Chapter Title is from song by Bad Company

2

Bad Company - Bad Company

He stared, because how could he not, at the unholy mess in the library. There were books on the table and books on the floor—Sam's oh-so-preciousbooks—priceless, he'd been told, by both Kevin and by Sam, though Sam was way more prissy about it. "Don't get salsa on that, Dean." "Don't get mustard on that, Dean." And now there was more than salsa and mustard those books were marinating in—that was his last fifth puddled on the floor, if he wasn't mistaken, flecked with shards of crystal that had once been the Letter's fancy pants liquor set, tearing holes in the soggy old paper. It was rage, and sorrow, and it was Sam.

Had Sam done the expected thing—let go and moved on, got himself a dog and got himself a girl—it would have been better.

Of course, if Sam had ever done the expected thing, it would be a first.

Part of him was glad. Touched. Relieved family still meant something to Sam, relieved he hadn't screwed that up beyond repair. The other part of him had already said his goodbyes as eloquently as he could have said them.

His job was done.

Well, apparently not, because here he was.

Footsteps thudded up behind him, and skidded to a stop. He turned, slowly, to see Sam staring at him, as if he were an apparition. A ghost. Because he should be a ghost, a mist of cold air and zapping lights, and the fact that he wasn't, was all down to one thing.

"At least tell me you didn't drunk deal with the devil."

"What?" Sam squinted at him.

He gestured at the room behind him, at the floor, littered with manuscripts soaking in whiskey, manuscripts that were probably older than him and Sam put together times two, their spines now hopelessly creased and broken open.

Sam glanced around him, and mumbled.

"Seriously, Sam?"

"Technically, it was Crowley. And I wasn't drunk."

Dean glared, because he was not over that little gem—a favor, like hell—but it was too early (or late, depending) to start an argument, and he knew from bitter experience that to get into an argument on technicalities with Sam, even a hungover Sam, was never a good idea. He never won. He glared at Sam's bleary and bloodshot eyes, the dark smudges beneath them, the tuft of hair that Sam had sticking out over one ear, and sighed.

"Come on, I'll make coffee."

He turned towards the kitchen, with Sam trailing after him like an oversized puppy. He stepped down into the map room, the opened and empty lockbox catching his eye.

He stopped abruptly.

"Did you pick up the First Blade?"

Sam stopped. Blinked. "Uh, no, Dean. I had other things on my mind. Like you, dying?"

Sam's voice rose with indignation on the question. Dean snorted. It wasn't like dying was a particularly new thing for him, but a sideways glance at Sam's face shut him up. Instead of getting into it, he went on through to the kitchen, filled the old style coffee pot with water and dumped extra scoops into the filter for his hangover special before switching the machine on to perk. He leaned against the counter, frowning when an itch started up by his left collarbone. He rubbed at the anti-possession tat underneath his shirt irritably.

Sam settled himself onto a chair.

"So, what do you want to do?"

"We should go check the factory again. See if the Blade's still there."

Sam grimaced.

"It's the most powerful weapon we've got." He said as mildly as he could, which was not mild at all, judging by Sam's truculent expression. He scratched at a burning itch on his forearm, his fingers bumping over a ridge of skin, the Mark of Cain.

Wait.

He narrowed his eyes at his brother. "What exactly did Crowley want, again?"

"A favor." Sam said blithely, before Sam's eyes dropped to his arm, to his right sleeve, to where the Mark was. "Huh. You still have the Mark?"

He raised one eyebrow, and scratched furiously at the Mark some more. No shit, "huh". Whatever "favor" Crowley wanted from Sam, it had to be a helluva thing, for him to bring back the one person capable of ganking his smarmy ass. Before he could point out the obvious, Sam's face settled into that stubborn one again.

Dean switched tacks, scowling. "You heard from Cas?"

Sam shook his head and peered around him to check on the level of coffee in the pot behind him. He stepped aside so Sam could get at the much needed caffeine.

"Metatron?"

Sam shook his head again, then added, "Well. I've been here. It's not exactly like Metatron would have called."

He looked at Sam, nose buried in his coffee cup, trying valiantly to inhale more coherence into his brain. Here they were, back in the thick of angels and demons—not the movie—and for what? He stared hard enough at Sam that Sam looked back over the rim of his cup, then took his nose out and said "What?"

"Nothing." Dean straightened. "You finish getting java-ed. Then we should hit the road."

The factory was a bust.

Dean couldn't say he was all that surprised. His money was on Crowley, since that made the most sense. As insurance, Crowley would make sure the First Blade was safely out of his hands, which meant it had to be in Crowley's possession.

That complicated things, but at least it made sense.

What was off was Sam.

"Dude, where are we going?"

He had to shout over Ozzy blaring from the stereo, watching Sam's head bobbing in time to the beat, and if that wasn't off, he didn't know what was.

"Thought we'd head over to Big Chuck's. Grab a cheeseburger and a couple beers?"

He gawked at Sam.

"Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?"

Sam slid an amused glance at him sideways.

"No. Seriously. Who are you?"

"Then I thought we could go by The Pie Hole. See if Ned's got any of that mile high apple pie."

Dean picked his jaw up from where it had fallen down. He gave Sam the side-eye for real.

"Dude. What is wrong with you?"

Sam had the gall to look innocent.

"What? We can't take a little time off for once?"

Had it not been for the Impala's upholstery, he would have splashed Sam with holy water right then, because, come on, there was no way this was normal.

Sam turned the puppy dog eyes on him. On him. He was about to tell Sam off, because he'd wised up to all Sam's tricks by now, when Sam said gravely, "Look, Dean. I'm…"

Sorry.

"Yeah, whatever." He cut Sam off before Sam could get into it. It was a nice day for a drive. Too nice to ruin. "Yeah, alright. Big Chuck's sounds good."

Dean stared at the bacon double on his plate, oozing cheese next to hot, salty fries, everything just the way he liked it—and he felt queasy. The last time this had happened he'd been as sick as a dog. Some kind of stomach bug he'd picked up from that dubious roach coach down in Apopka (Sam wanted tuna sandwiches—never again). He hadn't been able to keep anything down for a whole week. He'd just come back from the dead, and the Bacon Extravaganza was his absolute favorite, but his stomach was rejecting it before he had even tasted it.

It was unfair in the extreme.

"Not greasy enough for you?"

He gave Sam a flat look, pointedly eyeing the way Sam was digging into his own burger, because no matter what Sam said, carrots and celery sticks never cured any hangovers. He picked up his burger and took a bite.

Something squished between his teeth and made a tiny squeak-POP! like a miniature balloon being punctured.

It wasn't greasy.

Not beef-y.

Kinda….mealy?

A bit slimy.

Sorta wormy.

and…

Dean frowned.

really, really…wriggly.

He clamped his lips shut, scrabbling for a napkin so he wouldn't exorcism hurl all over the table and Sam. Crap, now it felt like whatever it was, was crawling around in his mouth, ALIVE, a gazillion little things trying to burrow into the insides of his cheeks, a few of the more ambitious ones humping for the back of his throat. He got the napkin to his lips and heaved into it, scraping his tongue against his teeth for good measure, and heaved again to get the vile sensation of wriggly out of his mouth.

Sam looked up from his burger.

"Something wrong with your food?"

There was an edge to Sam's voice. Worry.

Dean opened the napkin he had wadded up. The bite of burger in his hand looked completely normal. Nothing wriggled and nothing writhed, and what the hell?

"Dean?"

He licked his lips and rolled the napkin up again.

"Just a little queasy."

Sam's expression deepened into a frown.

"I'm sure it's nothing."

And to prove it, he picked up a fry, though this time he gave it a careful once over before putting it into his mouth.

The stench of week old garbage flooded backwards into his nose, rushing up somehow from deep inside his throat, and the fry was sour, like two days past south milk gone curdled sour. It was a taste he knew was bad, bad news, having learned that the hard way when he was seven or eight. Torn between spitting again and swallowing he swallowed, grabbed his beer for the bug killing alcohol in it and took a swig of that, and he was so relieved the beer was inoffensive that it took him a full minute to realize just how inoffensive the beer was.

It didn't taste like beer.

It tasted like…water.

He took a careful sip.

Son.

Of. A. Bitch.

What kind of cruel joke was this?

He had Sam's full attention now, with that crease between Sam's brows that always led to Sam saying:

"What's wrong?"

What was wrong? He was topside, some trick of Crowley's that didn't come with a full warranty against defects, and there wasn't an exchange-for-refund option. He'd been back from death a time or two, but it had never felt like this.

Wrong.

He looked across the table at Sam's hopeful face, the past on a paper plate in front of him, Sam's peace offering in the form of a bacon double cheeseburger and thick cut fries. It was too soon to tell Sam something was off, felt wrong, felt not right in the stiffness of his breathing, the brightness of the sun. It was too soon to tell Sam that Crowley had done something—something screwy—and there was no way to tell Sam any of that, not with that hope in Sam's eyes, not with what Sam had given up for this time.

He forced the nausea down into his chest. He'd figure it out. Later. When Sam wasn't staring at him, looking for him to make everything okay again.

"Nothing." He snagged another fry and swallowed it whole, trying not to chew it or think about it or taste it and chased it down with a swig of beer. "Quit worrying at me, dude. Everything's fine."

His eyes were still green.

Dean wiped the fog off the bathroom mirror and stared harder at his reflection. His face looked back at him, the same face he had always seen in the mirror, the same face he had seen this morning.

It didn't feel like his face.

What had Sam done?

He couldn't tell Sam there was something wrong. He wouldn't know exactly what to tell him anyhow. That he didn't feel like he was really here? Well, his body said otherwise. That he didn't feel like he belonged here? Yeah, that would go over well.

He couldn't let Sam do it. Whatever it was Crowley wanted. Maybe it was that, the price of it, him being here. First Dad, then Sam. Trying to save him when the truth was, he couldn't be saved.

He looked down at his hands. Hands or claws? He wasn't so sure. Not anymore.

A year in Purgatory, forty years in Hell. He had spent more time away than he had here.

He clamped one hand over the Mark on his arm. A brand. One of Hell's own.

This wasn't like when Cas had raised him from the inferno, when the only scar on him had been an angel's handprint.

How could he tell Sam he belonged down there? He didn't want to, but his hands.

He would wind up there sooner or later, but Sam. Not Sam.

Sam didn't belong there.

One way or another, if it was the last damned thing he did, he'd make sure of it.

After the fifth night of Sam plying him with burgers and pie, he felt his hair was going to stand up on end and fly off his head from all Sam's newfound togetherness.

"Dude." He'd finally barked. "Stop it."

"Stop what?" Sam said around a mouthful of pie and whipped cream.

See, now that, that just looked freaky.

"All this, this." He gestured frustratedly at the remnants of pie and burger and beer on the table.

"What?"

"Whatever this is. Since when do you eat whipped cream from a can?"

Sam swallowed and went for his beer.

"It's not half bad. Are you sure you don't want any?"

The thought of pie roiled his stomach. He shook his head and pointed an accusing finger at the slather of whipped cream still on Sam's plate.

"Chemicals, Sammy. You can't tell me that after years of bitching and moaning about all that…" and he made rabbit ear quotes in the air here "artificial crap, you've suddenly decided your body is NOT a temple."

Sam put down his beer and cinched his lips.

"I just thought we'd try to do some of the stuff you like for a change."

Dean pushed his chair back abruptly and stood up. He paced to the end of the table. Agitated, he paced back. What he'd like…he heaved an impatient breath.

"What I'd like, is to find a way out of your deal."

"Dean."

He glared at his brother. "I was DONE, Sam!" He clamped one hand over the Mark on his arm. He took a deep breath and tried to temper his voice. "Done."

Pointing out the obvious was the argumentative gleam in Sam's eye. He'd walked right into that one, except this was different. His hand clenched over his sleeve and the thing he could feel underneath there. Things were off—he couldn't exactly pinpoint how. It wasn't like hosting Gadreel at all. The one time Sam should have left well enough alone…he blew out another breath.

"We need to find the First Blade."

Sam's head snapped up.

"Dean."

They'd been over this, but there had to be a way.

"I'm not letting you do it, Sam. Whatever Crowley wants."

Sam pursed his lips stubbornly.

"It's my choice."

"DAMMIT, SAMMY! I thought you wanted to be out from all this!" A lamp went sailing across the room as he roared and whirled on Sam where Sam sat, staring mutely at the inlay patterns on the table. He wasn't prepared when Sam looked up, the expression on Sam's face too like what he remembered when Death was a shadow over Sam's shoulder, back in his dream of Hell. He wasn't prepared for the dead weight in Sam's voice, when Sam said quietly, "I couldn't, Dean. I just couldn't."

Couldn't what? Couldn't go on? Couldn't live day after day in the sunshine, pretending everything was fine when his brother lay in the grave? They'd done that. Couldn't hold on, because all that lay down that road was death and doom? They'd done that too. Rock and a hard place, either way heartache.

Dean gripped the chair in front of him tightly enough that the wood creaked in protest and repeated himself firmly.

"We're going to find a way out of your deal."

Sam looked up into his grim face. And Sammy pursed his lips again, before conceding begrudgingly.

"If we do this, we do this together. No more secrets, Dean. I mean it."

He opened his mouth to tell Sam off, because secrets was what their family was made of. Secrets was their entire fucking history, like Sam sneaking off with Ruby, secrets, like Adam—what the hell, secrets, like Gadreel. He shut his mouth abruptly.

"Fine. No secrets."

Day 6. It was the sixth day since he'd brought Dean back from the dead. And things were normal again.

Well.

Sort of.

As normal as normal got, for them.

"Crowley. Didn't. Want. My. Soul." He had reiterated last night for the hundredth time, trying to get it through Dean's thick skull. Because Crowley, Crowley was all about the technicalities, and it wasn't a deal. Not for his soul, at least.

Needless to say, Dean didn't believe him.

The evidence of this was Dean in the library, up to his armpits in old files and books, doing research, which Dean hated.

"There's gotta be something in here about breaking demon deals." Dean had muttered, eyeing the entirety of the Men of Letters' collection. Which was vast. There were rooms in the bunker they had not yet cataloged, and Dean now seemed bent on going through them all. Looking for a way out of a demon deal he had not made—and he needed to get Dean out of here.

He stared at the light spilling out into the hallway from the library and veered off towards the kitchen. It was too early for this. Too early to get into an argument—and he knew there would be one—plus he wanted something to eat. He stuck his head in the fridge, because it'd been a while since he'd made a grocery run, given the way Dean was behaving weirdly around food, and maybe being dead had something to do with that—and hey, banana.

He sniffed at it, because it was pretty brown, but it looked mostly okay. He peeled it and bit into it gleefully, thankful for the taste of something fresh after days of nothing but burgers and pie, road food, as far as he was concerned, never quite all the way cold nor adequately hot, unless Dean over-nuked it in the mini-Mart microwave again. And it was just weird, wasn't it, the way Dean had been picking at all his favorites, like he'd suddenly developed a rash of health consciousness, except this was Dean, so he knew it wasn't that. He popped a cartridge into the one-cup brewer he'd splurged on—because Dean's coffee peeled paint—and parked his mug under the drip, leaning back against the other counter, thinking.

He knew his brother. He knew Dean hated being cooped up. That had to be what was throwing Dean off—twitchy and antsy and just well, weird.

The coffeemaker beeped twice. He tossed the banana peel into the trash before he pulled the full mug out from the machine and headed towards the library. The library that yep, Dean was still sitting in, looking like he hadn't moved from where he'd left him last night, looking all bleary-eyed and still dead hungover, which at least was perfectly normal when, and Sam stopped, looking over the pile of boxes and papers and books and files spread out on the table and the floor all around Dean.

"Dude."

Dean looked up at him again, a silent what?in the testy furrow of his brows.

Sam bit down on his first questions. Where's your forest of beer bottles? or Why aren't you suckling at the teat of a fifth?—both seemed wrong—so he said instead: "How long you been at it?"

Dean shrugged carelessly and went back to skimming the page in his hand.

Sam frowned. It wasn't exactly as if he could argue—here, have some Irish in your coffee, Dean, cuz you're freaking me out—but again, weird. Not normal. And not normal in their world was a bad, bad thing.

He needed to get them back on the road, back in the saddle, whatever. They needed a job.

Sam flipped open his laptop and thumbed it on. He checked his email, then opened up a browser window, scanning the long blue list of headlines in front of him.

Nope. Nope. Stupid. Nope. Fake.

Huh.

"Hey."

Dean lifted his head again.

"'Ice Mummy' found in Pasco."

"So?"

"Pasco's in Washington. State. Seems a weird place for a mummy."

Dean shrugged. "So they got a weird corpse, so what?"

Sam skimmed down the article. "They got three of them."

He got Dean's attention with that.

"Plus, four students attending Pasco Interfaith College have been reported missing, all within the last week."

Dean made a so-so motion, and looked back down at his file again.

"Yeah, but it's finals week."

Dean rolled his eyes.

"Plus, these desiccated corpses turned up in the same time frame."

Dean paused. Pursed his lips.

"You thinking vamps?"

"Could be. Shapes up weird either way. How about it?"

Dean looked at the cluttered mess of research on the table in front of him, still reluctant to move. Sam sighed out loud.

"This is what we do, right? You and me, fighting the good fight? Saving people, hunting things? The family business?"

Dean scowled. "Where's this again?"

"Pasco, southern Washington. Just off 182. We can be there Wednesday if we leave now."

The file Dean had been reading joined the others with a thwap. Sam took several more hasty swallows of his coffee as Dean straightened and stretched.

"Well, hurry up then, Princess. What are you waiting for?"