Tardy I know: sorry guys. RL still holding me up a tad. Once again, thanks to everyone who has reviewed: you guys rock.

I've gotten a bazillion PMs over the last year or so asking me to whump Sam some more: seems like it isn't just Deangals who are sick puppies! :-) Oh well. You have only yourselves to blame… :-O

Warnings Foul language, blasphemy up the wazoo and back again, S5 spoilers

Reality Check

He comes round at a weird but familiar angle, flopped over to the side with his head pillowed up against his brother's thigh, and he can see a blood-spotted rag wrapped around Sam's leg and hear Bobby snoring in the back.

He lets the motion of the car lull him in his half-awake state. And it might even rock him back to sleep if it weren't for the other familiar sensation of pain, throbbing across his shoulders and back. There are little pain slaves in there, chained to the galleys in his own personal Roman warship of pain, rowing as hard as they can, battle speed as he lays there still, and he raises his arm up, attack speed, and he hears himself squeak out his agony as he flails his arm up feebly and slaps it down on Sam's knee, fuckin' ramming speed, and he knows he cries out with it.

His memory is cloudy, Pestilence, fuzzy, hurt me, sonofabitch, and he whispers out in almost-wonder. "Nuh fair. Nuh spse hpn…"

He feels a hand touch lightly on his back, pat him and start rubbing circles, just barely, because it feels stiff and padded up there, feels damp too, a tacky dampness, and he can smell his own blood. And there's an odd second when he knows in his gut that it isn't Sam, isn't that brother, despite the denim under his cheek, and he thinks ludicrously that it means he must be a real princess after all if he can feel the difference in that touch even through all that bulk, and what was it, twenty mattresses and twenty featherbeds and—

"I'm not a pea."

And sure enough, he's raving Hans Christian Andersen out fuckin' loud in his delirium, and he stops, scrunches up his face for a minute because it's so incongruous to hear that voice when he's staring straight at his baby's cassette deck, and he knows damn well he isn't driving.

"Whre… we?" he mutters out laboriously, because he feels so damn listless and slack inside it's like he's wading through waist-deep mud while comatose. "Din't know y' cd drv."

"We're headed west," Castiel replies. "I think so, anyway… Crowley said it was west. And I can't. Drive, I mean. I'm just pointing and going, like Bobby told me to."

"Fkn' hep me up," he croaks in horror. "M' car."

"You need to rest," Castiel says firmly. "You're bleeding, and I can't stop it. Just be still, please, until we reach Bobby's."

And it's so fuckin' tempting to do just that, Dean thinks, because the circles Castiel is still gently tracing on his back with his hand are hypnotic, and the judder of the car on the road surface is soporific, so much so that even with the dull thrum of pain he feels languid, indolent, feels as if he might possibly sleep, even though tiredness is something he never thought he'd experience again and he really wants to tear Cas a new one for steering with one hand on the wheel when he can't fuckin' drive.

"The car will be fine after some minor repairs," Castiel continues absently.

He lurches upright in the seat then, puts enough effort into it so he knows he'll come to rest against the window, and he yelps at the burn as it ignites and flashes through his whole body. He fists his hands so his thumbnails dig right into his palms, stares out through stinging tears and sweat pouring down his brow and into his eyes, flops forward slightly so his cheek is sliding against the glass of the window and he's leaning his upper arm on the shotgun door, and some of the pressure is off his back.

He's panting out the pain in puffs, like he's waiting for the head to crown, looking dead ahead, into the darkness, fixing his eyes on the ribbon of road as his baby eats it up, and he spots something in the distance, speeding closer. "S'red light," he mutters.

"I'm aware."

"Cas. S'red light."

"Michael, you need to rest," Castiel says sternly. "Save your stre—"

"S'red fkn light, Cas… trn, rlrd, brks, brks, Jeez Crst. Fk. Fkn'. Pl ovr. NOW."

They rumble over the train tracks just as the alarm bell starts to clang, and the train streaks through the railroad crossing behind them as the car brakes to a sedate halt on the deserted, treelined blacktop. Castiel glances quizzically over at Dean, and now Dean is actually looking properly he can see the other man's face is taut with worry and his eyes are shadowed with his own exhaustion and something that might be sadness, and there's a purplish-black bruise blossoming on his jaw.

Dean swallows, puts the effort into speaking proper words instead of pain-truncated verbal morse code. "Red light," he manages, between breaths. "Means stop. And what happened to your face?"

Castiel leans into his hand for a second, kneads his temple before he moves his fingers to his jaw and gingerly tests it out. "Crowley told me red lights mean go faster," he says wearily. "And Bobby hit me."

Dean can't help a snort of forced laughter, and it sends a bolt of pain shooting from his back up his neck. "Fuck," he whispers, and he screws his eyes closed because there are tears of misery leaking out of them. "Did the old bastard hit you while he was teaching you to drive?" he scratches out. "And red lights do mean go faster when you're right on top of them. Not from fifty yards out though, huh, Cas? Especially at railroad crossings when there's a fuckin' express train coming."

Castiel stares back at him. "That would explain all the honking noises and near misses," he offers reflectively, and he bites his lip. "Another car… scraped us as we journeyed. Very slightly." He sees Dean's look, continues hurriedly. "But it's Crowley's fault, don't you think? Since he told me red lights mean go faster."

Dean rolls his eyes. "You really are just him aren't you? Cas. All Cas. No Jimmy."

"No Jimmy," Castiel agrees dolefully. "Though I feel like I might be more use as Jimmy. At least then I could drive safely."

Dean presses his face into the glass, and it's blessedly cool against his skin. "Jimmy was a good guy, Cas, and he had guts, but he was a fuckin' ad salesman," he murmurs. "He just wanted to go home to his family. He'd have run a mile from this mess. I love you just the way you are. Don't go changing. Promise me." And fuck, what is it Sam always says? He imagines his brother's face, screwed up with part amusement, part frustration. You ramble when you're feverish, Dean. "Forget it," he amends. "I ramble when I'm feverish." Pain electrifies his nerve endings again, and he winces. "My back is killing me. Shoulder too. What did that sonofabitch do to me? And what did you do to me? I feel like the Hunchback of Notre Dame."

Castiel sighs heavily. "Crossbow bolt, in your shoulder still. Sam said it might be poisoned. And you're bleeding… your back. It's shredded. Were you flogged?"

He frowns, spends a confused, painful moment backtracking. "There was definitely cutting. Some snipping. Gouging. Harsh language. That was me." He thinks on it another minute. "There may have been some flogging," he confirms. "Seems that's how the typical Hell denizen rolls."

Castiel flinches minutely and his voice rises an octave or two. "There wasn't enough time to stitch the wounds or remove the bolt, we had to get moving. But you were bleeding…" He speeds up, jittery. "I pulled over on the roadside and packed it all with some clothing from Bobby's bag."

"Not his Glenfiddich whiskey sweatshirt, I hope. He'll be pissed." Dean flicks through his mental notebook again, finds a page that's turned down at the corner and squints to read the scrawl in his head. "Yeah, the bolt is poisoned." He grimaces. "I'll live. I hope." He gestures feebly at Castiel's thigh. "What happened to your leg?"

The other man frowns. "You bit me. While I was doing all that."

"Through the denim?"

"Through the denim."

"Lucky for you it wasn't higher up."

Castiel narrows his eyes. "Yes. Lucky for me."

Dean smirks, turns it into a groan as the pain hits again, the beat-beat-beat of the tom-tom sounding out the percussion of agony on his upper back, the tick-tick-tock of its throb, the drip-drip-drip of the burn in his shoulder. "He could see me, Castiel," he says. "See them… I could feel his hands on them. He did something to them. Cut into me. Broke them, I think." And he finds he's shuddering, feels a tidal wave of nausea that swirls higher and higher up his body and then takes everything with it as it recedes, his organs, bones, muscles carried along on the surf like flotsam, his veins and arteries clumping like seaweed, so all that's left is the outer shell formed by his skin. "Feel sick," he whispers. "Didn't think I could any more."

And Castiel's voice is suddenly faint, stop-start, staccato and panicked. "What can I do? I can't see them now I'm not me any more. Michael – what he did. I can't see…"

Dean flicks his eyes over, thinks Castiel might even be shaking with nerves, thinks the other man looks like he's about to lose it.

"I don't even know where we are," he's continuing, and he's scrubbing his hand through his hair so it stands up every which way. "I don't know how far away we are from Bobby's. I've tried to summon Gabriel, and it isn't working—"

"Castiel," Dean cuts in, as steadily as he can even though he knows his own voice is weak. "It'll be okay. You need to calm down, not up. You look tired and you're pretty beat up yourself. You need to rest too."

Castiel shakes his head. "No, we need to get to Bobby's," he insists. "Gabriel can't see us here because of the sigils. But he'll go back there when he recovers, and he's the only one who might—"

Dean curls his lip up in a sardonic smirk. "You could always shoot yourself in the ribs, Cas, break one of them. Then call him." He sees the other man's expression brighten, and he qualifies it grouchily. "It was a joke. Fuckin' idiot. You do that, I'll break the rest of them one at a time." He closes his eyes. "Pull off the road, into the trees," he says faintly. "Just for a while. We'll all rest better." And then out of the blue something occurs to him. "Why are you driving anyway? And what has Crowley got to do with any of this?"

And Castiel is silent, the sort of silence that speaks volumes, and when Dean cracks his eyes open again the other man is staring back with unnerving intensity even for him.

"Cas? Why are you driving?" Dean asks again, and it isn't exactly worry that's flaring up inside him, it's more like foreboding, a sense of inevitability about what he's going to hear.

Castiel's tone is guarded. "I'm driving because Bobby is… sleeping. On the back seat."

Dean swallows, and he can't turn around to look, and he tells himself it's because his back hurts too much, that it isn't anything to do with that feeling, that apprehension prickling his senses, that it isn't anything to do with him not wanting to turn around to look because he's afraid of what he'll see. "And Sam," he says slowly. "He was there, I spoke to him. He's in the back too, right? He's sleeping too, right?"

There's another long, heavy silence.

"Right?"

And Castiel starts speaking, doesn't break his stare, relates the information with his usual care and attention to detail, every point in the exercise covered precisely, every conversation related verbatim. And Dean concentrates numbly, distantly, calmly, as Castiel tells him honestly, and conscientiously, and diligently, and objectively, leaves nothing out, explains the reasoning behind every single decision, explains the logical progression of events and how and why they led to certain actions, how it all brought them to this moment of thinking Sam is gone.

Then there's just more silence, and Dean swallows it down thickly until he finds the words and spits them out bitterly. "Why did you even let him – why? To Detroit? You knew, Cas, I told you Detroit was where it happened…" He finds he has his hand up and splayed against his chest, supporting himself, and he can feel his heart doing ninety along the rumble strip, and a sudden wave of distrust and skepticism overflows. "Were you following the plan, Cas?" he accuses. "Was that it? Did you let him come here so—"

"No!" It's vehement, horrified, and Castiel doesn't blink or look away, and his eyes are stricken. "No. Never that." His voice softens to gentle. "You're his brother… he wanted to find you. I tried to put him off, but he didn't want you going up against Pestilence alone. And I'm sorry."

My brother is gone, Dean thinks. This is it. This is Detroit. And he doesn't know if maybe he is slipping, like Pestilence said, but it's like some part of him has cracked, the flagstones he laid over his emotions, the barricade he built between who he was and who he is. And sorrow and terror are seeping up through the cracks like some colorless gas that was trapped in his foundations, like methane, like radon, like fire damp, and he chokes out incoherent despair. He tries to raise his hands up to his eyes to hide from his loss and keep his grief private, but it hurts so much they fall to his sides, and his fingers twitch helplessly. Yet even through the blur of tears, he's aware that Castiel is watchful and alert, that he's waiting, that he isn't missing a damn thing even if his face is composed and impassive, that he's tense, coiled with a sort of desperation even if he's absolutely still, and that his eyes are penetrating even while they ache compassion.

"But Sam, he's…" Dean husks it out, dry as a bone. "A keeper. He's a keeper, Cas… Cas."

And he reaches, and Castiel moves forward at exactly the right moment. Always could read me like a fuckin' book, Dean thinks distraughtly, and he falls in to meet his brother. He's gathered up and held close and tight, while he hyperventilates, and weeps his despair out snottily into Castiel's neck. And Cas croons meaningless words of solace into his hair, and smoothes away his tears with cool fingertips, and presses tender lips to his brow, and tells him it'll be alright, it'll be alright, Dean, it'll be alright, and the words blur into a nonsense mish-mash of hesitant, clumsy, awkward comfort and Dean-Dean-Dean, alright-alright-alright.

Jess liked his teeth, they're so white, Sam, liked his smile. She liked them for a while, and then she loved them. So Sam took good care of them, and not a night went by when he didn't floss, brush, brush some more with the turbo-powered Sonicaid, tongue-scrape even, before sloshing it all out with one-hundred proof mouthwash that scorched his gums like barely diluted battery acid, and he gargled it too, because he remembered reading somewhere that the germs that cause bad breath sometimes colonize the roof of the mouth. And then after he finished, he'd practice the smile that was about to get him laid six ways to Sunday and say a prayer of thanks for whatever genetic quirk of fate, or maybe spell his dad or Bobby dug up to avoid dental costs, blessed him with those teeth. Because even if he wasn't as beautiful as his brother, he knew his girl would look right through Dean to see Sam smile. And that night when his brother showed up out of the past, she did just that.

Sam thinks all of that in the time between spitting out his front teeth and oofing out at the explosion of pain as the boot sinks itself in his gut again, hitching him up a foot off the floor, so that even his hands and knees hover in mid air for a split second, like a cartoon scalded cat. He's breathing in snuffling snorts because his nose is pulp, and even though his vision is spotting he can see two long gloopy strands of bloody snot swinging wildly from his nostrils, and it makes him think of Brady and how he must resemble his college friend by now.

Should've buzzed the hair, Dean, he thinks dully, because his brother left enough of it there to make a good fistful, and even though his brain is silly putty he has a clear image of his dad barking at him to get it good and short like Dean's so it wouldn't trip him up in a dirty fight. And this is a fucking dirty fight, and the soulless black-eyed bastard who's laying into him is using his hair to haul him around the room like he's Wilma Flintstone, and he'd fight back if his hands hadn't been stamped into puffy Mickey Mouse fingers he can barely move, let alone flex to make fists.

The really stupid thing is that the guy is a good foot shorter than him, but Sam knows that molten eruption of power and what it can achieve, and short stuff is spewing it out at him now, spinning him so fast it's almost thrilling, it's on the cusp of being exciting, of being a joyride, of being something he might even wait in line for and then race around to the fastpass dispenser so he can go back for more later, Sammy being swung around like the guy is one of those brick shithouse hammer-throwers going for a record fourth gold medal here at the Beijing Olympic Games.

And Sam has a fleeting moment of clarity as he spins, a memory from the month before his brother came back, Ruby riding him in some no-tell motel while he sucked on a Bud and watched some guy who was as wide as he was tall send the metal ball flying like it was weightless. And Dean had always hunkered down in front of the Games when he got the chance, chin on his hands and eyes glued to the screen, but Sam never thought of Dean, not once, even though he craned his neck, desperate to see past Ruby's pitching, heaving body. He never thought of Dean because he had taken that precious memory of his brother and drowned it at birth, smothered it out of existence, battered it into submission, blindfolded it so it couldn't blame him with its eyes, and taped its mouth up so it couldn't hurl accusations. He never thought of Dean so he wouldn't ever have to imagine how Dean might look at him and what he might say if he knew what Sam was doing. But all the time he never thought of Dean, he damn well thought of Dean.

He jolts back to awareness, to the now, as the demon hauls him up onto his knees and he reels drunkenly there until the demon's hands impact on the sides of his face so his ears explode inside with a bass boom that resounds and echoes, and fuck, roll of thunder hear my cry, he thinks, and he knows his ear drums are packing up and leaving town to set up home somewhere quieter with less crime. There's a beautiful moment of relative peace then, because Winchester peace is always relative, and the boom eases off, but it's still the intro to Tusk inside his head and when he crashes up against the wall it flares impressively into the Trojan Marching Band, live at Dodger Stadium.

When the demon is nose to nose with him he realizes he's having trouble focusing, there are floaters meandering gracefully across his field of vision and he has to peer around them, squint too, because it's all gray, like he's trying to see through fog. Detached retina for sure, he thinks abstractly, and he knows he might never see properly again.

"Say yes," the meatsuit hisses at him. "He can make the pain go away."

And Sam wants the pain to go away, and the word is on the tip of his tongue, and Dean held on for thirty years and Sam knows he won't, so why not just end it now? But right then, as he's starting to form the sound with his tongue, his vision clears to crystal sharp, and he sees his brother, smiling, smirking, laughing, trusting, doubting, suspicious, he sees him healthy, happy, hurt, and most of all he sees Dean there, side by side with him, watching his back. Dean, who might still believe in him if Castiel wasn't lying.

"No," he lisps out thickly, past his swollen, bitten tongue and split lip, insolent and petulant. "Not gonna. I've had worse drunk-sparring with my brother."

The demon curls back its lips. "Then we go again," it sneers.

Sam sees his brother when the demon stamps down on his ankle, sees him when it kneecaps him. And when it raises the gun at point blank range and gives him a third eye dead center of his forehead, he sees his brother then too.

The next time Dean comes round he's in the back of the Impala, and quiet but heated voices are arguing over him. He feels numb and wrung out inside, and he stares blankly at the arm pinning him down, vaguely recognizes that it's clad in his brother's hoodie. It's a jarring, sparking reminder that Sam isn't there, but he gulps his despair back down. Bigger fish to fry.

"You should have let me go back," he hears Bobby seethe.

"You might have been killed," Castiel replies snippishly. "What good would that serve?"

"I had time."

"No, Bobby, you didn't. And I sincerely doubt that Crowley would have helped me dig you out of there."

Dean forces his eyes open, finds he's staring into Castiel's upside-down face, and the other man manages a faint, false smile that doesn't even try to ascend all the way to his eyes. "It's alright, Dean," he lies gently.

"So you keep saying," he gruffs out testily. "Only it isn't."

Castiel has him pillowed on his folded leg, one arm hooked around him, hand trapping his head and holding it against his belly, so Bobby can go in for the crossbow bolt, and the other hand holding a flashlight.

The old man is scrunching his eyes up to focus, slicing in, and beads of sweat are running down his face, and the tip of his tongue is sticking out at the side while he concentrates. He glances up, catches Dean's eye. "Have to loosen it," he mutters, and he wipes his forehead on his sleeve. "I was hoping you'd stay out. It's stuck pretty good."

"Of course it is." The knife blade flashes in the gleam of the light, and Dean looks away, shivers as exquisite pain shards out from the wound, and he reaches up, finds Castiel's hand and clamps down on it, feels the other man grip back. And Dean digs his fingers in so hard he knows he's leaving bruises, and he can hear the damp hiss as Castiel sucks in a breath.

"Not much longer," Bobby says, scowls as he digs in deeper. "Sorry." He swivels the knife blade slightly. "Why is it even hurting?" he mutters distractedly. "I thought you guys didn't feel pain."

Dean makes an involuntary growl of annoyance and discomfort, closes his eyes. "We do feel pain, believe me," he grates out. "We just have… fuckingfuck… higher pain thresholds." He steadies himself, locks it down tight, knits his brow to focus on breathing through it. "It's because of the poison. Fuck. I've had worse. Just get on with it. Fuck." His jaw is so tense he can barely speak, and his voice comes out strangled and raw. "Are you sure it all went up back there?"

"It did, Dean," Castiel says quietly. "Just after we got Bobby into the car. I couldn't risk staying, but I saw the burn in the sky from some distance away."

Bobby sniffs as he grips the top of the bolt, and his fingers slip, and Dean winces.

"Fuck. Goddammit."

"Sorry. It's wet, can't get a hold of it." Bobby quirks an eyebrow. "Your language ain't improving any since your sainthood, is it? Gauze… it'll help me get a grip. Hang on."

"I'm not going anywhere," he gripes irritably. "And it's Anglo-Saxon. Think of it as speaking in tongues. And Jesus fuckin' Christ, I'm a saint. I never thought of that."

"Patron saint of grocers, mariners, paratroopers, law enforcement, and sickness." Bobby shakes his head as he leans in again. "Place was probably full of chemicals," he bitches then. "Dynamite, boilers. Chemicals. Crowley shut off the sprinkler system. If I'd just gotten back in there…" He's pulling now, twisting, working the metal bolt out.

"Law enforcement. I forgot that. It's just wrong…" Dean groans out an indiscernible, hoarse complaint as the bolt exits the wound with a moist, sucking squelch. "Fuck." He looks up again, sees Castiel's face go a whiter shade of pale. "Throw up on me and I will not be responsible for what happens to you, Cas," he says breathlessly. He fixes Bobby with a hard look. "And if you'd gone in after him, you'd be dead or worse. Cas was right, Crowley too. It was too risky."

The old man narrows his eyes skeptically. "Does that mean we aren't even going to try to get him back?" he clips out belligerently.

Dean is brutally blunt through his pain. "What do you suggest? That we go back right now, and you and Cas dig him out with your bare hands while I lie there watching? With demons crawling all over the place, the five-O too? And maybe the devil waiting there to pick us off?"

Bobby isn't deflected one iota. "That's one option." He soaks a gauze pad in antiseptic, scrubs briskly at the wound, and he's heavy-handed, doesn't bat an eyelid at Dean's barely stifled yelp.

"No, it isn't an option," Castiel cuts in waspishly. "Not with Dean like this."

"Cas, for crying out loud, I—"

"Shut up, Dean," Castiel snaps. He turns a heated stare back on Bobby. "We can't help him, Bobby, he needs Gabriel. This has to come first. Michael has to come first. You need to see the bigger picture." He puts out a hand, finger raised, as Bobby brandishes another gauze pad. "And be more careful," he hisses. "You're hurting him."

"Last time I looked, that finger wasn't magic any more," Bobby snipes.

Dean rolls his eyes. "Jesus. Stop fuckin' bickering," he croaks. "Cas, tact. Look it up, it's under T. And stop using your smiting voice. Bobby, stop with the look that says you're old so you can do whatever you want." He steadies his breathing, feels a wave of nausea and unnatural fatigue waft over him. "Look," he says tiredly. "I'm not picking Sam or Lucifer up. That means the sigils are intact. It could be good, it could mean Sam's okay. Or it could mean Lucifer has him, and Death is still cloaking him. Or…" He trails off, leaves the rest of it unspoken, doesn't have the will or energy to voice it.

"Or what?" Bobby growls.

"It could mean the sigils are intact but Sam didn't make it," Castiel chips in quietly. "He'll still be hidden if that's the case. And I don't mean this to sound as harsh as it will, but anything that keeps Lucifer in his temporary vessel is a workable scenario for us."

Bobby's voice is serrated at the edges when he replies. "It may be workable for you, you cold-hearted sonofabitch, but it isn't—"

"Sam can't say yes if Lucifer can't find him, Bobby," Dean interjects. "He can't say it if he's dead either. And as long as he's still hidden, Lucifer can't track him down and bring him back."

Bobby glowers back balefully. "Tact, Dean," he growls. "It's under T."

Dean pins the old man with his eyes. "Reality check, Bobby," he rasps out then. "Because you need one. This is the end of the world. Get with the fuckin' program, because none of us, not one, is more important than that. Do you get it?" He waits for the full weight of his words to sink in, before he sighs out and shakes his head, rueful. "But. Workable scenario it isn't. Sam has the ring. I gave it to him in there, thought it'd be safer with him."

Castiel slumps dejectedly, and his mouth forms a grim line. "Naturally. Not the brightest moment in your decision-making career. So we go back?"

"We go back."

Bobby snorts. He's wearing his eyebrows low in a frown now, and his glare is heated. "I don't fuckin' believe what I'm hearing," he says, soft and controlled even though his rage is obvious. "He's your brother. You don't go after him just because he has—"

"One of the rings that might mean we can save billions of souls from burning in Hell?" Dean cuts in wearily. "Save Sam from burning in Hell, maybe?" He stops, on another electric buzz of agony that has him stifle a moan, and his hand flies up again, snatches at the air before it's caught and held tight. And it's Bobby this time, reaching out automatically, and Dean clenches his fingers, gasps as he rides out the pain, gazes up at Bobby and the old man's eyes drop down, left, right, before they meet his again, and he lifts his other hand to scrub at his beard.

"I feel fuckin' awful, Bobby," Dean murmurs. "There was some bad medicine on that bolt. And my back… something's really wrong. Pinion, that's what he said. Said it was like cutting off my hands or something." He blinks hard, uses the old man's hand to tug him closer. "But you listen to me. I'll be going for Sam because he has the ring… don't you think he'd want me to stay on topic, stop this fuckin' disaster he and I both started?"

He's spacing out, his vision is blotching and he knows he's sounding more labored with every word. "That isn't the only reason, though…" he whispers. "I'll be going for Sam because he's my brother, and I love him. If he's okay, that's a bonus, and God knows, it'll be easier to put Lucifer back in his cell if he isn't in his true vessel. But if Sam already said yes, Bobby, then I will put him down if that's how it has to be. I won't let Lucifer use Sam to lay this world to waste." He holds the man's eyes with his own. "Do you understand me?" he breathes. "I love my brother. And I won't do that to him. So don't get in my way."

He lets Bobby's hand fall, looks away, because he feels restless now, frantic, wired, his belly rolls queasily and his ears are roaring with static. The pain in his back is relentless, and he turns his face into Castiel, and the fleece hoodie the other man is wearing smells of Sam.

"Jesus," he stutters into the fabric. "Detroit, Cas. It's fuckin' Detroit. You know what happens in Detroit. It could have happened already." He feels his heart skid to an abrupt halt on the word. "Hurts," he gasps. "It fuckin' hurts. My back." But he isn't really talking about his back now, even if it is on fire.

"I know," Castiel says softly and he starts circling his palm there across Dean's shoulders again. "I know it hurts."

And he knows Castiel isn't talking about his back either, knows Castiel is well aware of what he meant because they have lost countless numbers of their brothers to this fight. And then it dawns on him that Castiel has killed their brothers for this fight too.

"Tell me how it feels," he says raggedly. "Tell me how it feels to kill your brother when you don't want to."

But Castiel doesn't reply, just rubs his back.

TBC

Thanks for reading... I'd love it if you reviewed! ;-)