Dean stared at the matches held in Sam's palm.

"Don't," he repeated.

"Won't have to if you tell me yourself," Sam offered nonchalantly.

"Why d'you always have to keep digging for things?" Dean demanded.

"Why d'you always have to keep them buried so deep?" Sam retaliated.

Dean shook his head, and Sam mirrored the gesture.

"Fine Dean. Have it your way."

He lit a match.

"Wait." Dean said quickly, desperation saturating every note in his voice. "Wait. Just… Just wait."

He turned away, rubbing a hand over his face and breathing heavily. Sam could practically hear his brother's heart pounding. When he turned back, Dean looked paler than ever and sickened to his core. Sam wasn't sure what exactly his brother could have to reveal that the prospect would leave him so utterly terrified and beaten.

"You really wanna know what happened down there?" Dean asked finally, voice hollow with defeat. "You really want me to tell you."

"Yeah." Sam affirmed, shaking the match out.

Dean looked away again, not responding at first.

"I've got a whole pack here Dean," Sam said patiently. "And I only need one."

"Fine." Dean said at last, coming to lean against the hood, possibly to take the weight off his legs but mainly, Sam suspected, so as to not look him in the eye any longer. "Fine. Just… You won't like what you hear."

"I'm pretty sure I can handle it."

Dean attempted to scoff at that, but rather than bravado, there was resignation and fear in his features, and it left the gesture oddly flat and empty.

"You're not gonna like what you hear," Dean repeated. "And… Before I say anything, you gotta believe me, no matter what you might think after it, no matter what you think of me, you have to believe me, I will get Kyle back. I swear to that, no matter what it takes, whether you want me in your life or not, I'll get him back."

Sam wasn't sure what exactly his brother was trying to tell him, or what he was supposed to say in return. He also knew this wasn't the way he'd wanted Dean to open up to him, and if Kyle's life hadn't been on the line, Sam would have used all the time in the world to coax his brother out from his shell. But he didn't have the luxury of time. Kyle didn't have the luxury of time. Seeing the state Jess had been in, knowing Lilith had Kyle, the feeling of desperation had only been heightened and Sam felt constantly one step away from outright panic. The only thing he knew now more than ever, the one thing he'd known from the very start, was that he needed Dean if he had any hope of saving his family. And while he was still concerned for Dean's mental health, now his motives were more selfish which was why his methods were more desperate; for the safety of his son, he was willing to stoop as low as he needed, because what he needed was Dean focussed and mentally healthy, not burnt out and reckless.

The pause stretched out again, but this time something seemed to shift between the brothers. Leaning on the hood, just barely a foot away from Dean, Sam felt a sudden deadening of everything else around them, as if they had suddenly become trapped together in a different atmosphere, on a different altitude, a pocket of the world which existed apart from everything else. He almost felt his ears pop and all other sounds dropped away, becoming distant and muffled as he waited. He could practically feel the trembling of the Impala's hood caused by what he imagined was the thudding of a heartbeat, but whether that beat was hammering out his anticipation or Dean's trepidation, he couldn't honestly say. Either way, they were locked into this now, because he had cornered Dean, like cornering a ferocious, wounded predator, and it was only now that he realised how dangerous a move that had been, for both of them. Perhaps he was equally as reckless as Dean. But it was too late to back down.

"They tortured me." Dean said at last, voice empty and emotionless, so matter of fact that his words almost sounded ludicrous. "Obviously. This one demon in particular. Alistair. For 30, 40 years or so."

"Years? How–"

"Time runs differently in Hell. And when I got there, it didn't take 'em long to find me. Or maybe it did, I don't know. Sometimes it felt like I walked forever and sometimes I think they were waiting for me all along. Doesn't matter really. I ran for a while, fought for a while... but… And I was looking for Dad but there's just so much crap down there… It's easy to get lost, to forget… and… Well… So they got me. And then Alistair tortured me. You can't really die in Hell. You only die once. After that… After that, you just wish you could. So Alistair, he'd carve me up, rip me apart. And when there was nothing left, they'd put me back together and he'd start all over again. At first that was all he did. Over and over. Then one day, he made me an offer."

"What kind of offer?" Sam asked when it seemed Dean had stopped.

"One day, when he when he picked up his blade, before he started it, he said they wanted me on their side."

"On their side for what?"

Dean hesitated and Sam prodded him gently. "Dean?"

"They wanted me to torture a soul. To break it."

Sam shook his head, both in shock and confusion. "Why?"

"Coz they're sick twisted bastards that get off on torturing humans. Does it matter? After that, he asked me every time. Every time they put me back together, every time before he started on me again, they'd put people there in front of me, and that bastard Alistair, he'd say break them. Said he'd put down his blade if I'd pick one up."

"What'd you do?"

"I told him to stay in hell and rot."

Sam nodded in understanding despite his shock, pride flickering inside him at the ever-present, unassailable goodness of his brother. An innate goodness in Dean that he'd never doubted.

"But then," Dean continued, voice sounding hollow and in that instant, Sam's heart dropped. "Then one day they wheeled Dad out. And Alistair said to me, all I had to do was pick up a knife, torture a soul till it broke, and if I did that, he'd let Dad go. But if I didn't, for every time I said no, he said he'd cut into Dad… So he starts cutting… And Dad he… Every time they cut into him, Dad just kept telling him where to shove it. No matter what, he…. But… But Sammy the things they did! The things they did to him… And he just kept begging me. He begged me not to do it, to not give in… But…" Dean swallowed, voice faltering, jaw shaking. "After a while I couldn't take it so… So, I said yes… I said yes."

The bile in Sam rose, as if the axis of his whole world was slowly tipping over. He flicked a horrified glance at Dean who took a shuddering breath, voice now just a whisper as he tried to carry on.

"Told myself, whoever they put in front of me was in Hell for a reason, so… so it wouldn't matter… it wouldn't matter… long as I got Dad out… wouldn't matter…"

Sam swallowed, mouth drying up and heart pounding so hard in his chest he could practically feel it smashing against his ribs, certain with each painful beat it would burst right through his ribcage, as if it wanted to escape the horror that was slowly spreading through him.

Sam wasn't even sure Dean was aware of anything around him anymore, but Sam felt so frozen, he couldn't have moved even if he'd tried. Because he already knew. Not the details, not the minutiae. But he knew, and a part of him wanted to turn away, wanted to cover his ears and run. Instead, he sat, unmoving, as Dean continued.

"So they put this woman up there in front of me and I… I stabbed her… I… stabbed her… But it wasn't enough. It wasn't… wasn't good enough for Alistair… I thought if I just did it, just once… but it wasn't enough. So they brought another one. Some guy… and I stabbed him too but it still wasn't enough. So they brought another. And another and… And anytime I said no they'd start carving into Dad again and no matter how much he begged me not to do it, I just couldn't watch him being… I couldn't watch him getting ripped apart, over and over again. And so they kept putting people up in front of me and I kept stabbing them, kept carving them up, and Dad…. Dad… he looked so ashamed of me, like I'd betrayed him. But I just couldn't watch them rip him apart, so I'd stab at them… and after each one that sonofabitch Alistair… That sonofabitch, he'd look at me and smile and say he just wasn't buying it and then they'd put some other poor bastard up there. Until… Until in the end, I… That last bastard… I cut into him like..." Dean looked away, swallowing hard several times. "…And I told myself…. I told myself these guys, these souls, they were in Hell for a reason and…. And they probably deserved to be there... And hell! If it wasn't me doin' it, it'd just be some demon doin' it so what difference would it make? … what difference would it make?… Told myself I had to do it. To get Dad out. To save him. I had to…."

"And you did Dean. You had to." Sam affirmed, finally finding his voice again and nodding in earnest as the shock of the revelation began to subside, leaving him desperate to assure his brother. But Dean still wasn't meeting his gaze. "You had to." Sam repeated, trying to get that through to Dean, trying to swallow down his tremors enough to make Dean believe it. "You've always done what needed to be done, to keep people safe. To keep us all safe. And you did what was needed to save Dad."

But Dean just shook his head, self-loathing and disgust spreading out from him in waves, and the desperation in Sam grew.

"It's the truth Dean." Sam persisted. "You had no choice... Look… what you must feel? I can't even begin to imagine. I can't... But it's not your fault. It's not. You gotta believe that. You did what you had to do, what you needed to do. It doesn't make you a bad person."

"Doesn't it?"

"No! No. You? Inside? The real you? I know who that is. You're a good person Dean. Right to your core. I know that."

Dean turned his head away and Sam couldn't tell if his words had made any difference. For a long time, neither said another word, or even barely moved, till Dean spoke again, voice raw and just barely above a whisper.

"If I'm so good inside Sammy, then tell me," Dean started, briefly looking at Sam before his eyes clouded over and he looked away again grimacing, fighting his tears. "Tell me, right there at the end, with that last poor bastard strung up in front of me… when Alistair said I could stop…. Why didn't I stop?"

Sam's head snapped to attention, sure that he'd misunderstood, even as his gut told him he hadn't. "What?"

"Why didn't I stop? ... That last guy. That poor bastard… They strung him up there and… there was a part of me that… right there at the end there was a part of me that… I didn't even care. Not about Dad, not about saving him, not… anything… I just… I just wanted to hurt that sonofabitch. Just for a moment I wanted to… I wanted to rip his soul to shreds coz… And when they put him up on that rack God help me Sammy! God help me, I picked up that knife and I tore into him like… like he was me…. Like… And I ripped him apart. I tore him to shreds! And Alistair was laughing and he said Dad was free but I didn't care and I didn't stop… And they kept putting that bastard back together and I kept ripping him apart. Over and over and over… And I didn't… I didn't stop… I… I don't know if I'd have ever stopped if Cas hadn't…"

A shockwave was resonating through Sam again, but Dean didn't look at him as he went on.

"And that was the first Seal. I was... I am the first Seal."

"I don't understand." Sam said shakily, his brother's words not making sense as they collided with the memory of Lilith's.

"I shed blood in Hell Sammy. That was the first Seal. The one that started it all. And I did it. I started the Apocalypse. All those people who're gonna die, whether I do something or not, whether they die because of Michael or Lucifer or Lilith or angels or demons, it doesn't even matter. Coz it's not on them. Any of it. It's on me. It's all on me."

"Dean–"

"…And Dad knew it. The moment I picked up that knife he knew it. The way he looked at me… Millions of people are gonna die and… But a part of me doesn't even care... Coz all of that, I can't think about it. But it's that man's face when he was begging me to stop and I didn't. Because I couldn't. Because I didn't want to. I didn't… want to. And Dad saw that. He saw me like that. And I know what that makes me. And nothing will ever make that right, nothing will ever… nothing will change what I did to that poor bastard… He begged me to stop. He begged me! But I didn't care and I didn't stop and… I can hear him screaming. I can see his face. I can see his blood. I can smell it. And I hear him begging, in my head, all the time. And I did that. Not Alistair, not Hell. It was me. Nothing can change that. Nothing can ever take it back… Nothing can ever fix what that makes me… So this? What I feel inside? What I am inside… S'tell me again Sammy, what kind of man I am. After all the things I've done, how could you ever want that near your family? How could anyo–"

But he couldn't finish and he looked away, tears freely falling from his face and Sam felt sickened. Felt physically sick and weak and shredded, as though he had been completely hollowed out. Felt as though there was a stain, a horrific, awful stain of knowledge that was spreading inside of him, spreading through the whole world, engulfing him with the awfulness of its truth, and no matter what he did, he couldn't turn away from it. No matter how much he wanted to have never known it, to have never heard it, he couldn't escape it. Couldn't scrape it away, couldn't stem it from spreading through him like a rot that slowly entombed him from every side till there was nothing except that hopeless, broken look in his brothers eyes, staring back at him from the abyss of his despair.

There was nothing he could say. Even if he'd known the words, he knew they'd be meaningless because there was nothing he could say. And there was nothing he could do either, nothing he had that could take away the pain. Nothing he could give to Dean to take the burden from him. So the silence grew and the emotions drained from him, till there was only one thing left in him that he knew he could trust. One thing left in him that shone out like a singular, unflinching truth, one he realised would never change.

"You're still my big brother Dean," he whispered. "You'll always be my big brother."

Dean didn't react, so Sam pressed on.

"And you're more than that now. You're an uncle. You're a brother-in-law. You have a family and you have a place with us, a place with me. Always. That's who you are. And this? What those bastards made you do? It doesn't change that fact. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't change who you are to me and it doesn't change how I feel."

"It should," Dean responded brokenly.

"Well it doesn't. You were in Hell Dean, going through something no-one can even begin to imagine. And of course those bastards got to you! It's what they're designed to do. You're not the first person they did it to and you won't be the last. So whatever you feel? Whatever you think about yourself? Whatever they made you do? I don't care. Coz you're wrong."

"Sam–"

"You will never, ever, convince me that you are anything but good. Do you hear me Dean? Never. No matter what. There's not a thing that you could ever do that would change that. Because I still know you Dean. I still see you. And what I see is my big brother. Who went through Hell for me and Dad. Who's always been there for us, since before I even remember, and has never asked for a thing in return. Not once. Who is the only one in the world I trust, because he is the best man I have ever known. Who was tortured and manipulated and abused in Hell and yet still came out on the other side wanting to do good in the world. Wanting to save people. Wanting to save everyone but himself. Because that's who you are Dean. And that's who I still believe in, who I'll always believe in. Because that's who you'll always be; my big brother. And nothing will ever take that away from you, away from us. Nothing."

Dean was incapable of responding as he shook, covering his mouth as he took shallow, painful breaths. Sam turned and pulled him in towards him. Dean fought the action but there was no fight left in him, and he almost fell against Sam, and what had begun with him pushing Sam away turned quickly into his clutching at him, clinging on to him to stay on his feet as every ounce of strength seemed to finally leave him. Sam felt Dean's breath hitch against his shoulder as his whole body shuddered, and he held his brother tighter.

"I've got you Dean," he said, the effect of his words instantaneous as Dean slumped against him, letting out a ragged breath that shed the last of his defences. "I got you."

-oOo-

They had driven back to the Roadhouse in silence, and although it hadn't been completely uncomfortable, the atmosphere between the brothers was still palpably tense. Dean had, understandably, kept his eyes firmly on the road, hands white knuckling the wheel, having moved only once to turn on the music, and then thumb drumming out Metallica so intently Sam was sure he'd be sporting a blister by the end of it. Either that or there would be a sizable dent in Baby's steering wheel. Sam for his part had fastidiously stared anywhere but at Dean, though he couldn't help the occasional furtive inspection that the windscreen reflection afforded.

By the time they were nearing the Roadhouse again, the pressure had returned to the normal level, which, given Dean's latent tension, wasn't really saying much in terms of relief. When Sam eventually looked at him, he saw just how firmly Dean had clamped his mouth shut, saw the brow still furrowed in complete disquiet, saw the muscle in his jaw twitching in response to the scrutiny, and he knew he couldn't leave things as they were, knowing Dean was ready to bolt.

"What's the deal with that gun?" Sam asked as soon as they'd parked, not giving Dean the chance to exit without an exchange. He thought at first Dean would ignore him, but after a slight pause Dean handed the firearm over without protest.

"It's a Colt," he informed him as Sam turned the weapon over in his hands, noting the pentagram carved on the wooden hilt, noting the inscription along the muzzle. "Was made by Samuel Colt back in the 1830's. For a hunter, if you can believe it."

Sam looked up, startled. "A hunter? Like… hunter hunter?"

Dean nodded.

"In 1830?" Sam pressed, still surprised.

Dean shrugged. "Evil's been around since Adam and Eve. Makes sense hunters would be too."

Sam ran a finger over the inscription, tilting the gun to let it catch the light: non timebo mala. I will fear no evil.

"And it kills demons?" Sam asked, getting a feel for the weight of it, noting that it felt heavier than he'd expected.

"Kills pretty much everything, or hurts 'em at least, if you get a clean enough shot. 'Least that's the rumour. Only five things in existence that it can't kill, apparently. Don't ask me which five, I don't know."

"But you're betting Lilith isn't one of them."

"Only one way I'll find out."

"How'd you get it? I thought Dad…" he trailed off, remembering too late where that fuse led, not wanting to rekindle the memories afresh.

"Azazel gave it to Jake. Jake used it to open the gates," Dean said, voice strangely dispassionate and flat, as though there was nothing left in him about those facts and memories. "I didn't get there in time to stop him. Was still in the lock though, so I took it and shot Azazel. Jake bolted when the demons started streaming out. It got knocked outta my hand. Bobby or Ellen, I don't know who, must've picked it up when they closed the gate."

After you walked through it unnoticed, Sam added in his head. But he didn't want to say anything more right then, Dean's detached openness suddenly making him uneasy.

Rather than linger on the subject of Hell any longer, he opened the gun's chamber instead and was surprised to see it full. That would explain the weight he realised. He met Dean's gaze, the question worn openly on his face. "Thought you didn't have bullets for it?"

"No," Dean replied, reaching over to take the gun back. "Crowley just thinks I don't. Bobby and Ash figured out how to make 'em not too long ago. It's not easy, and it takes time, and we only got a few, but they did it. Haven't had a chance to test 'em yet."

"So, you're just playing Crowley?" Sam surmised.

"Crowley's got his fingers in every pie. And he loves the sound of his own voice. Long as he thinks telling me how to make bullets is his best hand," Dean shrugged. "He'll pretty much run his mouth off about everything else as if it's worthless. I just have to put up with him while he does it. Let him think I haven't killed him yet coz he's got one over on me."

"So, you do plan on killing him eventually?"

"What do you think?" Dean replied, not waiting for a response as he exited the car.

Not that Sam could have given one right then. His mind was still reeling from the Hell-stint revelations, and he knew Dean's defences were back up tighter than ever. Not that it mattered for now, Sam had too much information to sift through before he could approach Dean again about his emotional wellbeing. Because finally knowing what Dean had been carrying, wasn't the same as finally being able to help him carry it. The bottom line, Sam realised, hadn't really changed; with all the pressure Dean was under, Sam wasn't sure what his brother would or wouldn't be willing to do, but whatever it would be, he knew Dean was running on empty and headed for a crash. One that he wasn't planning on avoiding or walking away from. More worryingly, one that he didn't seem to want to avoid or walk away from.


tbc soon

Long Live BRUCAS: hehe I used to get so annoyed at Sam too sometimes, is it evil of me that I've written him being just as annoying when I could have made him less inquisitive? But then he wouldn't have been our Sam. I AM a little sorry for causing you so much aggravation though, honest! :-)

Iowa Kat: I think I was having a drink when I read your comment and almost spluttered it out! LOL I'm going to assume that 'evil evil scum sucking road kill' is a great compliment bestowed on the very few elite in Iowa, and no one can tell me any different! Thank you for taking the time to review though, seriously, appreciate it :-)