AN: Not for the faint of heart.

Sorry for getting this out so late!

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Dean didn't wake up slowly, he was just suddenly aware. He rubbed a hand down his face and winced as he brushed stitches bisecting his left eyebrow all the way to the bridge of his nose. The skin was puffy and his eyelid was swollen. Further exploration revealed a stiff bandage on his left hand and ow a bump on the back of his head that was so tender that even ghosting a hand over it made his vision waver.

How... The memory falling off the roof of the trailer made him bolt upright. Every muscle in his back protested the motion (see also: fell off trailer) and his sight dipped and blurred. Dean willed it to settle.

He was in a bare bones room that just screamed cell. The walls were steel, and a half wall undoubtably hid a toilet. A sink, the bed Dean was sitting on, a camera mounted high in one corner, a harsh overhead light, and a heavy steel door without a knob were the only things that relieved the dull gray. And sprawled in the middle of the floor lay Sam.

He lay on his back, face turned away from Dean. Blurry vision notwithstanding, Dean was on his knees next to Sam looking him over a second after realizing he was there. He turned Sam's face toward him with careful fingers. There was a little blood under his nose and from a split lip, but not much. Actually, despite his unconscious state, he didn't look too bad.

Remembering what had knocked Sam out, Dean found the scabbed over needle mark. He proceeded to do a quick but thorough assessment.

Sam was breathing evenly, and his pulse was steady. Both seemed a tad slow, and Dean could only guess that was from whatever they'd pumped into his veins. No arms, legs, or ribs were broken, though one wrist was swollen and he had a few bruises on his face and torso. I basically looked like he'd lost a fight...which he had.

But even when Dean rolled Sam onto his side to check his back, the kid didn't so much as twitch.

"Okay, dude, enough of the Sleeping Beauty act," cajoled Dean. He'd checked Sam's pupils, but what he really needed was to see those eyes open on their own. Dean lifted Sam's head and shoulders off the floor and used his free hand to tap his cheek, then roll his knuckles over his sternum. The latter made Sam frown, the first voluntary movement he'd made so far.

Dean still really wanted Sam to wake up, but the action did make him feel somewhat better. "C'mon, Sammy. You've had worse from sparring with me. You gotta wake up so we can talk about just how screwed we are."

But Sam didn't move.

Dean kept talking to Sam, and eventually got him up on the lone bed. Time stretched on and the only change was that Dean's head began to clear. He kept talking to Sam, mostly speculating about where they were and the nature of their captors.

Then, Dean began to talk about a disparity he'd noticed that was really bothering him.

"This is messed up, man. If the buffalo brothers want us for food, why did they wrap my hand and stitch up my forehead? And even clean me up. And why not you?"

There was a small mirror over the sink, and Dean had been able to get a better look at the little, careful stitches across his forehead. And he'd noted that there was no blood on his face. For that matter, his neck and arms were clean of dust and sweat, too. The thought of someone cleaning him up while he was unconscious was deeply unsettling, moreso than being hit and dragged away.

Thankfully, they were both dressed, minus their weapons, belts, and boots.

But Sam was still filthy, blood all over his face and sweat and dust smeared pretty much everywhere. Dean had dug out a bandana, wet it in the sink, and wiped the blood off Sam's face at least. Then he'd dug out Sam's to wrap the swollen wrist. It wasn't much, but he wasn't ready to cannibalize one of their tshirts until Sam could tell him how bad it was.

The discrepancy in their treatment bothered Dean deeply. After he'd done what he could for Sam, he spent a while talking to the camera, exhorting their captors in colorful language to show themselves.

He'd fallen into a half doze, leaning against the wall with Sam's feet on his lap, when the door finally opened.

Dean was up and standing protectively in front of Sam before the four guards were in the room. Two that were nearly identical carried odd guns and stayed flanking the door while the other two came farther in. They were all goat men, all towering above Dean, and brawny and broad shouldered. And despite their hooves and the fact that their knees seemed to bend the wrong way, they moved with the easy grace of predators or fighters.

"Come," said the first. He was the tallest, probably standing six foot eight, and had the darkest hair (fur?).

"We're not going anywhere, Conan," sneered Dean, settling automatically into a defensive stance.

"Not both. Just you," said the colossus evenly.

"Oh, hell no. I'm not leaving my brother." Dean all but bared his teeth.

Conan waved a hand and the armed creatures leveled their weapons...at Sam. Dean took a step toward them and the fourth monster, one with wild white hair, reached behind him, grabbed Sam's shoulder and tossed him to the floor.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean threw a punch at the freak who'd dared hurt Sam.

Conan grabbed Dean before the punch could fall, pulling him back out of reach and leaving a three-fingered hand on his shoulder. Whitey drew back a big hoof to kick Sam. "Wait!" yelled Dean, and the foot stilled.

"Where are you taking me?" he asked, calculating his odds of overpowering his captors and not liking the answers.

"You will not be hurt," offered Conan, allowing Dean to duck out from under his creepy hand. That didn't answer anything that Dean wanted to know.

"What's going to happen to Sam?" Dean never took his eyes off Whitey, who looked like he was hoping for the chance to go all Beckham on Sam's face, but he caught Conan's shrug out of the corner of his eye.

"We are not assigned to him," said the obvious leader calmly. "Come now or he will be punished.

"Punish me," Dean demanded. "He's just a kid, and he's not even awake." He hated begging, but for Sam he was more than willing.

"Those are not my orders."

"Let me get him back on the bed first --"

"No."

Dean gritted his teeth so hard his jaw hurt. "I'll come, but touch him again and all bets are off."

Conan gestured and Whitey backed off with obvious reluctance.

Every cell in Dean's body rebelled, but he turned to go. Sam had groaned when he'd hit the floor, but was still unconscious. "I'll be back, Sammy," Dean promised, and turned his back before he lost his resolve.

The clang of the door shutting behind them was like a death knell.

"I'm going to kill all four of you cow faced freaks," said Dean conversationally. He observed his surroundings as they walked. He'd need to know how to get out, after all. They were in a very wide corridor. The walls and floor were stone, the latter rough under his stocking feet, but the walls and doors set in them were steel like his cell. "You first, Conan, since you're in charge," Dean continued when none of them reacted. "Then Whitey, because he hurt Sammy. Then Dumb and Dumber. Then I'm taking my brother and we're getting out of this shitty hole in the ground."

Dean was led into a small room, windowless like the cell. Here, though, there was a table covered in food, and a comfortable looking chair.

"Eat," instructed Conan. He leaned against the wall and other three took up positions around the room.

Dean hated doing anything they told him to, but the truth was he didn't know how often he'd be fed, so he needed to eat to keep his strength. "I'll eat, and you talk, Conan."

"I will tell you what you need to know," rumbled the goat man in question, without bothering to tell Dean his actual name.

Dean sat. The spread smelled amazing and his stomach rumbled. There was thick bread, still warm, and dark honey to pour over it. There was a pitcher of rich, fatty milk, and what Dean was pretty sure was a leg of lamb. He took a bite of the last and very nearly moaned as rosemary and a whole lot of spices he didn't have names for exploded on his tongue.

"This a relative of yours, boyos?" he asked with his mouthful. "Maybe not ugly enough to fit in, so boom, on the plate?" Dean was pleased when Cheech and Chong scowled and stirred ar his words. But Conan gave them a warning look and they stilled.

"Our mistress trains fighters, and your brother was chosen."

The sweet bread suddenly tastes like ash. "Fighters? Like you? Chosen? What does that mean, and who's your mistress?"

"Not soldiers like us. Fighters."

Sounded the same to Dean. "But what does it mean? And why Sam and not me? And what is your mistress -- a cow?" Well, that got their attention. All of the guards except Conan took a step forward, and one of then actually growled.

"Speaking ill of the mistress is unwise." For the first time, there was something other than boredom in Conan's voice. It was too minor for Dean to parse it out. Anger? Fear, maybe. "I do not know why the small one was chosen. You were supposedly to be nothing more than his parakinitís. But you have caught the eye of the mistress, and she wishes for you not to be harmed."

"Of course I caught her eye," said Dean with a cocky grin, ignoring the nausea now roiling in his gut. None of this sounded good.

Conan again ignored his words. "Therefore, any rebellion from you will result in punishment for your brother."

Dean couldn't deal with that just yet. "Tell me about the training and fighting." He forced himself to take another bite.

"The training is hard. If he is strong, he will survive. If not..." Conan shrugged. "If he defeats every opponent, he may win his freedom." The creature smiled for the first time. "But he's awfully small."

Dean barely managed to stop himself from jumping to his feet. The only thing that stopped him was his dad's voice in his head: lose your temper, lose your edge. With his good hand, he gripped the edge of the table until his fingers went numb and imagined hitting Conan in the overbite with the table and everything on it.

Then he smiled at the creature, all teeth, a feral thing himself, comfortable in the darkness. "A lot of unnatural things, a lot bigger and meaner than you or your imaginary mistress, have underestimated the Winchesters. You know where they are?" Dean rose to his feet and leaned forward. "Burned. To. Ash."

Conan blinked, just once, but Dean caught the surprise before his mask came back into place.

"So." Dean clapped sharply. "What's next?"

Next proved to be a big room that looked like a cave with a natural pool covering most of the floor space. Dean was instructed that he had 20 minutes to get clean and put on some of the clothes that were in neat folded piles on the floor.

Luckily, the cow brothers stayed outside. Dean still wasn't going to get naked. He took off his shirt and cleaned up the top half of his body, then looked at the offerings with distaste and pulled his own shirt back on.

He used the rest of his time to search every inch of the room. It was solid rock with a steel wall bordering the corridor. The water came up through narrow vents, far too small for a person to pass through. So, unless Dean wanted to use shower gel, shampoo, and butt ugly clothes to overpower the thug squad, he was out of luck.

In a fit of pique, he pushed the rest of the clothes into the water.

When Conan came in, his eyes flicked over Dean's clothes and Dean could swear he looked pleased. He didn't say anything, though, just brought Dean to a timid human man with a ring of gray hair. That guy was a doctor or something, because he rewrapped Dean's broken hand, put a bandage over his stitches and checked his pupillary response and the bump on the back on the back of Dean's head. He didn't say a word except to tremulously tell Dean how he needed to stand or which direction to look. When Dean protested the treatment, Whitey knocked the old man down, proving again that others would pay for Dean's defiance.

It was killing Dean, and he was doing all he could not to let his captors know.

"What next?" Dean asked with a smile. "Manicures for all of us who have fingernails? You gonna hold my hand while I take a shit? Wipe my ass for me?"

"Let's take a look at what your brother's up to," offered Conan, and the moron twins snickered.

Stomach in his throat, Dean made a half bow and lead the way motion. They walked a whole lot farther this time, through passageways that were more and more tunnel like, more organic in feel, with lots of twists and turns.

Suddenly, the passage turned sharply left and sunlight flooded in. Dean stopped in shock. They were standing at a massive opening in the side of a canyon that had to be half a mile across. The opening where they stood was at least 100 yards across with a vertical face dropping to the canyon floor maybe 50 yards below.

Bent heavily forward jogging with a large pack on his back and the biggest goat man Dean had seen so far dogging his steps, was Sam.

Sam, who not long before had been unconscious. While Dean had been prettied up and fattened like a golden goose, Sam had been running in the unrelenting sun.

"Before you call out to him, there's something you should know," said Conan conversationally.

"What?!" growled Dean. not caring that the way he was staring at his brother betrayed everything he was feeling.

"Every day, he's given a pack with all his provisions for the day. Every time you encourage him, his trainer takes something out of his pack. That includes at night. You want your brother to run out of water and die of heat stroke, you go ahead and cheer him on." Conan's lips drew back in the ugliest smile Dean had ever seen, and that included the werewolf with a severe underbite.

Conan stepped farther out in the ledge, which protruded well over the canyon. He pointed down and Dean saw a deep, narrow hole in the ledge. The sight of it curled his toes, and not the good way.

"This is our oubliette. Whenever you defy our mistress, Sam will spend the night in there."

It was in the sun and had to be like an oven, probably staying stiflingly hot all night. And there wasn't enough room for a person to sit, much less lie down.

"Since you would not really bathe or wear the clothes the mistress graciously provided, Sam will spend two hours in there tonight," Conan continued, sounding pleased, almost amused. "No longer, because the mistress is being lenient for your first day."

"You -- he'll die!" Dean's voice came out strangled and not at all like it normally sounded.

"Maybe. That depends a lot on his will and how well you behave. If you tend his wounds, he'll get half rations the next day." Conan stroked his beard as if trying to remember. "If you give him the bed to sleep on, he'll go into his next fight without one weapon. Oh, and if you tell little Sam about these rules, we'll separate you permanently."

Dean watched as Sam tripped and fell on the unforgiving rock and was kicked by his oversized companion. His horror had risen with every rule. Sam was being tortured in his sight, and even offering him a kind word would make things even worse.

The rest of the day didn't get any better.

Dean and his hairy entourage went back into the cool tunnels where he was offered the use of a well equipped weight room, then brought back to the bathing room. This time, he washed himself better and put on some of the clothes. They'd put some of his own things in there, cleaner than he'd ever seen them, and even returned his boots. There were two more sumptuous meals, and every bite felt like a betrayal.

Sometimes, they let him see Sam, either in person or on CCTV. Sam ran and negotiated obstacles and sparred with his trainer. He was visibly exhausted and overheated. He was not doing well.

Every time, it was horrific to see the state Sam was in but worse to be pulled away.

It was, in a word, Hell.

Dean couldn't sit when they finally brought him back to his cell. He kept picturing Sam stuffed into that cursed oubliette. After approximately a million and a half years, the door squealed open and two hirsute henchmen dumped Sam in like last week's fish.

Dean, clean, rested, and well fed, looked down at his brother. Sam was dripping wet, like they'd simply tossed him in the water with his clothes on. His palms were scraped, his nose bled sluggishly, and his feet were a bloody mess from running over the rocks. The bandana was gone from his wrist, which was twice as swollen as it had been that morning. He seemed barely conscious.

Dean stepped toward him, like he was magnetically drawn. Then he stopped, and it was the hardest thing he'd ever done. Half rations under these conditions could be fatal.

Dean had felt hatred before, but mostly in the abstract, or for something that was shortly dead. He hated creatures that preyed on the weak and innocent. He hated the thing that had killed his mother. He kind of hated that singing teddy bear.

But he had never hated so hot and so hard as now. He hated, loathed, abhorred Conan and Whitey and the dunder twins and all the goat men and their mysterious mistress.

He had no idea how (though he had a vague hope that Dad would somehow find them), but Dean was going to kill every last one of them.

He stepped back and sat on the edge of the bed, curling his fingers hard enough that his nails were probably drawing blood. Sam's eyes followed him, mild confusion in the midst of his utter exhaustion. Dean somehow made himself smile.

"Heya, Sammy," he said lightly. "So...how was your day?"

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AN: So...uh...don't hate me!

Sorry for the short responses too. It's past my bedtime!

sylvia37: I know, and then it gets worse!

Lena: Yeesh! That all sounds like so much fun. Blech! I sent you a few emails lately but I did figure you were busy. I like the new McGyver too...which is partly why I named the dog Desi. I will work an A Team reference in there some time.

muffinroo: I'm glad you're happy so far! I get nervous whenever I fulfill a prompt. Lots of Sam angst in the next chapter, as requested.

Kathy: The lights were helpful, but the traps didn't help...yet...

Timelady66: It's more than possible, I think it's probable. Mary was even calling for John to check on Sam, I think. And your story sounds very intriguing.

Colby's girl: Thank you!

printandpolish: I think Lena's birthday is the 19th. More about the weirdo goat men soon, promise!

sfaulkenberry: I love the boys' code words, and randomly decided they should have more. As for the bad guys, Sam figures out some things about them soon, I promise. And yes, I know everyone loves Desi. lol

Scealai: Hmmm...explosion...sounds fun! And I know, I know, Desi must not be touched! lol

superobes: I hope you enjoy!