"And so I went through the looking glass,

stepped into the netherworld,

where up is down and food is greed,

where convex mirrors cover the walls,

where death is honor and flesh is weak.

It is ever so easy to go.

Harder to find your way back."

-Marya Hornbacher


It doesn't take long for Meg to find Sam. Three days of driving from sun up to sun down, the floor of the Impala littered with crumbled food wrappers and empty soda cans and they've somehow wound up in Oklahoma. No real purpose behind it, just mindlessly following where the road takes them.

Sam doesn't ask.

Dean doesn't tell.

That's always how they've been. One leads and the other follows.

Dry flatlands, dusty brown that stretch out far as the eye can see. Smoothed out canyons with checkered layers of eroded rock and scattered around it all are a few green trees that draw the eye amidst the monotony of everything else. Three days and the entire time, there had been one demon who'd felt familiar hovering just beyond Sam's reach. Like she was asking permission before stepping closer.

One demon that he lets within twenty feet of Dean, not that his brother will ever know, currently busy busy inside the tiny convenience store, wandering the aisles in search of pie. Sam follows a packed dirt trail towards the back of the station, settles himself against one of the broken down trucks that litters the yard, careful to keep the outhouse positioned between him and the gas station just in case Dean abandons his search for food sooner than expected.

"Good to see that you don't need me anymore." Meg gives a sardonic smile, sniffing the air and aiming an unmistakable look at his breast pocket where the weight of a small canister lies. "Movin pretty fast there, aren't ya Sammy?"

"You should be happy." He answers, pushing away the urge to glance over his shoulder, to check, to make sure. He knows, he can feel Dean but still, if his brother were to see him and Meg standing close and acting chummy-too many questions and with Sam, especially these days, Dean is akin to a dog with a bone. "This is what you wanted."

"I wanted you to control it, not turn into some pathetic addict." She scoffs, "You're weaker than before."

Sam smirks, all sharp edges and pointed sarcasm, "Try me, if you really think it'll be that easy."

"I am tempted to tell Dean." She watches Sam's face, catches the way his blood drains, his mouth tightens, the clench of a fist. "Big brother wouldn't approve of you suckin down on that red juice would he? Could be the last straw for him Sammy boy. This on top of everything else you've done and the only thing you'll see of Dean is the dust left in his tracks."

It's not true, Sam know. Dean would never leave him, doesn't matter if he would be better off, not to save his own skin, not even to save others. With Sam, there are no lines Dean wouldn't cross. No, what Dean will try to do would be far worse.

Dean would make Sam stop. He's the only one in the entire world who could. Not dad if he were still alive, not Bobby, not angels and not demons. It's just Dean who holds that singular power over Sam which is why Dean absolutely cannot know.

He'd convince Sam that the fact it's morally wrong and all kinds of twisted means a damn thing anymore. And then Sam will be weak again, worse probably than when they started. And like the laws of gravity, the universe will swoop down on them given the merest hint of opportunity. Sam just has to hold the sky up for awhile. He supposes it's only fair that his turn has come. Better that it falls on him than on Dean. Sam who is better equipped to deal with the grey complications. Sam who has been tainted since he was a baby, already dirty, a prime candidate if there ever was.

Sam knows Dean is waiting for him, probably starting to wonder where he's wandered off to and judging by the pure chaos of their lives, it won't be long before Dean starts to feel the pinpricks of panic. But still Sam can't help but slip the canister from his pocket and take a drink. Just a sip. Just enough that he can feel the wave of power drown away the doubts that Meg's words unearth.

She watches him tip the bottle into his mouth. He watches her. It's a strange game of chicken that neither are willing to lose.

The exorcism hovers on his tongue, familiar since the age of eleven when his dad refused to let him go to school until he could recite it over and over, perfected the rolling enunciation. Sometimes dad would throw a shoe at him in the middle, testing his reflexes, correcting the fumbling of sounds.

But before he can start, Meg takes a step closer, close enough that he can catch the whiff of sulfur that emits from her skin, the more subtle perfume she tries to cover it with.

"You can feel it, can't you? How it's damning you?" Her eyes swim in his gaze, iris bleeding out.

The smell of dark cloying copper and oily stains overwhelm his senses. The power, the high, that's nice but there's another side too. Dirty desperate thoughts that he would never admit to in the light off day. The blood makes him more animal than man, all instinct and little sense, just until he is able to push that flood of darkness down and away. That part never gets any easier but Sam has his entire life as practice.

Her words are all true, cutting to the heart of the matter but Sam already knows this, has known for longer than he cares to admit and so he asks, "What does it matter?"

Something that is not hatred flickers across her face, there and gone before he has time to appraise it. But a snarl follows right on its tail and he can feel how desperate she is to pull a reaction from him. Something about that makes him feel tired, bone deep weariness and the desire for sleep claws its way up again. "That's what the Winchesters do, isn't it? Sacrifice their souls for each other. Why am I not surprised that you'd follow in daddy and big brother's footsteps?" She goes on and on, mocking and threatening in turn but Sam doesn't hear. The buzzing in his ears is back, sounds that echo like he's submerged underwater. It comes upon him suddenly at random moments impossible to predict, a stranger in a dark alley, a shadow you don't hear that grabs you from behind.

The world turns large around him, peering over his shoulders, gaping obscenely, a million eyes that never close, never sleep. Sam blinks hard and tries to focus, tries to step back from the precipice. They're in the middle of some desert, a state he can't remember anymore, laid open and defenseless. Anything and everything could happen. The sun sizzles overhead and a trickle of sweat weaves its way down Sam's neck. Suddenly, his clothes are too confining. He can feel every inch of his skin stretch, trying to accommodate the fevered tempo of his heart. They're so exposed and all Sam wants is to cram Dean under a rock big enough to keep him hidden until all this is over. His fragile control can't last forever and Sam doesn't know if there are days or years stored up inside him. One less second every second.

"There's nothing there Sam." Meg's voice pulls him back because it's too soft, almost pitying and it's only then that Sam realizes he's scanning the fields around them, looking dazed, frozen in wordless concentration.

It's all kinds of wrong because he is strong and she is not and there are a dozen ways he can rip her apart in under five seconds. Ways that don't require him to lay a single finger on her. A sudden hunger rises up inside that demands pain, demands his blood or hers. He suppose it's much the same anymore.

"There's always something there." He snarls back, sounding just as vicious, just as much a demon as her but he takes a step backwards because he is so close to killing her and Sam can't remember if that's right or not.

His uncertainty seems to snap her restraint and Sam is glad because a Meg that is afraid for him and not of him means that he's doing something wrong.

"You want my advice?" She doesn't pause, doesn't wait for him to say no, to banish her, to begin the exorcism that he should have started a year ago when he first laid eyes on her. "Stop while you still can." She smiles up at the sky, feline in a way only someone who's seen that much hell can be, soft round cheeks and sharp black eyes.

Sam turns his back on her, takes a deep settling breath, reminds himself where and when he is, that Dean is alive. Dean is waiting. He hasn't gone but a few steps when her next words stop him cold. "You'll be the thing that kills Dean."

It sounds more like a promise than a warning. He turns slowly, feet nailed to the ground. "I would never hurt Dean. He's the reason-" But Sam is unable to finish because the words won't come out from where they're hiding inside his throat.

Meg can't understand, demon that she is. Meg doesn't know, hasn't known anything close to love in centuries, if ever. But the thought won't leave him alone, scatters in his mind when he tries to grab hold and force it to submit, bend it into a shape he can make sense of. There's only one thing worse than a demon killing Dean and Meg just gave it life.

"I never said it wouldn't be ironic." She says, a huff of laughter, a rustle of wind.

And then she's gone.