**Flashback**

Breakfast was a McDonalds Sausage McMuffin, washed down with several hash browns and some awful tasting coffee. The lights were too bright, the plastic seats were too hard, but the restaurant was empty apart from the brothers and a couple of bored looking servers.

Everything had an unreal quality to Sam. He wasn't well, he knew that. Mentally and physically. Maybe if they were some place familiar – or even if they were in the States, he could have centered himself quicker – but London wasn't home. The only thing that was currently grounding him was Dean; and Dean wasn't acting like himself either.

Sam glanced at the time on his cell. 5.30am. He still had hours until he could take the next set of painkillers and antibiotics, and the throbbing in his side was uncomfortable. He shifted around on the hard chair, trying to take his mind off the ache.

"So, how'd you find me?" He tried to sound casual. "We never even knew there was a British chapter of the Men of Letters."

Dean was just finishing off the McMuffin, and making a lot of noise about it. He swallowed down the last bite. "The usual combination of research, luck and threats. Cas heard something about the those assholes, then we came here and did a bit of digging. Managed to grab someone high up in the food chain and persuaded him, using my natural charm of course, to tell me where you were. Nothing too dramatic. I'm sure it was a lot more exciting at your end." Dean gave Sam one of his wind-up smiles.

"Oh yeah. Haven't had so much fun since… let me think. Hell, maybe?" Sam rolled his eyes.

"You need to eat that." Dean pointed at Sam's remaining hash brown. "I've seen more meat on a pretzel than on your bony ass."

Sam picked up the hash brown and nibbled at it. His stomach had shrunk so much he couldn't fit any more in. He tried anyway, to please Dean. "And the lock? How did you figure out it was a blood spell? And why did they do all this? I'm really hazy on the details of what happened yesterday...and…."

"Slow down Sammy! Still don't know what this was all about but I doubt it was anything good. My new and recently deceased friend, Chuck bless his soul, was kind enough to share the details on the lock but not much else. Once I knew where you were, bing bang boom – I rescued your sorry behind and now here we are eating weird tasting McDonalds and making unnecessary small talk."

Dean picked up the paper coffee cup and made a big deal of concentrating on that as he drank it down. His brother was good at lying. The best. And the tale spun here wasn't the whole story, not by a long shot.

"Dean…how are you alive? What happened with Amara?"

This one seemed easier for Dean to deal with, so he went about explaining how Amara and God decided that they dearly wuvved each other after all, and walked off hand in hand into the sunset together with a laugh and a wave. Sam gritted his teeth at this - when he last saw them had God pretty much been dying in front of him, whilst Amara seemed hell bent on destroying the entire world. Dean had been turned into a human soul-bomb and they had said heart-wrenching goodbyes in the cemetery opposite their mom's grave. Sam had been left devastated. And now according to Dean, God and Amara had decided to make up and fuck right off again at the eleventh hour, leaving everyone else to pick up the pieces. Sam didn't want to disrespect God too much – after all…he was God. But he was pretty pissed off – why couldn't they have decided to kiss and make-up before then? Like before hundreds of people died and Sam had to carry Lucifer's ass out of the fire. The memory of having Lucifer wrapped in his arms still filled him with a cold sickness. Sam shivered.

"And Cas?"

"Cas is Cas." Dean shrugged. "After getting zapped into the middle of next week by that bitch, he called and told me what happened. Then spent the next two weeks reading every bit of paper he could get his hands on about what he kept referring to as the BMOL." Dean made a little flourish with his hands at this. "Soon as I told him you were ok he went off looking for Lucifer."

"Lucifer?" Sam went all kinds of hot and cold. "Cas is hunting Lucifer?"

"Hunting him like a man possessed." Dean chuckled inappropriately, "well, formerly possessed. Still, it keeps him busy and out of my hair. He'll shout if he gets close and we'll deal with it from there. But first we gotta get you all healed up and back to the U.S of A."

"I will definitely second that." Sam raised his cup to Dean's. He saw his brother taking in all the band-aids half falling off his fingers. Even as a kid he could never keep them on for long.

"What happened to you Sammy?" Again, Sam heard that drunken-sober note in his voice. "In that place. I mean, I know it was bad – obviously. What…did they do?"

"You really want to know?"

"Only if you want to tell me - I'm not your therapist or anything." His green eyes bored into Sam. "And it's not tit-for-tat either, before you start with the prying again..."

In spite of the coffee, Sam's eyes were beginning to droop – and Dean hadn't had any sleep at all. He sighed and shifted around in the seat again. Despite what Dean said, there was a small chance his brother would open up if he did.

"You know pretty much everything Dean. I never left that cell once, not in three weeks. But on the plus side, no one could get in either – so there's that." Dean nodded in approval to Sam, and Sam nodded back. "It was…well you know the worst bit was thinking you were dead. They kept telling me you weren't, but I didn't believe them. I can put up with no sleep and no food and even that fucking spiky thing that shredded me to bits. It was the mind games that got me the most." Sam stood up, as cramps clutched at his belly. As much as he wanted to talk to his brother, something more pressing got his attention. "Look Dean, can we head back? Greasy food on an empty stomach doesn't mix well with me..."

Dean absolutely did know how pathetic Sam's stomach was – they had shared bathrooms for pretty much all of their lives. "Jeez Sammy, you're such a delicate snowflake. C'mon then – let's go. And this time let me wrap those damn fingers up properly – you look like you've been wrestling Edward Scissorhands."

"Seriously? Take a look at your own arm – you still haven't done anything about it."

Dean grunted moodily. The walk back to the hotel was just a few minutes, and by the time Sam felt safe enough to get up off the toilet, Dean was snoring away in his bed. He had finally taken off the blood soaked jacket and Sam could see fresh bandaging. His hazy recollection of the way Dean had got that wound nagged at him. Totally drained, Sam climbed back in between his bloody sheets and lay in bed shivering and thinking of his mom, before sleep finally took him.