Part Two

"How long have you been up here?" Dean asked, his eyes half-closed. He was pleasantly close to sleep, and the way Ash kept carding his fingers through Dean's short hair, gently scratching his nails against his scalp, definitely wasn't helping to keep him awake.

"Four months, give or take," Ash told him. Dean opened his eyes wide at that.

"Four months, Ash? You've been up here since last time?"

"Yes."

"You're practically human now."

"That is true," Ash said.

"Why?"

"You prefer it this way, do you not?"

Dean squinted at him. "Well, yeah," he said. "But you hate it."

"Not true," Ash replied, sounding amused. "It is an interesting view of a life that is not my own."

"And you wouldn't want it to be," Dean said.

"No, of course not, for I am exactly who I was born to be, as are we all. But spending several months Above, before our meetings- it is an interesting vacation of sorts, you might say."

"You have a weird idea of a vacation," Dean said. "But alright."

Ash smiled down at him from his position, propped on up one elbow, his long blonde hair tucked behind one ear. "I have weird ideas on everything, as far as you are concerned."

"Not that I'm poster-boy for normal, but yes," Dean said. "Then again, you're not even the poster-boy for human, so what the hell should I know?"

"What indeed?" Ash asked. He seemed amused, for some reason, but then Ash often was. Dean sometimes thought that humanity was just one long comedy for Ash and his kind. It wasn't a comforting thought.

After a few moments of easy silence, Ash brushed curious fingertips against the still-healing wounds on Dean's chest. "What happened to you here? You usually are far less… marked."

"I was shot," Dean said curtly. He'd known that Ash would bring it up, but he didn't want to talk about it. He didn't.

"You survived such an encounter well," Ash said. "Considering you are alive, and in my bed, not in the hospital or the grave."

"With rock salt," Dean clarified. Ash frowned.

"One of your targets got your weapon?" A spook or a demon would have no need of rock salt. Dean's father was the only hunter to have discovered that particular trick, anyway, so it had to be Dean's weapon.

Dean hesitated just a fraction too long. "Something like that."

Ash leaned further up on his elbow so that he could peer into Dean's face. "What happened to you, my Eden? Who injured you so?"

Dean sighed. It was this sort of thing that made things with Ash complicated. If it was just fucking, or even a little cuddling, he could deal fine. He'd done worse to save lives, and Ash was pretty fucking good in bed. But every time, Ash seemed concerned about him, and that was something that Dean just couldn't deal with. Not with Ash.

"My brother was possessed," Dean said reluctantly. "I unloaded my pistol before I went to meet him, just in case, but he blew me straight through a door. I'll be healing for a while yet."

"I can imagine," Ash murmured, tracing his fingertips feather-light against the healing cuts and the still-visible purple and green deep bruising around them. "So you are still traveling with the estimable Samuel?"

"Yeah," Dean said, letting his head drop back against the pillows. "Trying to find Dad."

"I'm not sure I approve, if he is going to be making a habit of bringing you harm."

Dean closed his eyes. "Don't, Ash. If I hadn't gone back to him, his girlfriend wouldn't have been killed. He wouldn't be in this life that he wanted out of. If anyone should be worried about causing harm, it's me."

"I'm not so sure," Ash said quietly. "He hurts you, my Eden. I can tell."

"You always can," Dean said. Then he opened his eyes. "Look, I really don't want to be talking about this. There's only so many hours till sunrise. Don't we have better things to be doing?"

Ash paused, seemingly reluctant to drop the topic, but Dean's face must have been stubborn enough, because he sighed and relented, brushing a kiss over Dean's lips. "Very well, my Eden," he whispered. "Let us pass the time in more pleasurable pursuits."

"Thank you," Dean sighed, and then fisted one hand into his long blonde hair and kissed him back.

Neither of them said anything for a very long time.

Sam would never admit it, but he waited up for Dean.

He was worried, damn it. Dean had looked so upset the entire drive here, like he was driving to his doom, and then not telling Sam what it was about? Something was definitely wrong there, and Sam wanted to know what it was so he could help.

But Dean said it was "personal." Sam snorted. Personal, his ass. Since when had Dean ever kept something from him?

A key scratched in the lock, and Sam hurried to look busy so that Dean would think that he'd just gotten up really early. By the time the door opened, he was lying in bed, a paperback book in his hands, to all appearances engrossed in his reading.

He looked up when Dean came in, feigned surprise. "Hey," he said. "Your meet go alright?"

Dean smiled at him, tired but happier than Sam had seen him in weeks. "Yeah," he said. "I'm kinda tired, though. Let me grab a couple of hours of sleep, then I'll be ready to hit the road."

"Alright," Sam said. He knew that was the most he was going to get out of Dean for the time being, but that didn't stop him from being curious and not a little suspicious. Especially when Dean climbed onto the bed fully dressed instead of stripping down to his boxers like he usually did. That meant that Dean was probably covered in bruises and was trying to hide them. What had he been doing last night? Had he gotten into a fight and didn't want Sam to know about it? It was weird.

He waited patiently for about four hours, then shook Dean awake. Dean muttered curses under his breath, but he got up and went in to take a shower. Sam grabbed his duffel and went to load the car.

There was a man leaning on the hood of their car. Sam stopped dead and stared at him. He was tall, maybe as tall as Sam, with long ice-blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail and clothes that just screamed, "I'm expensive, ask me how!"

Sam disliked him on sight, and the next two minutes weren't going to increase his opinion anyway.

"Why are you on our car?" he asked, trying very hard to sound polite. The man looked up from his probably deeply important task of inspecting his perfectly manicured nails.

"I'm looking for Dean Winchester," he said. "I thought this was his car."

"It is," Sam said. "He's my brother. Who are you?"

"Your brother calls me Ash," the man replied. "I suppose you may call me by that name, as well."

"That's very kind of you," Sam said through gritted teeth. "What do you want with Dean?"

"To make sure he made it back safely, of course," Ash replied. "He is well?"

"He's taking a shower," Sam said. "You were his meet last night?"

This seemed to amuse the man. "Meet? Ah, yes, I suppose you could say that I was his 'meet.'" The quotation marks around the word were evident in his voice, although it was obvious he would never be so crass as to actually make quote marks with his fingers.

"What else could I say?" Sam said. He was starting to lose his temper- just a little. He really didn't like this guy.

"I am worried about him, and that is all," Ash said soothingly. Sam did not feel soothed.

"He's fine," Sam said.

"He is not, and you know it as well as I," Ash said. "I just want to be certain that he is well."

"I'm his brother, I should know," Sam said. "He looked fine when he came in this morning."

"It is not this morning that I am concerned about, it is the rest of the day, and the week, and the month. I did all I could to ease his mind, but your brother is very sad. There was little I could do in one night."

Sam glared at him. "What, exactly, were you two doing last night?"

Ash opened his mouth, but didn't get a chance to answer because Dean's voice interrupted them. "Sam, you ready to go?" he called from inside their hotel room, and Sam glared again at Ash before calling back, "Yeah, but there's someone here to see you!"

"What the hell?" Dean came out in just his jeans, still holding a towel. There were several bruises on his chest, along with scratch marks. Sam was starting to get an uncomfortable idea what Dean had been doing the night before on his "meet." "Ash," he said quietly. "What are you doing here?"

"Can't I visit to check up on my favorite person?" Ash asked playfully.

"The deal ended at dawn, Ash. You are bound by your word."

"I am not trying to break the deal, my Eden." What the hell? Sam wondered. "My Eden?" "I was merely concerned about you."

"I'm fine," Dean said. "Now go home."

See? Sam gloated inwardly. Told you he was fine, you freaky bastard.

"You are not fine, my Eden," Ash told him. "You know it perfectly well. I am worried about you, that is all."

"Well, don't," Dean said. "I'm fine." His voice softened a little, and he smiled almost unwillingly at Ash. "Really."

Ash sighed and straightened away from the car to close the distance between them. "Dean," he said, very serious, and Dean stiffened as Ash grabbed his shoulders. "You need looking after. Who better than I to do so?"

I can look after him! Sam wanted to shout. Hellooo! What am I, chopped liver?

"I've got Sam," Dean said, earning Sam's undying devotion. "I'll be okay."

"Pardon me," Ash said, sounding offended, "but your brother shot you not three weeks before. I can still see the wounds. You're going to die at this rate, my Eden. I'm not going to just sit idly by and allow that."

What the fuck? Sam thought, outraged. That wasn't my fault! And why did Dean tell this guy about that anyway?

"Why?" Dean said. "You'd be released from our deal."

"I would miss you, were you gone," Ash replied. "You should know that, my Eden."

Dean sighed, tilted his head forward and Ash was there, pressing their foreheads together in a gesture more intimate than any kiss. Sam wanted to rip them apart, tear his brother away from this man. "I know," he whispered. "But I can't take you with me, Ash. I just can't. You know why."

"I know," Ash said. "But I will be waiting when you reach your destination. You can count on it."

"I haven't even told you where we're going," Dean said, laughingly irritated. Ash just smiled at him and drew back enough to wrap one arm around Dean's shoulders.

"I could always track you, my Eden. I will always be able to find you."

"You always could, yeah," Dean said. "Fine. I'm not going to be able to stop you, am I?"

"Of course not," Ash said, teasing. "Neither could I ever stop you. We are equal, you and I."

"I know. That's what got us into this mess, remember?" Dean said, pulling away from Ash's friendly grip. Sam wanted to cheer. "I can't stop you from following me, but if you interfere with a case I will do my best to end you. You can be hurt now, you've been up here long enough. Don't forget that."

Sam was starting to become as confused as he was angry, which was saying something.

"I don't wish to interfere with a case, my Eden," Ash said. "You save people and that is quite commendable, though admittedly not my aim. I only wish to keep you safe. Is that so wrong a thing?"

"No, it's not," Dean said. "Don't get in my way, though."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Ash said. "And Dean?"

Dean flinched, as if he wasn't used to hearing his name from that mouth. He probably wasn't, not if Ash called him by pet names all the time.

"Yeah?"

"I am not fully human yet," Ash said. "Remember that."

"I will," Dean said, but he was saying it to empty air, because Ash had completely vanished.

"What. The. Fuck." Sam said. "Dean?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Dean said, turning and making tracks for their room. "Leave off, Sammy."

"Oh, I don't think so," Sam said, following right on his heels. "This time you've actually gotta explain yourself. What the hell happened back there? He just disappeared into fucking thin air!"

"He does that, when he wants to piss me off," Dean said. "I didn't think he'd do it in front of you."

"You obviously didn't think about a lot of things!" Sam yelled. "Dean, that guy wasn't even human!"

"I know," Dean said. He pulled on a shirt, wincing slightly at the pull of three-week-old scabs on his chest. "He's a demon."

"A demon." Sam stared at his brother in disbelief. "You're fucking a demon?"

"It's complicated," Dean said. "Can we just get out of here?"

"Not until you tell me why you're fucking a demon when you usually just kill them," Sam said. "I'm serious, Dean. This is big. Does Dad know about this?"

"He knows about Ashodeus, yes. He doesn't know about our deal."

"Deal? Dean, you made a deal with it, too?"

"Not 'too,' Sammy," Dean said. "Me sleeping with him- it's part of that."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me." Sam sat down hard onto the edge of the bed. "Maybe you better start from the beginning."

"It was after Christmas, when you were gone," Dean said. "I didn't realize what he was, just thought he was a ghost. He almost killed me, but I got away."

"That doesn't explain how he came to be your bed-buddy," Sam said.

"I'm getting to it," Dean said, sounding irritated. "He stalked me for a while after that. Then there was the six months we spent playing cat and mouse. Neither of us won, so we finally made a deal- I would meet him once every three months in Reno, sundown to sunrise, and in return he wouldn't kill another human being for as long as I continued to be there."

"And he's following you around again… why?"

"The true demons, not the incorporeal chaos demons and foot soldiers we've had to exorcise before, can manifest in physical form when they're Above. Ashodeus is one of the Olde Ones, the lords of Hell. When they spend time Above, they start turning closer to human the longer they're here. Ashodeus has always been- well, different, you could say, more driven by his desires than his brethren, and he's been Above for four months already."

"So he acts closer to human, too," Sam said. "But if he's weakened now, we can kill him!"

"Maybe," Dean said tiredly. "And if we fail, then he will kill us both. It's too risky."

"But you hunted him on your own for six months!" Sam cried. "And there's two of us now."

"He could have killed me at any time, Sam," Dean said. "We really don't stand much of a chance."

"Then why'd you hunt him, if you knew you weren't going to win?"

"Not much to lose," Dean said. "It's too risky now."

He turned away then, grabbed his bag and walked out the door, and Sam followed silently. He didn't have anything left to say.