Okay, it really would have been mean of me to leave y'all hanging on for another week for this so here it is. Hope you enjoy. My deepest thanks to everyone who takes a few moments to leave a review – it really does make the effort worthwhile, even when it's just a few words to let me know you're enjoying it [of course more is always welcome!]. I'll try to get chapter 6 up before season 6 starts here Stateside… at which point I fear you will all lose interest! Oy vey. :-O

Warnings Foul language, blasphemy, S5 spoilers

Repress, Deny

Sam knows all of the hiding places in the ramshackle old house, coming ready or not, Dean, hunts high and low, throws open closet doors, leaves footprints in the dust on the floors of rooms he doesn't even remember, pulls down the ladder that leads up to Bobby's attic and crawls around between boxes, piles of books, and bundles of old newspapers held together with string, coughs up his lungs and spits out cobwebs while horrified spiders run for their lives. And he knows at any moment his brother is going to erupt from behind something and dogpile him face first into the insulation until he cries uncle, so he's on his guard, keeps glancing behind him, waiting for Dean to pounce, but his brother is biding his time.

He takes the stairs back down three at a time, careers into the front door and adroitly pushes off it and along the hallway like Michael Phelps making a flip turn, crashes down the steps to the basement. He overturns furniture, checks the chest freezer because people can get trapped in those, tips out tea chests, rips through the panic room, checks under the beds in there, Hurricane Sam making landfall, and he's category fucking five and nothing can withstand his force. And he thinks he sees Dean looming up out of the shadows to give him a Texas wedgie, and he whirls, but there isn't anything there.

He crashes back up to the hall, out through the front door into the damp night, panting heavily every couple of minutes because he keeps forgetting to breathe. He sprints around back of the house to loose the dog because needs must, and if anything's going to scare his brother out of his hiding place it's the memory of Lilith's dogs, and the mutt races off into the blackness of the lot, barking joyously.

Flashlight, in the trunk of the car, and then he's jogging around in the dog's wake, shining the beam into the murk, into the cabins of smashed up cars, trucks, even vans, though he knows Dean would never hide in a van, I feel like a fuckin' soccer mom, only maybe he might just because he knows Sam won't expect him to, so he shines the light in those too. And he knows damn well that Dean is stalking him, that he's going to bushwack him from somewhere high up and tickle him until he's red faced and weeping from it, but his brother is waiting for the right moment to catch him totally unawares.

And finally, when he's looked everywhere he can think of where Dean might hide, Sam stands and hollers his brother's name into the night until his voice cracks and fades.

"You know, there's denial," Crowley says from behind him, "and then there's stark raving stupidity of the kind that totally misses the fact its own brother is—"

"Shut the fuck up," Sam grates out hoarsely. "It's a curse, we ran into a witch on the road here. And Dean isn't here to stop me from killing you."

"Well," the demon considers. "From what I've heard, it wouldn't be the first time you ignored what he told you before—"

Sam whips around, reaches his hand out, starts to coax, tease, pull, sees Crowley start to flush and swallow hard. And then he remembers his brother's face in the gloom behind Famine, his shock, his sadness, his disappointment, his defeat. He drops his hand to his side, and Crowley clears his throat feelingly.

"Where is he hiding?" Sam says then, with a kind of desperation. "We used to play hide and seek here all the time when we were kids… I know all the best places, and he isn't in any of them. Where is he hiding?"

Crowley stares at him, impassive. "Word to the wise," he says after a minute, and he jerks his head sharply towards the house. "The way the floor was shake, rattle and rolling in there, I wouldn't be at all surprised if your devil's trap is looking like a lace doily. Which means you've potentially left wheels and your brother-in-law in there at the mercy of a real little toerag."

Sam shifts his gaze from the demon to the house, and back again, and Crowley is shaking his head now, amused, or maybe bemused.

"You really didn't know," he says, on a laugh, and then he cocks his head, curious. "Did he know?"

Sam starts walking, trotting, speeds up as he takes the steps, hits the hallway at a run, skids into the back room.

It's a mess, but it's curiously tranquil, quiet. The demon is still slouched in the chair, and Bobby is still parked by the curtains, hasn't moved an inch as far as he can tell. Castiel is splayed out on the floor next to the couch, frozen in a perfect stillness that looks terminal from where Sam is standing.

The parquet floor tiles are jutting up here and there, and Sam crosses to the desk, pulls open the drawer, retrieves the spraypaint. He forces himself into a calm he doesn't feel, even hums low under his breath for effect, as he carefully retraces the painted circles, zigs, and zags, filling in the disturbed portions, daubing the lines of the trap three or four inches wide in some spots to make sure the gaps are filled.

Bobby watches him in dead silence for a few minutes as he works, and when he speaks the old man's voice is whisper thin. "You found him. Hiding out there. Tell me you found him, Sam."

Sam doesn't answer, clicks the cap back on the paint can, and he isn't thinking, isn't dotting the i's, isn't crossing the t's, isn't doing the math, isn't joining the dots.

"He said yes," Bobby chokes out then. "That fuckin' idjit said yes."

Sam ignores him some more, pushes up, nods in satisfaction at his handiwork, crosses over to the desk and puts the can back in the drawer, and he isn't speculating, contemplating, meditating, ruminating, or hypothesizing.

Crowley is leaning on the doorjamb, watching, as quiet as they are, oddly respectful even, and he catches Sam's eye, nods towards Castiel's sprawled form. "You should move him further away from our friend in the chair," he remarks. "It might not be safe for him to be up so close."

Sam makes his way back to the trap, squats down and hauls the angel's limp body further away from the slumped demon, touches his fingertips to Castiel's neck, lays his hand on his brow. "His pulse is really weak," he says. "And he's burning up. I don't think this is right, Bobby, I don't think he should be this badly affected. He wasn't before, when Dean used the sigil on him."

He looks up and Bobby is staring at him with empty eyes.

"Bobby," he says sharply. "We need to deal with this." And he fucking wants to deal with this, he thinks, so he doesn't have to deal with the rest of it.

It jolts the other man out of his shellshock. "Put him on my bed in the den," he says quietly. "You know where the first aid kit is."

Sam looks back down at the angel's blood-drenched shirt, swallows. "I think we may have gone past first aid kit, Bobby," he murmurs. "That's a lot of blood."

Bobby moves now, wheels himself laboriously over, looks down. "Maybe it's just taking him longer to heal because he cut it into himself," he says. "Or maybe it was too soon after Dean hit him with it."

Sam scrubs a hand through his hair. "Do you think transfusing him is an option?" he asks. "If he keeps bleeding, I mean?"

The old man heaves out a weary sigh. "I have no idea, kid. He's an angel, giving him our blood might mess with him big time. And we don't know the vessel's blood type… does he carry any ID that might say what it is?"

Sam pats the limp body down expertly, feels something approximately the right size in the inside pocket of the shredded trenchcoat, tugs it out, sighs as he flicks it open and sees himself staring back. "Agent Eddie Moscone," he says. "It's one of my fake FBI badges. Dean gave it to him when they were tracking Raphael. He must've hung onto it."

It's like it breaks the spell to mention his brother's name, and he suddenly feels sick, flops back on his butt, gasps out.

And Bobby must feel it too, because his hand is on Sam's shoulder, gripping it tight. "What does it mean?" he rasps out. "Sam. What does it mean…?"

His voice trails off, and somewhere inside Sam knows the old man isn't expecting an answer, isn't waiting for one, because he knows what it means. Just like Sam does, even if he isn't going there, even if he padlocked the door to there closed and swallowed the key. And the way Bobby keeps his grip on him, holds onto him, is proof, because the old man's hand is there to hold Sam together, to stop him from breaking into pieces.

"It doesn't mean anything, Bobby," he evades mechanically. "He's Dean, he is. He's my brother. He just – it's a curse. That's what it is."

He stares down at Castiel for a long moment, and Cas is ghostly white, navy blue shadows under his eyes, blood trickling from his nose and his mouth, and even his ears, and he hates himself for thinking it might even be a blessing to have this to focus on, to not have to sit and stare back at the angel's look of bleak horror and grief as well as Bobby's. "Maybe it'll be okay, maybe the blood doesn't have to be typed and matched," he ventures. "He's an angel, maybe he can handle it. Maybe he just needs a boost or something."

Crowley coughs from the doorway. "Well, you definitely can't give him yours," he says succinctly. "It's toxic to his kind."

Sam chews his lip, looks up at Bobby again. "Let's get him comfortable at least, patch him up," he says firmly. "Dean is gonna be pissed when he shows up if he thinks we haven't been taking care of him." He maneuvers himself out from under Bobby's hand, leans down, starts pulling the limp body up onto his shoulder.

"Sam? Sam Winchester?"

Sam freezes, twists his head to look at the demon in the chair, and it's cocking its head, listening through the bag that conceals its face.

Crowley is sucking air in between his teeth over in the doorway, looks moderately apologetic. "Oops," he says. "I forgot to mention that little detail." He smirks. "Still. That's what you get, working with a demon."

Sam thinks he knows the voice, doesn't want to believe he does though, and he lays Castiel back down on the floor, pushes up to his feet.

"Does he know me?" he says slowly, suspiciously. "How does he know me?"

He tells himself it's just the usual mouthy demon, like they all are, that it made a lucky guess because they all have his face and Dean's committed to memory, and he knows the sonofabitch just heard him say Dean's name and put two and two together, knows he has nothing to worry about even though his hackles are raising involuntarily, and alarm bells are ringing in his head because he thinks he knows the voice… doesn't want to believe he does, though.

"Sam, is that you?"

And he frowns, steps closer, no danger, the meatsuit is still bound and the trap is secure, and he reaches over, plucks the bag off the man's head.

Brady always had perfect teeth, the perfect all-American-boy smile, the perfect Kennedy brother sideways cowlick swirl of hair that still looks artfully styled even though the back of his skull is caved in, and Sam towers above him, can see pasty pinkish globs caught in the strands at the back, can see the pale gleam of shattered bone.

He must have said the name out loud because the man smiles that perfect smile again, even wider. "Brady hasn't been Brady in years," he says mockingly. "Not since, oh… the middle of sophomore year?" He sighs, and it's almost sympathetic, almost understanding, almost commiserating. "Poor Sammy had a devil on his shoulder even back then…"

Sam is stock still as it sinks in, and the words creep out of him like they're scared of what they might find, or of what might pounce on them as he opens his mouth, they crouch there on the tip of his tongue, peering out and looking this way and that. "But… you were my best friend," he whispers, as the sounds finally pluck up the courage to cross the threshold of his lips into the danger zone. "You introduced me to Jess…" Golden, smiling, kind-eyed Jess, who was his future, and she dripped blood on him as she burned, and he hasn't seen that image in his head for years now but there she is, floating above him and imploring him with her eyes as the flames halo around her, and her lips move soundlessly, and this can't be, he's thinking and now he can hear himself muttering it, in a monotone.

"Sam," Bobby is saying, and the old man is rolling up beside him, gripping his forearm, and Brady is laughing up at him, all perfect fucking teeth, head thrown back and eyes squeezed shut with mirth, moisture trickling out of the corners. Sam isn't aware of raising his hand to hold in the bile, but it's pressed against his mouth all of a sudden, and then Crowley ranges up on his other side and nudges him.

"I'd clock him if I were you," the demon suggests amiably. "He can wait. It's not as if he's going anywhere now, and he'll just distract you while you stitch up buddy boy down there. Unless you need me to hold your hair for you while you puke?"

Sam swivels his head round, stares confusedly down at the guy, hears a dull thud that has him swinging his gaze back around to the center of the trap. Brady is drooping in the chair again, and Bobby is right up behind him, holding a cast iron poker, his face crumpled with distaste as he looks down at the gray matter and hair clumped stickily on the tip.

"This can't be," Sam chokes out into the abrupt silence.

Bobby throws the weapon down, maneuvers himself alongside the unconscious demon, fishes inside his jacket and produces a wallet, flicks through the contents. "Brady's his name," he confirms quietly.

Crowley sniffs beside Sam, huffs out. "Well," he declares, and he crosses to Bobby's desk, roots out a piece of scrap paper and a pen. "Looks like friend Brady's on the back burner until the big cahuna shows up." He scribbles on the paper, wafts it at Bobby. "My cellphone number. Just give me a bell when he gets back, yes?"

His attention is caught by papers scattered on Bobby's desk, and he picks one up, takes out his phone, squints at the document in his hand as he thumbs in numbers. He looks up, smiles brightly. "I've put you in my contacts. If I don't hear from you in the next twenty-four hours, I'll be in touch. Just keep your moose off young Brady here until he gives us what we need, okay?"

Sam stands rooted to the spot, knows his mouth is hanging open, hears Bobby snort.

"What the fuck makes you think you're welcome here?" the old man snaps. "Show your face again and I'll blast you so full of rock salt you'll be pissing Margaritas for a month."

Crowley cocks his head, grins. "Negotiating a high level defection is a very delicate business," he says. "You might need me. Besides, I'm invested."

And then he isn't there any more.

"Yeah, well hesitate to fuckin' call," Bobby growls at the empty space where the demon stood. He shakes his head, mutters under his breath before he wheels himself back past Sam. "He's right, boy," he says. "Whoever that is, we got other problems just now." He sharpens his voice, his turn to prioritize now. "Sam."

Sam tears his gaze away from the slumped demon, and Bobby is leaning over, reaching down, tapping Castiel's cheek. He looks up.

"We need to help him, get him cleaned up. Before we do anything else."

And Sam closes his eyes for a minute, breathes out his memories and his turmoil. Then he kneels down and heaves the angel up onto his shoulder, lurches out through the doorway, the earlier journey in reverse, only everything was different then and the world as he knows it hadn't screeched to a halt, obliterating everything he held dear with its skid marks.

He finds he's talking, babbling like he does when his brother is hurt, like Dean does when he's hurt, doing it to steer his own mind sharp left of panic stations just as much as he does it to distract Dean from the discomfort, the usual crap droned out, just a few minutes more, get you lying flat, get you cleaned up, you need something for the pain? No reply, and he can feel damp seeping through his shirt, and he finally nudges up against Bobby's bed and offloads his brother's friend – their friend – down onto it. He catches his breath, crosses to the closet and heaves out Bobby's first aid trunk, drags it across the floor so it's right where they need it.

Bobby is already busying himself at the foot end of the bed, pulling off Castiel's shoes, and Sam stands and looks down, feels fucking awkward if he's honest, and at least his unease is another distraction from his simmering anxiety.

"Well?" Bobby grates out, and he startles. "Get on with it," the old man says gruffly. "I don't want him bleeding out on my bed."

Sam leans down, reaches out, stops with his hands hovering just above the sacked out angel. He can feel Bobby's eyes boring into him. "It's just that he's an angel," he blurts out. "It's – weird. To be stripping him. He only ever took the coat off when he was Jimmy. It's like it's welded on him or something."

The old man nods. "I know what you mean, boy," he says dryly. "Just watch out for the wings. Your brother told me he keeps them under there all folded up and when he undresses to put his PJs on, they spring up like a jack-in-the-box and knock everything flying."

Sam snatches his hand back, gapes at the old man. "Is that tr—"

"Of course it isn't fuckin' true," the old man snaps, and his voice is strained and tight because his world has run off its tracks too, and Sam notices that his hands are shaking as moves them to the armrests of his chair, and he grips them tight, his fingers kneading into the vinyl.

"Okay," Sam says. "Okay. Let's do this." He kneels down, scratches his head, blows out. "I'm gonna have to cut this off him," he decides, and he slides his Bowie out of its ankle holster, slices through the tattered coat, drops pieces of it on the floor. "Can you pull the rest out from under him if I lift him up?"

Bobby wheels up beside him, grasps the fabric.

"On three. One. Two." Sam braces. "Three." He lifts, gets a chestful of bloody angel, the coppery tang of the red patches close up enough now to turn his stomach, and Dean and Castiel are about the same build, the same weight, and it's such a visceral reminder of holding onto the barely contained slop that was his brother's ruined corpse in New Harmony that he chokes.

He lays Castiel back down, swallows as he starts to peel the shirt away. And stops as he remembers that he never closed Dean up after the hounds took him, too much damage, too ragged, too many slivers of muscle and flesh, the edges of the wounds frayed so they looked like the fringed hems on the denim cut-offs Jess used to wear, and if he'd tried to mend his brother Dean's body would have looked like nothing so much as a cross stitch sampler. He suddenly imagines himself embroidering some hollow, meaningless blessing or bible saying into Cas, angels are watching over you or some crap like that. God is our refuge, or not, as the case may be, or maybe this is the day the Lord our God has fucking made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Fingers click next to his ear.

"Are you gonna get this or not, Sam?"

Bobby's voice isn't as sharp now, and he has gauze packets and antiseptic cream laid on a towel next to Castiel's leg.

"I'll get it," Sam says wearily. He looks across at the old man, sighs.

"I know, son," Bobby says quietly. "I know." He sighs himself, narrows his eyes. "Why do you think the sigil didn't work on him? It should have blasted him right out of here…" He reaches across Sam, finishes folding the shirt back off the wounds, blanches. "Jesus. It's a fuckin' mess…" He squints, tilts his head sideways as he stares down.

"I don't know," Sam ponders. "I haven't even really thought about it." And he knows why he hasn't, knows that thinking too hard about it will inevitably lead to thinking about the fact the symbol did work on his brother. "He was behind me," he offers. "And unconscious. Maybe they have to actually see it, see the light. Be exposed to it." He blinks hard, moves it right along, examines the slashes more closely. "We thought he was just going to cut his hand, daub it on the wall or something. But he carved it into himself…"

The lacerations are puffy, seeping pus and serum, and spidery branch lines wander off at every angle, splitting into scarlet tendrils that swirl across Castiel's torso like mile-a-minute vine covering a south-facing wall, and the skin from his sternum down to his pants is inflamed, blistered, raw.

"It looks burned on," Sam murmurs. "The light must have seared it into him or something. Pass me the Bactine, I'll have to slosh it on there."

He soaks his hands first, then the wounds, parting some of the worse slashes to dribble the antiseptic in there, washing away the mess. He shakes his head. "This is pretty nasty, Bobby. Do you think he'll feel it? Maybe we should give him something… he felt that hangover, Dean gave him some aspirin for it."

"Do you know if he took it?"

"No, no idea, he just took off again." It shouldn't be infected, he's thinking. He's an angel, he can heal himself. "Dammit," he says. "You know, I think if we held him up to the light, it would shine right through him…" He trails off. The light, he thinks. Glowing, and then Dean gone.

"I don't know, kid. He must be fixing himself, surely?" Bobby considers it for a minute. "Putting something on him to stop the bleeding is one thing, but I'm loath to risk putting anything in him. It could do more harm than good."

Sam chews his lip. "It took a whole liquor store to get him drunk," he muses.

Bobby's face is still creased in doubt. "I guess we could give him some antibiotics," he says finally. "Justincasey. But I think we should hold off on anything stronger till he comes round." He fusses over the gauze packs, mutters out an oath. "They should make spackle kits for this kind of thing," he grumbles. "Those mesh patches you use to fill holes in the wall. Just slap the damn thing on him and spackle over the top. Problem solved."

It's a ludicrous enough image that Sam smiles weakly as he hefts his Bowie again, expertly cuts through the thin cotton of the shirt to get the rest of it off the angel while he works. And he freezes, the blade hovering in mid-air.

"Would you look at that…" Bobby murmurs softly.

Sam can't help himself, reaches out to touch the raised welt on Castiel's shoulder, the handprint an identical twin to the mark that still raises the hairs on the back of his neck when his brother emerges from the shower and he catches a glimpse of it in the few seconds before Dean self-consciously pulls on his tee.

"Jesus," Bobby says suddenly. "Do you think he was in Hell?"

Sam shakes his head, helpless. "I don't know. I don't know what the fuck is going on here, Bobby."

His fingers trace the mark, just barely, and he lines up his hand as best he can, upside down to it, measures its length, smaller than his, and he doesn't see Castiel flail his own hand up, just feels it grip his wrist, tight. He sucks in breath, swivels his head, and Castiel is staring at him through bleary eyes, moving his lips, whispering something to him.

"Cas… What?" He leans in close enough to feel the angel's breath warm against his cheek. "What? What happened to you?"

It's drawn out, shaky, and so faint he can barely hear it. A name, and it makes Sam's blood run cold in his veins.

He doesn't know where he is when he wakes up, only knows that he aches dully all over and that sharper pain is lancing up his neck from his shoulders, right into his brain. He cracks his eyelids and the sky is pale gray above him, and he groans out into the dawn, pushes himself up on his elbows, feels his stomach flip flop like a beached fish inside him. He winces, reaches his right hand back to rub at the muscle over his left shoulder blade, because it feels weirdly stiff, heavy, like something is dragging on it.

"Yep, it hurts when you lie on them for hours," a voice says, out of the shadows. "Even if they don't really exist in this dimension."

He rockets up onto his ass, skitters himself backwards with his heels until his back hits something solid, and he pats frantically behind him, feels like rock, cold, hard, smooth in places, jagged in others, and he squints into the murk, makes out a shape that's darker sitting over to his right.

"What happened?" he croaks. "Where am I? And who the fuck are you?"

The shape chuckles. "Don't you recognize me?" it teases. "I know I've been gone for a long time, but I never thought you'd forget, not really. You were always so good at taking care of your family."

And something about it is familiar and right, but wrong, so damn wrong, and he swallows hard, palms his cheeks, shakes his head, feels the first hint of what might be appalled disbelief. "I don't know you…" he whispers. "But. I do. Something's wrong." He looks up then, up into the sky, can hear someone speaking in his head… of the air, the voice is saying. "Something's wrong," he says again, and he doesn't know why he says it or what he means.

"Sensing a disturbance in the force, brother?" the voice replies softly.

Zachariah, he thinks wildly, and he babbles it out. "Is this 2014, is this Detroit? Did he, am I—" And then he stops as he registers what the shape said, feels a stab of terror at the memory of not-Sam's velvety, patronizing voice, his fake concern, his promise. "Is this the garden? Am I in the garden again?" He can hear his voice break with his horror. "Sam? Sammy?" And he leans forward, squints at the shape as it squats there, but there's no bulk to it, and he shakes his head doubtfully. "No… you're not my brother, you're not him," he mutters. "He's bigger… wider. Much wider."

It laughs again, the shape, and he thinks he can make out its face looking up at the sky, its arms wrapped around its knees.

"Wrong brother," it mocks him gently.

"Wrong brother?" he echoes, and he knits his eyebrows together, tilts his head in a way he suspects might be just like Castiel does, because he's picking up his brother's habits as sure as his brother is picking up his, and then he shakes himself mentally because that thought didn't come out right at all. And then he hits on something, can feel himself gape. "Adam…" he says, incredulous. "Is that you? How did you… where are we? What is this, are we—"

"Wrong brother," it mocks him again.

There's no malice in the voice, only an undercurrent of melancholy that twists in his heart like a knife. He feels something wet drip onto the back of his hand, and he reaches up, finds that tears are meandering down his cheeks. "I don't have another brother," he says softly, unconvincingly, because he doesn't really believe it himself any more, knows he's kidding himself, knows something is right there, that he's standing on the precipice of it, a revelation, something huge, something world-shattering. And he skirts it, doesn't want to go on to the new place, because that's what this is, he knows it in his heart, knows that it will never be the same for him if he opens his mind to this. So he gives it one last shot. "This isn't me," he whispers, like he whispered to his brother before. "This isn't happening." Repress and deny, it's his modus operandi after all, always has been. "It was conditional," he chokes out desperately. "I got a do-over."

"There are no do-overs," the voice says sadly. "It is you, brother. It always was. Remember what I said? You were born to this."

The shape stands, small, wiry, picks its way over to him, sits down beside him, and its warmth is familiar, comforting, and he remembers that it was a good, if mischievous brother.

"Gabriel," he breathes.

The face beams, the first genuine, heartfelt smile he's seen it wear on this plane of existence. Gabriel reaches up his hand, lays it on his cheek, tender, uses his thumb to smooth away the tears.

"It's good to see you again, Michael."

TBC

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