A/N: Hi everybody. Hope your all safe and warm. It's a snowstorm here, so I doubt I'll be going anywhere any time soon (not that I could anyway). I hope you all enjoy this chapter, tagged to episode 12x01, Keep Calm and Carry On.

Disclaimer: Nothing recognizable belongs to me.

Comfortably Numb

Numb.

Sitting on that rickety wooden staircase, his quest for freedom denied, Sam Winchester expected to feel a barrage of emotions. Sadness, anger, confusion. Desperation, as much as he despised it. Rage like he hadn't felt since that night in the Honeymoon suite with Ruby. Instead, he was numb. Completely, utterly numb. His feet, which had been flambéed by the bitch with the blowtorch, had no feeling left in them, and, while he should have been worried that the lack of feeling spoke to a level of nerve damage he had never experienced before, he didn't. Everything was numb. His face, feet, arms, legs, torso, his whole body. His mind was frozen.

His heart was the only thing that hurt. Knowing that he would die by Lady Toni's terms, not by his own, hurt his pride. If he was going to die (and he wouldn't be throwing in the towel until he had exhausted every avenue he knew in getting Dean back from the Empty), he wanted it to be on his terms. He wanted to die quickly and painlessly, with the intent of joining his brother as quickly as possible, but that British bitch was denying him at every turn.

The pain that radiated through his chest at every breath seemed to be the paralytic that was denying his physical pain from registering. Still, it wasn't the physical pain that he was worried about. It was the emotional pain, the residual pain of seeing all those people he had failed and knowing it was his fault they were dead. Jess, pinned to the ceiling for ever dealing with a Winchester. Dad, selling his soul because Sam had befriended a demon. Ash, devoured by flames because Sam had asked too much of him. Jo and Ellen, blown apart because Sam had been stupidly arrogant in thinking he could best the Devil. Bobby, shot by a Leviathan because Sam had unwittingly been assisting Cas and Crowley in unlocking Purgatory. Kevin, eyes burned out because Sam had been unwilling to abandon his brother. Charlie, dead in a bathtub because he couldn't live with the threat of his brother becoming a demon again.

Dean. A heart attack because Sam was more focused on protecting a couple of kids than having his brother's back. A car accident, because Sam had brought demons to their door. 107 different deaths, because Sam refused to believe that Dean could die. Dean going to Hell, all because Sam let Jake live. Dean disappearing in SucraCorp, and Sam ignorantly believing Crowley's assertion that Dean was gone for good. Dean getting stabbed by Metatron after "If you want to be brothers…" and "No Dean, I wouldn't." Sam heard more than felt his heart stutter and his breath catch. Despite Toni's claim that one could die from pain, Sam highly doubted it. He was feeling the highest degree of pain, emotionally, physically, and mentally. If someone could die from pain, Sam would have keeled over any number of times over the past few days.

In the end, he was happy that the numbness had taken over everything, even if his heart ached like a long unused muscle being put through rigorous training. If he could feel the effects of the British Men of Letters torture, he would never escape. Numb, he could. He would get out, find out if Cas had survived being cast out of the Bunker, then chase down every lead he could find on how to get Dean out of the Empty. Crowley, Cas, Rowena, Billie. Hell, he'd go down into the Cage again and bust Michael out so he could put his brother back together if he had to. He'd pray his ass off to Chuck, if Chuck was even still alive. And if he couldn't, he'd meet Dean in the Empty. For now, he was comfortably numb.

Every nerve in his body was on fire. He felt the phantom burn of the recently removed Mark calling for blood, and he could feel the anxious tremble of his fingers aching for his tools from Hell.

Dean Winchester's very soul was ablaze with his desire for vengeance. He could feel every muscle in his body preparing for a fight. His mind raced with thousands of different possibilities and outcomes, and he could hear every beat of his heart echoing in his ears.

Somebody had broken into his home. Somebody had wrecked his car. Somebody had cast Castiel out of the Bunker. Somebody had shot Sam, kidnapped him, and was holding him somewhere.

The absolute world-upending joy he had felt at the revelation that his long-dead mother had miraculously been resurrected by an ancient deity came to a swift and deadly end when he had walked into his home, giddy at the prospect of having three-quarters of his family together for the first time in over a decade, and found only blood and echoing loneliness.

It was all his fault. He'd started them on this loop of sacrificing themselves for one another when he'd sold his soul so that Sam could live. But this particular chapter began because Dean allowed his little brother to hurt his feelings. If he'd just managed to buckle everything down after "I was ready to die! I was willing to die!", and not gone to Cain just because Sam's desperate words had shaken him to his very foundation, then he'd never have turned into a Demon, and Sam would never have gone on a quest to remove the Mark, and Amara would never have gotten free, so Dean would never have had to go and stop her, which meant that he would've been there to stop the irritatingly posh British bitch on the other end of the phone.

Dean had spent the past few days using every trick he'd learned over the years to keep his cool and calm mask in place, not wanting to scare or disturb his mother. But hearing her completely confident response to his threat broke the dam that was holding everything back.

The fire within him burst forth, and it didn't matter who he burned. The phone snapped between his hands like a brittle twig in the wake of his anger. He'd snap every bone in her body for laying a finger on his brother. She wouldn't get to live another day. The fire in his limbs demanded it.

A/N: Well, I hope you all enjoyed that! Please drop a review and I will see you next time!