he could see by the flash of betrayal in Sam's eyes that there was no miscommunication or misunderstanding between them. Sam knew exactly what was coming and knew that Dean was doing nothing to stop it.

"Hey." Dean gripped Sam's shoulder, giving him a light shake until Sam looked up, wet eyes meeting intent eyes. "I said I'd watch your back, and that's what I'm gonna do. Now scoot."

Sam blinked at him, clearly confused, and Dean shook off a forbidding feeling at the fact that Sam wasn't speaking. He kept one hand on Sam's shoulder and used the other to push him forward as Mary ran down the stairs, a damp washcloth and the bandages in her hands. No rope. Dean could've kissed her.

Instead, he focused on Sam.

Gripping handfuls of Sam's shirt, Dean heaved him forward and slid behind him, trapping Sam's gangly form between his outstretched legs. He bent himself around Sam, digging his heel into Sam's ankle and folding Sam's left arm down against his chest, pinning it there; leaving his right arm free for John's advances.

"You trust me?" Dean breathed in Sam's ear, and an arrested, jerky nod was the answer. Dean flattened Sam's hand over his own heart. "Then focus on this. S'long as your heart's beating, this is nothing. Got it?"

John scooted forward on his heels, a compassion in his eyes that Dean hadn't seen there before. He didn't know which of them it was directed at. "Keep him steady."

John took Sam's wrist in his hand and Dean tightened his hold on Sam's body, meeting Mary's eyes for a moment. They were wide, iridescent, and plunging with thought.

The minute the crowbar met his skin, Sam's entire body spasmed in Dean's hold. Dean cocked one leg up, pinning Sam's knee to the floor as he bucked and thrashed. By contrast John went almost completely still, rotating the burning metal up the brand on Sam's arm with a practiced, measures stroke. Dean swallowed and held his breath against the acrid stench of burning flesh, watching the blisters form over Lilith's name, erasing it.

Sam's left arm ripped free of Dean's hold, but he didn't lash out; his palm slapped down on Dean's thigh, fingernails digging into the denim there, creating half-moon dips in the skin underneath that Dean could feel but he couldn't see. It stung; couldn't sting half as bad as that crowbar.

When John pulled the tool back, Sam sagged over the arm Dean had braced around his chest. His breaths came in staggered rasps, a moan of pain punctuating every gust from his lungs.

"Halfway done, pal." Dean assured him.

"I'll need the brand." John creaked to his feet.

"John, hurry." Mary whispered.

He was gone, out the door and into the blustery autumn day. Sam squirmed in Dean's grip, clearly uncomfortable, his burned arm lying stretched out on Dean's leg. At least his grip had loosened; Dean could feel bruises seeping under the skin of his thigh.

"Hell of a grip, Sam."

"Language." Mary said.

"Sam?" Dean jostled him slightly. "Hey, you still with us?"

A long, painful, wet-sounding breath oozed out of Sam's lungs, his forehead almost hitting his knee as he listed dangerously sideways; probably on the verge of passing out from the pain.

"No, no, no." Dean said quickly. "Stay with us, Sam."

The creak of the screen door announced that John was back, this time with a curved branding iron that spelled their family name in willowy-thin, sharp-edged letters.

"Are you sure that won't cut through his skin?" Mary rested a hand on the side of her neck. "Thin brands sometimes do."

"Bobby and I got this one set up just right." John's tone was strangely calming, the voice of a man talking down a wild animal as he approached Sam and Dean. "Still got him, Dean?"

"We're good. Just do it."

John pulled in a long, steadying breath, then pressed the brand to Sam's arm.

Sam's entire body went rigid, electric, from his bare feet to the bend of his neck. He arched backwards, his spine digging into Dean's ribcage, his head falling back against the curve of Dean's shoulder as the brand sank against his flesh for one—two—four—ten seconds. Dean clapped his free hand to Sam's forehead, feeling a flush like residual heat racing under the palm of his hand.

"Come on, Sam, don't pass out on me," He muttered.

"Done." John released his unyielding grip on Sam's wrist that had held his arm in place. Mary was beside them in an instant, with the water and bandages, and Dean met her eyes levelly.

"I'll take care of it."

"Dean." John began.

"Go. I got him."

There was a beat of silence while Dean wondered what he might have to do to make them leave; then John took Mary's arm and drew her to her feet, backing them both away. "Call us if he acts up."

He went outside, and Dean heard a thudding impact like a boot hitting the side of the house. He flashed a glance Mary's way, and with a nod to him she hurried outside after John.

Dean finally relaxed, sliding his hand off of Sam's forehead. "Sam, you good?"

Sam groaned, long and low, his body sagging again in Dean's grip, his head turning into the side of Dean's neck, like hiding. "God, I hate you."

"Sure you do." Dean chuckled, the sound slightly forced. "Let me clean up that arm for ya."

"No, De—" Sam shook his head, beating his cheek against Dean's collarbone. "If I move…m'gonna throw up."

Sympathy washed through Dean. "All right, we'll hang tight until your stomach's good." He tucked his chin over the top of Sam's head; it had always made him feel better, anyway, when Mary had done that to him.

Sam's legs curled up toward his body. "Hurts, D'n. It hurts."

"I know, pal."

Sam pressed a hand over his own heart, his breathing slowing.

They stayed that way for a while.

-X-

John ripped the punching bag from the joists, throwing it across the barn and hearing it thump satisfyingly over the straw.

He didn't care that Mary was behind him, a witness to his violent outburst. He was choking on anger and hurt feelings and indecision.

"John!" Mary descended the steps into the center of the barn, her voice a dagger slicing neatly through his fog of rage. "What in the world is the matter with you?"

John whirled on heel and stormed back toward, their faces inches apart. "That thing in there is not human, Mary! But it has the nerve to act like a child, hell, it looks like a child! I feel like I just tortured an innocent boy!"

"That's because you did, John." Mary's voice didn't match his for volume, but for passion they might've been speaking the same.

"Bullshit. He's a monster like any other monster I've ever Handled."

"Then you walk back in that house and tell that to your son!"

The air snapped with a tart feeling of contempt. "Dean's young. He has a lot to learn yet about what this life means. He'll outgrow his attachment to Sam."

"And if he doesn't? If five months or five years from now, Dean still wants to see Sam as human, as a part of his life? What are you going to do, John? You can't look down on him like this forever."

"The fights will shape him up."

Mary stepped back, folding her arms. "So, that's it. You're taking him along."

"Apparently, he's the only one who can keep that animal in there from going into full-on rebellion." The furious words leaped from John's mouth in a torrent, a caustic need to draw a dividing line between them and Sam.

The air was heavy with silence for a minute. "He almost went to jail, John."

A feeling of groundlessness filtered into John's veins. "A jail. In New York?"

"I don't know how it happened, he should've been in class. I don't think he was even going to school anymore by then. He was supposed to be…fire science. A firefighter. But one day I open the door and a law-officer pushes him inside and says if Dean's ever caught within a mile of a fight, he'll go straight to prison."

"You know they won't enforce it." John said. "There's no law out here, Mary. No law officers, either. We make the law. Outside of the cities, Dean's not in any danger."

"I understand that. Do you understand what I'm telling you, John? I'm not worried about you losing." Mary's voice was soft. "I'm worried about you winning and taking Dean far enough through this to put him back on the law's radar. I'm afraid that you can make it to the Leagues."

Her faith in him rattled John almost as much as anything else; it threw the oddness of this entire conversation into stark contrast before him. That, after everything, winning would put his family at risk; that making it to the League with Dean by his side could land his son in a Death Camp.

Big cities were controlled by demons; demons didn't like people of a certain caliber having access to the Pits. And apparently, Dean had gotten on their bad side.

"I'll make you a deal." John said. "Let me take Dean with for the Prelims. If by some miracle Sam makes it as far as the Leagues, we can split the winnings from every round he's won by then. You and Dean will have enough to keep you going wherever you wanna be, and Sam and I will keep up the fight without you."

Mary wavered on the edge of hesitation, then nodded. "Okay, John."

He was left wrestling with a sudden feeling of sadness, and confusion besides as to why he'd been hoping she'd say No.

-X-

Manchester, New Hampshire smelled like piss and vinegar and glowed like lights on Christmas Eve.

They'd rolled into town the day before the Prelim with the intention of familiarizing Sam with the layout. The brand on his arm still mending, Sam hadn't said much; he'd slept most of the way with his forehead against the window and his body curled across the backseat. He'd pretended John didn't exist; the effort had been mutual. Dean had been left feeling like the sole force holding back a storm.

Manchester was hanging somewhere between decay and nightlife, most of the buildings gutted and rotting but the Verizon Arena, a hub of activity and interest before fights had purged the economy right out of prosperity, was still standing. In fact, it had been converted into a Pit.

After they'd taken a quick look inside, John had crossed paths with a Handler he didn't owe money to, and they'd gotten to talking. Dean had thought it in his best interest to saunter off in search of a drink, with Sam following, hunched-shouldered and splashing through puddles left over from a recent rain.

That was how they'd found this place: a bright green neon sign out front declared it 'The Captain's Ship', and it was barely more than a hole in the wall between two cluttered, paint-peeling former businesses. But it was the first bar Dean had seen since before he'd left New York, and he'd stepped inside without reservation.

He was two beers down and working through his third, and the place was starting to look friendly. The riggings and sailor paraphernalia weren't looking tacky anymore so much as adorable. And Sam leaning crossed arms on the counter, still working through his first beer, seemed less annoying and more awkwardly funny.

"How's that arm?" Dean asked, pointing to it with the long neck of the bottle.

"You suck," Sam complained. Something Dean had learned during days spent by the river: Sam was a lightweight. Half a beer and his tongue loosened up. A whole one and he'd be open for banter.

"I'm awesome." Dean spun the bar stool around to observe the room; most of the people had an air of Handlers around them. The thing Maggie must've picked up on from him; it was reserve masquerading as friendliness. The secrets they seemed to share were lies slipping out of their sleeves; when someone asked someone else who they thought looked good for a fight, they were really asking What kind of monster do you have?

It was a tricky way of talking and Dean stayed out of it; he prided himself, though, in being the only person here who was drinking beer with a fighter.

"Hey, Sam, you think you're special?" Dean leaned his elbows back on the counter and sniffed.

"Um. Not really. Why?"

"Seems like you are." Dean cocked his head sideways without taking his eyes off the patrons of the bar. "Seems like you are one lucky mon—"

Sam clapped a hand over Dean's mouth. "Don't say it."

"Right." Dean mumbled against Sam's hand, pulling on his wrist. "Guy. You are one…lucky guy."

Sam smiled and tilted his head back, taking another drink. "And you're drunk."

"That…I am." Dean conceded.

There was a burst of laughter from the corner, the bell over the entryway tinkling as the door swished inward. Dean closed his eyes, letting sounds and smells and warmth saturate him from inside and out. A bar shouldn't be this peaceful; they'd left Mary behind with guarded eyes, her hand on his cheek a silent request for him to be careful. Leaving her had been easier than Dean would have thought possible.

Seasons were changing.

There was a ricochet, a clatter that startled his eyes open. Dean blinked at the sight of a tall stranger in long coat with the hood popped up, picking himself up off the back of Sam's stool. Looked like he'd tripped into it, slamming into Sam's back.

"My mistake. Didn't see you there." The man's voice oozed with a saccharine sweet apology. Dean's eyes narrowed, a chill of caution scampering up his back.

"It's fine." Dean cuffed Sam's shoulder, noticing that the man was standing close, almost chest-to-back with Sam. "No harm, no foul." The guy didn't catch a hint. "Look, me and my brother here were havin' a private conversation. You mind?"

The man's eyes were hidden beneath the shade of a porkpie hat that he tipped Dean's way. "Have a good one, boys."

Sam's head lifted, swiveling to follow the man out; even in a shroud of beer, Dean noticed the way Sam's forehead crinkled, that adorable—Dean really was drunk—expression of confusion on his face.

"Problem?" Dean asked.

"No, I just thought I…" Sam trailed off, "Nevermind," and turned back to face Dean, chin almost tucking onto his shoulder as he rested his outstretched arms on the counter and fiddled with his bottle. "You know you called me your brother, right?"

Dean felt a piercing discomfort that he buried in another toss of beer. "Yeah, well, wasn't like I could call you my…" He broke off at Sam's unhappy, narrowed-eyed look. "Right." Dean banged his beer down on the counter. "We oughta go. You need a good night's…how come nobody ever says 'bad night's sleep'?"

"They do, Dean." Sam heaved a longsuffering sigh, pushing his hands into his pockets and getting to his feet.

"I've never heard 'em."

"That's because you don't listen to anyone." Sam shoved the door out of the way with his shoulder, stepping out onto the street. Dean followed him, feeling like there was a misconception here that needed fixing.

"I do, too! I listen to you!"

"Yeah, only when it's—"

Dean missed the rest, because a hand grabbed the back of his jacket and yanked him sideways, throwing him against the wall of the moldering building next to the bar. Stars burst like diamonds in front of his eyes.

"Dean!" Sam whipped around to face him, hearing the impact, maybe, and Dean blinked up, realizing there was a man standing between him and Sam; a man with a couple of friends behind him.

The man in front, with several shades of scruff and bead, narrowed eyes, stepped closer. "I remember seein' you in Junction City. You're John Winchester's buddy, ain't ya? You ride with him and that washout, Singer?"

"Who's asking?" A feeling of wariness prickled at Dean, wrangling through the blur of the alcohol.

"Name's Roy. Got a beef with your friend John and I was wonderin' if you could take a message to him."

"Write it down." Dean drawled. "You dumb backwoods hicks can read and write, can't you?"

Roy's fist coming toward his face was dizzyingly fast, too fast for Dean to block it; before it could make contact with his cheekbone, it was stopped, caught in the palm of somebody else's hand.

Sam threw Roy's arm down to his side. "Leave him alone."

Roy rubbed a hand over his lower lip. "You in our business, boy?" His colleagues crowded around him, tasting a fight on the air.

"Back off." Sam warned him. "Don't make me say it again."

"Damn straight we won't. You're not gonna have any teeth left for talking."

"Sam." Dean snagged the back of his jacket. "You go right, I'll go left. Savate. Oh, and, uh…try not to kill anyone."

Sam bobbed his head.

They exploded, their backs coming off the wall; Sam taking Roy smack down on the pavement while Dean went right in between the two wingmen, snapping kicks into their groins and midsections and loving the way the buzz of the beer made everything feel a hundred times more vivid, like turning up every light and cranking the sound.

By the time he came back into himself, Dean had dropped both of the men cold and Sam had left Roy clutching his kneecap and crying like a baby on the asphalt.

"Dude, we make an awesome team." Dean joined him, standing above Roy. "What'd you do?"

"I think I kicked his knee out of alignment," Sam's expression was contrite. Dean clapped a hand on Sam's shoulder and bent over, puffing with laughter. "What?"

"God, that's….you beating up human. Must be a nice change, huh?"

Sam's eyes went taut. "Look, can we just go?"

They walked back in the general direction of the Verizon Arena, Dean's head clearing more with every step. They emerged across the street from the Pit, the Impala in sight, when Sam put out a hand to stop Dean, and turned to face him.

"I don't like hurting humans. I don't like hurting monsters, either. I do it because I have to do it." He took a deep breath. "I'm not a demon. I'm not like them."

"Okay? Sure." Dean agreed. "So, why stop Roy? The dude obviously had a bone to pick, you had to know it was gonna turn into a fight."

"It was him or you."

Dean flicked him a half-smile. "C'mon, let's go."

They crossed the street to find John waiting for them in the car, the radio cranked on; Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train rattled through the speakers. They opened their doors and slid in, and John sat up straight.

"I got a lead on a motel just outside of town." He said without preamble. "Should be good for the night."

Two beds, Dean thought. It wouldn't be a problem; Sam still slept on the floor every night. "Sounds like a plan."

John sniffed, his face creasing at the tint of alcohol that still hung from their clothes. "You boys run into any trouble out there?"

Dean met Sam's eyes in the rearview mirror with a grin, and they chorused: "No, sir."