Dedicated to Grace, the coolest librarian EVA.

Chapter 10

He wasn't going to beg, Dean vowed. They wouldn't get the fucking satisfaction.

Both Meg and Tom chanted softly with each slash, the words cutting through Dean far more than any knife strokes. He couldn't understand them, but somehow he knew the intent. Oh God, Sammy.

Tom's fire simmered somewhere nearby, the heat from its gathering strength causing the blades to occasionally slide against his sweat-slicked skin and plunge in deeper than probably intended at this point. Dean arched his back, twisting his weakening body against the chains, his ragged cries and curses increasing in both volume and hysteria. Still fighting, useless as it was.

He could feel the two daggers begin to cool, his wounds gradually remaining open. The soldier in him, unaffected by mind traps such as pain, noted they hadn't touched his heart or his throat, favoring not-too-shallow-not-too-deep incisions which bled freely and hurt like a fucking son of a bitch fuck! but didn't endanger his life.

Yet.

Tom reached down, grasping the sacrifice's chin in a tight, unyielding grip, digging his fingers into its jaw to hold its mouth open. The boy gasped against the smoke gradually flooding the room, struggling wildly.

But there was no escape.

"Sonuvabitch!" Dean yelled, or tried to, his unsteady breaths erupting into coughs. He pulled against his restraints again, his hands curled into fists.

Meg shrugged, sliding the blade into the now-conspicuous veins along his arms, smiling at the darker red flow. Shock from that sent Dean into mumbling paralysis, his body beginning to shake uncontrollably.

Tom handed his knife to his sister, breathing deeply in preparation before yielding the human meat sack to the far more powerful presence waiting hungrily in the wings. Come, Father. Come and drink.

Come, he did. Meg watched with reverence. "Hello, Father," Dean heard her whisper, watching with disbelief as she paused between stabs to bow her head in greeting. He squinted blistered eyes, wincing with the effort. Were there two people killing him, or three? Suddenly, he wasn't sure.

Father sharpened, his terrible presence enhancing at every desperate wheeze from the dying Winchester beneath them all. Flames sprang into his eyes. "Fun little gambit," he quipped. Chuckling, Father drank his first fill of the little pawn's flickering essence with much less mercy than any Shtriga offered victims.

They were stealing far more than blood.

"So. What do you know that I don't?"

John sat stiffly, back ramrod straight. Both all but heard the Dad doesn't have all day to answer that, Sammy favorite Dean peacekeeping retort the absent Winchester would've instantly interjected, the unescapable void ripping Sam's heart in two more than any knife could've.

Their father pressed his lips together, bloodshot eyes smoldering, white-knuckled hands creating a groove in the leather steering wheel as he gripped it.

"Fine. Next question. How much of this really is my fault?" You're going to talk me, Dad, whether you want to or not.

Jenny had vanished inside her door moments before, failing to notice the classic car parked just inside nearby shadows. Not a surprise, no one could see John Winchester when he didn't wish it. His head finally snapped toward his youngest child, but he still held his tongue.

"'I went to Missouri, and I learned the truth'," Sam quoted, keeping his tone even and eye contact unyielding. He'd had plenty of practice with Dean, even if his older brother was a weepy share-it-all compared to John. "What truth, Dad?"

Silence.

"Because you know what I think?" Tears stung his eyes despite his best efforts, but he didn't care. "I think that demon wanted me when it killed Mom and Jessica. Or something about me. I think Dean figured out what you're not telling me, and that's why he pulled his bullshit 'I'm fine' act when he called. I think we're sitting here, tracing a lead we already know, because you're out of ideas to stall. Am I right? Need-to-know and all that. Because if we got there too early, something would happen. And you don't want that, huh Dad? Because if it got me, you'd lose your chance to blow it away. Forget your son, we can't have the mighty John Winchester actually not kill something!"

A memory tugged at Sam's consciousness, something about Missouri with her arm over his father's shoulders. He ignored it willfully. He didn't believe everything he was saying - mostly - but he'd get his father to tell him something, damnit.

"You know what, Dad? I think you were in Lawrence before, possibly even when Dean called." Off his father's look, he nodded grimly. "Dean told me he'd used up all pussy moments for the year in that one voicemail. You came, didn't you? But instead of, oh, I don't know, saying hello, you stood back and watched. You used that family's trauma just like the demon used ours, you son of a bitch. And for what? An experiment? 'How Far Dean and Sam Will Go', right? You couldn't control me anymore, so you found out everything you need to me about me there instead! How'd I do?"

John forced himself to start the engine with one hand and drop the other, fist clenched, in his lap. He'd never once laid a hand on his boys. He wasn't about to start now.

"Say something!" Sam exploded, giving up on subtle prodding. Something, Samantha, Dean's voice zinged in his ear.

John pulled out smoothly, gunning the engine out of habit. When he finally did speak, it was enough to send Sam's anger spiraling away in the face of confusion.

"Did your brother ever tell you we visited Stanford sometimes?"

Insanely, Dean realized, he was thirsty. Very, very thirsty. Probably not a very good sign, he decided.

"Meg - " he managed to choke out. Tom or Toms or whatever the fuck Meg's boytoy was had abruptly turned back to manage the fire, leaving just her to gut him like a fish.

Meg ran her hand lovingly down the numerous gashes slashed over Dean's abdomen, each one slightly deeper than the preceding others. They bubbled with each hesitant breath he took.

"Sweetheart - "

She pursed her lips, meeting his glassy eyes. "Yes, baby?" she cooed, leaning over, her voice a mockery of gentle sympathy. Her hair lightly brushed the tip of his nose.

Dean blinked, forcing moisture to spill out. And then he smiled. Not a smirk or even his famous, flippant half-grin Sam equally admired and despised, but a real one. With teeth. "Do you - " he had to stop, gasping. Every word sent agony shivering into his lungs. " - do you think I could get some water?"

Meg studied him in clear disbelief.

"Or some whiskey," he ground out, shrugging as much as his stretched limbs allowed. "Or you know, some morphine. Hell, even coffee. Black. Any of those would be fine."

In response, she grasped one of the knives, rage twisting her features, and drove it down into Dean's left hand, neatly impaling it against the floor. He couldn't stop the scream even if he'd wanted to.

"You just don't know when to quit, baby!" she sneered.

Tom appeared at her side, annoyance in his tight posture. Dean cried out again. It'd hurt going down, but it was almost worse when Tom yanked the steel blade back out without so much as a blink in warning.

"Sorry," Meg sulked as they once again knelt facing each other, Dean's blood soaking their jeans. Tom shook his head. Distraction averted, they got back to work. Life poured out of the sacrifice like water, stopping abruptly at the seal carved into the floor that surrounded Dean's body. Soon he lay in a circle of red, ringed by insistent fire.

"I talked to your teachers," John confessed. Each word made the following one easier. "Dean even took a day - I think a week or so after you started, you weren't dating Jessica yet - and followed you around the campus, just so he'd always know where exactly where to find you if we had to. We kept up on your grades, read your term papers... usually couldn't follow a lot of them, but we still tried."

Sam stared at him.

"I even - " his voice grew softer. "I even met Jessica, when Dean was out on a hunt. She was a great k - woman, Sam. Didn't tell her who I was, think she thought I was a guidance counselor. She laughed a lot. It reminded me of your mom, sometimes, the way she'd smile and light a room up without realizing it."

Sam's eyes filled with tears.

"She told me all about her boyfriend, said he was a 'genius with passable hair'. She was happy, and I knew that if she was, you were. That's all we needed to know. Dean didn't come with me after I told him that, think he thought he didn't need to anymore, but I still went once a month or so. Not sure about him. We were hunting separately a lot towards the end."

John took a deep breath, glancing at the passing mileage sign. Lawrence 47, it read He couldn't remember the last time he'd strung so many words together and actually meant every one.

"You both have grown up to be the kind of men your mom and I dreamed of. I know that's not because of me at all, but that's okay. I'm still proud of you, son. Do I know more about what's going on? Yes. But Sam - " John risked taking his eyes off the road for just a moment. "You can't know. I know I've given you another reason to be pissed at me. But I don't care. We're talking about your brother's life here, and - "

"You don't need to remind me," Sam shot back, but there was no ire in his voice, his father's quiet pride in him enough to quell his usual resentment. John had never told him that before. He'd probably said it to Dean numerous times, but to actually hear those words directed at him... a wave of peace enveloped him.

The mats Sam had unknowingly been raising behind their seat as his frustration grew fell back to the floor of the car, impact inaudible.

"I'm getting my son back, and you're getting your brother back," John finished evenly. "However we have to."

Somewhere along the way, he'd lost his pants. Dean drew in a sharp breath against vocal chords long worn down as cool steel began ripping apart his thighs. Oddly, the new tears in his body were almost a relief; it felt like the heat surrounding him had shrunk his skin over his bones, pressing down with painful intensity almost more agonizing than his current murder-in-progress. On a whole, he was decidedly too tight and itchy.

He blinked eyes which grew heavier with every drop of lost blood, struggling to hang on, stubbornly waging a war he'd lost the second shadows tied him to a pillar in Chicago. He was still Dean Winchester and dying or not, the evil sons of bitches would pay for this. Dearly.

But this time, he wouldn't be the one collecting. At least Sam wasn't there and wouldn't be coming. Dean thanked whatever god was listening for that.

Tom grasped his jaw again, his changing eyes and entire demeanor suddenly turning him into another person-thing-person entirely. With supreme effort, Dean withheld the whimper wanting desperately to escape. Whatever the fuck that was, it was far worse than anything else they'd done to him. All exaggeration aside, were they draining a part of... a part of... his soul, his essence, his Oprah-Defined Presence-of-Being? Were they draining away Dean?

Feeling more than a little absurd, Dean swallowed, tried to close his mouth, set mental barrier after mental barrier. They would not take him from himself, and that was final! He could do that just fine on his own, thanks very much.

Didn't work, of course. Meg continued to cut him, diligently taking every available drop of blood while smiling all the way through, and Tom... Tom drank.

Meg twisted her lips. "Much longer this time," she scowled when Tom - not Father but Tom, her silently efficient 'brother' - raised his head and released Dean's to fall back on the floor like a stone, lips stained white. Tom leaned over, removing the shackles. Freedom of movement was merely a memory to the sacrifice now, and soon he wouldn't even have those. Ignoring her pout entirely, he drew his knife across Dean's now-unblocked wrists, preening at the lush new flow - his first easily readable facial expression since he'd crossed paths with John Winchester's perfect son.

"Careful!" she admonished. Tom pressed down hard against the wounds, milking the blood. Dean moaned, a terrible stillness beginning to creep over his form. He'd yet to open his eyes, Meg realized, and the chances were currently strong he never would again. "Slow down! He's got at least an hour left, and if we rush the ritual..."

In response, Tom reached under the boy's much-bruised jawline, using his thumb to gently tip its head upright. Almost casually, he adjusted his grip. He couldn't cut too deeply, after all. A dead sacrifice was not yet useful.

Meg sighed deeply in surrender, her dagger resting parallel to his. They worked together, blades moving in opposite directions.

Neatly slitting Dean's throat.

To be continued.

The saga about why this (unbeta'd, due to circumstances, but I still love you Susan!) chapter was so delayed (it's been finished for almost a month), would be as long as what you just read (and since this is my longest chapter yet, that's saying something!). Suffice to say the time passed included a two-week vacation and coming home to find my lovely parents had disconnected the internet. To get this posted, I had to shamelessly, and over a long period, schmooze a librarian into giving me an exemption to the strict, paranoia-based rules my library system maintains about uploading.

I further apologize for the lack of review responses, my internet time is limited (literally, and includes a countdown at the top of the screen). Know that I adore and appreciate each one, and your kind generosity in those is the reason why I tried so hard to get this chapter up (and will try again for the next one!).

The next chapter is about halfway done. My former cowriter (on this, though we're also brainstorming a possible follow-up) is even pitching in, again due to circumstances. We think there's about two more chapters and an epilogue. See you soon. ;)