Episode Eight
"Sanguis Sanctus, part II"
Chapter Four

"Fuck," Dean breathed. The late afternoon light slanted orange through the room, low-angled enough to throw everything into sharp shadow.

The mass of black in the middle of the room had been a cot, overturned, and two bodies lay there, a mess of limbs and god the blood. Instinct dropped him to Sam's side. Sam was mostly on his stomach, twisted partway, Dean followed the long line of his body to find his ankles both cuffed in leather to either side of one end of the overturned cot, one leg pulled up and back, twisted. Sam's bare foot twitched.

"Fuck." He had Sam's bony ankle unbuckled in seconds. The dark shadow of bruising he could see in the poor light made him see red, but he managed to keep it under wraps long enough to set Sam's leg onto the ground, gentle, slow, because Sam groaned with the movement. Dean unbuckled his other ankle, then crawled back up Sam's body, nudged Sam's shoulder and he rolled to his back where he blinked, unseeing, turned his face away from Dean. Fuck, Sammy.

But Dean couldn't see - he patted over Sam's neck, chest, he just couldn't see where all the blood was coming from. He twisted to inspect the other body, a nice gaping stab wound in the other guy would do a lot to ease his mind, but when he pushed on the guy, it overtipped a bowl under his head, a bowl of red, thick red over his face and up the edges of the porcelain, a bowl he recognized from the church tent thing. He tilted his head at it, at the spreading red leeching into the thin carpet, at the strangeness, but no, the guy wasn't bleeding, it had to have been Sam's blood, and Dean turned back as Sam groaned again.

"Shh, shh, I'm here, it's okay Sammy-" He put his hands on Sam's shoulders to keep him still. "Just gonna see where all this blood is coming from, okay?" He took Sam by the chin, brief flash of two weeks ago, taking this kid by the chin when he was about to tear out his stitches, and the look on Sam's face about it -

Sam twisted away from him, feeble but desperate, twisted and pressed his lips together and Jesus what the fuck was going on here?

"Come on, Sammy. Look at me."

Sam kept his head turned. He trembled with the effort, Dean could have forced him easily. That was messed up all by itself. Dean slipped his hand from Sam's chin up his jawline, into his hair, just patted his cheek there, smear of his thumb through Sam's blood there. "Come on, little brother. It's me, it's Dean."

"No, no," he mouthed. But the fight seemed to have gone out of him.

Dean tilted his face toward him. There was blood on his mouth. Dean closed his eyes. Blood on his mouth. Exorcisms only Sam could do, only on demon blood. He glanced over at the dead whatever-it-was on the floor - the ornamental church bowl, no injuries that could have resulted in that much blood loss. And on the overturned cot, leather straps at wrist and ankle level. For completeness, he scanned down to the wrist closest to him, yes deep purple bruises, healing pink wounds where Sam must have fought, and further up his arm - Dean thought he might be sick.

He set about removing the pinched off tubing, the needle in Sam's arm, mechanical, anger shut away for now, because otherwise - Sam hissed and shifted and it bled, fuck, fuck.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, it's me."

Sam chuckled, dark. "Sure." He watched Dean warily as he worked, as he tore a strip from his tee shirt and made a quick wrap over the bead of blood in Sam's elbow, as he ran his fingers down Sam's torso looking for other injuries, as he cursed at the bleeding knife wound in Sam's side. Sam didn't react at the touch except a brief flutter of eyelashes, and he refocused on something off to his left. Dean looked into the space, behind the cot he thought, but there was nothing, there was nothing there.

"Okay kiddo. Your thumb's dislocated. I'm gonna fix it."

Sam nodded.

"On three. One—" Sam seized up as the joint pushed back into place, turned his face toward the carpet as he curled in on himself.

"Sam?"

"Jerk." Sam closed his eyes, swallowed. "I'm in trouble, Dean," he breathed. "I'm in trouble."

"I know. It's okay, kid. I gotcha."

Sam flailed a hand upward, into Dean's chest, eyes just barely open. His breath came quick. "Please don't leave."

Dean gave him a look. "I'm not goin' anywhere."

"-don't leave me there- Dean," he breathed, repeated it, don't leave me there, Dean please-

There was a crash downstairs, Cas yelling Dean! and Sam tensed.

Fuck. Hadn't he just promised he wouldn't leave-

Sam stared at him, eyes wide, grip in his shirt weak. A shriek from downstairs, and Sam's brows lowered.

"Constance. Constance. She-" He looked at his own wrist, like he'd just realized he was free. He was coming around, he was coming back, thank god, thank god, or whoever. "She helped me. She loosened - Dean, you have to protect her."

"She kept you captive, I don't even want to know-"

"She helped me. Please."

"Cas can handle it," Dean said. "I ain't leaving you."

Sam closed his eyes, that brat little smile, like he knew Dean was hunkering down to keep an asinine promise. He shook his head, opened his mouth to argue-

"What? We killed queen bitch, so-"

Sam frowned. "The shapeshifter?" Dean nodded. Sam shook his head again, more deliberately, put a hand down to try to get up against Dean's hand easing him back to the floor. "She's a fenix, she's a fenix, Dean-"

Dean dropped his head back, exaggerated annoyance. "Fuck. Okay." Dean needed copper, like yesterday. Copper and the fucking reversing ritual- "You don't happen to know the incantation, do you?"

Sam dropped his head to the floor. Little smile, little nod. "I've been rehearsing it for two weeks, wishing I could use it," he said.

"Okay then," Dean grinned. "Looks like I'm bringin' her to you."

Dean was gone again. Orange light filtered through the dust. He was on the floor, he realized. On the floor and he could move. There was the cot he'd been strapped to for... how long how long, tipped over. Everything hurt. His thumb ached. He flexed his hand, something pulled. He should have starved to death. The blood kept him alive, just kept keeping him alive in spite of everything. That's right. He remembered.

But he couldn't latch onto a thread, he couldn't keep hold of - Frederick had dosed him, and had drunk, and now he felt the burn in his side, the tacky blood on his shirt. Sharp ache in his ribs, face on fire, sticky to the touch. Things were broken. Things were broken. His parts spread all over the floor. On fire, keyed up, unattached to the earth. Unkept. Unmade.

If it had really been Dean, Dean would have wiped his face, dressed his side, taken him home. Or at least killed him by now.

But there was no Dean.

It's okay. I'm here.

Lucifer brushed stray hair from his forehead, upside down looked at him, gentle in his face, light was his name, ice his touch, murmured down to him where Sam laid with his head in Lucifer's lap.

I won't leave you, not ever.

"Not real."

This? No. Lucifer gestured outward. Course not. Dreamed this up yourself. Heroic rescue and all. You really have some kinda hero-worship thing going on with that brother, don't you.

Sam closed his eyes, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe. He was free, wasn't he? Arms and legs and next to him the dead body of Frederick. Breathe, breathe -

Breathe, Sam. Dean is counting on you.

Sam opened his eyes to look at Lucifer. "Make up your mind," he said. His voice felt like he hadn't used it in years, or he'd just been screaming for years, or he'd never said anything without the scrape of pain in it.

Gotta have hope, Sam. Remember the first obligation of a prisoner.

Sam nodded. Yeah, he got it. Can't torment someone who's dead. But he couldn't move, he couldn't, the bitten shredded hole in his side ached deep into his bones, Frederick had gotten to his marrow, he was sure of it, the ungentle pull of him into the monster's mouth-

Sam rolled to his other side, curled in, but it was just a brief moment to collect himself.

If Dean wasn't here, if he'd just dreamed all this up, then whatever he did next didn't matter. But if Dean was here, he needed to do his part. He needed a mirror. He needed tainted water. And he needed to stay awake.

Frederick had a mirror. He'd been planning to kill her.

Sam eyed the bowl with his own blood in it warily, but it was the only vessel he could reach. When it was clean, he poured the contents of one of the water bottles Constance kept under his cot into it. Ritually tainted water required fresh blood, three drops. Sam took a deep breath.

Dean raced down the stairs toward Cas' panicked voice - kind of panicked, he was still getting the hang of his shiny new human emotional parts, so it came out a bit like he was overly concerned about being constipated. When he found them, Cas had his angel blade out, facing off against not-Sam, who had apparently decided Sam's size and strength was pretty useful.

The sight of Cas threatening even fake-Sammy was too terrible. Dean launched himself from the staircase onto fake-Sam's back, bony shoulders digging into his chest, but he still had a bit of bulk, he still had size on his side, and of course, he wasn't him at all, he was this fenix bitch, complete with strength of her own, and speed and claws. She reached backward for Dean, four long lines of agony up his side where she'd caught him. She shook him off and he fell to the floor, breath knocked out of him, fire up his back, fuck-

And then Constance was at his side. Blood covered her face, over one eye, a long tear across it, down her face and neck, crossing that pink scar which disappeared under her shirt, and she tried to help him up.

The fenix whirled to face Cas, Cas distracted by Dean, and she swiped the angel blade from his hand. She was backing him up against the stack of boxes.

"He is my king," she said, in Sam's low breathy voice, that earnestness that Sam wore like a mantle. She was sincere about it, the way Sam was sincere about everything. "You can't take him from me. I want to-" She turned to include Dean. She thought she could persuade them. "I want to give him everything. You - you barely even like him! I love him-"

"I've seen your love, lady," Dean said. "Believe me, Sam isn't that kinky."

"He didn't cooperate. That doesn't mean I don't love him."

White hot rage, Dean shifted it to simmer, just a hunt, no room for a personal vendetta when Sam was upstairs passed out in his own blood, nevermind that she thought Dean didn't like Sam, nevermind nevermind, she had worse to answer for- "You're lucky he's still alive," he ground out, backing toward the stairs. Come on. Come after the big game, lady. There's a mirror with your name written all over it upstairs. "Or this would be about a hundred times messier-"

"Like you can beat me," she said, husky the way Sam got when he got all high horsey, amped up in battle the way he did sometimes, shoulders and chest heaving, the way that made Dean swell with pride because Sam was in, Sam was backing him up. But just now, it took everything he had not to leap at her again and throttle her for daring to use Sam's likeness that way. She turned toward him, zeroed in on him.

"Oh I'll do a lot worse. But first I think you should know the truth." He backed toward the stairs again, cautious. Behind her, Cas was getting the girl to her feet and moving her away. "I just had a little chat with your boy in there. Turns out, he hates every single one of you. He never would have helped you of his own free will and I think you know it. Know why?"

The set of not-Sam's shoulders went rigid, Sam in hunter mode, prowling toward Dean with his head lowered, watching, lip curled up as he tried to rein in his anger, it came rolling off in waves.

"It's because you disgust him. Come on, you're a shapeshifter. You gotta be able to read him well enough to know that."

"He would have come around." She stalked toward him, tense, ready. "Once we gave him a kingdom worth reigning over. God-king, that boy. Ushering souls to hell himself, so many he'd be able to take over hell too. It's his destiny-"

"Oh." Dean laughed. "Now that's funny. Haven't done your homework, have you?" he said, stepping up the stairs. "Me and Sam? We screw destiny as a hobby. And you? You're small potatoes. You're just a half-rate mongrel shapeshifter. Now if you'll excuse me-"

He turned and ran up the stairs, beating feet. The red-faced fenix started after him a moment later, hopefully caught up in confusion long enough that Dean had some seconds on her. She was fast, faster than Dean, but he tossed some of the disintegrating storage boxes into her path from the second floor lobby, and again from the third floor, and got back to Sam while she was shrieking about the obstacles in the stairwell. She'd be good and mad.

Sam was where Dean had left him, shifted now onto his side with a small mirror in his hand. The bowl with his blood - oh my fucking - had been cleaned, red-soaked cloth from the dead monster's shirt tossed nearby, red red red spreading all around. Sam had filled the bowl with fresh water from a crumpled water bottle, a couple drops of deep red bleeding into pink in the center. Sam's fingertips were red, the wound in his side had started to bleed freely again. They'd have to deal with that in a minute. For now, Dean thrust his hands into the ritually tainted water.

"Sanguis sanctus," Sam mumbled. His eyes hadn't even been open, but somehow he knew Dean was there and needed him. The pink-tinged water over his hands didn't change, but it would work, it would work because it had to god damn it.

Dean pulled his hands from the water just in time for the fenix to appear in the doorway. She launched herself onto him, Sam-ish bulk latched onto his back and threatening to take him down, but he reached up and back and got his freshly sanctified hands on her and she went frozen. Dean pivoted and turned her over his shoulder. As long as his wet hands were on her, she was more or less helpless and she came down with all the weight Sam would have, but graceless, a thump on the thin-carpeted flooring.

Sam turned the mirror feebly, eyes open to slits as he watched. He tried to face the glass toward her, and Dean dragged her to meet Sam halfway, held her down.

"Hit it, Sam," he growled low.

The fenix's hands scrabbled at the carpet, claws digging in but weakly as Sam mumbled under his breath, latin sounding Dean thought, he never could remember it, they hadn't fought a fenix in ages, but of course Sam hadn't forgotten. Her form under him shrank, slow but sure, until she was a slim woman, slimmer than human, all muscle with feline features, and a bright bright tail flashing in the afternoon sun, soft bristle-

"Copper, Dean," Sam complained.

"I got it, god. Like you don't know how awesome I am or something." Dean pulled his blade from his thigh sheath. Sam frowned at it, doubtful. "Just watch." Dean sliced through the base of the tail, the fenix shrieked and went limp. Dean held up the blade. Two copper wires ran the length of the flat, up either side of the blade. "Copper through the wound, should do just as good as a copper blade, right? It's cool, you can applaud me," he said, tossing the tail and shoving the body away from Sam.

Sam was still muttering under his breath, but he didn't look like a whiny child anymore, his eyes had closed to slits again and he was unfocused. Dean put his hand on Sam's shoulder to shake him awake, gently okay, but still, he needed to stay conscious. As soon as he touched him, though, Sam gasped in a breath-

"I didn't, Dean, I didn't-"

"Calm down, little brother," Dean said.

"I knew you'd come..."

"Course I came. Okay, come on. Can you sit up?"

Sam nodded, but he didn't move. Kid was beat to hell, but Dean already knew that. He pulled out his phone, speed dial 4 -

"Crowley. Warehouse, now, back stairwell, third floor in the back. I want you here ten minutes ago."

Sam was talking again, softly. Not to Dean, to someone else.

Right. Fuck. Great timing, Satan.

"Eyes on me, Sammy," Dean said softly. He put his hand on Sam's hip, gave it a little shake. Sam's eyes squeezed shut. "Easy, you're okay. We're gonna get some drugs in ya, put you in your own bed." Footsteps pounded up the stairs toward them. "You'll be resting easy before you know it."

"No. No." Sam opened his eyes, caught his breath, steeled himself, put himself away. Dean recognized him doing it even in a tangled bloody mess on the floor. He looked up at Crowley. "Dungeon. Dungeon, now."

"What?"

"Dean. Please." Sam wouldn't meet Dean's eye.

"No-"

"You have to."

"Sam, if you're worried about - I mean, you don't want it, so you just won't drink it, right?"

Sam laughed, broken hopeless echoing. "It's more complicated than that." He closed his eyes, laid his head down onto the rough carpet. "I can feel it." He could have been moments from sleep, how quiet he was. "You don't know, you don't know, what this is like. The power - But I couldn't even - there's no winning, Dean, there's no winning for me, I can't I can't-"

"Okay, settle down." Dean shifted to block Sam from Cas and Crowley's view. Sam was out of his head, he didn't need them seeing... whatever the fuck this was. He patted Sam on the neck, rapid heartbeat there. "We'll figure it out, Sam. This isn't your fault. Do you hear me? It's not your fault. And we'll get through this together."

"No. Dungeon. Now."

Dean sat at the bar in town, nursing a beer. His back burned where the fenix had torn into him. The only person back at the bunker who was any good at giving stitches was currently passed right the fuck out.

Which was a good thing. But still.

His phone buzzed. He knew who it was before even looking, answered it. "What."

"Careful, I'm gonna think you don't like taking my calls."

"Cut the cute, sweetheart, and tell me what you want."

Abaddon laughed. "No thanks for putting you on the right path to Sammy? I'm hurt. But I can see you're having a rough day. So fine, let's get down to business. You met a girl yesterday who tried to help Sam-"

"No dice. I don't know where she is now."

"Oh, that's lucky. I do. I'll text you the address. Leave the heart somewhere I'll see it."

"She helped Sam. He'd never forgive me-"

"You're going to put your need for forgiveness over his safety? Some Righteous Man-"

"Would everyone stop calling me that!"

The bar around him went quiet. Dean resettled himself, turned to try to escape the stares. "Look, fine. Whatever. You want me to throw myself on this pyre and I get it. You're gonna keep playing the keep Sammy safe card, and I'm gonna keep fallin' for it. But let's not do this song and dance anymore, okay? Just text me the addresses and I'll leave you the hearts, and we can stop bantering."

The line was quiet. Then: "As you like it. I'll be in touch."