CH2

He had come upstairs after Sam had fallen asleep again, some basic needs to be attended to that could no longer be ignored. When he'd finished, he wandered through to Bobby's main room, taking in the sight of the older hunter lying comatosed on the desk, books on Lucifer and angels strewn around him.

Bobby had been working hard on trying to figure out an exit strategy for both boys. Trying to find a magic get out of jail free card than probably didn't exist. It hadn't happened yet and Dean realised that the hunter was almost as broken now as Dean felt. He couldn't help but feel partly to blame as he looked at the chair that Bobby was confined to. Yet another consequence of his saying no to the angels. To Michael. How much more collateral damage would they suffer before he had no choice but to say yes and make all their suffering and their losses for nothing? He discovered that he didn't really want to know the answer to that.

Dean took a beer from the fridge and Bobby's notebook from the table. Sitting down on the old couch he tried to see if he could find something, anything that the older man might somehow have missed. Something dug into his back as he leaned into the seat and he turned, reaching into his jacket that was slung over the back, finding the Colt and pulling it from his pocket, discarding the weapon on the table and turning back to the notebook.

Bobby had been working on Michael's little revelation of the Winchester bloodline and suddenly something started to nag at Dean, the thought forming as he looked up and studied the Colt again. A plan starting to form in his mind, not a good plan but still, beggars and all that. He reached for his phone and called Castiel. He had found the person that Dean needed to speak to once, perhaps he'd be able to do it again.

----

Twenty minutes later Dean had his directions and he was in the Impala heading towards something that was neither fate nor destiny but if it worked would end just as badly for him.

He found he didn't really care, so maybe the horseman had been right.

Maybe he was already dead inside.

---

"You want to do what?" The man looked at him, eyes wide, and Dean knew that he was waiting for some kind of punch line that he wasn't going to get. "You're serious about this? This is your plan for saving your brother and stopping the apocalypse?"

"Yes. Are you going to help me or not? Or perhaps you've got a better plan? Oh wait, I tried your plan. It didn't work." Dean crossed his arms and waited.

"You would really do this for your brother, knowing what you know, what it would be like for you?"

Dean shrugged. "Well at least this time, I'd really know what I'd be letting myself in for. Besides, what can they do to me that they haven't already done?"

The demon walked round the edge of the crossroads, pulling his coat tighter to him as he did, studying the man before him with interested eyes. "Did they take you down to the room?"

"The room?" Flashes of white crossed behind Dean's eyes and the sound of his own screams replayed in his head. He breathed deeply and pushed the memories away.

"Yes. The white room."

"Yes." The room was were they had finally broken him, it's inhabitants too talented for even the taste of many of the demons or to be allowed to roam free into the general population of hell.

The room was where they sent the ones they couldn't break. The room was were Alastair kept his best and his brightest. It was were Dean himself had been getting groomed to work in, his own potential talent brought forth by his spell there as a guest.

"How long were you there before they broke you? A day? A week?"

"Two months." Dean tried to force down the nightmares that where begging for release, he needed to concentrate on the plan and forget about the consequences.

"That's…..wow." Admiration now shone in the eyes that bore into Dean's soul. "Maybe you're not such a moron after all. So you've been to hell? You've been in the room? And yet you are going to risk getting stuck back there, back in that room? Are you sure about this? I mean, after throwing this little stunt and what your brother did to Alastair, it won't be a visit to it you'll be paying. You won't be getting to work in there either. In fact, they'll probably throw you in there and toss the key."

Dean shuddered at the though but smiled at the man. "It won't matter, if I get what I want out of this, none of it will matter."

"Fine." Crowley smiled at him. "It's your funeral. When do you want to do this?"

"As soon as you can put it together." Dean knew that his nerve might only hold so long.

"Tomorrow. At midnight. So," Crowley stepped forward and moved into Dean's space, putting a hand behind his head and pulling him close, "do we have a deal?"

"Will all my conditions be met and no screwing around with them?"

"My word is my bond."

"That what I'm afraid of. Do I have to seal it this way?" Dean rolled his eyes as the crossroads demon nodded.

"Deal." He felt the brief pressure of the other man's lips on his and then he was alone, standing at the crossroads, hoping that destiny this time couldn't twist this sacrifice as it had the last one.

TBC