Happy Monday! Here's the first epilogue chapter.

Sam thought he knew what true agony was.

His year in Lucifer's pit had been one of unspeakable torment; an experience better left unspoken, buried behind ageless eyes that had already seen the horrors of death at a fragile six months old, that continued to witness it over and over as the years had passed him by and evil had spread its stain across the surface of his life. Sam could never escape pain, had known it almost from the time he was born.

So this shouldn't have been any different.

He'd survived Hell, for Christ's sake. He'd spent a year being torn apart from the inside out, Lucifer's voice continuing to echo inside his skull long after he'd been pulled out; soul tarnished almost beyond recognition.

So this should've been nothing.

But instead, Dean's withdrawal was a new kind of agony.

Dean lay cuffed to one of the many beds in the Men of Letters bunker, his wrists torn and bleeding despite Sam's best efforts to keep fresh cloths wrapped around them, to prevent the cold metal from digging too deep into his skin. Sam remembered this kind of torture well, back when Ruby's blood had infected his veins and his mind, but seeing Dean go through the same kind of ordeal was unbearable.

The decision to detox from what Dean had bitterly referred to as his new "habit" had been mutual and almost immediate. The hospital had been first though, because Sam needed a cast and some good painkillers for his leg, and they had both needed time to get their bearings, to really let everything sink in. The facts were pretty clear, once Sam had a moment to think about it between the harsh jerk of his bones being reset and the dull colorless dreams of drug-induced sleep. And the facts were this:

Metatron, and now Abaddon, were both dead. Crowley had disappeared.

Sam was a mess on the outside, his leg shattered and his body bruised. But his wounds would heal eventually, and some of the other deeper and more hidden wounds that he thought would never heal had begun to be seal and repair themselves in a fog-filled graveyard not long ago. That was all he had needed for the moment.

Dean was a different story. He was an absolute disaster on the inside, that much Sam could tell even through the uncertain haze of white walls and medication. He seemed to be holding it all together for now, but Sam could see the storm unfurling behind his older brother's bright green eyes.

And Cas had been called and informed on the situation. Dean had gotten a hold of him on the way to the hospital, and though the elder hunter hadn't made much sense as far as Sam could remember, Cas had seemed to get the gist of it. He'd been furious to say the least, had already sprinted a mile down the road looking for a car to steal before Dean could tell him he didn't need to meet them at the hospital, that everything was fine.

But Cas came anyway.

So those were the facts, and compared to what they'd been facing lately, it all seemed somewhat manageable when it was laid out like that in Sam's logical...morphine-induced...but still logical, brain. However, the trick was not in identifying those facts, but in finding a way to solve the problems that came with them. And there were a lot of problems. So after a couple of days laid up in a hospital bed and a couple of nights with his stubborn big brother and a half-powered angel passed out in the chairs beside him, heedless of visiting hours, Sam had finally been allowed to leave.

The three of them had piled into the Impala and headed back to the bunker with barely a word between them, but for the first time in a long time, the silence had been a comfortable one. As far as Sam was concerned, everything that needed to be said had been said in that graveyard. They had chosen each other. Again. Despite everything between them, despite Crowley and Abaddon and the Mark of Cain and all the other factors involved, Dean had chosen to stay. It was most of what Sam wanted, and the rest of what he wanted had started with a conversation. It had been a much shorter one than Sam had anticipated, had begun the moment they'd set foot inside the bunker, Sam leaning on his crutches, and it was initiated by the words:

"What now?"

Sam and Dean glanced at each other, then back at Cas, whose question was not unlike the one Dean had asked only a few days ago. The answer was the same, but the specifics of how exactly they could 'keep going' still had to be answered.

And before either of the brothers could even begin to contemplate that answer, Dean had dropped to the ground and vomited a pool of blood.

It was three days later now, and the elder Winchester was unconscious, though he still twisted weakly against the restraints that held him to the bed, caught in the throes of uneasy dreams. Sam sat on his brother's bed with his broken leg stretched out in front of him, running a cold cloth over his brother's sweaty forehead for what already seemed like the hundredth time as he tried to block the last few days from his mind.

Dean had been compliant at first; had let himself be chained to the bed frame, watching passively as Cas tightened the cuffs around his wrists and ankles, licking some leftover blood from his lips. He hadn't spoken much, just kept his head low and stared at the far wall while Sam settled clumsily down beside him on the bed and rehashed the events of the past few days with Cas, who took a seat in one of the nearby armchairs. The tremors had started in earnest not long after, followed by more blood pooling out from Dean's mouth and down the front of his shirt. Still, he'd remained mostly silent throughout, biting back moans and choking on spit and blood and his little brother's name. Sam wasn't sure Dean even knew he was saying it, and after the screams finally started to crawl their way out past Dean's battered throat, Sam hoped they could both forget about all of it.

But Sam couldn't forget, knew he probably never would, and at the moment, the past few sleepless nights were catching up with him, his eyelids drooping as he kept watch over his brother.

"You should get some rest." Cas's gentle request from the doorway had Sam jerking up from his half slumped position on Dean's bed. He winced down at the cast covering the majority of his leg. It was easy to forget it was there sometimes...or maybe that was just the lack of sleep.

"I'm fine, Cas," Sam replied, running a hand through his hair.

"I know. But you need to rest," Cas pressed, stepping into the room. "And you need to eat something. I can watch him for a while. It should be over soon."

Sam shook his head angrily, glancing back down at Dean's pale, unmoving face.

"And how the hell would you know that, huh? This could be different from my...from when I was addicted. We could be killing him." He sighed and closed his eyes. "Back when I was...like this...I thought Dean had left me to die in that panic room. I mean I was so messed up, so out of my head, I truly believed he was trying to kill me. And now here I am, doing the same thing to him..."

"You're saving his life, Sam," Cas reasoned, taking up his usual post on the armchair next to Dean's bed. "He will understand, just as you have come to, that you are doing this for him. He will get better. And he will thank you. I know it's painful, but it's necessary. Everything else will be taken care of in due time."

Sam laughed, short and unamused. "Yeah, everything else. Like the fact that you're dying maybe? That everything else?"

Cas sat back slowly in his chair, huffing out a long breath and closing his eyes.

"Yes I suppose that's on our to do list," Cas said, a sad smile curling his mouth. "But I believe our first order of business involves the Mark on your brother's arm. Dean won't survive much longer under its influence."

"Yeah, and what the hell are we supposed to do to get rid of it?" Sam asked, exasperated. "I mean we've got no plan, no...nothing. It's all just a huge goddamn mess."

"We've...cleaned up...messes before."

Sam jerked again at the sound of Dean's hoarse reply, turning his attention back to the bed to find his brother's eyes cracked open slightly, watching Sam through his lids with a lopsided smile plastered on his face.

"Dean," Sam breathed, twisting against his cast to get a better look at Dean, immediately checking his brother over. Cas simultaneously launched himself from his armchair so that he was standing beside the bed, his hands hovering uncertainly, as if not sure how he could be of help.

Dean tried to pull away from Sam's touch, the chains of his handcuffs rattling against the bed frame.

"Knock it off, Dean," Sam growled. "Let me just make sure you're okay."

"Sammy," Dean wheezed, "I'm good." He opened his eyes a little wider and blinked lazily up at his brother. Sam smiled back despite himself, reaching to unlock the restraints around Dean's wrists and ankles. When he was done, he helped his brother move slowly into a sitting position, stuffing more pillows than were necessary behind Dean's head while Cas shoved a cup of water into his hand.

Dean took a few tentative sips, conscious of the two pairs of eyes on him.

"How are you feeling Dean?" Cas asked before Sam could, reaching to take the half-drunk cup from Dean's hand.

The elder Winchester exhaled slowly, his eyes finding Sam's and holding them, though his words were for both of them.

"I told you," he said. "I'm good. I really am good."

Final, final chapter will be posted on Thursday. I swear it's actually ending after that haha.