DEAN

Dean drummed his fingers against the steering wheel nervously. He wanted to go faster. Sam was less than eight hours away according to Ash's map and that meant in eight hours, Dean would finally see his brother again and he'd finally get to ask him what the fuck he thought he was doing.

Or he'd finally get to smack some sense into the kid and make him snap out of it. Maybe it wasn't his fault at all. Maybe it was all Brady's fault. Dean looked forward to wringing Brady's neck. It was an eminently wringable neck.

Or maybe, it wasn't Brady's fault. Maybe Sam had done whatever he'd done all on his own, for some damn good reason that he'd give to Dean in excruciating detail. Dean would listen and nod and tell Sam it was going to be okay, and then he'd punch him for ever letting it get this bad.

Maybe Dad was with Sam. Maybe Dad had already found him. Maybe he'd get to wherever Sam was and find them at each other's throats like the good old days, when all they had to argue over was how bow-hunting was more important than soccer.

Maybe he was too late. Maybe he'd get to Sam and it wouldn't matter. He pinched his eyes shut just for a second and forced them back open, glaring at the lines on the highway like they held the answer.

He jerked when Jo put her hand on his leg and squeezed gently. She smiled at him, and it mirrored the sadness he felt.

SAM

Sam looked in on Dean right after wiping Brady from existence. With so much 'go juice' in his system, Sam didn't even need a dream to enter anymore; he just closed his eyes, thought of Dean and saw him.

His brother was in the Impala with a young blonde woman riding shotgun and a skinny guy wearing flannel over an Iron Maiden t-shirt asleep in the back seat. Dean's eyes flicked back and forth across the windshield, almost as if he could see Sam's spirit crouching on the hood of the car, staring in at them.

Dean's soul was furious and terrified, filled with love and rage in equal measure. It was Dean as he always was, only amplified, but there was something new. Dean's entire soul was covered in demonic script, a hodge-podge of Latin, broken Enochian, Sumerian and sigils of every magical language known and unknown to man.

On Dean's forehead was a timer, counting down his remaining days with one faint shift in character at a time, one second at a time: four years, 359 days, eight hours, forty-seven minutes and thirty-one seconds. Thirty seconds. Twenty-nine...

Sam's rage flared out but he tamped it back down quickly when the car stereo started to spark. The last thing Dean needed was for his favorite Led Zeppelin tape to catch fire.

DEAN

"Dammit!" Dean yelled when he saw the stereo sparking. "It's not even on!"

"Umm..."Ash sat up, and tapped Dean on the shoulder. "You're gonna want to pull over."

"What? Why?" Dean asked, irritated. He could swap out the tape deck if he had to, but when was he going to get the chance?

"'Cause I think your bro's here," Ash said quietly.

"Here? What do you mean 'here'?"

Jo turned in her seat and squinted over at Ash.

The Impala swerved to the right as Dean cut across two lanes and pulled onto the narrow shoulder.

Ash spun the computer around so Jo and Dean could see the amulet, and where it was pointing.

"Zoom in on that," Jo said.

Ash pressed a few buttons and enlarged the map until they could see all the nearby streets by name. "This is us," Ash said, lifting the amulet with his fingers and pointing at a small black rectangle on the map. "And this—" he let go of the amulet and it swung for a moment, then tilted to its side and floated up until it was pointed at the rectangle, "—is him."

SAM

Sam read the rest of the script trailing down Dean's shoulders and arms. The lettering covered all of him, and it was beautiful and infuriating in equal parts. It was a contract, a crossroads deal. Sam might not have officially started law school, but he knew legalese when he saw it. There was clause after clause, citing the specifics of what Dean had asked for and what he'd agreed to in exchange: their father back, freed from Azazel's possession, in exchange for Dean's own soul.

It wasn't that simple though.

Dean had been careful, or at least he'd tried to be. He'd asked for—and received—his father back as agreed upon on New Year's Day. In exchange, Dean's soul would go to Hell in five years. Their father was to remain physically unharmed. If John died from unnatural causes, the contract itself was null and void.

Sam forced himself to keep reading, careful not to react too strongly. Dean had been sloppy. He hadn't known it, of course, but he'd left the crossroads demon with far too many loopholes…and they were all spelled out underneath his skin. Recipient did not specify that his father was to remain unpossessed, only unharmed. Recipient did not specify that his father remain with him after being returned. Recipient did not specify that he himself had to remain physically unharmed. Recipient did not state any additional demands. Recipient did not forbid a transfer of contract. Recipient did not forbid a contract override from a different party. Recipient understands terms are non-negotiable and that any further requests or attempts at renegotiation will shorten his time-package.

Sam withdrew from Dean's mind, unable to keep his fury at bay any longer. He opened his eyes again and looked at the blackened interior of the house. The empty, burnt husk that used to be Brady was still stuck to the ceiling. He stood up, walked over to the open window and let out a low whistle.

DEAN

"Sammy?" Dean said, feeling only a little ridiculous. "You here?"

The amulet quivered and then shot up off of the laptop display, hovering straight above the hook its cord was attached to. Right across from Ash's nose.

"Zoom out, zoom out!" Jo said, knocking her hand against Ash's.

Ash nodded and hit a few keys on the keyboard until they could see all of Nebraska, then the neighboring states: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri. He blinked, grimaced, then said, "Uh…yeah. You're gonna want to take the next exit."

"Why?" Dean had a bad feeling about this.

"We need to turn around, and go to…Wyoming."

"Thought you said he was here!"

"He was," Ash said. "At least I think he was. Now he's in Wyoming."

"Then why'd you say he was here?" Dean roared, despite the little voice in his head telling him Ash wasn't full of shit. He hadn't seen Sam, but he'd felt...something. He could've sworn he'd heard Sam's voice saying, 'Dammit, Dean.'

"Could've been a glitch, I guess," Ash shrugged. "But...my stuff don't glitch."

"Whatever. Wyoming." Dean gunned the engine and peel back out onto the highway.

SAM

Azazel was still wearing Dad's skin. He grinned when he saw Sam approaching and yelled, "That's my boy!", stretching his arms out wide like he wanted a hug.

Sam kept walking until he was standing directly across from the demon. Azazel stood in front of a marble crypt, its doors heavy and ornate, and behind it...Sam thought he could feel Hell.

Azazel's eyes flashed brighter as he looked Sam up and down. "Well, somebody's been eating his Wheaties." John's soul stirred, his eyes flickering open weakly for just a moment, just long enough to see Sam. "You ready to play ball, Sammy?"

Sam nodded. Azazel's soul wasn't as overwhelming as it had seemed the last time. He looked dimmer somehow, which made it easier to see his father's soul, and the words burned into it, his own pact with Azazel.

"I don't see you drawing a line in the sand," Azazel said, narrowing his eyes. "You just waitin' for that one perfect moment? Trying to catch me off guard?"

"No," Sam said. "I want to know what you need me to do."

"Is that a fact?" asked the demon, his father's eyes opened again, his expression twisting in horror.

"It is."

Azazel's glee spread across his face. "What made you change your mind?"

"I want her back," Sam said, and his heart felt heavy with the truth of it.

The demon nodded. "You know, people—your people—like to say: 'Pride goeth before the fall.' What they don't get is that Lucifer fell for love, not pride." He looked at Sam oddly and bowed his head ever so slightly. "Okay then. Glad to have you on board."

Sam took a deep breath, reminding himself that this was the only option left. He had to be strong enough, just long enough to set things right, just long enough to end it. "What do you need me to do?"

"I want my army. This little peashooter here—" Azazel said, pulling the Colt out of John's holster, "— is a key." He took a step to his right and gestured at the crypt. "Hell can't set Hell free, but you've still got a foot in both worlds. I need you to open the door." He held the gun out to Sam.

Sam wrapped his hand around the Colt, felt its weight. "You took the bullets out?"

The demon let go of the gun and laughed loudly. "I've been called many things, most of them true, but I've never been called a fool."

Flipping the cylinder open, Sam checked that the Colt's chambers were, indeed, empty. He flipped it shut again and tucked the gun into his waistband. "Thank you for this," he said. "I have a few more requests I'll need addressed before I open your door."

Azazel twisted John's mouth into all-too-familiar scorn, while Dad himself smiled in relief. "Here it comes..." the demon muttered under his breath. "And what might those be?"

"My brother's deal. Let him out of it, right now."

"I do that, and Daddy drops dead."

"I know."

The demon's voice hitched. "And...you don't care about that?"

"I know you won't free both. You've got their contracts lined up perfectly. I can't save both, so...I choose Dean."

Azazel tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Nope. Sorry, not gonna happen."

"Why not?" Sam asked through gritted teeth.

"Because if I free Dean, then I have no leverage left, do I?" The demon took a deep breath and smiled. "Tell you what, you free my army and I'll transfer ownership of the contract to you. Then you can do whatever you want with it."

It. Sam's fist clenched and the ground beneath his feet began to tremble.

"Plus, think about it, how's Dean gonna feel when he figures out you killed Daddy?"

"I'll handle Dean," Sam snarled.

"Anything else, Sam?" Azazel asked, grinning.

"Just one more thing." Sam took a step towards the demon. "I want what you promised me. I want more than a 'few measly drops.'"

"After you open the door," Azazel bristled, his eyes flashed angrily. "Do that and you can drink your fill."

Sam laughed bitterly. "What's to stop your army from killing me the moment they've been set free?"

"I'll stop them," said the demon, his expression flat.

"And I'm supposed to trust you now?" Sam asked incredulously. "After everything you've done to me? To my family?"

Azazel let out a low growl and snapped, "I did it for you, Sam, and if you only knew…if you really understood what that meant…"

"Enlighten me," Sam watched the demon closely. It looked almost nervous.

The demon smiled again. "You've nearly leveled the playing field already. You can take down hundreds of them, easy."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "And how many demons am I setting free? Thousands? Millions?" He shook his head. "I can hold my own, but for how long? You said it yourself: the power I get from them is temporary. Yours is forever."

John's chest expanded as Azazel took a deep breath. "Fine," he said. "You get one pint now, and a second after you open the gate. Is that acceptable to you?"

Sam nearly chortled at how perfectly Azazel mimicked his father's oft-seen irritated expression. He nodded and said, "Yeah, that works."

The demon ran his father's nail along the inside of his wrist, drawing a thick line of red, and offered it out to Sam.

The blood pulsed with power—flickers of yellow, black and white energy running through it. Sam latched onto the wound and drank. Deep. Time stopped, and all he could feel and hear was his own heart, pounding loud, slow and strong. Azazel's skin closed under his teeth and Sam pulled back, his tongue cleaning the last traces of it off his lips.

The night sky above flashed white, spider webs of lightning pulsing like veins behind the clouds.

"Open…the door…" said the demon, his patience wearing thin.

Sam looked at Azazel, his father's brown eyes, filled with sorrow, looking back through the demon's yellow, and dodged his head, once. He walked to the crypt, up to the two heavy metal doors, put the gun into the center of the ornate lock—a puzzle-pieced pentacle—and turned the key.

Weighty disks creaked as the lock turned and the pentacle aligned. A searing crimson light ran up between the two doors and exploded outwards as they swung wide open. The blast grew brighter and brighter until it was smothered by a massive cloud of black demonic smoke that poured out into the world.

Azazel's grin spread, broad and mean, and he roared with laughter. It sounded like triumph and bloodshed.

DEAN

The Impala came screeching to a halt and Dean winced inwardly, realizing he'd probably compromised the tires. He'd driven as fast as he could, cops be damned, but luckily nobody had been around to care on that last, lone stretch of highway bringing them to the old cowboy cemetery.

Dean climbed out of the car and looked back at Ash, who slammed the back door shut behind him and nodded, ready to go.

The air felt thick and heavy, like it did before a storm. The sky above them was cloudless, though…until all of a sudden, it wasn't. An enormous black swarm spilled out onto the sky like ink, making the blue of night stand out in stark contrast.

"What the hell is that?" Dean asked in an unsteady voice. Even as he said it, he knew. It was Hell. Hell had been set free and it was bleeding into the world, ready to tear it apart one soul at a time.

"We're too late," Jo gasped. "Aren't we?"

"Maybe. Doesn't change anything." He ran toward the demonic cloud, as fast as his legs would carry him, bounding across the cemetery until he saw where the smoke was coming from: a crypt, the doors. He slid to a halt two dozen feet from the seething mass and braced his hands on his thighs, leaning to catch his breath.

"Any ideas on how we, you know, stop that?" Ash asked, pulling up beside him.

Last to arrive, Jo caught up, panting. "Well, it's a door, ain't it? Let's start by tryin' to close it."

Ash shrugged, arched his brows to Dean, and they all took off again in accord. It seemed as good, or foolish, a plan as any.

They dodged headstones and uneven crags in the earth until Dean pulled up short, giving them all pause.

For a heartbeat, there was a break in the demon stream and he saw two figures standing in the center of it all. Two figures he'd recognize anywhere.

Dad and Sam.

Dean's mouth opened to yell something, anything. Instead he fell silent as he saw both of them turn to face him with identical yellow-eyed stares.

SAM

"Well, speak of the devil," said the demon, looking to his right.

Sam followed his gaze and saw Dean, mouth agape and disbelieving, staring back at them. No, damn it! he swore inwardly. You aren't supposed to be here. You aren't supposed to see this. Sam scowled and focused on the air between them, willing it to congeal and become solid enough to keep Dean from getting too close. To keep him safe.

The hellish smoke flowed heavier around them, leaving Sam standing across from Azazel, his father, in the center of a twisted homage to the parting of the Red Sea. He watched the ocean of demons grow larger and wider and found he couldn't keep count of how many souls made up the dark mass.

Azazel grinned at the storm surrounding them. "Thank you, Sam. Now let's get this show on the road." He waggled his eyebrows and turned away from the crypt, away from the Sam, heading right for the smoke.

Sam's lip curled in disgust. He shouldn't have expected Azazel to have any honor. He hadn't. "What about Dean's contract? What about the blood?"

The demon stopped walking and chuckled, but he didn't turn around. "Patience, son. Patience."

"No," Sam said resolutely. "I'm not going anywhere until I get what you promised me."

Azazel laughed even louder and walked into the demon swarm. "Do whatever you want, kiddo."

"That's the plan," Sam murmured, watching the giant black cloud grow larger and larger as Azazel walked into its midst. The demons were all still hovering in the cemetery, waiting to be led. Waiting for their orders. Sam brought two fingers to his lips and whistled.

The snarls were barely audible over the constant thrum of Hell's power. The howls, however, rang out crystal clear. Inky smoke parted and rose up around Sam as he walked, the demons moving as one, unifying into a single malevolent cloud. An audience.

On the ground, pinned to the wet earth by the large claws and teeth of two Hellhounds, was Azazel, yellow eyes shining with fury.

"Let me go, you stupid mutts!" he yelled. His right leg was twisted at an odd angle, and his left shoulder was being pushed firmly into the soil.

"They're not here for you," Sam said, looking down at him. "They're here for my father."

"His contract didn't say anything about early retrieval!"

"Exactly. It didn't forbid it either." Sam leaned forwards and scratched one of the Hellhounds behind the ears. "I wasn't sure if I could control these lil' guys, but as it turns out…they're demons too."

Azazel's eyes blazed as he struggled against the hounds. His expression oozed frustration and he made not an inch of headway, fighting ineffectually for release.

Sam quirked a grin. "They're tenacious. But then, they're not the only ones holding you down."

"You're gonna tire out eventually, champ. Parts of you are still human. Well, for now anyway."

Sam gestured vaguely with one hand. "I'm not even touching you."

The demon's eyes shimmered, yellow and white undulating, as it tried to decipher Sam's words. Sam felt it shift focus inwardly, and he sensed its growing panic. "No…that's not possible. He's just meat. Your father is nothing. He's just a man."

"I guess somebody forgot to tell him that." Sam crouched down next to Azazel. "Dad and I have had our differences, but if there's one thing we agree on, it's you. Not to mention...he's my blood."

Azazel recoiled, the demon trying to pull back and extract itself from John's body.

Sam grabbed hold of his father's right wrist, locked eyes with him and whispered, "Keeneelah vehmehdeh Keeneelah."

John's forearm tore open wide, blood bright and crackling with power spilling out onto his skin. Sam brought the wound to his mouth and latched on.

DEAN

Dean snapped out of his stupor and started forward again—to Sam and Dad and the endless stream of evil pouring out of the Devil's Gate

He ran until he smacked into a wall, or what felt like one. It staggered him back, and he held his hand out until he felt something invisible, softer than stone but just as immobile.

"Sammy!" he yelled, pounding against the force. "Dad!" He looked around frantically, realizing he'd lost sight of Jo and Ash, grateful when he spotted them crouched together by an old dead tree. Their eyes were fixed on the crypt.

Dean was about to join them when he heard the howling. A shudder ran up his spine and spread over every inch of his body…like breath on his skin. He swallowed and looked towards the sound, which had traveled right up to where he'd last seen Sam and Dad.

As he stared at it, the demonic cloud lifted. It rose up, forming a giant, churning canopy above Sam, who was striding forward with his shoulders back, his head up and his eyes glowing like embers. Watching Sam move with such surety, Dean had to wonder if it was really him, or if the yellow-eyed demon had somehow figured out a way to possess two people at once. There wasn't so much as a hint of the gawky, hyperaware brother Dean had spent his entire life protecting. Sam wasn't making himself less threatening by hunching his shoulders in a slouch; he'd somehow achieved the exact opposite. He looked taller and broader. Sam moved like a predator.

He stopped next to a body on the ground. Next to Dad, who was still alive and still possessed, yellow eyes glowing furiously.

Dean pounded against the air, the dread in his gut growing as he watched Sam drop to his knees, and bite into Dad's arm.

What. The. Fuck.

SAM

Azazel growled in anger as Sam drained the blood from his body. Quickly, so quickly.

A much weaker voice spoke quietly, "Son."

His father's voice. Sam looked into John's brown eyes but never let go of Azazel's wrist, never let go of the flow of power.

"You know how this ends, don't you?" asked John.

Yes.

His father's eyes filled with tears. "End it."

Sam closed his eyes and kept drinking. There was so much blood, Sam wondered if he could take it all in, but he could and he did and he was the sun, he was the world, and there wasn't a God-damned thing in existence that he couldn't do if he wanted to. And he wanted to.

"Sam," Azazel pleaded. "You don't want to do this. You need me on your side. You don't honestly think they'll pick you over their king, do you?" He struggled against the hounds' hold. "Sam…let me go!"

His light was so dim now.

"Dean's contract. It's yours."

Sam pulled back from John's arm, wiped his hand across his mouth and licked off the last few stray drops. The Hellhounds whined and vanished. Sam smiled as he took a hold of Azazel himself the twisted soul, fallen angel, demon king, nothing but smoke and crushed him into smoldering dust.

Unable to withstand the backlash of Azazel's destruction, his father's soul flickered out and died.

"It is now," Sam said. He looked over to where Dean stood, still trying to reach him, even now. After everything. He watched the contract fade out of Dean's soul, one letter at a time, until there was nothing left but Dean.

Above him, the demons writhed, bloodlust barely held in check. They had watched him kill Azazel. The King is dead. Long live the King. The cloud started expanding—long tendrils reaching out into the air—ready to grab Dean and the others, heading for the outskirts of the cemetery and out into the rest of the world. They were ready to tear the world to shreds and were waiting for his word.

Sam looked up at the suffocated sky and said, "Where do you think you're going?"

The blackness streamed down to the earth and back into the open crypt as all of the demons were drawn, screaming, back through Hell's gaping maw. They fought back, trying to break free, desperate to stay.

Sam raised his hand out towards the few stragglers, the strongest ones, still clinging desperately to the sky, and pulled them down. He turned, forcing the demonic mass back through the gate. He moved slowly with the effort, each step harder than the next. When he finally reached the gate itself, he walked through, and closed the doors behind him.

DEAN

As Dean watched Sam snare the thick, Hell-spawned pollution and pull it all inside with him, as the great doors clanked shut, the invisible barrier disappeared. There was a great exhale of the world's breath, and the wall was no more.

Dean fell forward, stumbling. His desperation was immediate and without bounds, and he howled his brother's name like an expletive, a curse. He couldn't be at all certain what was happening, this formless tragedy wreathed in black and blood and suddenly, he felt his surroundings tilt sideways.

Jo and Ash stepped up, grabbed an arm on either side but he strained against them. It took all their collective strength to hold him, and it still wasn't enough.

Dean tore free and ran blind. He slammed off gravestones and his boots caught on clods of root and weed in the ill-kept cemetery, rocketing like a cannonball against the sealed crypt.

Too little, too late.

"NO," he barked into the airless crack between the doors. His knuckles split as he pounded until the pain got too deep. "No, God, no…" After that, he continued to wail with the flats of his hands, palms bruising on the ornamentation.

"Dean," Jo said sternly, at his left ear. "It's over."

He turned to her and wanted to tell her all the thousands of reasons she was wrong, because Sam wasn't gone and neither was Dad and everything he'd just seen was a fucking nightmare and it wasn't real. It wasn't.

It couldn't be.

Jo rubbed a thumb across his cheekbone, tears spilling over the edge of her lashes, and he realized his face was wet, too. Tears, blood, sweat, he didn't care.

"This isn't real," he managed. "It doesn't make sense, it isn't supposed to be this way, Jo. It isn't."

She looked at him, smiling so sad and sweet.

A bemused voice asked him, "Was this not what you wanted?"

It wasn't Jo's voice, or his own. Or anyone's he recognized.

It was inside his head.

The night closed in fast. It swallowed him whole and dropped him to his knees. Scenes ripped through his skull—pieces of dreams stuttering in front of his wide-open eyes. They blotted out Jo, the dirty sky, the cemetery…everything.

Dean held Sam close. He pulled his arms tighter around him and felt the sticky warmth of blood on his palm. Sam's blood, soaking his coat from the deep wound at the small of his back. Dean had stopped screaming. He couldn't talk anymore, he couldn't think anything beyond No. No no no no no no no. He felt a touch on his shoulder, Bobby trying to comfort him or pull him away, but he couldn't move. If he moved, then this was real, and it wasn't. It couldn't be. No. I should've saved you. I should've shot that asshole before he got anywhere near you. I should have found you days ago. It's my job to keep you safe. It's my job. I should have kept you safe, I should have kept you out of this life. I should never have taken you from Stanford. I wish I'd have just let you live your life. I wish...

All those weeks of feeling an uncanny familiarity, the vertigo of things off-kilter and not as they should be, compacted into this moment of stunned realization. It had all been actual memory. It had all happened. Twice.

And something in his head laughed, something ancient, capricious, and powerful beyond understanding. Something had seen fit to listen to Dean when he'd made that wish.

"Dean. Dean!" Jo cried, hands squeezing his arms tight and shaking him hard.

He blinked, caught his breath. Ash was staring at him with obvious concern, Jo with something like panic. But Dean felt more centered than he had in a good two months. It made sense and no sense, all at once. A handful of tepid stars dotted the night, and Dean knew something, someone, was watching.

The Colt lay on the ground at his feet and he stooped to pick it up. The gun was warm in his shredded hand, almost humming.

He pulled Jo close, pressed his lips to her temple. She was shivering.

"It's okay," he murmured, almost smiling. "This ain't over yet."