An update for you folks. Again, thanks so much to everyone who reviews: it's the only reward fanficccers get for their work and every single one is cherished. Thanks specifically to psychadelicfur and Sarah for your comments, since you're unregistered. ;-)

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

Unspeakable Things

Water is dripping on Sam's lips and he pokes his tongue out, catches the moisture on its tip, swirls the liquid around the inside of his mouth and it thickens with claggy saliva so that when he swallows it, it's the consistency of a protein shake, and it tastes like copper, and it tastes like copper because—

He snaps his eyes open, stares up, and it's foggy and blurred, like he's looking through a steamed-up window. He starts to push up on his elbows and sinks back onto something soft, mattress? Pain scintillates through his body like electricity, and he can almost hear its buzz, and he wonders if his hair is floating wild with static. He slaps a hand to his brow, because time slowed to a crawl in that second after the gun fired, and the bullet drifted lazily towards him like some large, lumbering insect, and he remembers thinking how fucking anticlimactic it all was, remembers the dull thud of the impact and how the lights flicked off forever.

Only not so much, and there's only one possible explanation for why he's alive now, and it sends terror streaking through him, knotting him up inside like a rag rug. He can hear something, wild, incoherent sounds that he suddenly realizes are coming from him, fuck-fuck-fuck-oh-my-fucking-God-Dean-fuck-fuck, and another voice, muffled by his own swollen ears. Perforated ear drums, he thinks wildly, and he remembers hands crashing in, and each side of his head exploding. He swallows back his panic and as his throat undulates, the sting of inflammation trills from his jaws out to his ear canals, otitis media, ear infection. He gets a mental image of his brother flopped on a motel bed, pale and listless, with his ear resting on a hot water bottle, and he can hear Dean complaining, can't hear, bitch, life should have closed captions, Christ, feels like I'm giving birth to my brains through my ear, worse than fuckin' labor, Sammy, must be, at least they get epidurals and the kid comes out eventually…

The voice is repeating his name from far away, like he's hearing it while he's swimming underwater, and he breathes himself back down to earth, sniffs experimentally, feels a pop that throbs out into his cheeks.

"Sam. It's okay, man, relax. Relax, or you'll just make it worse…"

A hand is pressing him back down, insistent, and he recoils, tries to wriggle himself away from it, ends up falling back exhaustedly and gasping out his discomfort like a beached fish while he flails around with his hand. "Dean," he chokes out. "Dean…" And through his confusion there's this flood of relief, that his brother is okay, and that he isn't breathing because the devil wants to wear him to the Prom but because Dean magicked him back.

The reply is low, apologetic. "No… Adam, it's Adam. Sam, can you hear me?"

Sam squints through the debris field floating across his line of sight, spots, strings, blobs, like the great Pacific garbage patch is clogging up his optic nerve. "My eyes," he chokes out. "Whoah… flashing. Light." It streaks across his vision like a comet. Like a fallen angel. He tries to focus through the blur, finally pinpoints the face peering down at him, and it extinguishes his hope like a bucket of water upended over a smoldering cigarette butt.

"Adam," he manages. "You okay?"

He sees the head shake. "Am I okay? Fuck, Sam… you, are you okay? You're a mess, what did those guys do to you?"

Adam's voice is thin and reedy with panic, rising in pitch, and Sam shakes himself into some sort of calm, takes charge, reaches out a hand again, grabs at fabric. "Fine. Be fine," he croaks wearily, and he's trying to jump his brain onto the next page, trying to think past his own worry, get this mess into some kind of order. "Calm down. Can you give me a sitrep?"

His brother's voice stutters. "Calm… S-sitrep? Sam, I don't even know what that is, what's a sit—"

"Situation report," Sam mutters, and he finds he's poking his tongue out through a gap there at the front, and he groans. "Dammit. I thought I imagined that bit." He clenches his jaws, peels back his lips. "Whaddya see?"

He can hear Adam suck in a pained, horrified breath. "Uh… I'll put it this way. I hope you have dental."

Sam heaves out a bottomless sigh. "Had to be the teeth," he mutters. "All these years, and they finally got the teeth." He flicks his eyes up. "Did they hurt you?"

Adam scrubs at his hair. "No… no. It just – there was this huge explosion, the whole place rocked. And some guy came up from behind and clocked you, and they put a bag over my head and dragged me out of there." He shrugs. "I don't even know how long I've been here. They dumped you in here a while back. I thought you were dead. Or dying, maybe."

Sam grimaces. "Oh, been there… done that." He coughs, groans. "Are we still at Nivaeus? And what happened to you back in Zachariah's room?"

His brother throws up his hands, helpless. "I have no idea where we are, Sam. I have no real idea what's going on here… and as for the room, man – there was noise, unbelievable noise, bright light. I couldn't get out of there. But then the door just opened. I made a run for it, thought you guys might still be there, but that woman, Meg, she jumped me." His tone goes sheepish, embarrassed. "She's pretty strong for a girl."

"Don't remind me." Sam shudders at the memory of her silky purr rumbling through his body, how she used his hands to kill and hurt, throws up a prayer of thanks for the day Dean casually mentioned that devil's trap tattoos might be the best way to avoid being possessed while naked and showering or naked and giving it to some hot chick, Sammy. "And she isn't a girl. Not any more."

"Yeah," Adam says ruefully. "I figured that one out pretty fast." He shuffles around Sam, maneuvers his way up on the mattress next to him, and leans back against the wall. "Looks like they worked you over pretty good."

Sam plucks up a handful of his shirt, raises his head to examine it, sees red splashes, splotches and starbursts that look like he just got back from a hard-fought paintball tournament out in the woods with the guys from Accounting. "Yeah," he sighs. "You got that right." He closes his eyes at the memory, because there were a few primal screams in that male bonding experience for sure, and as he blinks pain flares. "God," he groans. "My eyes. I think I have detached retinas. And my ears are exploding."

"I think you need a doctor, Sam," his brother replies earnestly.

"How did you get to be so smart?" he replies crabbily. "Did you get a handle on how many of them there are?" He pats at his jacket, pocket empty, cellphone gone. Figures, he thinks.

"Well, Meg," Adam considers. "The guy who clocked you… maybe two more?"

Sam bites back a groan as he turns his head too sharply. "One of them a guy, mid forties or so? Fair hair, soft spoken… their boss, maybe?"

Adam shakes his head. "I don't think so. But honestly, I wasn't paying that much attention a lot of the time. And…" He points up. "Bag over head."

Sam bites his lip, doesn't want to look down. "Uh, Adam. My knees. How do they look? Ankles too…" They aren't getting out of here if he can't walk, he thinks numbly.

"That's the weird thing, Sam," his brother replies from up above. "I mean – it looked like they'd shot you or something, there are bullet holes in your jeans, blood everywhere. It was fucking terrifying, man, I didn't know what to—"

"Adam." Sam lifts a hand, plants it on his brother's leg, grips it for a minute. "Take it easy. Okay? We need to stay calm, work out our position, a plan of action." He shifts his legs experimentally, and a dull ache pounds his knees for a moment, and the joints feel oddly stiff. But mobile, and he could weep with the relief. "Oh thank you. Thank you, God," he murmurs.

"Yeah, they're fine, no marks anywhere," Adam supplies. "Why would they do that, why would they make it look like you were kneecap…" He trails off and when he continues his voice is faint. "You were. They did."

"They did," Sam confirms quietly.

Adam exhales sharply, sweeps a hand across his jaw, so Dean that Sam's breath catches in his throat. "Well… why do you think they fixed that and not your teeth?" He seems to realize what he's said, scrunches up his face in displeasure. "That sounded really stupid. How did they fix you?"

"Oh, their boss has ways and means," Sam replies. "And it's tactics. They fix you enough to keep you alive. They don't care how you look, they just want you alive so they can—"

"Do it again," Adam says softly. "So they can do it again." He clears his throat, and now he's louder, assertive. "I won't let them take you."

Sam smiles, sort of. "I appreciate the sentiment, believe me," he says thickly, because who knew clear speech depended so much on having front teeth to bounce his tongue off. "But it's probably best not to get in their way."

It falls quiet until Sam hears a dull slapping sound, and he slants his eyes over, sees Adam's fingers tapping a furious tattoo on his thigh.

"When you said their boss, you meant Lucifer," Adam blurts out. "They want you to say yes. That's what Meg said. That's what this is."

"That's what this is," Sam confirms wearily.

"Do you think you will say yes, Sam?" Adam says, and his voice is faint, uncertain.

Sam doesn't reply at first, because his mind is spinning hectically with what that would mean, for Dean, for him. He coughs, presses a careful hand to painful ribs, because his body still throbs with discomfort, the muscle memory of fists, and feet, and bullets. "It's never going to happen, Adam, no matter what he does," he says, and maybe even a small part of him believes it. "I'm not making my brother kill me. I'm not doing that to him. And I'm not letting the devil use me to try to kill Dean."

"Making your… using you – what does that… oh." Adam's voice dies away again for a moment. "It's true then, what Meg said," he says carefully. "That Dean said yes. That room, Zachariah… it's all just a blur. I couldn't really remember. But she said that Dean said yes."

"In a manner of speaking," Sam breathes ruefully. "Help me sit up?" He strains out a low groan as Adam heaves him upright and rests him back against the wall, and they sit there, shoulder to shoulder, while Sam wonders if Bobby went back in, if he made it out, if Michael's mojo is doing its work and healing his brother. The memory of Dean flopped pliantly on the back seat of the Impala as he bled out has his guts lurching, churning, sloshing around inside him, like strong winds and fast currents are converging in there, forming rogue waves that wall up on every side of him to crash down and break him up into driftwood at any moment. He focuses on his boots, stares at them, breathes himself down from his anxiety, slow and steady.

"Sam, uh…" Adam intrudes uncertainly. He stops, starts again. "They could, you know – do things. Again. Things that would make you say yes. I mean – more than they've already done."

Sam stifles a yawn. "There's nothing they can do," he says wearily. "There is no incentive he can possibly give me to make me say yes. It would mean destroying – everything."

"Well… what if he does something to me?"

Sam pauses, stares ahead of him for a stretched-out moment before he answers. "I'm sorry Adam. There's more than you at stake here. More than me at stake too."

Adam clears his throat. "No, Sam… it's okay, really. I get it. Well…" He snorts out a hollow laugh. "I'm trying to, anyway. We are the world, we are the people… can't risk any of that. I guess."

Sam tilts his head to look at the younger man, finds him staring back, white-faced and huge-eyed. "I guess," Sam replies simply. And he feels a wave of dull, solid nausea, and he closes his eyes and tries not to think about anything.

Jessica is in the kitchen, and she's wearing one of his shirts. It falls to mid-thigh so he can see long, sleek, coltish legs that travel down and end with perfect pink polished toenails, and she must be fresh out of the shower because her hair is wet, pinned up in a haphazard bun with damp tendrils wisping down. She snaps squares of cookie dough off a larger tablet, glances over her shoulder at him and smiles, and her overbite is as gorgeous as he remembers it. She winks. "Pillsbury Doughboy, Sammy," she says. "No point in me baking them from scratch this time. After all, no one's eating these babies, are they? They're gonna burn."

He gapes and she nods, and her eyes are huge and liquid with sympathy. "Yeah, it's that day, Sam," she says. "In fact we just spoke on the phone. You and Dean are a couple of hours away, but I have a test in the morning so I'm whizzing these up for you boys before I hit the sack for an early night."

He swallows. "This can't be," he whispers, but in his head he's screaming that he wants it to be.

"Oh, it can, Sam," Jess says airily, and she has all of the squares laid out on the baking tray now, and she slides it into the stove, leans over the sink and soaps up her hands, shudders dramatically. "I hate the way that stuff gets under my nails."

He's sitting at the table, doesn't know how he even got there. And she ruffles his hair as she passes by to sit opposite, and a mug of steaming hot chocolate appears, because she always drank one at bedtime.

"Have you asked him yet?" she says casually, as she takes a sip.

"Asked…" he stammers. "Asked him? Who? Asked who what?"

She rolls her eyes, pouts. "Michael, silly."

"Michael… I don't know – why? What? I mean, what would I—"

"Oh, come on, Sam," she chides teasingly. "Have you asked him to send you back yet? Back to now, to here? So you can do something about all of this?"

And he knew really, even if some small part of him hoped. "You're not—"

She points up at the clock. "Look at the time, Sam," she says witheringly. "Brady gets here in five minutes. He's going to hang out for a while, and we'll have a Bud. And when I'm getting up to see him out, he's going to take his beer bottle and smash it over my head—"

"Please don't," he chokes out. "I don't want to—"

"It'll knock me out some, but not all the way," she continues amiably. "I'll feel blood trickling down my scalp, onto my face." She shivers. "It'll be ticklish, that's the really weird thing." And she smiles. "He brought a knife too, Sam. And he'll drag me across the—"

"Fuck, please, don't."

She snakes her hand out across the table, grips his wrist lightly. "It doesn't have to happen, Sam," she says urgently. "You know the angels can bend time. Michael said no, but you could do it. Say yes, and you could come back to me. You could make a difference, change things for me… change things for us."

Her skin is cold against his, and when he looks down, her red-polished fingernails look like they were dipped in blood.

"You were going to ask me, weren't you?" she murmurs. "It would have been you and me, for always. House, kids, dog—"

"It isn't you," he chokes out.

She considers, smiles. "But it could be," she says softly. "It could be me, Sam. If you came back."

And it's right there, the desire to scream out his agreement, and welcome the devil with open arms, the temptation to go back to that night and tell his brother he isn't going anywhere, that this is the best thing that ever happened to him and he isn't fucking this up to go searching for a man who disowned him because he dreamed of getting out. He imagines it now, his brother's look of disappointment, resignation, maybe a sarcastic aside, and how he'd walk Dean back down to the car, and there would be an awkward moment of promising phone calls that would never happen before the car pulled away and up around the corner. And then he'd go back upstairs and she'd be keeping the bed warm, and she'd snuggle up and ask him to tell her all about Dean.

He bites down on his tongue so hard he draws blood, fights the temptation. "But it wouldn't be me," he whispers desperately. "It wouldn't be me."

Not-Jessica tilts her head to one side. "She wouldn't ever have to know, Sam. You could be together and she wouldn't know the difference." Her eyes well up with tears, and her bottom lip quivers. "Michael won't do it, he won't do that for you. He doesn't understand what you and Jessica had. But you could do it. If you say yes…"

He stares at her, and she's poised, waiting. And he reaches across, deliberately peels off her fingers, places her hand back on the other side of the table. "Cas told me you'd tempt me," he rasps. "She'd know the difference, believe me."

She scowls, taps her fingernails loudly on the tabletop. "Castiel," she says, and her voice goes ice-cold, her face hard and savage. "The little angel that could. He thinks he can, he thinks he can." And she snickers malevolently. "I have a special place in my heart for Castiel, Sam. I can't wait to see him again." And then there's a knock and the door, and she studies him for a second before she smiles again, soft and warm. "I better get that, I guess," she says.

And he wants to scream no, and maybe he might even want to scream yes, but then he has to blink hard, because she's blurring right there in front of him, changing, and now he's staring into his brother's face.

Dean's eyes sparkle, and he smiles a shit-eating grin, and he's young, he's carefree, the shadows in his eyes lifted and gone, and he shines. "Hey, Sammy." He shakes his head and tsks. "Look at the mess you get yourself into without me there. Jesus. Castiel should never have let you go to Detroit. He knew, Sam. He knew. That's…" He whistles softly. "Fuckin' betrayal, if you think about it. And that isn't even the worst of it, because—"

Sam slams his hand down on the table, because this corruption is somehow worse, his brother manifested by the devil and used for his works. "Shut the fuck up," he says harshly. "You aren't my brother."

Not-Dean makes a face. "Well, if you must split hairs," he snarks. He leans the chair back, hoists a leg up and across the table, studies Sam. "It's sad, in a way. How everyone betrays you." He shakes his head, and his voice is sincere. "I mean, look at mom. She gave you up before you were even a glint in dad's eye."

It makes Sam's chest go tight, and his heart rate speed up. "She didn't know what would happen," he grates out. "And she—"

"And dad, well." Not-Dean sighs. "When it came time to choose, he chose me. The good son. He'd rather sell his soul and suffer an eternity of hellfire for me than stick around to be a dad to you."

Sam closes his eyes, breathes steadily, reminds himself he has never thought that, because he knows damn well that if he'd ever had to choose he would have chosen Dean, even if it did mean eternal damnation for his dad. "You aren't him," he insists.

Dean snaps his fingers together. "Of course, you're right. I'm not your brother. But here's the thing, Sammy: neither is Dean. Because he's Michael. Dean was never real. Dean was an illusion. Dean ceased to be oh, I don't know…" He does the math on his fingers. "Roughly fourteen weeks after sperm met egg."

"That's crap," Sam hisses. "He's my brother in all the ways that matter. He's—"

"The cuckoo in the nest, Sam," Not-Dean cuts in, and he stretches, laces his fingers behind his head. "You're the only real Winchester. Michael took your brother from you." He smirks. "You want to know how it all went down? How Michael whispered in your mom's ear while she slept, how he visited her in her dreams?"

Sam can feel his jaw go slack and his eyes grow wide. Not-Dean nods, and his eyes pierce right into Sam, laser-intense, like they're stabbing right into his soul, and his gaze is like sin, like persuasion, and like a promise. "You know we need consent, Sam. And baby Dean, well. Him being a minor and all, it had to be your mom who signed him up for this gig." He lowers his voice to a bare, seductive murmur that trickles across Sam's senses like a fingertip trailing along his skin, a caress that shoots straight to his groin and has him twitching and gasping. "Let me in, Mary…" Not-Dean sing-songs. "Say yes. I'll watch over him, keep him safe forever… let me in. I can protect him, I can take care of him… say yes to me…" He nods reflectively. "Our brother had quite a thing going for your mom, Sam… you must have noticed. He always loved her a little too much."

And Sam shakes himself out of his trance, because somewhere in the depths of that cold alien green that isn't his brother's eyes he can see Dean's face, a mixture of awe and wistfulness as he stared at Mary, can see him shuffling over, to all intents and purposes a kid of four again, to wrap his big frame around her and offer comfort like he did back then. And Sam finds he's trembling with anger now, fisting his hands so hard he can feel his nails slicing crescents in his palms. "You sick freak," he chokes out. "Don't you ever speak about my mom like that. Or my brother."

And Not-Dean's whole body snaps from casual relaxation to dangerous energy, and his face splits in that familiar, loved, megawatt smile. "Michael… man," he says lightly, enthusiastically. "Silver-tongued rogue. He can make people believe anything he wants them to, while he's selling them down the river. He can even make them think he'd sacrifice himself to bring them back. Like it wasn't all part of the plan."

And Sam is confused now, he's leaning into his hand, rubbing his brow like Dean does when he's perplexed, anxious, distracted. "I don't – what do you, what does that even mean?" He shields his eyes for a moment, tries to calm his breathing again, and when he looks up it isn't Dean any more. It's the Lucifer Sam knows, sandy haired and sad-faced, and his eyes are brimming with sympathy.

"Our brother set you up, Sam," he says gently. "He led Azazel straight to your mother. And he brought you back for me, for this moment. He dragged you out of Heaven, where you were at peace, because he had an agenda all along, the same agenda as Zachariah." He shakes his head, twists his features into appalled disbelief. "Remember what I told you about Detroit? Back in Carthage? Dean knows."

Sam tries to find enough spit to help him form words, but he's so dry in there now he can't even peel his tongue off the roof of his mouth, and he shakes his head in mute denial.

Lucifer nods regretfully. "When Zachariah showed him the future, we were there, Sam, you and me. Because you say yes in Detroit, just like I told you. And Dean knows you say yes in Detroit, and he never told you about it." He leans closer across the table. "What kind of brother would do that, let you walk into this without warning you? He betrayed you, can't you see that? He isn't even looking for you, Sam." He flops back in his chair, sighs deeply. "Because he knows how this ends."

Sam groans out, slips off the chair, and he's shuffling back now, into the corner, rocking like a lunatic, running through it all in his head, and Lucifer's voice follows him, stalks him, and it's brutal and relentless, and it pares layers off him, but it's so soft in his ear, so caring, so tender.

"Michael wants to stop me, Sam, and he'll destroy the world to do it. But we can end all of this, now. I don't want this fight. All I want is to walk free on this world my Father created. I don't even want to kill Michael. I love my brother, Sam, more than you can ever know. I didn't kill him in Carthage, did I? And if I could just talk to him, if I could just make him understand…"

Lucifer's hands are insistent, sliding in on either side of Sam's face, raising it to look at him, and Lucifer's eyes are brimming with tears. "Say yes to me, Sam. Say yes to me, so I can talk to my brother and tell him that I love him, and I mean him no harm. Say yes to me, and then we can—"

Sam screams his brother's name.

He comes awake with Adam pinning him down, hands gripping his shoulders hard, but he has a good thirty pounds of muscle on the kid and he rips an arm free and lands a wild haymaker that knocks his brother four feet away, onto his ass. He rolls clumsily, ends up on all fours, staring every which way, panting, squinting because his vision is still blurry and spotted, and he has to bite back a whimper because his ears throb with the motion. "Fuck. Fuck that," he grates out harshly, as he breathes down his panic. "We have to get out of here."

Adam is rubbing at his chin, lets out a grunt of discomfort. "Jesus, Sam," he mutters. "I was just trying to help. You were having a bad dream. A really bad dream." He sits and hugs his knees for a moment. "Look. I'm scared Sam," he says then, and his voice is small, with a tremor. "What you said before, about more being at stake… I don't have a very high pain threshold."

And Sam gazes at the kid, reaches a hand up to his brow, rubs at the nugget of tension that's pulsing away in the space between his eyebrows, pushes the vision to the back of his mind, just a bad dream, even as he's wondering if saying yes in a dream would count as saying yes. He flops back onto his own butt, and suddenly the diversion of his brother's anxiety is almost a relief. "Adam, I don't know what to say," he sighs out. "I'm just – so fucking sorry you got dragged into this. If I'd known, known about you, I could have… I don't know. Looked out for you. Shown you some stuff. Just in case."

Adam sniffs. "Just you?"

Sam cocks his head, tents his brows.

"You said I," Adam elaborates. "Not we. And Dean seemed pretty hostile back at your friend's place. Like he wanted to drop me and keep running."

"To avoid something like this." Sam throws up a hand. "To avoid precisely this. We had words about it back then, when we thought the ghoul was you. He didn't want you in the life." He shrugs. "You had a future."

Adam scowls. "Heck of a future, Sam. If I'd known what was out there, I could have fought back… maybe me and my mom might not have been drygulched by those monsters in the first place. I mean…" He trails off, chews his lip. "Something was bound to come. Wasn't it? Because of John. So maybe—"

"Look, Adam…" Sam meets his brother's gaze, steady, quiets his voice back down to some semblance of reassurance. "Don't take this the wrong way. But it's kind of academic now. There isn't anything we can do about what happened to you and your mom, and we have to stay focused on—"

Adam cuts in then. "But it means that whatever Dean said, maybe he was wrong. He might think he's right all the time, but maybe he isn't." He pushes up abruptly, starts to pace. "What's going to happen after all of this? Are you going to just cut me loose? On Dean's orders? Because you know – like I said. Maybe he was wrong, Sam." He scrubs a clawed hand through his hair. "Dammit all. Dammit. I could have had my mom back." He stares down at Sam, and his eyes are shiny. "I could have had my mom, Sam. Zachariah told me that. But it was a fucking trap. It wasn't me the angels wanted. It was Dean who was the special one. And just – dammit all, Sam." He stands there for a minute and then he shrugs, shuffles back over and sits down again. "What does it matter?" he says thickly. "We aren't getting out of this anyway."

Sam leans into him lightly. "We are getting out of this, Adam. I'm working on it."

His brother twists his head around, and he smiles crookedly. "Yeah, I can tell." And then his features fall again. "What are you going to do, Sam?" he asks softly. "If we do get out. If Dean wants to cut me loose, what are you going to do? Are you just going to do what you're told? Follow his orders?"

Sam pulls up his knees, rubs at the bones where they feel stiff and ache. "It wasn't the same back then," he says. "You were going to college, you had prospects. Dean – he didn't want this life for you. But things are different now. He'll want to make sure you're safe."

Adam raises his eyebrow, smiles weakly. "Different is right." He shakes his head, and his face relaxes into disbelief. "Dean said yes… it's – wow."

Sam shrugs, blows out. "Yeah. Something like that." He rolls his shoulders, grunts at the twinge in his ribs, thinks he'd maybe ask Adam to break one or two and then holler for Dean, Michael, whoever he's really been dealing with since Van Nuys, if he didn't know his brother was in no shape to take on the devil after his run in with Pestilence. It's a stark reminder of the fact help might not be coming, and that it's time to get off his butt and start scoping the joint now he feels more human and his insides aren't churning quite as aggressively. They're on their own, he thinks with a shiver, and they need to get out.

"We need to move this along," he declares, with a confidence he doesn't feel. He gathers his legs under himself, pushes up to his feet, slowly, lethargically, sucking in a breath and counting down from ten as he does. He lurches over to the door and presses his ear flush to the wood. "Have you heard anything out there? Any signs of life?"

"Footsteps went by a couple of times… I didn't hear anyone talking," Adam says. "But Sam, this thing with Dean," he continues. "It's – huge." His voice slips into awestruck sincerity. "He's the archangel Michael. This is, like – the Terminator of angels. The Darth fucking Vader of angels. The Prince of Light… a saint. People pray to him, for crying out loud. I can't really wrap my brain around that." He ponders it for a second. "Do you think he hears them? All of them?"

Sam thinks on it himself for a minute, wonders if his brother has been hearing the clamor of prayer in his head all this time without telling him. He raises a dubious eyebrow. "I think he would have complained about it." He listens for another second. "I know he hears the angels," he says then. "Or he did, before they started leaving." He rubs gingerly at one ear, winces at the twinge of discomfort. "You seem to know a lot about him. Michael, I mean."

Adam nods. "Commander of the Host of the Lord. My mom, she was pretty religious." His lips curl in a soft, intimate smile. "If she was here, knowing all this, just… well. She'd be telling me she was right after all. Dragging me to church again." He nods fondly, and his voice goes low and regretful. "I miss her, Sam."

"I never knew my mother," Sam considers, as he tries the door handle, leans down painfully to examine it more closely, because his vision is still foggy and splotched with dark patches. "Not really. I was just a baby when she died. Dean remembers her, sort of." He stops, ponders for a second how clear his brother's memory of her really is, colored as it is by their glimpses of Mary Campbell as she was before they were even born, by what they saw up there, and by Zachariah's twisted illusion of her at the end, with her rapier tongue and cruel words shredding Dean's self-esteem into even tinier pieces.

"You weren't alone when she died," Adam ventures. "My mom had no family. She was it. I'm the only one left."

"We're the only Winchesters," Sam replies. "Me, you." He pauses, feels a chill travel up his spine as he remembers Lucifer's words. "Dean too," he continues firmly, and saying it feels like a small victory. "This life… it killed all of my family." He snorts sardonically, can't help it. "Sometimes more than once." He glances over to his brother. "I'm really sorry about your mom, Adam."

"You really didn't know about us."

"Not a clue." Sam whistles. "I still can't believe it, believe that dad had this whole other kid." He exhales sharply, shakes his head. "We thought mom was it for him. I mean – I guess we knew he wasn't living like a monk. But this… man. And you were having this totally normal life, while we – weren't."

"When he was with us, it was just you and Dean?" Adam asks.

"Yeah… Dean raised me, really." Sam turns his attention back to the door handle again, squints. "This is a standard pin-and-tumbler doorknob-lock combo," he murmurs, and he pats himself down. "They took my lockpicks. But if we had something long and thin, I might be able to trip it. It isn't rocket science." He glances over. "You got anything? Seen anything? Has to be metal… a paperclip or a bobby pin, preferably two…"

Adam rolls his eyes theatrically. "No, I didn't wear my hair up today, Sam." He slumps there against the wall. "It must be weird – I mean, he must've been more like a parent than a brother."

Sam thinks on it, frowns. "I didn't really see it like that back then. I mean, I didn't think of him as a mom or a dad, even if that's what he was doing. He was still my brother. He just – took responsibility, saw I got fed, made me take a shower once a month. Early to bed on school nights. Homework. He used to have a cow if I didn't bring home straight As."

He scans the room: bare, pretty much, except for some boxes stacked in the corner, and he limps over there, starts opening them up and rifling through the contents, and it's just books and papers.

"Sounds like my mom," Adam says wryly. "She had a lot on her plate. It could really suck the fun out of things."

"He was tough when he needed to be," Sam replies. "It was a tough life. He was just a kid himself. And dad, he – wasn't the easiest when he was drinking. Dean used to have to clean up after him too." He tips the box out, upturns it. "Yahtzee. Staples. They might be long enough." He levers a fingertip underneath one of the thick metal clips, swears under his breath as the nail splits, sucks the bead of blood that wells up. He walks back over, lowers himself down, box and all.

Adam quirks his head, looks speculative. "I always wanted a big brother. But I don't know if I'd want him bossing me around all the time. Doesn't it drive you crazy? Feeling like you're being controlled?"

Sam looks up from where he's picking at the staple. "Uh… when I was a kid I guess it bothered me," he says distractedly. "Just now and then. Like with every little kid who's the youngest, I guess. There's a pecking order." He leaves off for a minute, rubs at his temples and groans. "God. My eyes."

"Having him hand out orders though," Adam muses. "Feeling like you're being controlled. I don't think I could put up with that."

Sam stops, thinks on it a minute. "Well… there have been times when maybe I felt like I wasn't getting my say," he concedes. "Or, you know – getting my way. But it's been him and me. A team, push-pull. Sometimes he has the last word, sometimes I do. Sometimes he says where we go, sometimes I do. Sometime I boss him… and believe me, he hasn't been in control of me for years. Sometimes, Jesus…" He falters at the memory of deep brown eyes. "I wish he had been. There's things I've done that just… well, let's just say that if Dean had been in control, things might be different now."

Adam chews his lip. "He seemed like he had a lot on his mind at Bobby's place," he suggests.

Sam runs a hand through his hair. "Something – bad. Happened to Dean," he says softly. "And then this whole Michael deal. It was a pretty heavy load."

"You mean Hell, what he did there," Adam ventures, and he shrugs apologetically at Sam's look. "Sorry. Zachariah really ran off at the mouth about him."

Sam shivers. "He was pretty bad off afterwards. Post-traumatic stress, I guess. And he was distracted by it… I don't know. He had a lot on his mind. It was just – tense. And maybe there were times when it felt like he was off in his own world of pain and he shut me out… and I did things I shouldn't have done. There were things he let slide that he wouldn't have if he'd been on his game. Things I was doing."

His brother's eyes are bright with sympathy. "Man, that can't have been easy for him. Or you. Not being able to rely on him, him shutting you out like that. Sometimes it can be just as bad for loved ones."

Sam smiles weakly. "Doctor Phil."

Adam colors slightly. "I read it in the Reader's Digest. My mom subscribed."

The box clip is heavy duty now Sam has managed to rip it out of the cardboard. "I can't believe it's this hard to get these mothers out of here," he gripes. "I wish I could see the damn thing properly." He offers it to his brother. "Can you unbend that?"

Adam grips it between finger and thumb, squints down at it. "Are your eyes going to be okay, you think?" he asks.

"I don't want to think," Sam mutters, as he peers myopically down at the cardboard. "Every time I think about it I just come back round to blind hunter, and I don't think there's much job security in that."

Adam taps his fingers on his leg. "He fixed you," he says suddenly. "Lucifer. He did didn't he? Your knees and all."

"Yeah, he fixed me."

"I guess if you said yes, he'd fix your eyes. Your teeth too."

"I guess."

Adam snorts. "Or you could just get really lucky and die before you have to hunt blind." He flicks his eyes over, smiles, cackles.

Sam pauses from picking at the next staple along. And, it's infectious and he doesn't even really know why, but he joins in, sniggers at how utterly ridiculous it all is, and finally leans his head back and laughs long and hard, the frenzied, demented laughter of the certified lunatic he knows he'll be at the end of all of this. They sit shoulder pressed to shoulder, giggle until Sam has to wipe away tears of mirth, and then it crosses the border into something else, something different, grief, and mourning, and sadness, and fear, and he falls silent.

"I'm glad to know you, Sam," Adam says quietly. "It's weird, but I feel this click with you. Like we could be really close if we let it happen. And I'm sorry but – I don't get that from our brother." He nods emphatically. "Reader's Digest," he repeats then, as he starts to force the metal. "There was this article about how the victim gets all the attention, but sometimes it's worse for their family. You know, watching them go through it, and having to prop them up when no one's propping you up. When you need support yourself." He snorts. "You know, it's selfish, how they wallow in it," he muses. "How is it you stay so good with that? I mean – it must take real strength of character."

Sam is wiping the wetness from his cheeks, glances over through his new bangs. "Dean didn't wallow in it, Adam. He only spoke about it twice, maybe three times. To me, anyway. I think he talked to Cas about it, but there's always been some – thing – going on between them. Cas pulled him out. Cas was down there with him… he saw."

His brother nods slowly, makes his face quizzical. "So Cas understood him in a way you couldn't?"

"Yeah. I guess."

"And now more than ever."

Sam looks up again, questioning.

Adam shrugs. "Well, they're both angels now aren't they?" he offers. "They're like their own little club." He makes a critical face. "It's like you and me on one side, and them on the other. Like Dean isn't really Dean any more, like he isn't really your brother. Like he's Castiel's brother." He pulls ups, considers. "It's pretty ironic when you think about it. If you said yes, he'd be your brother again."

Sam cocks his head, stares hard at the younger man for a moment, because maybe there is a tweak of something writhing in his gut, something that might be jealousy, something that feels like unease, disquiet, but he can't put his finger on what's causing it. "I don't feel like it's us and them, Adam," he insists faintly. "Dean's still my brother. And anyway, Cas fell."

Adam goggles at him. "Castiel fell? Man." He huffs out reflectively, scrunches up his face. "Alright, I don't really know what that means." And he smiles in satisfaction as he holds up the staple, unbent most of the way. "This do?"

Sam plucks the staple out of Adam's hand, studies it closely. "Yeah, it'll do. It means he fell from grace. So, no more angel mojo."

"He's human?" Adam marvels. "Why would he do that? Why would he want to give all that up, lower himself like that – I don't…" His eyes are fixed on Sam's face, tired but unwavering, and then they crease up in concern and he tilts his head. "You okay Sam? Is it your eyes? Your ears? Maybe you should lie down again, I can try the lock…"

Sam rubs at the clenching sensation in his belly, sighs out. "I'm okay, just – we need to get out of here." He pushes up to his feet again, staples clutched in his hand. "Let's give it a try." He crosses to the door, kneels down in front of it. "Okay, staple in." He tests it right, left, feels it give fractionally on the right turn. "So, torque that way," he murmurs to himself.

"How hard do you think it would be to control Lucifer?" Adam says suddenly, from across the room. "I mean, if he was in you. Or possessing you, or whatever it is they do." He throws up his hands at Sam's skeptical look. "You seem like a pretty strong guy. Character-wise, like I said. Maybe you could control him. Like – damage control."

Sam huffs out feelingly. "There's no way. I've been possessed, Adam. By Meg, in fact. When Bobby got her out of me I couldn't even remember how she climbed on board, that's how far gone I was." His guts curdle uncomfortably at the glimpses she let him see, and the memory of Dean telling him what Meg used him for. "Castiel's vessel told us being ridden by a garden-variety angel was like being chained to a comet. And this is Lucifer."

Adam hisses in sympathy. "Meg? Oy." He pauses a few beats. "But now you mention it, if Dean's all-powerful too, why hasn't he come to get us?" he asks then. "I mean – shouldn't he want to get you out of here before…" He trails off awkwardly and he doesn't meet Sam's eyes. "Just in case, I mean."

Sam focuses his attention back on the lock, and he can hear it in his head, he isn't even looking for you, Sam… He tells the voice to shut the fuck up, works the other staple in. "He can't see us because of the sigils." He can feel the pins in there, starts pushing on the first one. "Come to Sammy," he coaxes.

Adam's pushing up himself now, stretching. "Oh yeah." He frowns. "Is it working?"

Sam hears the first pin click home. "Yeah, one down." He chews his lip as he works the second pin. "Be a heck of a lot easier with proper picks." And there it is again, the voice, taunting him, he knows how this ends, and Sam parries. "And he's hurt too." He eases the staple out, in again, and he can feel sweat beading on his brow. "Listen, Adam, if this works and we get out of here, just keep running okay?" he says. "No matter what you see, or hear. Just run. Try to get to Bobby's. That's Singer Salvage, Sioux Falls. You got that?"

Adam is squatting down next to him, peering in. "Yeah, okay. Sioux Falls, right. You said he's hurt? Did you mean Dean?"

"Yeah, they did something to him," Sam mutters, as he eases the pin home. Click. "One of the Horsemen. Pestilence. Some toxin he mixed up… and he hurt him. He wasn't doing too well, and Cas—"

He doesn't even get the name out, he's flying through thin air, slamming hard into the wall opposite, crumpling down to the floor, dazed all over again.

Adam prowls over, looks down at him, shakes his head in something like wonder, and his voice is as soft and tender, and as brutal, as it was in the dream.

"That totally changes things, Sam," he remarks. "You know, you could have saved me a lot of time and effort if you'd told me my brother was damaged three hours ago."

TBC

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