Idea…so what would have happened if Osiris had taken Dean's tongue in episode 'Defending your Life' From Season 7.

Supernatural does not belong to me, although I wish it did. I am simply playing Kirpke's sandbox for a bit. All rights and ownership are the property of Kripke and the CW network. I am not making any money from this; it is for my own personal pleasure.

Please Review: They help shape the story. I do not have a Beta, all mistakes are mine...and unintentional.

This chapter contains graphic imagery throughout, to include hell!torture. Don't like...don't read. Could have a slightly AU feel to it, if you squint.

Not Slash. Rating may need to be upgraded to M in reflection the graphic nature of this chapter.

Chapter 11

Freaking DreamRoot

Sam waited for them to wake up, he had been able to get them out of Dean's head before. When that crazy college kid had trapped them there…but it wasn't working this time. No matter how much he concentrated they were still sitting in the dusty valley with the intense heat boiling around them.

Sam watched sympathetically as Dean rolled his eyes back into his head, he was trying to focus around the pain. Sam's eyes flitted around the area; while he couldn't see any immediate dangers…he wanted to get the hell out of this place. Neither of them was in a position to defend themselves, he could see the massive gates in the background, but he'd also caught the worry filled green eyes of his brother when he realized that Sam was still listening to Lucifer. This wasn't the place for that…Sam knew that…but it wasn't like he could control the son of bitch. He pulled off his outer shirt and laid it gently over his shaking brother's form. Dean's eyes flickered up to meet Sam's concerned gaze. His arm snaking out from beneath Sam's large checkered shirt and pulling it closer to himself; Dean's hands would barely close over the material, the hole in his wrist making it nearly impossible for his nerves to work properly. "Thanks…S'my…" he managed around the swelling in his lips.

Sam squeezed his eyes shut in total and utter frustration, he had told his brother that he was going to get him out of here…but he had absolutely no idea how. This was, after all, Dean's head…and yes…Sam had taken the dream-root, but he was at a complete loss as to how to initiate an escape. Sam was also a little concerned about Lucifer's interference in any plan that he came up with. He was leaning over and watching Dean's shallow breathing as he listened worriedly to the slight wheeze in his brother's lungs.

"Dean?" Sam asked as he gently touched his brother's shoulder, careful to avoid the burned and blistered skin. The light sheen of sweat was causing the red dust to stick to Dean's skin and as it mixed and mingled with the blood it made his brother look even worse in the dim light.

Dean's head tilted slightly toward him as his eyes slid open a crack, they were slightly unfocused and rolled around until the connected with Sam's concerned blue-green gaze, "Yeah?"

"How are you feeling? I mean…I…I know it's a stupid question…but we are going to have to move soon….you think you can?" Sam finished quickly. He hated that he was baiting his brother, but it wasn't like they could stay here on this ledge, they needed to get back through the gate. He was figuring that that might be the only way out of this place.

A voice that only Sam could hear spoke up, "Good guess there Sammy-boy…go ahead, get your brother up and walking….oh that's right. He has holes through his legs…" the voice drifted off on the wind and Sam shook his head to clear his thoughts. Dean watched the entire thing, his concern for his little brother growing the longer he watched the far off look in Sam's unfocused eyes.

Dean's eyebrow's rose slightly as he looked at Sam with such an intense sadness that Sam was momentarily stunned. He knew that Dean had beaten the odds…that he finally understood and had accepted what their father had done for him. But he didn't seem to be getting any better, so what the hell was going on with his older brother? Sam repositioned himself so that he was sitting cross-legged in front of Dean, his hands resting gently on the damaged man's side.

"I know…it hurts…Dean. But we have to get out of here." Sam said as he tilted his head. A sudden cracking noise from behind him and Dean's sharply inhaled breath gave Sam just enough warning to spin quickly and take in the sight of the biggest wall of red dusty clouds moving toward them quickly that he had ever seen. Lightning flashed within the cloud and the thundering sound of the intense winds that swirled and undulated within it as it rolled along were nearly deafening. Sam's eyes slammed back into Dean's confused face and he reached down trying desperately to get his brother's beaten and broken body on his feet. They had to get out of this hell-realm…or at least get past the iron gates…NOW!

Dean's cry of pain as Sam's hands closed around his mid-section and pulled him unceremoniously to his feet made Sam cringing internally, but he schooled his expression to one of neutrality and pulled anyways. Dean's legs nearly buckled as the weight of his body settled onto his injured legs and ankles, "Guh…Sam…stop...I…ca…can't…" he managed as his knees gave out and he started to fall forward. Sam's grasping finger's grabbing painfully onto his arms and hauling him upright once again. The naked hurt and pain that was shooting out of Dean's eyes as he turned agonized green iris's on Sam…made Sam want to die. He hated that he was hurting his brother, but he had to save them…and that meant moving.

"You have to move Dean!" Sam yelled over the rising winds…the boiling heat that was moving just ahead of that cloud of red was like opening an oven and sticking his head inside. "Dean!" Sam cried again, as he thrust his brother's arm over his shoulders and tried to ignore the whimpers of pain, though bitten off, were still escaping his older brother's damaged lips as he hauled them toward the twisted gate. Somehow Dean managed to take some of his own body weight and shuffled his bloody feet over the razor sharp shards of the rocky ground. Dean didn't notice that the rocks were cutting the soles of his feet to ribbons; he was already in so much pain that the addition of more simply no longer registered in his brain. But Sam did and it was shattering him a little more inside as he saw the bloody trail left in their wake as they moved forward.

The pair managed to stumble the final few steps to the gate as Sam suddenly realized that he didn't have the damn key. It was still twisted into the lock on the other side, "FUCK!" he screeched into the rapidly strengthening wind. Dean turned agonized eyes up at Sam, his body slumping forward as the last of his strength seeped from his muscles and he slid bonelessly to the ground. "Dean!" Sam yelled as his eyes flickered rapidly from the storm to the gate to his unconscious brother lying in a bloody heap at his feet. "NO DEAN!" he cried as he surged to his feet and looked at the quickly shifting iron of the gate, it was twisting in and around and back on itself…like a snake or a worm dying on the hot sidewalk. He watched it for a fraction of a second and then thrust his arm through the instantaneous opening that came out of nowhere as the gate shifted. His fingers closed around the smooth metal of the key and he shifted his shoulder out, pulling the key from the lock and back through the opening. Sam sighed at this one bit of good luck and turned to look at Dean's prone form, he narrowed his eyes and grabbed for his brother, pulling him up and into a fireman's carry. At this particular moment he was extremely grateful that Dean wasn't conscious…because this would hurt like hell.

He turned to the gate and watched as the lock on this side melded and twisted just as it had on the other side. Sam pushed the key into the lock as soon as it uncovered itself and then he twisted the shiny metal key and stepped back as the gate again pulled apart in a twisting mass of iron. The winds were now so strong that they were pulling the air from his lungs and Sam could feel his face burning with the heat and the small bites of pain as debris from inside of the storm rained down on their bodies. His fear ramped up as he realized that Dean's already injured form was taking a lot of the abuse since he was draped over Sam's shoulders. Even unconscious Dean was managing to protect his little brother. Sam scrambled for the gate and twisted his body to the side as he squeezed through the narrow opening, he was careful of Dean's head and feet as he cleared the black iron.

Instantly the winds died and he could hear the howl of fury from the other side. It sounded almost human…as though something had failed and was raging against the loss. The hospital was empty…there were no doctors or nurses…there weren't even any medical supplies. Sam shifted Dean's body and continued to walk toward the room where their father had been assigned. When he'd been here earlier he could have sworn that he'd seen scrubs and even a bed in that room…if he could get Dean there he could at least try and clean his brother up.

"Seriously Sam…he's seen better days." Lucifer's voice interrupted Sam's plan and caused him to whirl around and glare at the shorter man. Lucifer held up his hands in a gesture of innocence…it looked so wrong on the fallen angel that Sam snorted derisively and rolled his eyes. "What?" the blonde man asked as he just stood with his arms folded and simply watched Sam.

"What are you doing here? Dean beat the tests…he past the trials. Now let us the hell out of here!" Sam's voice was rising as he stared angrily at the other man, his brother's blood was now slipping down his shoulders and between the muscles on his back the longer he held him.

"Well…yeah…he did. But you see, when you entered the 'trial'" he air quoted the word 'trial' as he continued to speak. "Sam, you changed the rules." Lucifer's head tilted to the side and he smiled at Sam. "You took the dream-root Sam…which means that you control this world…and I control you." He shrugged his shoulders and started picking at his finger nails as though he was peeling something off them.

Sam's mouth shot open to deny the words…but he remembered that he had been able to reach through the gate; he had been able to get Dean off the rack…Oh my God… Things he couldn't have done if he hadn't had some control over the world they currently found themselves in. His eyes dropped to the floor in denial. He'd inadvertently given Osiris a way to keep Dean here, whether or not Dean accepted the deaths. Sam's interference had given a power to the God that he hadn't had before. "That's a lie…" he whispered, desperate to convince himself.

"You know it's not Sam." The angel said calmly as he inhaled and then jumped up so he was sitting on the empty nurse's counter. "But…if you play this game with me, if you can beat my little game…I'll let you take control and then you can get yourself and your brother out of this place." He grinned. "Tick, tock, tick, tock Sammy…Dean doesn't have too much time left…now that he's out of the hell-realm, those injuries can kill him the same as they would in the real world."

"Screw you! I'm not playing." Sam yelled at the man...who simply looked at Sam with that same infuriating grin on his face.

"Yes you will." Lucifer dropped the smile and narrowed his blue eyes at the younger Winchester. "You will play Sam…because that's the only way you're getting Dean out of this place…"

Sam's eyebrows rose at the revelation and he felt his brother's stuttering breaths as he continued to hold him. A quiet moan from Dean alerted Sam that he was coming around and that as soon as he was conscious he was going to be in massive amounts of pain…and apparently dying. Sam turned away from the smirking face of the angel and walked to the end of the corridor, where he knew the room he was seeking was located.

"Hurry Sam. Make a choice…he's running out of time." The voice chased him down the hallway as he moved away from the angel.

He gently lowered his brother onto the white sheets of the hospital bed, Dean's head lolling against his shoulders as he carefully laid him back. The shirt that had been covering his brother slid to the floor and Sam was helpless to look away as the sight of Dean's naked body left nothing to the imagination as far as the severity of the injuries were concerned. The one part of Dean's body that wasn't injured was the damn scar on his right shoulder...the one of Castiel's hand, when he had pulled Dean from hell nearly 3 years ago. Sam felt the bile rise in his throat as he turned from the bloody wreck of a human body that was his older brother. He leaned against the door jam and waited for the nausea to pass.

"S'm?" Dean's gravelly voice called quietly from behind him. Sam spun around and locked eyes with the eldest Winchester. Dean's eyes were glassy and the pupils were blown out with pain as he gritted his teeth and looked at Sam. Sam could see what his brother was doing and it simply increased his guilty conscience…he was searching Sam's body for injuries… He was lying in a hospital bed after being tortured and he was searching Sam for blood.

"I'm fine Dean…you're the one that's hurt." Sam muttered as he reached out to pull the sheets up over his brother's naked flesh, no longer able to ignore his brother's nudity or the seeping wounds.

"Su'r?" Dean asked again as his head fell back into the pillow and his shaking hand reached for Sam's dangling fingers. Sam tangled his fingers with his brothers, seeking comfort and confirmation that Dean was really in front of him. Sam was starting to question what he was seeing, just as he had in that warehouse when Lucifer had lured him away from Bobby's place and Dean had come for him…because Dean always came for him. That was one thing where he and his older brother really differed...Dean always came after Sam and Sam seemed to have no problem walking away from Dean...guilt curled into his belly as he thought of all the times that he had walked away from his brother.

"Yeah Dean." He said and punctuated the answer with a soft squeeze of his brothers fingers. Sam was looking at Dean when he finally noticed that the holes in Dean's wrists and ankles were healed…he was still a mess from the whip and whatever else that son of a bitch had done to him. But the damaged from the rings on the rack were simply gone; Dean's wrists and ankles were once again whole. Sam didn't believe in a lot of things, but at that moment he was thanking every deity that they knew about for that one kindness. Sam grabbed the scrubs that he had seen from a cabinet in the room and turned back to Dean, who was watching him with a concerned and pained expression. "Here, we should get you some clothes."

Dean scowled at him as he looked at the white scrubs, "Not…my…color Sammy." He croaked out as he glared at the hospital garb. Sam knew that his brother had always hated the hospital scrubs, they meant that something had gone wrong…that was all that they represented to his older brother. It was a reminder that somehow Dean had failed…at least that was how Sam knew that that was how Dean had always perceived a hospital stay.

Sam snorted at the snarky remark. "It's all we have Dean."

XXXX

Dean looked at his little brother…really looked at him. His shoulders were slumped forward and his face was etched with weariness. Dean wanted to help Sam. He just didn't know how. The pain that was lancing through his body was second only to the pain that he could read on his little brother's face. He had promised Sam that he would fight for him…and he had every intention of keeping that promise. As he watched Sam move toward him, there was a sudden glimmer in the room and suddenly he was no longer staring at his brothers advancing form…he was staring at a rock wall. He was still lying in the hospital bed, the sheets were still pulled up over his wounded body…but his sasquatch of little brother was nowhere to be seen. "Sam!" He called with as much strength as he could manage.

A voice from the darkness answered him, but it wasn't Sam. "He can't hear you Dean." The man from the hell-realm stepped out into the dim light of the rock room. Suddenly Dean's memories came flooding back…all of them.

"Alistair…" Dean whispered as his eyes narrowed in hatred, the fury nearly vibrating through his system as he glared at the demon.

"Hi'ya Dean." The demon said as he leaned against the black lava rock that made up the walls of his room. "Surprised to see me?"

"Well, since you're dead…kinda…yeah." Dean said through clenched teeth, his hands forming fists beneath the white and red sheet; fury allowing his words to come more easily through the pain. His blood was soaking though the once crisp white cotton, the longer he lay on the bed without medical treatment was causing more of his blood to ooze from the wounds, changing the sheet from white to red.

"Did you really thing that death could stop something like me? Did you Dean?" the demon watched for a reaction from his favorite student and smiled when he merely groaned, the demon continued in a voice that was almost suggestive at the young man. "You're the one soul I would crawl up for Dean…"

Dean swallowed, trying to control the fear and rage that threatened to undo him as he stared at the human form of the master torturer. The man looked at his watch and then back at Dean, "You're brother has exactly six hours to find you Dean…or he leaves and you stay…forever."

Dean shook his head, his shoulders shaking in denial, "NO! I beat the trials…" the words were limp and held no conviction as he stared at the other man.

The smile slipped from the demon's lips and he flashed forward until his face was mere inches from Dean's as he leaned into the hunter. "Yes…you did." He twisted his head and his fingers came up and pressed into the burn hole in his left shoulder causing Dean to gasp at the unexpected spike in pain. "But we weren't done playing with you two yet. So now Sam has to beat Lucifer for you two to escape. Plus he still doesn't know about Amy, Dean…do you think that he will still come for you once he does?" Dean's breaths were coming in sharp pants as he gasped through the agony of the twisting and shifting fingers of the demon. "Lucifer has the dream-root now too Dean. Sam has to win this little game or he is just as trapped as you."

"No…." Dean breathed.

"Yes!" the demon screamed into his face. He then sat back and smiled at the man in the bed, "And there's no way for you to help him. He has to figure all this out for himself…to bad he's half-crazy right?"

"He's got more brains in one crazy cell than you have in your entire stolen body." Dean seethed. But the words were forced out of habit, not belief...and the demon knew that, he grinned at Dean and waved off the affirmation as though it were a merely trivial thing.

"We'll see."

And then Dean was alone. He was in complete darkness…he couldn't even see his hand in front of his face, which meant that he couldn't event try and fix any of his wounds. This room was the absolute absence of sound and light…it was like being blind and deaf…Dean had never known that absolute silence still had a sound. It was the sounds of his labored breathing and the blood rushing through his system frantically trying to keep him alive. Oh God…Sam is gonna know what I did…will he come after me? While Dean still felt that killing Amy had been the correct course of action, he wasn't sure that Sam would agree with his reason for doing it…because Sam couldn't. He layed back against the pillow, his mind wandering in an attempt to get away from the pain…if just for a little while. It was vibrating through his system in jolts of electricity and agony…he just needed a break…just for a minute.

TBC…

Author's Note: So like any story that I have written this one is taking on its own life. I just couldn't see Sam having complete control with Lucifer still rambling around in his skull. So this is where the story gets a little AU, because Sam is going to learn about Amy and then he will have to make a choice. Save Dean? Or hang onto his righteous anger. Not sure if they're done playing with Dean yet…or if Sam is going to get out this whole thing unscathed…more soon. Hope this isn't dragging on for you guys…thanks for reading. For anyone that is worried about whether or not Dean will be whole at any point…he will…promise. The next chapter is entitled 'My Brother…My Hero'…should give you an idea where this is headed.

Please Review: They are motivating me to write more and more for this little drabble.