Dean didn't stir when Sam injected him with the first dose of sanctified blood. The tiny red dot left on Dean's neck by the syringe was lost in the fine layer of dried blood that covered the unconscious man's torso.

"He looks half dead," Sam muttered, stepping back and taking in the sad sight of his older brother.

Crowley didn't respond. He was staring at the marks on Dean's chest with a curious expression bunching his dark brows.

O*O*O*O

The second injection made Dean twitch slightly, his brows furrowing as though in pain.

"Why isn't he waking up?" Worry was gnawing at Sam's nerves like a werewolf through a ribcage. "I thought demons healed in, like, a second."

"We do." There was an odd note to Crowley's tone.

"What?"

The demon looked up at Sam as though just remembering he was there.

"Hm?"

"What is it?"

Crowley looked back to Dean for a moment before gesturing to his ruined chest. "These marks."

"Yeah?"

"They should have healed by now."

"Yeah."

"Don't they look a bit odd to you?"

Sam looked more closely at the cuts and scratches. Some of them were hard to see through the curtain of red that stained Dean's skin.

"They almost look like ... a spell," he said at last, wonder and horror colouring his tone.

"Yeah. I think so too." Crowley dug his hands into his pockets and scowled. "And not just any spell, either. It looks like the Angel Ring."

"Angel Ring?"

Crowley looked up at Sam. There was a guarded pain in his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was low and solemn. "We need to break that sigil, Moose."

"What is it?"

"It's ... it's an ancient sigil, thought up by an angel. Maalik." Crowley sneered the name as though despising its very presence on his tongue. "He hated demons, more than most angels. But no one loved destroying them as much as he did."

Sam's stomach turned uncomfortably. "What do you mean 'destroy'?"

"I mean," Crowley continued, starting to pace slowly around the outer circle of the Trap, "that the only demons who ever left Maalik's company alive were bait for bigger fish. And they never left without his say so."

"But – Dean?"

"Yeah, Dean. That sigil is complete. And fresh. Were he an ordinary demon, it would have sucked him dry within a week. And I doubt that feels as fun as it sounds."

"Do you think this Maalik guy let Dean go?"

Crowley shook his head. "The angels can't be too happy with what he's been up to. Something tells me they wouldn't have taken the chance. He must have escaped." Crowley raised his eyebrows as he came to a stop in front of the unconscious Dean. "Impressive."

Sam drew Ruby's knife from its holster on the mouldy floorboards and stepped over the painted Devil's Trap.

"Okay, then. So, just ... break the lines, or is there some ritual crap to do too?"

Crowley considered, his brows pulling together in concentration. He was silent for a long moment, then, "I have no idea, just cut the bitch."

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Sam leant forward and, anxiously adjusting his grip on the knife, placed the tip to the centre of Dean's chest, over the widest of the cuts. Wishing there was a way to do this gently, he drew the blade through the sigil as beads of bright red spilled over it. After scoring through three of what he judged to be the integral structure lines of the spell, he stepped back and glanced to Crowley.

"Good?"

The demon nodded.

Sam looked back to his brother. He hadn't stirred throughout the process, and now, with fresh blood still oozing down his torso, he looked paler and more fragile than Sam had ever seen him.

"Be right back."

He returned from the car with a litre bottle of water and an old facecloth that had been hiding in a corner of his pack. He knelt down before Dean and, being as gentle as he could, he set about cleaning the blood and grime off his big brother's tattered frame.

O*O*O*O

Not long after the third shot of purified human blood was administered, Dean began to stir at last.

"He's waking up," Crowley said, breaking the monotonous silence of the ruined church.

Sam stepped forward, but remained outside the Devil's Trap. He wasn't sure what to expect.

Dean frowned as he raised his head. His eyes opened slowly, as black as night and just as cold. Sam swallowed hard. Seeing those eyes in that face was not something he could get used to.

Groaning, Dean looked around, blinking his eyes back to green. He looked thoroughly hungover, but a cocky smile pulled at his lips when he saw the two men standing before him.

"Sam." His voice was hoarse and rough and oddly formal.

"Dean."

Crowley cleared his throat.

"Dickbag," Dean greeted, without looking at him.

"I've missed you too, sunshine."

Dean looked pointedly to the ropes lashed to his forearms, then back up at Sam. "So ... gonna try curing me?"

"Yep."

Dean's smile widened. "You really think that's gonna work?"

"Yep."

Dean chuckled.

"Nice beard."

"You like it?" Dean smiled, jutting his chin forward to show off his bronze-tinged facial hair. "Grew it myself."

Sam rolled his eyes and smiled slightly at the awful pun. "Bet you did. Doesn't make you look at all like Chuck Nolan."

"Sam, Sam. Jealousy don't look good on you, little brother."

"So," Sam said after a long pause, gesturing to the now-healing wounds on Dean's torso. "You gonna tell me who did this to you?"

"You're not the only one who's been hunting me, apparently."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "I got jumped by an angel and a hunter. They wanted info."

"What info?"

"My plans. Whether or not I was 'in league' with Cas."

"Are you?"

Dean jerked his chin up defiantly. "Why would I wanna work with the guy who put a bounty on my head?"

The corners of Sam's mouth twitched down in a look of grudging understanding. "Fair point. So are they trying to frame Cas now? Make it look like he partnered up with the demon who wants to attack Heaven?"

Dean grinned cheekily, but Sam could see pain tightening his eyes, could hear the slight wheeze in his breath. "Well, whadaya know, I'm famous. Yeah, that seems like the plan."

"So why didn't you just tell them you weren't working with him?" Sam asked. Judging by the severity and variety of wounds that covered Dean, the angel who'd worked him over – Maalik – had had him for some time.

"I did. They just didn't care. 'Sides, we were having so much fun – you should have seen the hunter girl. Melanie Harker, ever heard of her?"

Sam thought. "Don't think so. Wait, isn't she the one Rupert took in or something?"

"Yep, that's her. Apparently I killer her brother, so she was all out for my blood, and, oh, you should have seen her face when I told her I didn't remember him. It was priceless!"

Sam frowned, disappointed. Not Dean, he reminded himself.

Dean rolled his shoulders, straining slightly against his bonds. He still looked terrible. His eyelids drooped and it seemed to take a lot of effort to keep his head upright. And yet there was a nervous energy about him, an intensity in his eyes that made him look inhuman, alien.

"You look like crap, Dean."

"You should see the other guys."

Sam sank to the floor and sat cross-legged facing Dean. He was suddenly reminded of when he was a little kid and he'd sit, just like this, looking up at Dean as he read him some story or other from a motel bed. "What happened to them, anyway? How'd you get out?"

Dean glanced down at him. "I had backup."

Sam raised his eyebrows, inviting him to elaborate. He didn't.

"So they're dead?"

"Yeah." Dean laughed. There was a manic glint in his eyes that unnerved Sam. "Very." He looked up behind Sam, catching Crowley's eye. "Which is what you'll be wishing for when I'm through with you."

Crowley looked offended. "Me? Dean, I made you who you are!"

Dean scoffed. "No, Crowley. I made me who I am. You just taught me a few tricks and sold out every ally you'd ever made to save your own skin. You can't blame me for not wanting a two-faced traitorous dick on my team."

Crowley opened his mouth to argue but Sam raised a hand, stopping him.

"Let's just ..." He trailed off, not knowing what he was going to say. Try to get along? Yeah, right.

They lapsed into silence. Sam fidgeted with his fingers, playing with the end of his shoelace. Crowley stared at his perfectly shiny black shoes, his hands clasped behind his back. After a while, Dean let his head droop onto his shoulder. He closed his eyes, and a few minutes later his breathing relaxed to the steady rhythm of sleep. There was a slight wheeze rattling with each breath, and Sam wondered if one of his lungs had been punctured during his ordeal.

Dean looked so normal in sleep. Even the blood stains covering his face weren't as alien as the black eyes he hid behind his green ones. Despite the earlier sponge bath, Dean's face was still more reddish-pink than it was white.

He twitched slightly in his sleep. Demons didn't sleep, but then, Dean wasn't a normal demon. Maybe he'd been sleeping all these months after all, Sam wondered. Either that, or he just needed rest to recover from his injuries. Sam watched him sleep for a moment, growing ever more certain that, despite Cas and Crowley's misgivings, this cure would work. He'd have his brother back in just five short hours.

O*O*O*O

The fourth injection of Sam's blood made Dean shiver slightly. Sam eyed him worryingly. Dean noticed.

"Tickles," he explained, fighting a smile.

Sam felt his lips twitch in response. "Hold on a sec," he said, turning for the door.

"Yeah, sure. I'll wait here," Dean called sarcastically.

Sam returned from the car a few minutes later with another bottle of water and a clean square of white cloth.

"Here," he said, pouring some of the water on the rag. He brought it up to wipe Dean's face, but he jerked away reflexively and Sam paused.

"It's just water," he reassured him. "Not holy."

Dean eyed him mistrustfully, but allowed him to sponge the remaining blood from his face. Sam gulped and tried to ignore the wary look in his brother's eyes.

When Dean's face was clean – or cleaner at least – Sam held the neck of the bottle to his lips and waited as Dean took what looked like his first drink in days.

"Enough?" Sam asked when Dean pulled his head back, and he nodded, not meeting Sam's eye.

Sam screwed the cap back onto the bottle and set it and the now bright pink rag on the floor beside the syringe.

"You want a magazine or anything?"

Dean shook his head. He was staring at Crowley again like a cat pinning a bird with its gaze.

"You want a staring contest or what?" Crowley snapped defensively.

"How did you survive this long?" Dean asked, his eyes never wavering from Crowley's.

"What?"

"I sent my best demons out to find you. They all failed."

"Well, don't beat yourself up. I'm sure they tried."

"Crowley. How."

Sam looked between them, marvelling at how Crowley avoided Dean's gaze. It was one thing for Crowley to admit to fearing Dean, it was another to witness the former King of Hell quail under his brother's scrutiny.

Reluctantly, Crowley tugged the pendant from under his shirt and held it out on one thumb for Dean to see.

"Ah. Proto-Elamite protection," Dean said slowly, recognising the configuration of sigils and charms woven into the thong. "Doesn't that hurt?" he asked curiously.

"Like riding a bull on a dingy at sea. During a storm. Drunk."

"Impressive warding. Where'd you get the Pegasus feathers?"

Crowley smiled wryly. "I still have a few secrets up my sleeve."

Dean's lips quirked in a half smile. "I knew you were holding out on me."

Crowley nodded his head in a small bow, his grin smug. "Naturally."

Sam glanced between the two demons who seemed to be having some sort of smug face off.

God, this was gonna be awkward.

O*O*O*O

Not long after the fifth dose, Dean's posture began to straighten. The contusions that littered his face were almost healed. Hope fluttered in Sam's chest.

"Feeling better?"

Dean looked up at him, smiling politely. "Much."

Sam's answering smile wavered. He dismissed the twinge of fear that twisted in his gut. Dean looked slightly unhinged. There was a feral edge to his grin that looked so ... un-Dean-like.

"Good. That's, uh ... good," he said uncomfortably.

Crowley, who was not dealing well with the boredom of the slow cure, and since this time he wasn't physically restrained inside the church, excused himself. A few minutes later they heard the tinny beats of a song playing in the car.

"So," Dean drawled. "Sam Winchester, BFFs with a demon. Again."

Sam scowled. "He is not my friend. We have a deal."

"Like you and Ruby had a deal?"

"Ew, gross, no! He was just helping me find you. Trust me, as soon as you're better, he's dead."

"Pft. 'Find me'. Doing a bang up job, ain't he? You've been working with him for, what, half a year? Longer? How helpful's he been 'finding me'?"

Sam said nothing. He paced slowly across the unpleasantly springy floor, too restless to sit still.

"Ever wonder why that is?" Dean pressed. "The old King of Hell can't find one demon, but he can make a charm necklace powerful enough to hide him from me?"

"What are you saying?"

"Oh, Sam." Dean smiled the way he did when they were kids and he was savouring the triumph of duping Sam into thinking tiny people who lived in the floorboards kept stealing his left sock. "You still don't get it? Crowley's a double agent, Sherlock. He's been working for me since the beginning."

"You're lying," Sam snapped. Demons lie. He tried to ignore the fact than he was talking about two demons, one who he already knew was hardly a commercial for integrity.

"Am I?" Dean smiled as he watched Sam wear a path over the floorboards. "Demons lie, right?" His eyes turned black and Sam winced slightly. "One of us is bound to be. But which one?"

"Shut up."

"C'mon, Sam!" Dean said loudly, clearly enjoying himself. "How'd you think Crowley knew so much of my master plan, huh? How'd you think he escaped me? Dunno if you've heard, but I'm kinda a tough boss to beat." The pride in his voice would have made Sam laugh if the circumstances were less confusing and tragic.

"You had him in a draining cell. He got out."

Dean laughed. "Sure, yeah, a 'draining cell'," he jeered. "'Cause that doesn't sound made up at all."

"Shut up, Dean!" Sam retorted, whipping his head to glower at his brother as he quickened his pace unconsciously.

Dean chuckled again, shaking his head at his captor's stupidity. "Yeah, yeah. But you don't have to believe me. I mean, I'm a demon." He looked up at Sam, unperturbed, fixing him with his black-eyed stare. "I might be lying." His eyes faded back to green. "Or I might not."

"Stop it, Dean." Sam's voice was low and far calmer than he felt.

"Or what, Sam? Gonna gank me?" He nodded to Ruby's knife, which waited patiently in a holster strapped to Sam's thigh.

"No. I'm going to cure you."

Dean swung his head in an arc, groaning loudly. "Oh, Sam! Don't you get it yet? I don't want to be cured!"

Sam frowned and shook his head, not willing to even consider this ludicrous possibility. "Of course you do. You just can't tell 'cause you're possessed or lost in there or something. You're sick, Dean."

"Sick?" Dean's booming laugh filled the small church, echoing off the decaying walls and ceiling. "Sam, I have never felt better!"

Sam shook his head again, smiling slightly. This wasn't Dean talking. It was the demon part of him.

"You don't mean that," he said softly, as though correcting a child who was adamant that grass was the Earth's fur.

"You, you have no idea how much I mean it." Dean straightened in the chair, leaning as far forward as the rope would allow.

"All that bullshit that was weighing me down," he said emphatically. "All that grief and guilt and shame – over things that happened years ago! You know I still blamed myself for Mom and Dad? For Bobby and Kevin and Ellen and Jo and everyone we got killed. Hell, I still had nightmares about the time that Jake kid stabbed you! You know how much all that crap was stopping me? Holding me back?" He paused and looked at Sam, his face alight with zeal. "And now it's all gone."

Sam stared at him uncomprehendingly. Blaming himself for things that weren't his fault was almost as much a part of Dean as was the Impala.

"And you have no idea how ..." He glanced around the church, searching for the right word. "Liberating that feels. This feeling, this power." He nodded toward his right forearm, where the Mark of Cain lay hidden by Sam's jacket sleeve. "It's so immense. It fills me. There is nothing I can't do!"

"But you've gotta know how wrong all this is!" Sam roared back, snapping as the frustration and pain that had been festering inside him for so many months reached an unrestrainable pitch. "You've killed hundreds of innocent people, Dean!"

"Thousands," Dean corrected, savouring the word on his tongue.

Sam stared at him as though he had gone mad. "No, no, this isn't you talking," he said aloud, shaking his head.

"'Not me talking'?" the demon quoted derisively. "And who else would it be? You know it's just me in here, don't you, Sam? It's not like I'm possessed. I am the possession. I am a demon."

"I know that," Sam spat. "I've been researching every damn thing about the Mark and Cain – I know it's not some ancient demon stuck inside you or something." He leant forward, towering over the smiling Dean. "But it's not you. Not right now. I know it."

"Oh, of course you do," Dean agreed in a voice like silken honey. "'Cause I get it now. I never understood before I woke up, before I was born again."

"What are you talking about?"

"You. And the demon blood."

Sam straightened up, his expression guarded.

"What, you thought I'd forgotten about that?" Dean mocked. "Give me a little credit. But I really do understand now, why you chose Ruby over me, why you didn't listen. Why you kept drinking it down. You liked how it felt."

"Shut up."

"You liked the power, all that extra mojo."

"Dean, shut up!"

"That invincible feeling. It trumped everything –"

With a flash of glinting silver, Sam flicked the demon knife into his hand and held it to Dean's throat in warning.

"Not everything," he growled.

"Thaaat's it," Dean purred. "The famous Sam Winchester rage." He winked. "Can always count on that. Unlike you."

Blackness drifted over Dean's eyes like a shroud.

"Do it," he cooed. "You know you want to. Go on, little brother, try to kill me. You've wanted me dead for years."

"What?" Sam breathed, backing away. The white line left by the edge of the knife stood out in sharp relief against Dean's tanned skin before it disappeared. He stared at Dean as though he didn't recognise him. "What did you say?"

"Come on, Sam, don't deny it. You've resented me for years. Your life would be so much easier, so much sweeter if I wasn't around."

"That is not true," he breathed, completely stunned that Dean would so much as entertain such a horrific notion as this.

"Yeah, sure it's not," Dean sneered. "Admit it, Sam, if I was dead, you'd be off with some girl living the apple pie life and pretending this world" – his eyes flicked black for a moment – "didn't exist. I've always been what's drawn you back into hunting and you've always hated me for it."

Hot tears prickled just behind Sam's eyes, but he did not allow them to form. He gave his head a slight shake and leant forward, bringing his face close to Dean's. He didn't care if this was some demon trick. If Dean truly believed that, even for one second, Sam had to set things straight.

"Dean. Listen to me." His voice was low and fervent, and such was his focus on Dean that he didn't hear the faint shnik of the rope as it broke. He stared intently into his brother's eyes and so missed the moment when the winds of rope slackened around Dean's arms.

"Don't you think that. Not for one second. We're family," he said forcefully. "I have never wished you were –"

The only warning Sam had was the almost imperceptible change in Dean's expression. It was the merest twitch of the brow and lips, but it told Sam, too late, that he had made a mistake.

Dean's fists rammed into Sam's chest as he grabbed fistfuls of his plaid shirt and heaved him effortlessly into the air as he stood. Sam cried out in shock and grabbed Dean's wrists, trying to hold some of his weight as his feet paddled uselessly in the air a foot above the mouldy floorboards.

"Dean! What –"

He was cut off as Dean threw him across the church and he slammed hard into the wall beside the door. The breath whooshed out of him and he crumpled to the ground, dazed. He gasped in a great breath as his vision swam. He saw a slightly blurry Dean kick the ropes that had fallen to his ankles out of the way and stamp loudly with one booted foot with a loud crack! A section of floorboard sprang up from the strength of the strike, and Sam realised with a thrill of horror that the piece of wood that flew up into Dean's sure hands had a line of bright red paint on it.

Sam struggled to get to his feet, but didn't have time to shield himself as Dean strode forward and walloped him with the wood. With a grunt of pain, Sam fell to the side, seeing stars.

"Humans," he heard Dean say somewhere above him. "So easy to mess with."

He felt a fist grab the back of his shirt and heave him up, followed by a knee making solid contact with his gut. He wheezed, winded once again.

"So easy to break."

The next thing he knew he was flying once more, away from the door and his only escape. He landed with a bone jarring crash on the opposite side of the church, a high ringing in his ears. He cried out as he felt his arm snap on contact with the ground and he rolled onto his back, cradling the surely broken limb and gasping.

Dean was on top of him in seconds, heaving him to his feet and shoving his back into the church wall. Sam was still struggling to draw in a full breath, sure that some of his ribs must have cracked.

"I should thank you, Sam," Dean said casually as he drew his arm back as far as the demon cuffs would allow and punched Sam hard across the face, with far more strength than any human could muster. Blood burst from Sam's lip and he felt his cheekbone fracture. "I was really in bad shape there, y'know?"

"De –"

Another punch, this time with both fists. Sam's head snapped around so quickly his neck spiked with zinging pain.

"But that holy blood. Mm."

"Dean, pleas –"

A knee to the stomach as Sam tried desperately to suck in just a thimbleful of air.

"Better than Dad's old cure-all. Sure, it stung a bit, but ..." He chuckled. "I've never felt better!"

Another fist to Sam's face and he went limp in Dean's grip. He was still semi-conscious, but his brain was moving slowly, stunned by the waves of pain.

A series of vicious blows darkened the world around him. He tried to speak, to beg his brother not to do this, not to kill him, please, but there was no air in his lungs and his tongue was swimming in hot, tangy blood.

He felt Dean let go of him and heard him cry out angrily. Sam fell to the floor, finally pulling in a much-needed breath. He looked around the church with wide, unfocused eyes, trying to see through the gathering shadows.

He saw two dark blurs fighting. The taller was winning, pummelling the shorter with a speed and ferocity Sam's clouded eyes couldn't follow. They broke apart and the shorter blur shouted in Sam's direction, but his dazed brain couldn't make sense of the words. It was like hearing a snippet from a radio that was swirling in and out of tune.

"SA-AM," the voice seemed to say. Something was wrong with the volume. He knew the blur must be shouting, and yet all he heard was a tired whisper. "GE-ET OU ... 'F HERE!"

Sam's head fell sideways onto his shoulder. He didn't remember wanting to do that. The larger figure jerked his hands apart and a metallic snap rang through Sam's aching brain. The blur held out its hand to the rectangle of too-bright light that shone in the distance, and a shadow spun into being, landing in the blur's outstretched hand.

Sam blinked slowly. He knew he was in danger. He knew he was hurt. His head felt fuzzy and light and heavy all at once and so very sore. His mouth hung open and he could feel and taste blood on his tongue and lips. His lungs weren't strong enough to expand against the crushing weight of his own chest and agony throbbed through him without mercy.

He blinked again and the blurs came into slightly better focus. The tall one held a jagged knife in one hand and the smaller figure in the other. Fear crackled in Sam's aching gut and he tried to get up, to do something, but his body wouldn't obey him.

His vision began to grow dimmer. Everything was shades of grey and black and the rectangle of white was shrinking and shrinking.

Just before Sam was consumed by the blackness, he saw a flash of red-white light that seared his retinas. There was an echoing cry of pain that should have been louder and a cackle of familiar yet alien laughter and then ...