A/N: While there is nothing resembling explicit content here, the first portion of this chapter does contain some suggestive content and eludes to non-consensual M/M activities. If you find that type of material to be especially disturbing you may want to skim down to the section break that starts the second portion of the chapter.

Walking without collapsing was the most complicated task Dean could manage at the moment and even that was a struggle. But he did manage because he wasn't going to give the guards leading him the pleasure of watching him hit the ground again. He put all his focus into just moving one foot in front of the other.

The guards were walking just fast enough that it was a struggle for his stiff, shuffling steps to keep up. Even if every part of his body wasn't screaming in agony, with the shackles on it wasn't physically possible to move at the pace the guards set. They weren't in a hurry. Given how much time they'd spent working him over he knew that for a fact. Dean had no doubt the sons of bitches were just getting off on the fact that the faster they walked the more it jarred his battered body.

It was a small relief when they arrived at the main floor of the cellblock. Sure he was going to get beat the rest of the way to hell, but at least he could stop walking. It didn't matter who they threw him in with. No inmate in here could do anything to him that the guards hadn't already done and no one in this prison could take away anything he hadn't already lost.

At least here he could find someone to do what he had not been able to get the guards to do. Dean had tried his damnedest to get the guards to finish this, to finish him, but all he'd managed to do was piss them off all the more. And now he was pissed off too.

He had no concept of what time it was, they'd already taken his watch, but the lights in the cellblock were still dimmed so it was either early or late. In the darkened row of cells he couldn't make out the inmates behind the bars. Most of them had been lying on their bunks, but perked up when they heard the rattle of his chains. Quickly they started to appear out of the shadows, moving to the front of their cells like they were lining up for a show.

The guards jerked him to a stop outside a cell that had two other guys already in it. One of them was still on the top bunk and Dean couldn't make out anything distinguishing about him. It was the guy with the slicked back black hair and a neck like a tree trunk that he already had a problem with.

It wasn't just that the man made Sam look petite, or at least anorexic, it was the fact that the guy was waiting at the cell's door for him. The guy stood there in his grungy uniform looking at him like Dean would look at a double-stacked burger with bacon and a side of pie.

"Back it up, Pedro," one of the guards ordered.

Pedro didn't hesitate in complying. The man backed to the far side of the small cell, but at no point took his eyes off of Dean or let the hungry smile fall from his lips. Dean locked eyes with the man. He was going for threatening, but Pedro just made an unnerving sound that was probably supposed to be a laugh.

Nearly the instant the door to the cell was slid open, Dean was shoved hard from behind. Unable to compensate for the unexpected push, he fell forward, his knees connecting hard with the concrete. Before the vibrating pain had dulled to a throb the cell door had clanged shut behind him.

His vision focused in again and he found himself staring down at a pair of shoes planted directly in front of him. Dean's eyes snapped up to the large man that was hovering over him where he kneeled.

Pedro snickered down at him and Dean cracked. Despite how painfully awkward the movement was, he quickly tried to force his legs back underneath himself. When that didn't work, he turned to grab the bars behind him, using them to pull himself up. His shoulders tensed rigidly and his jaw clenched angrily as he heard a wolf whistle from the man behind him.

By the time he was on his feet the guards were gone. Just as he was about to turn back to face Pedro, large hands came up from behind and forced him forward. Dean's heart thudded in panic and every strained muscle in his body protested as he was smashed against the cold metal of the bars. The guy had to weigh twice as much as Dean. With that much wait pressed against him, it was a struggle just to draw air into his lungs.

He couldn't see the man, but he could feel the hot breath against his ear and his gut knotted once again. "Oh yeah," the man mocked. "Pretty little bitch like you all wrapped up. Must be Christmas."

"Give it to him Pedro!" someone shouted from further down the cellblock, which got the rest of the scumbags riled up.

Dean had been done before he'd even been dumped in here. He was so exhausted he could barely see straight. The last liquid he'd had was the whiskey he'd drank back in the hotel room and he didn't remember the last time he'd seen food. Things that should never hurt were throbbing like hell and he was sick and tired of tasting the tang of his own blood. He was going to bash his own skull in before he let another guy touch him. This one sure as hell wasn't taking him in front of an audience.

Pedro pulled back just enough that Dean's cuffed hands could twist to grasp tightly to the bars for leverage. Running on pure adrenaline, he lifted himself up and kicked both his shackled feet back heavily into the man's shins. It was at least enough to startle Pedro.

Taking the opening, Dean twisted, turning to his side and driving his elbow into the man's solid gut. Dean cringed at the impact. As far as he could tell, it did more damage to his elbow than anything else. It also drove up the volume on the hooting and hollering from the cellblock.

"This little one, he's spunky," Pedro remarked to his cellmate.

Dean took advantage of the quick glance Pedro had shot to the other man. He threw his entire weight against Pedro, knocking the guy back over the toilet and to the ground with a thud. Dean went down too, but the man's body cushioned his fall.

Still running on autopilot, Dean rolled himself back upright and crawled around the momentarily disoriented man. He looped the loose bit of chain that connected his cuffs and shackles around the man's throat.

"Check it out, a dragon slayer is in the house!" some other guy from across the row cheered. Dean ignored them all and focused on the man gasping beneath him.

"I don't wanna kill you," Dean breathlessly told Pedro. "But I'll do it if I have to so let's just get one thing straight here – the next son of a bitch that strips me is gonna die bloody." He looked between the man on the floor and the one still perched on the bunk. "So let's just...."

The guy beneath him clasped onto his wrists with a crushing force. Dean's hands reflexively lost their grip the chain. Pedro slipped his head from the loop and tossed Dean off, knocking him against the wall. The pain in his ribs shot down his side, temporarily immobilizing him. While Dean clutched his side gasping, Pedro climbed back to his feet. The man pulled his foot back and Dean braced for another rib shattering kick.

"Hold up, man," another voice cut in. Dean's cracked an eye open to see that the other man had jumped down off his bunk and was now also standing staring down at him. "Something ain't right here."

"Tell me about. This little freak must be on steroids."

"Nah, Pedro, you're just loosing it. But I mean look at him."

The last thing Dean wanted was anyone else examining him. Ignoring the stabbing pain, he pushed himself up so that he was at least awkwardly sitting. He leaned back against the corner he was backed into for support and stared up challengingly at the two men. It was the first time he really got a look at the second guy.

He realized he hadn't been able to make the man's features out in the shadow because of his dark skin. The guy was a lot smaller than Pedro, fairly lean and solid muscle. Even though this other guy was smaller than Pedro, from their body language it was clear to Dean that the one talking now was calling the shots.

"All I done they ain't never string me up like that," the new guy continued. "Some white boy come in here and they truss him up like a hog? I don't think so."

Dean's eyes had drifted to a distant point on the floor, but shot back up as the new guy reached down towards him. There wasn't anywhere to go as the rough fingers reached down and grabbed the collar of Dean's too large, tattered prison uniform. The man tugged the neckline of Dean's uniform down pass his collarbone to reveal a sample of the dark bruising decorating his neck and shoulder.

"Guards do this?" the man asked as he let go of the fabric.

Dean's eyes narrowed, mostly because he didn't know what difference it made to this guy. "Most of it."

He stifled a gasp when the man grabbed his swollen jaw, but the guy only tipped Dean's head up to see his battered face in the low light. "Damn, they whooped your ass good, boy. What're you in for?"

"Murder, torture, fraud...if it's illegal they got me for it."

"I'd say you were full of crap, bragging like that, but looking at the job they did on you...and man, you kicked Pedro's ass. Nobody can do that even out of chains."

"I'm sure he's still gonna kill me so don't hand out the trophy just yet," Dean replied dismissively.

"I ain't gonna kill you no more," Pedro cut in. "I like you."

Dean grimaced. "Awesome."

"Hear that boys!" the other man shouted out to the cellblock. "Nobody's dying here tonight. You can all go back to bed."

There were disappointed boos and annoyed groans, but most of the inmates seemed to listen and disappeared back to their bunks.

"Murder and torture, huh?" the man asked thoughtfully. "What's your thing, you like little kids or something?"

"I love kids." At the look in the guy's eyes Dean realized what the question had really been and his face twisted in disgust. "No, dude, I wish I had kids. Not that I...forget it," Dean grumbled as he just barely managed to shut himself up. "They tortured me - I didn't torture anyone."

"But you killed someone?"

"Probably…I don't know. They think I killed a lot of people."

"Don't matter how many they think you did, they didn't do you up like that for wasting no one around here."

"I shot a couple of possessed guys when my brother and I first got into town, but it was this other guy, Strieter. That's the one the locals are pissed about. They should be."

"Strieter?" the guy asked disbelievingly. "Not David Strieter?"

Dean nodded reluctantly. "Yeah. That's one."

"You killed David Strieter?"

"If he wasn't already dead before the demon possessed him."

"Man, I tell you, I don't know crap about no demons, but that asshole had it coming. Son of a bitch murdered my brother. He shot a lot of guy's brothers. He's really dead?"

"Yeah."

The man reached down again, but this time it was to help Dean to his feet. He clapped a hand onto Dean's shoulder. Dean couldn't keep down the pained groaned as the friendly gesture jarred his aching back. The man actually looked apologetic.

"They try to touch you again, they don't live to talk about it. You got my word on that."

"Thanks...I think. But I don't want anyone else to..."

The adrenaline had dissipated from his system, leaving him shaky and lightheaded. He hadn't even realized it until he was on his feet and the weight of his body was suddenly too much to support. Dean wavered, his knees buckling. He would have collapsed to the ground, but the man grabbed a hold of him.

"Hang on, man." The guy led Dean over to the bunks and eased him down onto the lower one. "Here take Pedro's bed."

"Hey!" Pedro protested.

"Shut your mouth. Boy's a damn hero."

"How long you staying, Hero?" Pedro asked, apparently just worried about when he was going to get his mattress back.

Dean uncomfortably settled on the lower bunk, resting his elbows on his knees to support his head, willing the wave of dizziness to pass. "I don't know. I was supposed to die tonight."

"You ain't dying on my watch," the leader assured him. "If you live, they sending you to Trenton?"

"I got no clue. The FBI wants to send me to supermax."

"Damn. That there's a tough break," the man told Dean with a shake of his head. "I'd have my boys spring you if they could, but supermax...man, that's even out of our league."

"It's the thought that counts," Dean replied wryly, almost letting the corner of his mouth turn up a touch. "Doesn't matter. I'm dying anyway."

Somehow it really meant something that this con would offer to spring him. As much as he'd been beat down here, a gangster offering a jailbreak came off as downright compassionate. With all the hate and disgust he'd been hit with, he found himself longing for that pity he had detested seeing in Sam and Bobby's eyes.

"You sick?" the guy asked as he looked Dean over again.

"No. I just sold my soul."

"Welcome to the club. It's James, by the way, and you already met my pal Pedro."

"Yeah...real scary guy. No offense," he said with a glance towards Pedro. "I'm Dean."

"Hey, I thought so. I know you," Pedro piped in, pointing a finger towards him. "You're Winchester. I saw you on TV." Pedro looked to James. "This muchacho is like hardcore." His eyes shot back to Dean. "You're some satanic serial killer or something right?"

"Actually, I'm a demon hunter."

"Sure, me too," Pedro chuckled. "I knew I liked you. You're funny."

"No wonder they hate you," James remarked. "So here's the thing. I'm all about religious tolerance. Your freaky demon, satanic crap, that's all cool by me. The thing is, I've been trying to shoot Strieter up for years and I swore on my mama's grave that I'd be in debt to the guy that put my brother's killer six feet under, you get me? 'Cause my little brother, I was all he had and it should've been me Strieter shot up."

Dean looked down and nodded, understanding all too well. He looked up again to meet James's eyes before he spoke. "I have a little brother too."

"Then you get what I'm saying. I'm gonna see you through the night here, but if there's anything else, you just say the word and I'm there."

"I know it's a stupid question," Dean replied after a long moment of hesitation, "but are there any trustworthy felons in here that could get a message out?"

"I'm checking out tomorrow. Just for a little while. I need a vacation from this loco," Pedro replied, jutting his thumb towards James.

James seemed to pick up on Dean's confusion and offered an explanation. "Pedro, he might look tough, but he's just here for the free food and board. He'll go out, stretch his legs and when he gets hungry he does some stupid crap to get back in here."

"Cheapest rent in town," Pedro confirmed. "But they ain't got no alcohol or no bitches in here and damn, I'm overdue, yeah?"

"Okay..." Dean replied.

He did his best to push down just how uneasy the conversation was making him. It wasn't that he had a fundamental problem with anything Pedro was saying, hell he agreed on some accounts. It was just the fact that a few minutes ago the guy had been ready to do him.

"You need a message out, I'll get a message out," Pedro promised.

Dean had just met this man and Pedro obviously wasn't playing with a full deck, but there was a strange sincerity in his words that made Dean believe him. Maybe the guy really did just need to get laid or maybe he was a flaming psycho. Either way Dean wasn't looking at a whole lot of other options here.

"You need a hit on someone?" James offered. "I know some guys, they do quality work."

"Uh...no, I'm good, thanks," Dean assured the man.

The things after his brother and Bobby were way beyond anything James's buddies would be able to handle. Dean went silent for a moment as he unlaced his boot. He pulled back the boot's tongue and slipped out his necklace from where he had hidden it. The guards had taken everything else and not in the usual way that implied he was ever going to see it again. He had stolen the amulet back when they'd been arguing about what to do with him.

His finger ran over it hesitantly before he held it out to Pedro. He desperately needed to keep it, but it wasn't like he was going to be able to slip it past the guards at supermax. Having one set of guards pry it away from him had been enough. He wasn't going to let anyone else take the last part of his brother he'd see. At least this way it was his choice and the amulet had half a chance of getting back to Sam. It would also be the one thing that could convince Sam that Pedro wasn't lying.

Pedro took the necklace and curiously ran the amulet between his oversized fingers. "I don't get it," he finally concluded.

"It's not worth crap so don't bother pawning it," Dean told him. "It's a family thing. I want it to get back to my brother and I need you tell him something, but he isn't gonna be easy to find."

----

Sam had laid in bed for what couldn't have been more than an hour, two at most, but it had felt like an eternity. He had just laid there staring towards the ceiling that somehow looked as grungy as the room's discolored carpet. In the darkness he couldn't see the filthy room. All he could hear was a deep snoring. The sound was just another reminder that it wasn't Dean lying in the other bed. Sam was here doing nothing while his dying brother was out there alone.

He hadn't bothered to take his clothes off. The only reason he had laid down at all was because Bobby had demanded he get some sleep and Bobby wasn't an easy man to say no to. He had acquiesced by taking his shoes off and closing his eyes until Bobby had pulled the curtains and turned off the room's lights. While he had opened his eyes once the room had gone dark, he had remained lying still until he heard Bobby's snoring settled into a steady rhythm.

At that point he had thought that he could get up, but it turned out that Bobby wasn't as deep of a sleeper as Dean was. The first time he had gotten up Bobby had asked him where he thought he was going. Sam had pretended to go to the bathroom and then grudgingly returned to the bed. He glanced to the clock and stifled a groan. It had only been forty-five minutes since he had first laid down. He wasn't going to make it through the night.

Despite that assertion, even his racing mind could not prevent his exhausted body from giving in to sleep. Before Sam had even realized that his eyes had closed, he was awaking to the light of dawn slipping beneath the curtains. The only positive was that he had been too exhausted to dream. Not that it helped anything.

He didn't need to dream to see the complete defeat in his brother's eyes or to hear their last conversation repeating over and over in his head like a broken record. It didn't take dreaming to play over how many things he could have and should have done differently, not just yesterday, but for a long time back.

At that he realized that part of him was already convinced that he would never see Dean again. No. Dean wasn't winning this one. Sam suddenly shot upright on the bed just because he couldn't lie there a moment longer. He glanced over to Bobby's sleeping form, the battered man's chest continued to rise and fall at a gentle, rhythmic pace.

Quietly Sam slipped off the bed. He grabbed his shoes and gave a parting glance towards Bobby before he padded across the room. With a practiced ease, he silently undid the security chain and slipped out into the hallway. Once outside the room he put his shoes on, ignoring the leer of the passing woman who was wearing a skirt at least a couple sizes too small.

He shouldn't be going out. That much he knew, but more than that he knew he was going to lose his mind if he didn't. He just needed to clear his head. Really he just needed to find his brother and he was going to find Dean. Once he did he was going to get Dean out of his deal. That was the only way this could end. The last twelve hours had been unbearable without Dean at his side. Sam couldn't live a lifetime like that.

The crisp early morning air was refreshing, but the large quantity of people already milling about the streets had every one of his nerves on edge. He only gave himself a couple minutes before heading to the nearest coffee shop. His mind screamed that every person that looked his way recognized him, but in reality none of them gave him more than a passing glance, if that.

By the time he had made it back to the room a furious face was awaiting him behind the door. He barely got through the doorway before Bobby's wrath descended. The thing was, Sam didn't care. He was willing to humor Bobby to an extent, but this was about finding Dean and no one, not even Bobby, was going to stand in his way of doing that.

"Do I have to tie you to that damn bed?" Bobby growled at him.

"I slept," Sam replied dismissively as he handed one of the cups of coffee to Bobby.

He could tell by the glower that remained on Bobby's face that the man wasn't going to take to his bribes with the ease that Dean always did. Nonetheless Bobby accepted the cup before stiffly walking over to sit back on the edge of the bed.

"How are you feeling?" Sam asked.

"Like I'm not gonna sit around answering stupid questions."

The rough quality to Bobby's voice and the tentative way he held his own arm was answer enough. Bobby no doubt felt as bad as he looked, probably even worse considering last night. The man rubbed his bloodshot eyes and Sam momentarily set his coffee down.

Without asking, because he knew Bobby would say he didn't need them, Sam dug some painkillers out of his bag and walked over to set them on the bed next to Bobby. Sam hadn't offered them last night only because Bobby had been too busy anesthetizing himself with the last of Dean's liquor supply.

Sam moved over to the table and opened his computer. Eventually Bobby gave up and knocked a few pills out of the bottle before tossing it aside. Bobby lumbered off into the bathroom for a while and looked marginally better when he came back out. Sam wondered if Bobby would even be pleasant on a good morning.

When he got Dean back he was going to remember not to curse his brother's inability to get up and going early in the morning. Even at the crack of dawn, Dean was downright cheery compared to Bobby.

Bobby put his hat on, took another gulp of coffee and finally looked over to Sam. "Finding anything useful?"

With a hesitant nod, Sam looked up from the screen. "Yeah. It wasn't hard to find him."

"Dean?"

"No, David Strieter, the last guy Dean shot. It's just..."

"Spit it out, kid."

"It's nothing. There's just some serious contradictions in the information about him. Some say he was a pillar of the community and others say he was a crooked cop turned politician."

"That guy was a cop?"

"Um, yeah..." Sam's eyes returned to the computer for a moment. "Police chief. Seventeen years, recently retired…his money and the estate were from his family."

"Dean shot the former chief of police?"

Finally the true meaning of Bobby's question registered with Sam's tired mind. Everything Bobby had said about Dean sitting cozy in his jail cell couldn't be further from the truth. His brother wasn't only sitting bait for demons, but would be a target for the humans too. Sam shut down the computer and looked back to Bobby, a new urgency in his eyes.

"We've gotta get Dean out of there."

----

Henricksen couldn't believe that he'd been dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn just to listen to crazy people argue. He'd thought Dean was the king of crazy, but these psyche evaluators with their hypothetical mental analysis really took the cake. Sitting in the station's conference room, he tried to just focus on the taste of the cheap, bitter black coffee in his cup and keeping his mouth shut so they could hurry this along.

He couldn't wrap his mind around why the Winchesters' motivation even mattered. Criminal profiling could be a valuable investigative tool when used to catch the criminals, but once you had the criminals you dealt with the crime, not the fact that their mommy didn't love them. No one here was arguing that Dean Winchester wasn't off the wall nuts, they apparently just couldn't agree on how much of a whacko he was.

"Agent, we have reviewed the interrogation tapes," Fassler attempted to explain. "And we have all reached the same conclusion. That young man is clinically insane. He was not telling you odd stories just to try to throw you off from the case. There's no question that he honestly believes everything he was saying."

With a frustrated sigh, Henricksen set down his cup and glared at the gullible doctor. "You can't tell me someone that demented can't pull one over on a polygraph."

"I'm not talking about the polygraph results. I have been working in this field for thirty-five years and I have never encountered anyone, of any mental state, able to keep a story that long and convoluted straight. It was nearly six hours of straight interrogation. You and the others asked him every possible question, in every possible way, and he did not say one contradictory word."

"You've gotta be a total whack job to pull off what that guy has."

Fassler turned in her chair to fully face Henricksen, the determination set on her face. "He's delusional, paranoid – I could spend another six hours listing all the personality disorders he displays partial symptoms of, but it appears that his mental capacity is completely intact except for...."

"Except for that annoying little fact that he kills and tortures people for fun."

"None of us are ignoring what he has done nor are we justifying it, but I am telling you that is not the sociopath that you described. I honestly believe that he genuinely sees what he is doing as some kind of duty."

"That's fascinating, but I got a duty too," Henricksen shot back. "A duty to keep monsters like that away from innocent people. He's a complete psycho. What else do we need to know?"

"On the contrary, this is a mentally sound individual with an extremely distorted worldview. It's reasonable to assume from the background that we have on him that this is not a typical mental disorder, but rather something he was raised into."

Henricksen hit his hand down on the arm of his conference chair. "I don't care what sob story he's got! Those people aren't any less dead and their families don't care how bad this guy got mind screwed as a kid."

While Henricksen could see Dean for what he really was, somehow the guy kept managing to win over otherwise intelligent people. Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer and Dean Winchester. As unfortunate as it was that it had been necessary, the only thing saving the otherwise circumstantial case against the Winchesters was the last murders.

Without those verified murders, even with the full confessions, there were too many people like Fassler that would have quibbled over the weird odds and ends that followed the Winchesters around. While it had taken an ugly route to get there, this case was now as concrete as they came so he wasn't sure why any of these doctors were continuing to waste his time.

"This isn't about excuses," Fassler said. "This is about the legal system – the one you and I represent. I have already recommended to the judge that your request of transfer to Nevada be denied and have instead suggested that we proceed with a full psychological evaluation to be followed by a competency hearing."

"You want to run that by me again? Are you trying to get this freak off on insanity?"

"If legal council cannot assist him, which has been proven to be the case, there is no way that you will be able to convince a judge that he is competent to proceed with a trial even for an insanity defense."

"Then I'll find someone to tell me he can."

"Face it, Henricksen, you show any other evaluator those interview tapes and they're going to tell you the exact same thing," Doctor Jones countered. "This man needs to be transferred to psychiatric hospital equipped to handle violent offenders."

Henricksen hadn't paid a lot of attention to Jones's introduction, but the man was in charge of one of the local crazy houses. Of course the doctor wanted Winchester, and the taxpayer dollars that came with him, sent there.

"No mental facility can hold him."

"We can legally hold him for up to four months, by which point we'll have to determine whether or not he'll ever be competent to stand trial," Jones replied.

"I mean physically. There's no way anything short of supermax is going to be able to contain him. This guy is scary good and he's insane. Just hook him up with some good anti psychotics and let's get this done."

"If I am correct about the cause of his mental state, medication is not going to fix him," Fassler countered. "That is why he may never be competent to stand trial. We will just have to wait and see."

"All we'll be waiting to see is how long it takes him to bust loose."

"It's simply not our call."

"Don't you all ever get tired of protecting the monsters?"

"I understand and share your frustration," Fassler assured him, "both for the recent victims and the fact that there was no one there to save that boy when there was still something to salvage."

"We're all trying to do the same thing here, Henricksen," Jones added. "And Doctor Fassler is right. Since any attempt to put Dean Winchester to trial would be overturned, the only legal option is to prove that he is too psychologically damaged for anything short of permanent housing. Otherwise he cannot be held in a mental facility against his will. Not indefinitely."

"So what? That's it?" Henricksen asked. "We ship his crazy ass off to some psyche ward?"

"If that is what the judge decides," Fassler confirmed. "Either way, I don't believe that we have anything else to discuss."

Henricksen couldn't agree more. The team of crack psychiatrists dispersed, leaving him stewing in the conference room. He took another sip from his coffee as he stood leaning back against the table. The door to the room opened and he expected to see his partner, but instead it was another one of the doctors. He just managed not to sneer.

"Good morning. You're Agent Henricksen?" the man asked.

"I am...who the hell are you?"

"I'm Doctor Wroten. I was wondering if I could comment on the case. We have a test facility that I think would be an exceptional resolution to the Winchester problem."

"You do?" Henricksen asked skeptically as he again set his coffee aside. He pushed himself away from the table to address Wroten. "This guy doesn't deserve a cozy bed in some psyche ward."

"Agent Henricksen, I do not believe you understand what is being suggested."

"Oh, I hope you'll enlighten me."

"With the exception of its location within the city, our hospital is in all meaningful respects an experimental supermax facility. We are in a special position to take some civil liberties regarding offenders of Dean Winchester's status. He has already proven himself to be a considerable enough danger to society that we can...make certain arrangements."

"You're kidding me, right? What clearance are you operating under?"

"This is no joke. We are a federal run facility. Fully accredited, I assure you. But I think our authorization to bypass certain portions of the traditional legal system might be of the greatest interest to you and your superiors."

Henricksen glanced around the otherwise empty room, still waiting for a punch line. The fact that this guy had snuck in after the others had left made it clear that he wasn't with them. Honestly Henricksen didn't know what to think about this guy that looked and sounded a bit too much like a used car salesman, but he couldn't deny that he liked the sound of what the man was offering.

"You can hold him indefinitely?" Henricksen asked after a moment of consideration.

"It won't be necessary, but yes."

"I got to make some calls. I'm going to need some serious authorization on this before I turn that thing over to anyone's custody. But if you check out, Dean Winchester is all yours."