A/N

Hey guys! Thanks so much for reading, and the awesome reviews! So I made a mistake: this story is actually set after 10x03 of Supernatural, but an alternate version where Dean escapes from the bunker, partially cured. Sorry for the confusion. Anyway, this chapter is kinda short, sorry, and a filler, but should get the ball rolling on the rest of the story, which I will remind you, references all the prequels. For those of you asking about the unfinished one, I have only one chapter left, and it ends pretty much how you would expect. It's not really necessary for this, everything can be figured out based on what happens in this story. As for this chapter, the beginning part in italics is a dream, just so it doesn't get confusing. The next chapter should be up by Saturday. As always, review, check out my other stories, and enjoy!

Ch. 2

Good Times, Bad Times

Stiles must have passed out again. Because this was his dream:

It was dark. Stiles couldn't see anything, not the moon or the sun, or the hand he waved in front of his face. Actually, he could not move his hand. He couldn't move anything. His whole body was in some kind of stasis, some force pushing him still, no matter how much he thrashed and struggled. He tried to scream, but something grainy poured into his open mouth, choking him. It took him a moment to realize this was dirt, and he could not move because he was trapped underground.

It wasn't a grave. There was no coffin, no crossed arms, no horizontal position. His left arm was raised above his head like he had been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the open earth. He felt the sand and rocks under his fingernails, and envisioned his hands scraping across the ground, desperate for purchase. He pictured the ten thin claw marks that were all that remained of where he was taken from.

Even though Stiles felt like he was squeezed into an impossibly small box, he didn't panic, because he knew what this was. He had had this dream before.

This was the death of Theo Raeken.

Stiles hadn't been present during this moment. He hadn't gotten to say his goodbyes to his mortal enemy/part time accomplice. So he imagined it instead. Where Scott's story lacked in detail, Stiles supplied it with his own. He saw Kira leap, sword in hand, an avenging angel with heavenly fury, and he saw Theo's eyes widen in fear, a victim rather than a villain. He saw Theo claw desperately for salvation, even going so far as to call to his enemies for help, every imposing trait about him vanishing in a heartbeat as he struggled with his last. He saw Theo sinking down, down, never to return, drowning in the bitter river of revenge. He saw it all, but he wasn't sure how he felt. He played it over in his head a thousand times, and every time, Stiles couldn't help but feel a concoction of joy, anguish, disappointment, and guilt. That was the strongest of all, the guilt.

Two months of imagining Theo's final moments, and the only thing Stiles had gleaned was that he was glad he had not been present. Because he would have run forward to save him.

Stiles jolted awake, his mind flooded with darkness and dirt and suffocation. All those thoughts evaporated, however, when he looked up. And saw a single lightbulb swinging over his head. Oh, great... He knew where he was. He was in a room in the treatment plant, the same room Meredith had taken Dean, the same place Stiles had taken Theo, and now, in a surprising turn of events, Dean had taken Stiles.

"Dean?" Stiles asked, because the single light bulb illuminated an empty room, but Dean couldn't be too far away. "Dean?" Stiles tried again. He hated how weak his voice sounded, dried and cracked, like he hadn't had water in days.

Had it been days?

No. Stiles had gotten a new watch, specifically for occasions like these, and he looked at his wrist tied to the armrest of his chair. It was two in the afternoon on the same day he had woken up. It hadn't been days, only hours.

Even though he had gotten the watch expressly for this purpose, Stiles didn't like timing his kidnappings. It made them drag on longer. Therefore he had no idea how long it was before finally, the door to the room (it was more of a closet, really) creaked as the handle turned, and it swung forward to reveal- well, not Dean.

Stiles really shouldn't have been surprised it was him. He always turned up, didn't he, always waltzing into Stiles' stories with a crooked deal and a fix-it snap. Only this time, he looked a little worried.

"Crowley." Stiles growled, and he wished he looked half as ferocious as he sounded.

"Hello, Stiles." Crowley said from the doorway, in an impeccable black suit as always, but he seemed... Off. Less astute, less sure of himself. He held himself in a way that suggested he no longer knew how to hold himself.

"I'm only going to say this once, Crowley." Stiles threatened. "What. The Hell. Is going on?"

"Ah." Crowley said shrewdly. "I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask that. Perhaps your brother."

"Already tried." Stiles said harshly. "And while the black eyes didn't leave much room for interpretation, I'd sure as hell like to know the rest of the story."

Some expression crossed Crowley's face- surprise, or perhaps worry, maybe even concern- but it vanished too quickly for Stiles to decypher.

"No." Crowley said. "Your other brother. Sam."

"Sam?" Stiles asked, and his mind flashed back to the phone call from that morning. The one Stiles had neglected to answer out of silly, petty revenge. His stomach plummeted with the weight of regret. What had Sam known? What could Sam have said that could have prevented this whole situation? Stiles would never know.

Crowley nodded. "Sam doesn't know everything- he's still unsure exactly what happened to Dean's body, but he has a good enough idea. What he does know is what happened before his death, and that's possibly more important than what happened next. I know what happened, mind you, and I know why, but Sam understands Dean's motivation, something I am still at a loss for given it was so suicidally stupid. I know he called you earlier, Stiles. You should have taken that call."

Stiles nodded, regret flooding his system, but not enough regret to not notice something that piqued his interest. He frowned. "You're not supposed to be here."

Crowley looked confused. "Pardon?"

Stiles straightened up as much as he could with the restraints, his brain kicking into gear. His brother turning into a demon was so impossible he could barely handle it, but this, solving a puzzle, this was something he knew how to do. This would keep him thinking.

"You're not supposed to be here." Stiles repeated. "Dean- or whatever the hell he is, doesn't want you talking to me."

'And how do you suppose that?" Crowley asked snidely, but it was too snidely.

Stiles grinned at the challenge. "Well, Crowley, look at you. You've never been very good at hiding your emotions. Your feet have been shifting constantly since you got here. You won't come into this room, as if you're afraid of crossing some line. And you keep glancing down the hallway, like you're afraid someone will come barreling over and discover you."

"You may be right." Crowley said. "This conversation might have been... ill-advised."

Stiles whistled. "Dean must be powerful then. Why else would you be talking to me? You can't keep him in check, and you want my help."

Crowley smirked. "Now, that's where you're wrong, Stiles. I don't want your help." He snapped, and suddenly the ropes around Stiles' wrists turned to ash and disappeared. "I want to help you. More specifically, I want to help you escape."

Stiles lept to his feet, rubbing feeling back into his wrists and shaking out his sleeping feet. "Why?" he asked suspiciously.

"Because inadvertently, I promised to keep the nemeton in balance." Crowley said bitterly. "If you weren't tied to that blasted thing I'd be more than happy to let Dean finish everyone off."

Stiles felt the blood drain out of his face.

"Let him?"

Crowley said nothing.

"Crowley?" Stiles asked, beginning to panic. "Where's Dean? Where did he go?"

Crowley's frown was a grim line that set off Stiles' worst fears.

"Crowley!" Stiles' voice reverberated with unadulterated fear.

"He went to Scott's house." Crowley finally said, his head hung in the closest Stiles had ever seen to shame. "He went to kill your pack."

Stiles saw white. The world was a blur as he rose, toppling over the chair, the lightbulb swinging violently from the speed at which he exited the room. Stiles raced across the broad, bluish interior of the treatment plant, only to find Crowley blocking the wide wooden doors.

"Get out of my way, Crowley!" Stiles shouted, chest heaving, heart racing.

"I'm afraid I can't do that." Crowley said. "I do that, and you're as good as dead. Do you have a plan, Stiles? Or were you just going to march over with no guns and no strategy, against possibly the most dangerous demon to ever walk the Earth?"

"I'll figure something out." Stiles said through gritted teeth, fear quickly turning into anger.

"I'm sure you will." Crowley said dismissively. "After Dean has put you six feet under."

Stiles clenched his hands in frustration, his eyes narrowing. "You let me go so I could save my pack." he said. "Let me go so I can save my pack!"

Crowley sighed in exasperation, like Stiles' idiocy personally offended him. "You moron." he said quietly. "I didn't let you go to save them! I did it so you could run away, while Dean was occupied!"

"Occupied by slaying my friends!" Stiles shouted. "Do you know how badly he wanted to do that when he was human? Do you know how he'll make them suffer NOW? Crowley, some part of you has got to give a damn about their lives!"

Crowley looked incredibly reserved, even more so than usual. "You seem to forget, Stiles, that I am the king of Hell. Any so-called feeling I would have towards your pathetic pack is vastly overshadowed by my own self-preservation."

"Well what about the nemeton, huh?" Stiles asked with heartbreaking desperation. "What about all of that crap about balance and keeping us alive? What about Scott and I's connection? That's gotta mean something!" He was grasping at straws, he knew it, but he could not, would not, write his friends off as dead.

Crowley shot Stiles a deadly glare, and it was with stone cold precision that he spoke. "Scott McCall died two months ago, Stiles. The only person still connected to the nemeton is you."

His words stopped Stiles dead in his tracks. Instantly, his shoulders deflated and his hope sunk through the floor. Dread pooled in the pit of his stomach, dark, and coiling towards his heart. "I don't believe this." Stiles muttered. "You're actually going to let them die."

"Ever think that your friends can fight for themselves, Stiles?" Crowley asked with an odd gleam in his eye.

Stiles stared at the floor as he shook his head. "Not against Dean. Not if it was 10 to 1. He'd kill them all. And laugh while doing it."

"Which is why you need to run." Crowley said firmly. Quickly, he tossed something silver and shiny into the air, and just as quickly, Stiles caught it. He turned it over in his hands, the cool metal being absorbed by his body heat. They were his car keys.

"Wha-" Stiles asked, raising his head and finding Crowley staring at him, again with the odd gleam in his eyes.

"Your Jeep." Crowley said. "It's waiting outside."

"But-" and now Stiles' mind was raised out of sluggish depression, running at a mile a minute to connect all the dots. "That's not possible. You can't go in my Jeep, you can't even touch it. There's a-"

"A devil's trap carved into the ceiling." Crowley interrupted impatiently. "Yes, I know. I admire Mr. Whittemore's handiwork. As it happens, I didn't drive the damned thing. Ms. Martin did. You must have been too busy with your morning activities to notice. She hid it in the surrounding forest, Dean didn't even see it when he brought you here."

Stiles frowned in confusion. "But why would Lydia-"

"Well, it must have had something to do with me warning her of Dean's arrival." Crowley said, not without fidgeting in impatience. "And then it was ultimately her responsibility to get the rest of the pack to safety after you were taken. They left two hours ago."

"You planned this." Stiles said, not missing a beat, and now his heart was slowing and his mind was clearing. Now he could see the gears behind this engineered event. Lydia had been acting odd, even for as good an actress as her. "So they're safe, then?"

"It depends on whether you consider running for their lives as safe." Crowley drawled.

Stiles narrowed his eyes. "How do I know you're telling the truth?"

Crowley sighed in annoyance, but did not respond. Rather, he tossed something to Stiles, something light and silver, which Stiles expertly caught. Stiles turned it over in his hands. It was his knife, his little silver knife that was coated in wolfsbane, the knife he had thrown at Dean and abandoned on the floor of his kitchen in his demon-proofed house. The house that Crowley could not enter. There's no way Crowley would have been able to retrieve this knife without someone nearly human assisting him. So it was true.

They were fine. They were safe. They had gotten away.

Dean was still a demon, but none of that mattered if his pack was safe.

Stiles laughed, once, brokenly, and all of the tension melted out of his chest.

Crowley looked a great deal less relaxed. "Okay, your friends are safe." he said urgently. "Now it's imperative that you get the hell out. Because Dean's spent god knows how long looking for them, and when he doesn't find them, he's going to to come back here, and when he does, he can't find you. Stiles, GO!"

Stiles nodded once, quickly, and made his way to the double wooden doors. His hand wrapped around the handle like so many times before, and a new purpose filled him. But a stray thought scampered across his brain, a question that had been burning for two months. He stopped and turned back.

"Crowley," Stiles began hesitantly. "I... there's been something I've been meaning to ask you. Two months ago, you let Theo live. You had to have known that even though his body was changed, his soul was still human. You had to have known that he wouldn't go to purgatory. You must have heard what happened to him. And well... I wanted to know..." Stiles trailed off, looking fearful of his own question.

"You want to know if he's in Hell." Crowley surmised. "As much as I'd like to tell you his soul is being boiled alive as we speak, I can't. He isn't there. And I would know."

"Well what the hell does that mean?" Stiles asked angrily, momentarily forgetting his peril.

Crowley sighed. "I suppose that means he's still alive. Now Stiles, go. I'll be in touch."

"Thank you, Crowley." Stiles mumbled, even though his thoughts were racing at a million miles per hour. And then his hand was on the doorknob, sinking into the familiar grooves, and then his eyes were adjusting to sunlight, his wrists still burning from the ropes, and then his hands were gripping the steering wheel, his mind still reeling from seeing his brother's eyes turn black. And then he was on his way, leaving Beacon Hills in the dust, and seeing his destinations spread out before him like a map. There were only so many places he could find salvation: New Orleans, Mystic Falls, Las Vegas, Sioux Falls, Santa Fe, and Lebanon, Kansas. Stiles would have to pick one, and so he did. And as he set his course and went on his way, he dug his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed the only other person who was every bit as responsible for this as him.

"It's Sam. Leave me a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible."

"Sam, it's Stiles." he said to a disheartening voicemail. "You sure as hell have a lot of explaining to do."