Crowley paid no attention to the demon that had brought the tray out and placed it on the table between them. He did, however, pay attention to how the demons gaze strayed on the souls for longer than he should have.

Crowley cleared his throat and gave the demon, he didn't know his name but resolved to learn all of the demons under his rule names. The demon averted his eyes and stepped away.

He also saw how the demon still glanced over his shoulder and tried to settle his suddenly turning stomach.

Sighing to himself and resolving to make things a bit more personal with the demons he leaned forward and started to prepare his tea just the way he liked it, two sugars and a small finger of milk.

"I know you would probably prefer coffee." he said to the soul. "But I can't stand the stuff so I don't keep any here."

There was no answer and in all honesty Crowley hadn't expected one, the kid hadn't said a single word the entire time.

He prepared a second cup, not entirely sure how to make it but in the end just making it the same as his own. He eyed the chains around the soul's wrists and the attached weights at his feet, with another sigh he stood up and placed the soul's hands, they were already clasped on his lap and the cup fit perfectly.

Taking his seat once more Crowley picked up his cup and took a long sip, wishing for a moment that he could add more scotch to it; but in doing so he would ruin the tea, and then took a long look at the soul.

His clothes were tattered and torn, the chains that were wrapped around him were practically pulsing. There were more chains on the weights on his ankles and wrists to help pull and slow him down even more. He firmly placed his own mental blocks up more to ensure that the emotions practically radiating from the weights didn't affect him.

The white cup in his hands were a stark contrast to the rest of him and Crowley heaved another sigh.

"So," he said, getting comfortable in his seat. "Care to explain what happened?"

The soul of Sam Winchester finally looked up at him with hooded eyes.

Dean blinked, and then blinked again, and then a third time.

Sensations slowly came back to him, piece by piece. First his hands, which were aching and burning in a very family way. The feeling he would get on hunts after punching something repeatedly. His knuckles felt sore and bruised to hell, a sharp pain whenever he twitched them told him that they were torn as well. Something almost felt like it was digging into his knuckles and he absentmindly dug at it as he slowly got to his feet. His knees felt scratched and aching as if he had been kneeling on them for a long time.

However surprisingly his legs were steady as he slowly walked through the room towards the door, his fingers digging almost insistently into his knuckles to get whatever was lodged in there out. He didn't pay attention to his surroundings and as such it wasn't really a surprise when he tripped over something on the ground.

Stumbling slightly he accidentally pushed the thing deeper into his skin and gave a hiss at the sharp pain. He glanced down automatically to see what he had tripped over and then froze.

The thing he had tripped on was the remains of a human body, more specifically the abdomen because one arm had been torn off, the leg was hanging on by the last remains of muscle and skin, and the neck had been twisted to almost a completely circle, the bone peeking out under the skin.

What grabbed his attention the most however was the person's chest. It had been cut open and flagged out, exposing every bone and muscle in it. Organs, more than should be in a person, had been torn out by hand it almost seemed. Torn and ripped out and then meaninglessly thrown to the ground around the destroyed remains.

His eyes roamed over the body as he took in the details of the murder. He barely paid attention to the tattoo on the inside of the wrist of the arm that was still attached but focused mainly on the face.

It was the Styne that had been after Charlie and the one that they had taken to their dungeon, the only one to know their faces.

And therefore, the only logical choice in being the one that killed his little brother.

Dean's hand began to shake and his arm started to burn. Disregarding the fact that the thing was already dead he stepped forward, intent on ripping the thing apart more when a whimpering sound filled his ears and he practically snapped his neck to look at the source.

A boy, no older than eighteen, was on the ground, clutching at his arm and his chest lightly scratched up, his body slightly bruised but otherwise unharmed. Dean distantly remembered pulling the kids arm hard enough to dislocate the shoulder and then let go when he saw no tattoos. He also almost recalled cutting the boys shirt and opening it to reveal no operation scars on his chest. The kid had his good hand up covering his mouth as he realized that the sound he had made, voluntarily or involuntarily, had drawn Dean's attention back to him.

Dean brought his head up and his eyes locked with the kids for a moment, long enough for Dean to realize the shape of the kid's eyes were the same as the thing that had killed Sammy.

The thought was enough for his Mark to burn, his vision to turn red, and before he knew what he was doing he had strode forward and grabbed the boy by the throat, squeezing it tight.

The boy choked, his good arm coming up to try to budge or at least to claw at Deans arm as he desperately gasped for air. His hazel eyes which were the same shape of-

Hazel eyes.

A mop of brown hair, dimples with a grin, hazel eyes twinkling.

Just as suddenly as he had grabbed the boy he let go, breathing hard and tears prickling in the corners of his eyes.

Hazel eyes filled with tears as they looked up at him, too afraid to even speak, looking at him pleadingly; begging wordlessly for his life. No tattoos, no scars on his chest. Not like those other monsters.

But he could be, a cold voice which almost sounded like Cain, spoke to him in his mind. He has their blood, he has their lineage; he could turn at a random moment and become a monster just like the rest of them.

Hazel eyes stared up at him, bruises on the neck and chest, dislocated shoulder, broken glasses barely hanging to his face to reveal those cursed hazel eyes which just wouldn't look away from him and kept him pinned in place.

"Three minutes." he said, his voice gruff and barely audible, foreign even to him, and the words not making any sense. "You have three minutes, and then I'm burning this place down."

The hazel eyes widened and the boy nodded, rapidly and gratefully. Dean stepped slightly to the side and the boy quickly scurried past him, running with his useless arm dangling at his side. Dean could hear his loud pounding footsteps on the stairs and then he moved to the cabinets and started to search through them; gathering rubbing alcohol, ethanol, and anything else he could find into a small pile at the side.

He counted off the seconds in his head as he took the bottles and opened them, pouring the contents all over the ground and onto the walls and furniture. He grabbed the rest of the bottles and left the so called first aid room, systematically pouring the rest of the contests as he walked.

Walking through the room a corner of his mind realized and acknowledged the various bodies littered around the rooms and through the hallways. Men and women, each one bearing the tattoo and the chest scars, each one dead, some of them torn apart, some simply shot.

Reaching the first floor he shook out the last bottle and threw it to the side, reaching into his pocket and digging out a pack of matches. He ripped one match free and was about to strike it against the book when footsteps caught his attention once more. Glancing up he saw the boy with the hazel eyes gripping a large duffle bag in his good hand. He froze when he saw Dean standing there, just staring up at him.

Disinterested Dean turned his attention back to his matches, just as the boy regained his courage and ran the rest of the way, past Dean and to the side, not the front door as Dean had expected. Not caring anymore Dean stroked the match, lighting it on fire and bringing it up to the top of the other matches, causing them to light on fire as well.

He threw the book into the small pile of liquid at his side and immediately the fire grew and rapidly spread along the spills, just as the sound of a car's engine and the squeal of tires on the ground reached his ears. The boy with the hazel eyes had gotten away.

Dean watched for a few moments to make sure that the fire caught and spread properly before turning away and leaving the house to burn behind him. He walked to where he had hidden the impala and got back into the car, turning the engine on and driving away. The Stynes house nothing more than a fading image in his rear view mirror.

He stared straight ahead, systematically tightening and releasing the steering wheel. His head would twitch to the side and the Mark on his arm would throb rhythmically, and something was still digging into his knuckles.

Keeping that hand on the wheel his other hand went back to the irritating part on his knuckles and tried to dig into the small area.

The Stynes were dead, the one that had killed his little brother was dead. Justice had been served, too little and too late a corner of his mind told him, but justice nonetheless.

Dean felt his fingers snag on whatever it was that had lodged itself in his hand. Gripping it in between two fingers he pulled it out, finally getting rid of the pain. He moved it into his hand and glanced down at it.

A bloodied tooth sat in the middle of his palm

Dean flicked the light on automatically as he entered the bunker. He blinked at the bright light and looked around the kitchen. Every time he came back from somewhere he would pause in the doorway and look around, hoping that something had changed since he had left, that someone would be here.

Or someone would come back and be there waiting for him.

Seeing that nothing had changed Dean heaved a heavy sigh and continued forward. Empty bottles were littered across the counters with dirty glasses stacked on top of one another. He grabbed a clean glass from the cupboard and a quarter full bottle by the neck. Taking another deep breath he started towards his room.

The coldness hit him first as he turned the corner, a deep cold that got worse with each step he took. He ran his fingers through his hair and ruffled it as ice started to grow and spread, making the smell pieces fall to the ground. He shook the bottle so the contents wouldn't freeze and finally he reached his door.

His breath appeared in the air and he shook his head before reaching out and opening the door.

It was the coldest in his room, a fresh blast of cold air hit him and he had to blink back the moisture in his eyes. There were two sources of lights in the room, one of them were the runes that were carefully painted on the walls which would occasionally flare up and the room would momentarily freeze a few more degrees before calming down once more.

The second source were the candles that Dean was slowly lighting and placing around the room, no real pattern, rhyme, or reason to their placements. Finally he took a deep breath and turned to complete the last part of the ritual.

There, laying on his bed, arms crossed over his chest and laying above the covers was Sammy.

Or at least Sammy's body, preserved in the cold of the room and as still as anything. He had to fight Cas and Charlie for him. The both of them had wanted to take the body from him and burn it, a proper hunter's burial. When they protested and resisted his vision had gone red and he couldn't remember the next few minutes but it ended with him carrying his brother to his car and had kept him in Dean's room ever since they had gotten back home, keeping it as fresh as possible for his return.

The candles helped, the candles made it seem as if he wasn't really that pale, the flickering lights almost making it look as if his chest was moving, he knew logically that it was just the shadows playing tricks but the was willing to ignore that. He moved the bottle again, needing to shake it a bit more vigorously to break up the ice that had slowly started to spread in the liquid, and then opened it. He poured some into his glass and sipped it slowly, his eyes on the immobile body on his bed.

The same thing he's been doing all this time for as long as Sammy had been dead.

"They're dead." he suddenly said, his voice rough and barely there. "All of 'em. Every last Styne." He remembered something then. "Except one, a kid." he added, pouring more into his glass and sipping from it. "He was a kid, well, not a kid, kid, but," he shrugged. "Enough."

Sammy's face was clean of blood and had been ever since he brought him home but still Dean let his eyes roam over Sam's body to make sure that he got every last bit of it.

"Kiddo, I just." he ran his hand over his face, covering his eyes for a moment and then shaking his head. "I know you wouldn't have wanted what I did but Sammy, its justice." he insisted to the empty room. "There is no justice, none, if they were living and you're not." He shook his head. "None whatsoever." he repeated, draining his glass and refilling it.

He reached out with his left hand and ran his fingers through Sammy's hair, giving a small humorless smirk. "Almost didn't recognize you in the bathtub Sammy, almost thought it was a woman. You need to cut your hair, it's practically a hazard by now."

There was no answer, of course there was no answer, there wasn't going to be an answer unless everything worked and everything slipped into their right pieces.

A few more seconds passed in silence before he couldn't take it anymore and started to talk to try to fill it. "Crowley is being a bitch like usual, he's not answering my calls or my summoning's. And I made it clear that Cas isn't to even try to contact me unless he has a way to bring you back. Neither of them are calling, or at least with Cas he's not calling with the right answers, assholes the both of them."

"You're not going to like any of it actually." he continued. "When you get back you're not going to like what I did to get you back. The thing is...as long as your back, I can live with it. Hate me all you want, just be here with me and hate me."

His voice started to crack and he bowed his head, fighting the urge to start crying for the first time in a very long time.

"Just come back Sammy."

Castiel let out a sigh as he placed his phone down on the table, rubbing at his eyes. "He's still not answering." he told her.

Charlie placed her tablet pen down softly and sighed, slumping in her chair. "Maybe I should go there, we know he's in the bunker." she suggested.

He shook his head. "We don't know what kind of state of mind he's in." he said. "For all we know you'll take one step in the bunker and he'll kill you."

Charlie flinched at the notion, one arm curling around her stomach as if she felt an imaginary blade already buried there.

Castiel nodded. "For the time being we need to just stay away but not to cut contact. We need-" he was cut off by an almost twinkling laugh and turned his head to face the witch. "Did I say something amusing?"

"Oh no, nothing at all." Rowena said, sipping her tea from her paper cup. "Don't mind me child, I'm just doing my translations."

"I am a great deal older than you." Castiel informed her. "You just do as you are instructed."

"Haven't I?" Rowena asked, glancing up at them over the top of the cup. "I've been here the entire time, doing as I'm told and decoding the book." she reached out to tap the cover of the Book of the Damned with the tips of her fingers, causing the chains to clink and hit one another. "I've been nothing but agreeable."

Just staring at her seemingly innocent eyes and face made Castiels skin crawl. He fought the urge to extend his wings, as battered and bare as they were, to try to make himself bigger.

He shared a look with Charlie before turning back to the witch. "Just do as your told." he instructed before turning back to Charlie fully.

"Time isn't going to help." Charlie said after a moment, staring, almost glaring, at Rowena. "He hasn't even let us bury the body." she flinched at her own words, of categorizing Sam into just a simple body.

"Winchesters have no concept of acceptance of the others deaths, the last stage of grief is unknown to them." Castiel told her.

"He's trying to bring Sam back to life." Charlie finally said quietly.

Castiel nodded. "Since the first time, the first time Sam had been killed, the desire, the tradition I suppose, of doing whatever is possible to bring the other back has remained in notion and in the forefront of their minds."

"I read the books, I remember." Charlie said playing with the edge of her shirt. "Do you think Deans going to try to sell his soul again?"

"I would like to think that Dean has grown from that or at least demons would have enough sense to not meddle in the affairs of the Winchesters souls." Castiel said with a frown. "But I also know that grief clouds the best of judgments, especially for Sam and Dean, and that Crowley would enjoy having some sort of leverage over them, more so Dean because he has the Mark."

Charlie could barely bring her eyes up from the table top. "Where do you think Sam's soul went?" she finally managed to ask in a whisper. "I mean, he's good right? So it went to heaven, right?"

Castiel let out a deep breath as he contemplated his answer. "Sam at the core, at the very deepest part of his being, is a good person. Kind and selfless enough that he had sacrificed himself for the world without hesitation."

"I can hear a 'but' coming up."

"Heaven has viewed Sam as an abomination for quite some time." he confessed, staring at his hands, ignoring Charlies gasp. "The demon blood as a child, drinking demon blood in his later years, allowing Lucifer into his body. I have realized a long time ago that angels are very single minded and refusing to budge on their viewpoints." He curled his fingers toward his palm. "It would be simple for them to refuse entry to a soul find its heaven and if heaven does not allow entry, if the soul if not being held by anything on earth to become a spirit, reapers prevent souls from going between the edges of reality into the empty, and as a human soul purgatory has no claim on it."

Charlie's eyes widened. "You can't be...you don't mean that..."

"That as much as I would like to believe that Sam's soul is at rest in heaven, knowing my brother's and sister's as I do, there is only one other place for a soul to go to."

Later on, after he cleaned himself up and calmed his nerves he walked back down to the basement, or the dungeon, whatever the hell it was. Taking a deep breath he schooled his expression and opened the door.

Immediately terrified blue eyes snapped up and looked at him, terror clear in the orbs as he looked at him like a deer caught in the headlights.

Dean ignored the man for now as he came fully into the room and went to the middle of the room, kneeling down at the edge of a slightly faded summoning circle. He had kept chalk to the side and reached out to grip it in between his fingers, twirling it for a moment before reaching out and retracing the lines carefully, adding a few more runes to the empty spaces. He glanced it over and nodded, content that at least his summoning circle was perfect.

Standing up he cracked his neck from side to side and rolled his shoulders back, letting the chalk fall to the hard floor. He heard it crack slightly but paid no attention to it. The terrified gasps coming from the man filled the room and he tried to ignore it, something he that was getting easier and simpler each time that he did this to ignore the fact that he was doing something so wrong.

He focused on the Mark instead, slipping into the mindset faster and faster every time that he did this. And it was a struggle that was getting more and more difficult to come back from. When he let the Mark take control he was in a state of dispersion, removed from everything around him and not facing the pain and hurt from losing Sammy. It was almost like trying to stay afloat in a thunderstorm in the middle of the ocean with no life vest or support to cling to.

All he had was a single rope in his hand which he was clinging to with all of his might despite the fact that he had no idea where it lead but he knew that if he just kept pulling himself up by the rope he knew that Sammy was going to be alive at the end of it and that made all the difference and all the reason to cling to it despite what he would have to go through to get to that end.

Because the only other option would be to let go of the rope and to drown in the Mark and never come up again.

So with his rope, the thought and the desire to save his Sammy, firmly in hand he threw himself into the depths of the Mark and for the time being he let himself drown in the covers.

A calm descended on him when he opened his eyes once more, the Mark a pleasant burn on his arm as he walked forward to the shelves and picked up a knife, turning it in his hand as he assessed the blade. He turned to look at the man, turning the blade in his hand.

The man's breathing had gotten heavier yet quieter, his eyes locked on the knife, he had frozen in place as if hoping that if he was still Dean wouldn't notice him. A prey reacting to a predator and trying in vain to prolong its life.

Dean felt a smirk more than he did the action himself as he strode forward without preamble, reaching out to grab the man and drag him towards the circle. The man came to life and started to trash around, the gag on his lips muffling his shouts and the ropes around his arms and legs preventing him from hitting or kicking free.

He dragged the man to the circle with one arm, the other hand holding the knife tightly. Once they reached the edge he brought the man more towards into the circle and slide the knife cleanly across the throat.

The man sputtered and the blood rose up in his throat, spraying out of his mouth and down his chin and the concrete floor. Dean held him out so that the blood would fall onto the summoning circle properly. The man quickly stopped moving and as the blood stopped dropping he threw the body to the side and knelt down to light the candles one by one.

The summoning would be strengthened by the blood sacrifice, thereby making it harder for the damn demon to ignore him.

But apparently not impossible because even when Dean dropped the match into the bowl and the fire flamed a few seconds passed and no Crowley appeared.

"You son of a bitch." Dean snarled, his hand going into his pocket and pulling out his cell phone. He hit redial hard enough that he was a surprised a crack didn't appear, snorting when it went to voicemail.

"Listen to me you selfish, piece of shit." Dean said lowly. "Answer the damn summons or answer the damn phone. One way or another we have a deal to make and I won't stop until you or one of your bitches answer. Fair warning."

Ending the call Dean glared down at the body and kicked at it, pushing the control of the Mark to the back of his mind as best as he could.

He had a body to get rid of, blood to clean, and a new plan to come up with.

Hours later found Charlie with her head in her arms on top of the desk, resting her eyes and her music playing in her ears. The image kept replaying in her eyes every time she closed her eyes. Sam covered in blood and crumpled in the bathtub, limbs askew and so very still and pale.

Sighing she sat up, rubbing at her eyes and accidentally catching on one of her ear buds and pulling them out. Rock music blared out on the table top until she reached into her pocket and turned it off, rolling her headphones around her iPod and tossing it to the side.

"Finally." Rowena said, wrinkling her nose and bringing Charlies attention to her. "I could barely hear myself think with that racket going on."

"I didn't ask you." Charlie said, pulling her tablet back to her. "And I needed a break."

"Touchy, touchy." Rowena tutted. "You would think that you had just had a brush with death instead of Samuel."

"Don't." Charlie said in as much of a warning tone as she could. "Don't."

Rowena let out a small almost giggle. "It'll take a lot more than that to scare me child."

Charlie scoffed and turned back to her work. She managed to barely focus on the screen, Castiels words echoing through her mind, before she asked, "Would you be able to bring someone back to life?"

"I am focused entirely on translating to get rid of the Mark of Cain." Rowena said sweetly. "I simply have no time to focus on any other magic or spell."

"You know what I mean, can you bring someone back to life?" Charlie grounded out.

As an answer Rowena reached out and with her fingers delicately turned the pages of the Book of Damned, glancing at the codex as her fingers followed the letters. When she didn't say anything else Charlie shook her head and turned back to her work, she should've guessed that the witch wouldn't tell her anything and she wouldn't give her the satisfaction of asking again.

"There is a spell here, the title does say that it can bring someone back to life." Rowena finally said. "I don't know the ingredients, that will take more time to translate, and with that angel breathing down my neck my attention is completely focused on your Mark of Cain. But," her eyes came up, full of light and a smile tugging at her lips. "It can be done."

The breath left Charlies body at that, at the concept that Sam would be brought back to life without Dean having to sell his soul. Both brothers could be here.

Rowena smiled once more at her and turned back, the moment her head was turned however her smile turned into a deadly smirk.

Crowley let out a sigh of relief as the summoning stopped. He could taste the blood of the sacrifice clear in his mouth and he quickly drank more of his tea to try to wash it away, the sooner he got rid of it the sooner the pull of the summoning would fade.

He glanced up at Sam once more and saw that the soul was lightly tracing the pattern in the teacup, which was still full of tea.

"Your brother is very stubborn, he keeps trying to summon me." Crowley informed him. "Thinks if he does it enough times I'll eventually answer."

At the mention of his brother Sam looked up at him and stared pleadingly.

"Don't worry, I have no desire to have Dean Winchesters soul running around here. He gets into enough trouble on earth." Crowley said waving away the concern. "You being here is enough trouble for a lifetime and a headache for even longer."

Satisfied that his brother wasn't in danger Sam let his eyes fall back to his lap.

Crowley sat back in his chair, letting his eyes roam over the soul, despite the chains that were wrapped around him he still shined brighter than any soul that Crowley had seen, almost as bright as an angel's grace. The blood and sweat that covered him did nothing to dull the light coming from him and every scar and every wound was healed over but clear as anything on his skin.

There were Enochian letters burned into his skin around his wrists almost like a bracelet that curled up in white and black lines going up his arms. From those lines he could see bits and pieces of grace shining through every few moments, a testament to the time Sam had been Lucifer's vessel and then the time he had spent with both Lucifer and Michael in the cage.

Sam Winchesters soul was scarred, marked, tortured, and riddled with marks of abuse, the weights that were attached to him to the chains and that were dragging him down; some of the chains were embedded into Sam's very skin, leaving bumps and pressing against the skin, along his arms and around his neck almost like a collar.

Every last weight, every last bit of it that was dragging and slowing and bringing Sam down were all self-inflicted. Crowley knew better than to let a single hair to be touched on Sam's head for the time being and as such, he wasn't being tortured by anyone but himself. The weights were all of Sam's self-hatred and the guilt he had carried with himself all these years barred for the world to see and to, quite literally, keep him in place.

And as such that every last piece of hurt and of torture that would be inflicted onto Sam during his time in hell would be self-done and resonating from his own core being there was nothing Crowley could do to prevent that, it was all in Sam's hands and Sam had never made any move to try to get rid of the weights in life, it only made sense for him not to try in death either.

He wanted, needed, to get Sam out of hell. Nothing good would follow a Winchester in hell, and of course it would be Sam Winchester; the one closer to hell than even his brother who has the Mark of Cain and had been a demon not so long ago.

Crowley hadn't just put the Lucifer loyalists away, he had put those away who had clung to the old belief that Sam Winchester would lead them. The words, the title he didn't' dare to say and had forbidden all of the demons, both under his control and the ones locked away, from saying out loud, he didn't even dare to think them so that hell wouldn't hear it.

The ground quacked under their feet once more, becoming stronger than before and lasting longer, and Sam immediately flinched, trying to make himself smaller in his chair. The teacup in his hands started to shake and Crowley realized that the Enochian symbols on Sam's skin were glowing and quite a few chains on his body tightened around their prisoner.

The demon sipped his tea and graciously ignored Sam's lapse of control as Lucifer continued to scream.

I should've mentioned, updates for this story is going to be spastic and sometimes long, mainly because I want to take my time with this one and try not to rush it.

I do not own Supernatural.