Thank you so much Jenjoremy for working your beta magic on this chapter for me. Thanks also to Gredelina1 and SandraEngstrom2 for all your help.

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Chapter Seven

Sam was bent over, painting in the sigils to complete the devil's trap in front of Sonny's front door, when he felt someone come to stand behind him. He straightened and turned to find the kid who had a low opinion of Dean watching him.

"Why are you painting satanic symbols in front of the doors?" the kid asked.

Sam sighed. "Listen, kid…"

"Mitch," he corrected. "And not a kid."

"Okay, Mitch, there are some things in the world you don't want to know about. Why I am painting satanic symbols is one of them."

Mitch's eyes bugged for a moment before he took control of himself again. "So they are satanic?"

Sam laughed softly and shook his head. "No. They're for protection. See, Sonny has discovered Feng Shui and he wants to keep out bad energy. These symbols trap it and keep it out of the building. It's actually pretty cool when you think about it."

Mitch crossed his arms over his chest and gave Sam a skeptical look. "Sonny doesn't seem like the Feng Shui type to me."

"You'd be surprised. Dean doesn't seem like the Disney type either, but he still knows what Sleeping Beauty's Castle looks like."

"For real?"

"For real."

Mitch laughed, throwing back his head and filling the air with the free sound.

There were footsteps then and Sonny appeared around the door. He looked at Mitch laughing it to bust for a moment, smiling slightly, and then he said, "What's so funny?"

Mitch choked himself to calm and shook his head. "Nothing, Sonny." He looked at Sam, lips twitching.

"Then maybe it's time to get to your chores. I just sent out the others for veggies. How about you join them?"

Mitch nodded. "On it."

He raised a hand in farewell to them both and ambled away, Sam watched him go and then waited, sure Sonny was going to say something and resisting the urge to get away from the conversation by finishing the trap.

There was silence for a moment and then Sonny said, "I haven't heard Mitch laughing like that for a while. What did you say?"

"Just shared an embarrassing Dean fact."

"That'll do it." He smiled slightly. "You're good at that, you know?"

Sam glanced down at the unfinished sigil. "At painting?"

"No," Sonny said with a smile. "Making people happy."

Sam snorted. "Yeah, I'm a riot."

Sonny didn't know a thing about him. Sure, he'd made the kid laugh, but that was because he had made fun of Dean, and it was to cover his slip about the devil's trap. Though Mitch had gone away laughing, the question about the trap was going to come back to him and Sam doubted he'd believed the story Sam had given him. He had probably given the kid a few sleepless nights. He had screwed up again.

Sonny leaned against the wall beside Sam and crossed his arms over his chest. "Dean's happy."

"He's really not," Sam argued. "Believe me, there is nothing in the world for him to be happy about right now."

"And yet he is anyway."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "You think?"

"I know. I met Dean when he was sixteen. I've seen a lot of big moments in his life. I've seen him find his first love, I've seen him graduate high school and college. I've seen him start a job he worked his ass off for years to get. I saw all that and I saw the sadness in his eyes despite the huge smile on his face."

Sam thought he knew his brother well, but he had never seen any sadness in his eyes outside what you'd expect when a hunt went sour or Sam screwed up. He'd certainly not seen it combined with a smile. How could he have missed what Sonny apparently saw so clearly?

"You don't see it," Sonny stated, taking in Sam's puzzled expression.

Sam shook his head.

"That makes sense. You're one that made it go away."

Sam could think of nothing to say in return. He just looked down at the half-finished devil's trap and hoped Sonny would leave him to finish it. Unfortunately, Sonny didn't seem inclined to go yet.

"After your father died, Dean thought you had, too," he said.

"He told me," Sam said quietly.

"Yeah, I bet he didn't tell you what it did to him though, did he?"

Sam dragged his eyes up to meet the older man's gaze. "Not really."

Sonny nodded thoughtfully. "He showed up here half out of his mind with grief. He was so consumed by it that he wasn't even Dean. Everything he tried to do linked back to you, especially his work. Like it or not, you stayed a kid to Dean till the day he saw you again. So he would be talking with the kids he worked with, and suddenly they'd be you. It screwed him over. So he came here. He was so messed up, he actually felt guilty. It didn't matter that he had no chance since he hadn't seen you for years; he thought he should have protected you. There was nothing I could say to change it. He was convinced."

"Yeah," Sam said slowly. "I get that. Dean has a thing with misplaced guilt."

"And you don't?" Sonny asked.

Sam shrugged. "Mine isn't misplaced."

Sonny's mouth pressed into a thin line and then he shook his head, as if shaking something off. "He left me after a few weeks, and I didn't see him again for a while. I spoke to him in-between times. He called when he found you, after that disastrous first meeting, and then again after he saw you parked outside his house. He kept calling, and he seemed happier each time. Then he got himself hurt and he came to me, and I saw it was finally gone. That sadness in his eyes had vanished, leaving him as happy as I always knew he could be."

Sam thought back to how it had been those days after Dean was possessed. How they were just tentatively forging a relationship again, how scared Sam had been to let himself open up to Dean in case he lost him again. Things were still pretty messed up then. Had their tentative bond been enough to make Dean happy again? It must have been. Sam could think of no reason Sonny would lie to him.

Uncomfortable, Sam bent and finished the last sigils that made the devil's trap, trying to make the action an end to their conversation, but Sonny didn't take the hint. "Dean says this is down to you," he said.

Sam stiffened. "He said that?" Obviously it was down to Sam, but it was very unlike Dean to point it out.

"Yeah. Said you had the idea to come up and lay down all these symbols and stuff."

"Oh." He felt stupid. Dean had been talking about Sam's idea to check in and set Sonny up with some protection. That had been his idea. He wanted Sonny and his kids as safe as he could make them. "Yeah. There's some big stuff happening and we need to do what we can to protect ourselves. Actually, come with me."

He set down his paint can then stood and opened the door. Stepping carefully around the trap that was still drying, he led Sonny out to the Impala. He popped the trunk. Sonny looked confused when he saw the apparently empty space, but then his eyes widened as Sam lifted the false bottom and revealed the weapons trove.

"Wow."

Sam nodded. "You won't need all this—this is for hunting. For protection you'll need…" He sorted through the stash of weapons, looking for a silver flask he remembered John buying and discarding as being too girly. It would work fine for what Sonny needed it for though. He found it under a machete and pulled it out triumphantly. "Holy water. It repels demons. It's full, but I'll teach you the Latin to bless more. You'll need a rosary, too. Basically, if something comes at you with black eyes, you give them a face full of this. Keep it on you at all times."

"Okay, holy water. What else?" Sonny asked.

"Salt and iron. Demons don't like either. They can't cross a salt line."

So if demons come knocking…"

"You get yourself and the kids behind salt and call us," Sam said seriously. "We've got Castiel around now, so we can get here in a hurry if we need to. Whatever you do, you don't try to fight them."

Sonny nodded, his expression solemn. "That's what you think will come for us then?"

"If anything comes at all, we think it'll be a demon," Sam said. "And it's very unlikely anything even will. We're just covering all our bases."

"Okay. Thank you, Sam. I appreciate you doing this for us."

"You're Dean's family," Sam said, explanation and fact. They were Dean's family, and though Sam hated the necessity of their presence in Dean's life—if John hadn't left him, the relationship would never have formed—he was glad Dean had people who cared about him outside of their small Roadhouse family. He deserved that.

Sonny was staring into the trunk at the wealth of weapons, his brow furrowed. "This all yours or has this arsenal always been there?" Sonny asked.

"I've added to it," Sam said, "but it's always been like that, yeah. Like I said, it's for hunting."

Sonny shook his head. "Neither of you had even a chance at normal growing up, did you?"

Sam shrugged. "I had some form of normal when I was a kid. I never knew what was really in the world until I was eight. Dean and Dad tried to protect me from it." He didn't know why he was doing this, talking with Sonny like it was normal for them. He didn't even talk to Ellen about these things. There was something about the man though; as little as Sam liked it, he was important and he owed him for what he had done for Dean. Given what Sam had done to the world, he felt he owed every single person something that he didn't want to give.

"Sounds like Dean," Sonny said fondly. "He was always so good with the kids."

"I know," Sam said seriously. "And if I could make him go back to them, to his kids, I would do it in a heartbeat."

"Maybe one day. Life is long. Maybe the two of you can deal with whatever it is that has you here painting strange patterns and giving me holy water, and then you can both have a little normal."

"Yeah, maybe," Sam said. That ship had sailed for him a long time ago, but Dean still had a chance. That would be Sam's goal. They would deal with Lucifer. Find a way to end him, and then Dean would be free to choose without guilt. Save the world, free his brother. Sam's new mission.

They went from Sonny's place to Bobby's. The plan was to bulk up on as much knowledge on the horsemen as possible and Bobby had the hunting world's best library.

Sam would have hated the horsemen simply because of what they were, but Fort Wilcox had given both him and Dean a passionate abhorrence for them. Dean had been the one dealing with the traumatized dispossessed and Sam had been the one looking into the black eyes of the demonic welcoming party. And that had just been War. What would Lucifer do to welcome Death? He didn't know, but he knew he had to do everything he could to maybe find out.

"Sam, come eat," Dean said, his tone indicating it wasn't the first time he'd said the words.

Sam looked up. Bobby and Dean were sitting at the table in the kitchen with bowls of stew in front of them and a basket of bread in the middle beside a six-pack of beer. There was a third place set and it was that Dean was gesturing to. Sam had been so involved in what he was reading that he hadn't even noticed that Dean wasn't sitting beside him on the couch anymore. It wasn't the first time it had happened recently, him losing track of what was happening around him, and it was a little worrying. Sam was usually hyperaware of his surroundings. It bothered him that it had changed.

"Sam," Dean prompted.

Sam slid a piece of paper into the book he had been reading to mark his place and set it down on the table then pushed himself to his feet.

He felt the eyes of Dean and Bobby on him as he took his seat and picked up his spoon. "Thanks, Bobby," he murmured.

"Welcome," Bobby said gruffly. "Now get it down your neck."

They ate in companionable silence for a while and then Bobby and Dean fell into conversation about goings on at The Roadhouse. Bobby knew almost all of the hunters Sam and Dean did, and they talked about how they were all coming together for the apocalypse. No one knew Sam's part in it; the story was that Lilith had broken the last seal herself while Sam and Dean tried to stop her. Sam wasn't sure the secret would hold forever; it would only take a slip of the tongue from one person and Sam would be battling every hunter out there coming for his head.

He worried about that. He wasn't scared for himself as much as he was for Dean. If he was caught in the crossfire… Well, it seemed that neither of them would stay dead if they were killed, but that didn't mean Sam wanted Dean to test that theory again. In addition, death wasn't necessarily the worst thing for either of them, though Sam sometimes wondered whether it would be the worst thing if he was outed and punished by his fellow hunters. It wasn't that he was suicidal or wanted to be hurt; it was that he needed to have some consequences personally for what he had done. It might even ease the crushing guilt he felt, make it easier to look Dean and the other people he loved in the eye again.

It was the early hours of the morning and Sam couldn't sleep. He spent hours tossing and turning before he finally gave in and got out of bed. Dean stirred and opened bleary eyes. "Sam?"

"Bathroom," Sam lied.

"Kay." Dean rolled over and went back to sleep.

He grabbed a hoodie from his duffel and pulled it on. It had to be getting close to dawn now, and he thought he could watch the sunrise. He crept out of the room, along the hall and down the stairs, but came to a halt outside the library door. There was light creeping under the closed door and soft sounds of movement inside. He hesitated and then went in.

Bobby was sitting on his couch, a mug of coffee in hand and a book open on his lap. He looked up at Sam and there was no surprise in his face. "Can't sleep?" he asked.

Sam shook his head. "You either?"

"Nope. End of the world doesn't lend itself to restful a night's sleep. Dean still out?"

Sam nodded. "Didn't want to disturb him, so I thought I'd come down for a while."

"Pull up a seat."

"Actually, I think I'll just get some air."

Bobby pushed himself to his feet. "Good idea."

Sam bit back a sigh. He had wanted a little time alone to think. He couldn't do that with Bobby in his ear. Though perhaps that was for the best after all. He wasn't going to be thinking happy thoughts; it might be a relief to have a distraction from them.

Bobby surprised him though. When they got out, he took a seat beside Sam on the steps and stared out over the cars in silence.

The sky gradually lightened and Sam waited for the sun. It came in a rush of color, sweeping away the darkness of the sky.

As if it was permission for them to break their silence, Bobby said, "You know, you never did sleep well here when you were a kid."

Sam turned to look at him. "I didn't?" He remembered Bobby's house as a place of happiness and excitement, not insomnia.

"No. It used to take me forever to settle you down. You'd be so damn excited about whatever it was we were doing the next day that I'd spend half the evening sending you back to bed. You used to come downstairs chattering about an idea you'd had or something you wanted to do. It drove me mad."

"Sorry."

Bobby chuckled. "Don't apologize for being a kid, Sam"

"Sorry," Sam said again and they both laughed softly.

"You been saying that word a lot lately, haven't you," Bobby said.

"Not nearly enough. Though it's not like it's made a damn bit of difference."

"It doesn't even make you feel a little better?"

Sam shook his head. "It's just a word at the end of the day. Besides, there are some things that just can't be apologized away or forgiven. Like destroying the world."

Bobby sighed heavily. "You made a mistake, Sam. You thought you were saving us. We all did. Not a single one of us would have done anything different had we been in your position. You did nothing wrong."

Sam laughed hard. His stomach cramped and tears trickled down his cheeks, and still he laughed. He could feel Bobby's concerned gaze on him, but still he laughed. He wasn't sure of the moment the laughter became something else, something darker and more open, but as soon as he realized it, he forced himself to calm down. He was not going to cry there.

"What happened, Sam?" Bobby asked. "What aren't you boys telling us?"

Sam closed his eyes. Perhaps it would help. Perhaps it wouldn't. Bobby deserved the truth anyway, and Sam deserved his anger. Maybe when Bobby threw a punch he might feel a little better.

"Blood," he said. "What we're hiding is the blood."

"What about blood?"

Sam turned and looked him in the eye, seeing the disgust as the words left him. "I drank it."

"You did what?"

"Demon blood. I drank it." Sam drew a breath and rushed on. "When I was a baby, the night my mom died, Yellow-Eyes came into my nursery and bled into my mouth. He infected me with his blood. That's why I had visions and could do what I did to the demons. It was all because of the blood. And then, when Ruby was hanging around, I drank it again. It powered me up. Without it I could barely exorcise back then, but with it I could drag the demons out of their meat suits and send them back to the pit. Later, I could torture and kill them. It was all because of the blood."

Bobby looked horrified. "What the hell made you do that?"

"The deal. In the year before Dean went to Hell, I did everything I could to kick-start my powers. I thought if I could kill her, the deal would be off. It didn't work, you know that, but I didn't stop. When Dean was gone, I kept going with the blood, trying to make myself strong enough, dark enough to get him back. Then, when he came back, I stopped, but then…"—he shrugged—"Lilith kicked the seals into gear and I knew I had to end her. Once again, I went on the blood, and you know most of the rest. I killed Lilith and started the apocalypse."

Bobby stared at him expressionlessly. Sam squirmed. He waited for the punch, the blow that might even send him into merciful unconsciousness for a while.

"Why did you tell me this?" Bobby asked.

"I figure you deserve to know."

Bobby shook his head. "No. There's more to it than that, isn't there?"

Sam ducked his head. "I thought maybe you'd be the one to give me what I need."

"What do you need, Sam?"

"Blame. Dean and Cas know, but they won't give me what I need. Dean doesn't forgive, that's impossible, but he doesn't blame. He excuses what I did. Cas just doesn't talk about it. I need someone that will…"

"Punish you?"

"Yes," Sam said quietly.

"Then I'm not the one you need," Bobby said. "I hate what you did. I think it's the stupidest thing I ever heard, but you didn't do it for any reason other than to help others. You were trying to save Dean, and I'm grateful for that, and then you were trying to save the world."

"I killed a woman," Sam said quickly. "Before Lilith, to get the blood to power me, I had to drain a demon and drink it. The woman didn't stand a chance."

Bobby paled for a moment and then nodded. "That makes sense."

"Dammit!" Sam lurched to his feet and walked away. "What the hell! Why does everyone do this? Why are you all just wiping the slate? I have ended the world!"

"Not yet," Bobby said. "It's still going."

"Semantics," Sam spat.

"No. Living and ending are two different things, Sam. I can't give you what you want. I'm not the man you need. I can't punish you."

"Why not?" Sam asked dolefully.

"Because…" He smiled slightly. "Because, deep down, you're still the boy that wouldn't go to sleep. I'm sorry."

Sam turned and walked away toward the junk cars, tears welling in his eyes. He had once again been denied what he needed more than anything because someone else was stupid enough to care about him. He would walk away now, and come back when he was calm, and they would never speak of this conversation again. And he would search on to find someone who would punish him for what he had done; perhaps he'd even find someone that could hate him more than he hated himself.

So… I have been trying to rebuild a relationship between Sam and Bobby since Brothers In Arms and Sam resisted every step of the way. He's not the same man he once was now, though, and the he's cooperating a little more.

Until next time…

Clowns or Midgets xxx