-Summary: It's the end of the world and they've got one last card to play. Castiel sends Dean back: back before everything. Now he has time to stop what's coming, but no friggin' clue how to do it. Time travel should really come with a manual. TIMELINE AU

-Chapter Warnings: Dean's back to swearing, but can you really blame the poor kid? Sam's not waiting on John Winchester for an escape plan, Azazel's got some peculiar things to ponder, and we finally find out what the hell is up with Dean's chest.

-Actual Chapter Warnings: As you can imagine, similar to the last two. We're ramping it up a bit more. Still gore, torture, murder: the general dark, ugly things. Solid T rating!

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The Road So Far (this Time Around)

Chapter 29

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Sam's voice was hoarse and his throat raw by the time Azazel stepped away from his brother. He released Dean from the wall, and the hunter didn't bother trying to hold himself up. He crumpled to the ground with a soft sound that hurt Sam deep in his chest. But he pushed that to the side. Dean was still breathing. He could work with that.

Yellow Eyes had ignored every plea, scream, and demand sent his way while he gave his brother the beat down of his life. An hour in he switched from fists to what must have been psychic knives or claws of some sort, since the older Winchester's skin split with every rake of Azazel's fingers. Dean took it all with impressive reservation. Sam had never seen anything like it in all his years of hunting monsters and killing things, and he certainly had never seen it in his brother.

Dean was like steel; cold and clinical about the torture being inflicted on him like he was outside of it all. It obviously hurt, something the older hunter didn't waste energy hiding. He screamed when he needed to and didn't hide behind some macho bravado act like Sam expected. It only took about fifteen minutes for the young Winchester to realize that his brother – the Dean from the future – had been through this before. Perhaps not exactly this, as Dean definitely would have mentioned them being kidnapped by the yellow eyed psycho, but torture certainly.

What might have been comforting in any other sense – the idea that Dean could handle this – hand handled this before – only made Sam more desperate to get the demon away from him. He never wanted to hear those pained noises coming from his big brother again. But for all Sam's begging and threatening, Azazel refused to turn his attention away from the older Winchester. He took a break at one point to give Sam a wink and the reassurance that he'd never hurt his prize show pony. Sam had only screamed louder.

"Ha. H-He definitely has the m-mane for it," Dean chuckled, half delirious from the last round of headshots Azazel delivered without reserve.

"Dean. Shut up."

Sam didn't know how long they'd been in that cabin by the time Azazel finally backed off. He didn't know how much longer they had to wait for their Dad to arrive. If he had to guess, he'd say a couple of hours had passed, though it felt like days at that point.

"Entertaining as this has been, boys," Azazel began conversationally, a step back from the crumpled, bleeding hunter. "I need to step out for a moment. Gotta prep for the main event!"

He picked up Dean's jacket, which he'd cut off not long after the invisible claws came out, and wiped his blood splattered face with it. The hunter made a gargled sound at the action, glaring at the man with all that he was worth. That was his father's jacket, damn it. Not that there was much left of it now.

Yellow Eyes just smiled, dropped the battered material next to the hunter, and strolled past Sam and out of his range of vision. The sound of an old door creaking open and shutting hard rattled through the single room, and Sam finally let out a shaky breath.

"Is he gone?" he asked, just to be sure since he couldn't see the second half of the room. Dean nodded, though Sam took a moment to consider how good his brother's vision could even be, given one eye was swelled completely shut and the other kept blinking to keep out blood from a cut to his brow.

He trusted him, though, so he took his word. "Can you move?"

Dean made a sort of half-assed grunt that Sam easily translated into 'if I have to.' Not the answer he'd been hoping for, but the one he'd been expecting. He knew at least one of Dean's legs was broken. Straight through the femur, one of the most painful bones to break, and Azazel had snapped it like a toothpick. Dean took it like a champ, just groaning about recovery time, thigh-high casts, and damn it, not again.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked softly, unable to block the sound of his brother's leg cracking in two playing on a loop through his brain.

"I'll live," Dean mumbled, spitting out a mouthful of blood. He sent his brother a half grin, which lost most of its intended effect given his teeth were stained as red as the rest of him. "Had way worse than this, Sammy."

"Yeah," the younger man answered weakly. He'd figured that much out on his own, but was dreading the story behind it. "Any ideas on getting out of here?"

With Dean's leg busted and the rest of him on the sure path of eventual exsanguination, Sam knew the man wasn't walking out, even if he could convince his big brother to leave him behind.

"Dad'll think of something."

Shit. Sam stared at the man without bothering to hide the worry or the fear. Dean always had an idea, or the confidence of an idea yet to form but surely coming. It was something Sam had always admired about his brother; the stubborn mule didn't give up, no matter the odds. Admitting now that their best bet was waiting until John showed up meant the hunter knew he was benched.

"Yeah, okay." Sam didn't try getting any more out of his brother, whose wet breaths eventually evened out as he rested against the wall. He let Dean take the much needed, well-deserved respite. The younger Winchester watched his brother's bloodied chest rise and fall for several comforting moments that he desperately needed before he put himself to work.

Sam's gaze turned to the gun, still sitting atop the dresser beside Dean's phone. The restrained hunter didn't know how much time they had before the demon returned, but he wasn't going to waste it by waiting.

-o-o-o-

The dilapidated and somewhat listing shed stood – sort of – a good fifty yards away from the old hunting cabin. It had once been used for storing a winter's worth of firewood and drying meats for the family that lived in the house. It got them through the desolate, freezing, deadly winters of northern Michigan. Of course, the last time a family had lived in that pathetic excuse for a home, it had been frontier land. Nowadays the shed had a gaping hole in the roof with rot eating away at what was left, a door that hung off its hinges and had to be roped closed if anyone bothered to close it at all, and the whole thing would, in all likelihood, collapse atop itself within a year.

However, it did still work as a makeshift holding cell for three humans dumb enough to spend a chilly May night camping out in an abandoned cabin in the woods.

Azazel unhooked the rope holding the shed door closed, allowing the monstrosity to swing open with a distressing groan of rusting metal and rotting wood. He stepped into the dark space, glancing down as his foot landed on a squishy, uneven surface that crunched beneath his boot.

The yellow eyed demon gazed down in distaste at the lifeless teenage male underneath his foot. The boy had attempted – valiantly, he supposed – to defend his girlfriend and the young child, a sister perhaps, that had been with them when the demon whisked into the cabin.

They'd been in sleeping bags, with a camping stove between them and marshmallows of all things roasting over the open flame. Azazel had allowed himself a moment to gag at the hallmark scene before snapping the boy's neck.

A whimper brought him away from the warm and fuzzy memory. He grinned at the frightened thing huddled in the corner of the shed. Tears streaked down her pretty little face and she turned away with a flinch as the demon transferred his weight to the foot pressed atop the dead boy's body. His ribs gave with a satisfying crunch, and Azazel stepped off the broken meatsuit and swept towards the girl.

She struck out, screaming, as he grabbed at her and hauled her off the dirty floor. The good thing about a dilapidated shed fifty yards from the house was the fact that its current occupants were unlikely to hear the fuss. Not that they could do anything about it, even if they did hear her mewling. But hunters were such pathetically noble things. He wouldn't put it past the Winchesters to figure out a daring escape just so they could save some crying bitch.

"What did you do with my sister?" The thing sobbed and squealed in his arms, snot and salt water slobbering up her face. She clutched a small hair pin in her hand, a bejeweled butterfly attached at the end. Azazel tilted his head at the trinket, then stretched his face into a grin.

"I had to make a call." He tightened his grip around the teen's bicep and hauled her towards the shed door. "Unfortunately for you, I have to make another."

-o-o-o-

John Winchester wrung the steering wheel beneath a white knuckled grip as he crossed the Michigan border. Another hour more. He closed his eyes briefly, thoughts focused on his sons surviving long enough for him to get there. They just had to survive another hour.

He glanced at the old gun sitting on the passenger seat, long barrel shaking with the vibrations of the engine and the bumps of the road as he flew down the I-75. The hunter wrung the steering wheel again as he turned his eyes back to the road. A light rain started, streaking drops across his windshield at eighty miles per hour.

Just another hour and he'd be there.

Hang on, boys. I'm coming.

-o-o-o-

The blood bubbled in its chalice a final time before going silent and still. Azazel set the cup down beside the unmoving body he'd drained for its contents. His daughter still hadn't checked in, despite her last call informing him she was closing in on the Winchesters. That was some time ago and he had no doubt she was dead, probably by way of that fancy gun John Winchester would soon deliver to him.

The Baku they hired to find that particular hunter hadn't been heard from for some time now, either. Crowley hardly seemed to care, but Azazel found curiosity in the beast's disappearance. He did nott often bother with the lesser things that roamed the earth, but even he knew the Baku were not killable, at least not by man. Not even by a man armed with the Colt.

Given how persuasive a salesmen the King of the Crossroads could be, when properly incentivized that is, Azazel found it unlikely the dream beast would wander off, job incomplete and sans whatever promised reward.

Which meant that peculiar things were happening. Too many, he believed, to be of coincidence. His best daughter was dead, the eldest Winchester was being fed information on Hell's movements faster than Hell was able to collect information on his, their carefully laid and almost fool-proof plan to spring Lucifer from his cage continued to derail at the simplest of steps, the Colt surfaced with perfect timing for both themselves and their enemies, and a dream beast the Winchesters had no way of killing seemed to be quite killed.

Azazel stared at the blood, silent within its chalice now that Lilith was no longer on the other end of the call. What was even more peculiar was the recent development she relayed to him. It had taken time for their scattered demons to regroup and report in - more time of course to torture the real story out of them and confirm its legitimacy - but apparently that pesky Pearly White Gate was no longer shut. It had creaked open, just for a moment, earlier this week.

Of all weeks, really, this week was...well, it was more than peculiar, that was for certain. Unfortunate, really. It was going to be problematic if Heaven joined this fight early. It did not, however, explain how they seemed to have already had a hand in it for six months.

The Prince of Hell rubbed his hand along his chin in thought, but pulled away when his fingers ran across something cold and wet. He stared at the digits in the moonlight; Dean Winchester's blood was smeared across the tip of one. He must have missed some when he'd used the kid's jacket as a wipe down. Pale yellow eyes gazed past his fingers, focusing on the blood sitting in the silver cup next to the corpse it once belonged to.

A silly little thought occurred to him. One might even call it peculiar.

"Tasted like righteousness, huh?" He wiggled his fingers in the moonlight. With possibility niggling at his brain, Azazel raised his hand to his lips and took a taste of the Righteous Man's blood.

-o-o-o-

"Dean. Wake up."

The voice was far away, but still loud enough to disturb his peaceful lull of oblivion. First, he tried to ignore it. But the voice was insistent, and growing worse. What had started soft was becoming demanding, then indignant. So the second thing Dean did was try to turn away from the sound, an action that instantly provided the opposite effect he was hoping for.

Pain flared through… shit, everything! Green eyes snapped open – well, one snapped open and the other painfully reminded him that his face was currently hamburger meat. He hissed as multiple fractures flared up throughout his body, which tried to react to the pain in his face by raising his arms to it. The pain in his arms made him jerk forward, and he really quickly came to the conclusion that there wasn't a single part of him that didn't hurt.

Well, he thought as he groaned and leaned back against whatever surface had been previously supporting him. His toes didn't really hurt. His head definitely did, given the downright giddiness that came with realizing his toes were fine.

"Dean."

The hunter suppressed another pained sound and lifted his head – slowly – to search for his brother's voice. It took a moment, head still swimming and vision absolutely fucked between the swelling, the blood, and the concussion. Concussions. Pretty sure he'd compounded them by now. Eventually he settled his single eye on his brother, chained in the center of the room a good ten feet away.

"Hey, Sammy." He had the brief thought that he should say something cooler than that. Maybe poke at the fact his brother was strapped up like a dungeon bondage porno gone terribly wrong, nose dribbling blood like he'd been sucker punched by a pussy who couldn't even hit hard enough to bruise. But chuckling hurt, as he was now learning, and something vaguely resembling self-preservation whispered in his head that mouthing off meant more pain.

"You're taking damsel in distress to all knew levels." Right, like he had ever listened to that voice when it did decide to pipe up.

Sam rolled his eyes, but there was relief in the twitch of his lips. His eyes were serious, though, and Dean tried to focus for their sake. His kid brother was holding himself really stiff, one hand fisted at his side, the other extended as far as it could go with the chains pinching at his red, irritated elbow. The kid's hand was splayed out and trembling.

Dean frowned at it. Something clawed at his foggy brain but failed to break through.

"I need you to focus," Sammy was saying, and it took a moment and a heavy blink for Dean to realize he was talking to him. "Do you remember where the padlock is on the chains?"

The man from the future frowned further, stopping only when pain pushed through his head at the pull of those muscles. Instead, he stared at his brother as his thoughts swayed like his vision.

"Padlock?"

"Yeah." Sammy sounded a little desperate, like he did when they were on a time limit. "Can you describe where it is? Exactly."

Dean frowned again, despite the pain that came with it. He wasn't really following, but sure, he could do that. He remembered making his way across the swirling room after the first concussion – definitely sure he had a second one now – and following his brother's restraints around to the back.

"Dead center, about….an inch above your bellybutton?"

Sam's eyes slid away from his brother, focusing on something else. His hand twitched and that thing trying to claw at Dean's memory doubled its efforts. There was a familiar click and the sound of metal pressing against metal. Dean's curiosity peaked and he turned his head to follow the sound. He couldn't spot what made the noise, though. Sam frowned, head tilting slightly. He move his hand again, and the sound came once more, but heavier this time. Thicker metal, Dean's ailing mind supplied.

The kid suddenly grinned. "Found it."

Dean was about to ask what he'd found when the sound of a gun going off ripped through the room. The older Winchester raised his arms on instinct, head turning to the side as he closed his eyes. The movement ended up half aborted as pain flared through both limbs and he gasped, pressing himself back against the wall as his vision whited out for a minute.

Fuck the gunshot, the only thing a bullet could do to him now was end the goddamn pain.

Hands were grabbing at him before his vision cleared, and he stupidly tried to fight them off, resulting in more agony. He was doubled over trying to breath and repeating a mantra of 'don't move your arms, dumbass' by the time he realized it was Sam's hands gripping his shoulders – some of the only undamaged parts of his torso currently – and his voice urging him to get up.

"Oh, fuck," he mumbled as he managed to clamp down on the waves of agony going through him and instead forced his eyes open.

"We gotta go," Sam spoke urgently right next to him, but his voice sounded apologetic. Dean's concussed brain couldn't quite grasp why, but the answer came to him a second later when his brother hauled his broken body up.

"Oh, fuck!" he cried again, gritting his teeth. Forget waves of agony, this was pure hell.

You've been through worse. Suck it up, Winchester. The voice in his head was cold and harsh, but it also spoke the truth and Dean knew it, even if he didn't know much else in that moment. So he took a heaving breath and did as he was told. Sam slung Dean's unbroken arm around his samsquatch shoulders, pulling on his bruised torso and broken ribs, but he sucked air through his teeth and fought through the pain.

Things weren't making much sense to him right then, but he knew Azazel was coming back. Sure, it took him a few moments longer than it should have to remember who the hell Azazel was, but bite him. Two concussions, people!

"Now, that was a neat trick."

Both hunters froze, half because Sam had been all of their driving motion, and half because a little voice in Dean's head supplied the identity of the owner of that voice and the rest of him supplied the swear words and sudden muscle rigidity.

Sam raised the gun in his hand – when the hell had the kid gotten his gun? – and fired repeatedly into the demon. Azazel didn't bat an eye or bother dodging. His shirt and flannel ripped with every bullet, but there was no blood and he barely staggered a step. Soon enough, Dean's chamber was empty and Sam lowered the gun, the fierceness in his eyes hiding the panic beyond.

"Ouch." Azazel tilted his head and the gun flew from Sam's hand, skidding across the room and into the far wall. Dean went next, with Sam crying out as his brother was ripped from his grip and pinned back to his favorite spot in the whole cabin.

Yellow Eyes flicked his wrist even as Sam spun to face him. The kid was dragged back to the pillar and pinned to the wood. The chains and busted padlock, bullet still lodged in the shattered metal, remained limp on the floor. Azazel kept both boys restrained with his stupid demon powers alone, strolling into the room and up to the dresser.

He set a large mason jar of dark liquid on the surface and Sam stopped struggling, breath stolen from his body at the sight of another container of demon blood.

-o-o-o-

"What is that."

Azazel had given them a moment to gather their wits, standing beside the dresser with neither words nor expectations. Yet, at least. Dean used his minute to try and remember how to breathe without throwing up. Sam needed every second of the allotted time to rip his gaze from that sickeningly red liquid.

Now Yellow Eyes focused his attention on the young man in the center of the room. The hunter looked for all the world like he wanted to push himself straight through that pillar and disappear entirely. Azazel wouldn't be surprised if Sam stayed pressed to that surface, demonic power holding him there or not.

"Come on, Sammy," he admonished lightly, a single brow raised at the boy. He placed a light hand atop the jar. "You already know the answer."

He delighted in watching the hunter's Adam's apple bob up and down.

"No." Sam lifted his chin, lower jaw trembling but expression resolute despite the obvious fear and, Azazel suspected, slight withdrawal.

"You sure, kiddo?" The demon looked him up and down, and Sam clenched his jaw until it ached. Azazel made a face, bobbing his head back and forth in thought. "That last bout with the gun and the chains? I'm betting that about drained the tank. Am I right?"

Sam held firm, refusing to blink or even think about how keeping that pistol afloat long enough to find the padlock and fire had almost made him black out.

"You know how I know?" The demon grinned, nodding slightly as if encouraging Sam to play along. When he didn't, the demon went on anyway, tapping the side of his nose. "You're bleeding again, sport. That stopped for a while, didn't it?"

He kept right on grinning and nodding, an ecstatic look in his eye. He tapped his fingers along the lid of the mason jar. "See, with a dose like this, you're getting strong enough to survive those pushes. But without more…"

Azazel clucked his tongue and shook his head slowly, gaze once more admonishing.

"No."

The demon sighed and turned away from the young hunter. "Alright, then. You're smart enough to know how these things work, Sammy."

Sam's heart stuttered as Azazel reached out and wrapped a hand around Dean's arm. The man had been silently recuperating from his most recent reintroduction to the wall. While following the conversation the best he could through an addled brain, ears ringing for reasons he didn't even know any more, and the pain of his broken body subjected to the steady, heavy pressure of Azazel's power, Dean wasn't fully paying attention. His focus did shift a little more to the present when that cold grip dug into his fractured forearm though.

"Stop!" Sam yelled as his brother cried out. The sound swiftly cut off and all Dean did was groan and huff through clenched teeth. Some focus returned to his brother's eyes as he glared at the demon with everything he had left. Which, Sam was terrified to admit, wasn't much.

"I may need him breathing," Yellow Eyes continued conversationally, glancing over his shoulder at his real interest, "but he doesn't have to be in one piece."

"I'm already not in one piece," Dean muttered, though he instantly regretted it when Azazel applied more pressure. Still, never let it be said that Dean Winchester backed down from a fight. Or an opportunity to piss in the face of the demon who destroyed his family. "I swear to God if you force that shit down his throat-"

"What are you and God gonna do about it?" Azazel tightened his grip and Dean had half a mind to tell him that God might not do much, but he sure as hell would. Soon as his dad showed up with that gun. "And I'm not gonna have to force anything. He's going to drink it all on his own, aren't ya Sammy?"

Sam tried to keep his focus on the demon, but he couldn't help his eyes sliding to that jar of blood and back again.

"Sam, no." The distressed command from his brother was more of a plea than anything, but Sam ignored it as he glanced over at the blood once more. He didn't need the older hunter to tell him what to do, whether or not future Dean thought it was the right call. Still, Dean shook his head from his position against the wall. "I can take it."

He didn't need the order, or the reassurance, or the decision made for him. All Sam needed was the memory of his brother's voice telling him everything he would come to be, everything he'd come to do, and all because of that viscous red liquid sitting ten feet from him. He didn't need Dean to make his choices for him; he was not going to become that Sam.

"You heard my brother." Sam tilted his chin up defiantly. "No."

Across the room from him, Azazel hummed, hand still poised around Dean's forearm. Sam prepared to hear yet another bone snapping in two, but the demon just stood there, a thoughtful look on his face. "I did hear him. Really, I've got some questions about that."

Dean let out a surprised little yelp as he was suddenly released from the wall. Yellow Eyes took a step back and to the side as the hunter's feet fell the inch or so to the ground and he staggered under his own weight. Dean hissed, immediately shifting off of his broken leg, though the other was a mess of bedraggled cuts and wasn't much better. He ended up supporting most of himself with the wall, and some masochistic part of his brain wished the demon would go back to holding his body up for him.

"See, I've been thinking. You're taking this whole torture thing really well." Azazel crossed his arms in contemplation, demeanor totally at ease. Both humans struggled with the sudden civil and downright surreal turn to the conversation. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you've been through something like it before."

Dean practically swallowed his tongue, biting down on the muscle in order to keep himself from sniping back that if this is what Azazel called torture he should try an hour with Alistair. Cold fingers gripped his chin, lifting his head. Dean's vision swam but he blinked his way through it with his good eye.

"Only, I do know better." Azazel stared at the hunter like he was trying to see straight through him. It was like a perversion of Cas's angel gaze, and Dean's chest flared indignantly at the notion. "You've never been in this much pain before."

The hunter snorted, but caught himself with a hiss as the demon's hand tightened around his face.

"We've been watching you since Mommy ate it on the ceiling." Azazel smirked at the way that jaw trembled beneath his fingertips. He imagined Dean would like nothing more than to bite his hand clean through if he could. "We watched both of you. So I know what I'm talking about when I say this should be breaking you."

The demon pulled away with an air of displeasure, pushing Dean's chin to the side even as he released him. "At least, more than it is."

"You don't know shit about me," Dean spat, turning his head back to glare at the thing that dared to touch him, that dared to think he knew what could break him. "And that'll be one of the last mistakes you ever make."

The demon made a noncommittal sound, not really listening. "You know, my daughter told me something interesting."

"Your daughter?"

Azazel turned towards Sam, almost like he forgot the other man was in the room. "Yes, the demon I'm sure you killed sometime in the last week. She was mine."

Sam stared at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes.

"What? You think you're the only one that can have a family?"

The broken hunter behind him snorted again, and he lashed out with his hand to deliver a strike to the man's bleeding torso. He cried out, but it petered into a hiss and then a full blown chuckle.

"I forgot about that," Dean muttered, lifting his head. He was smiling, teeth red with his own blood, yet the shit eating grin stayed firmly in place. Azazel regarded him with disgust. He struck again and Dean doubled over, sliding an inch down the wall.

"You think that's funny? That was my child. How would you feel if I killed your family?" Dean made a gurgling noise as Azazel caught him by the neck and hauled him back to his feet. "Oh, that's right. I forgot. I did."

The two stayed locked in a standoff, the hunter biting his tongue against every instinct to answer back, and the demon daring him to with ever tightening fingers around his throat.

"What did Meg say to you?"

Both hunter and demon turned, Azazel's grip lessening ever so slightly. Sam stared at them, eyes darting from one to the other. Dean had killed Meg right after announcing he was from the future. So there was no way that's what she could have told Azazel. Right?

The demon pulled away again and Dean let out a frustrated grunt as he caught himself on the wall. Honestly, hold him up, don't hold him up. Whatever, man, as long as the damn demon just made up his mind already.

"She said your brother tasted like righteousness." The demon announced, rather randomly for the two humans who glanced at each other with equal expressions of confusion. "When she kissed you, Dean-O, that first time I sent her after you. You said she tasted like sulfur, and she told me you tasted like righteousness. Honestly, I thought it was funny."

He chuckled, genuinely amused. It died off, however, when he realized his audience didn't seem to be in on the joke. Azazel sighed. Inside jokes were no fun when only you and a handful of top ranking demons knew the punchline. Especially when said punchline was standing right in front of you.

"I didn't think much of it. She always was a bit whiney. But then, peculiar things started happening. And you," he flicked Dean in the forehead, causing the hunter to jerk back, "suddenly turned into Superman. At least for a hunter, anyway."

"He's always been a good hunter," Sam snapped back defensively, snarling against the pressure that kept him pinned to the pillar.

"Good, yes. But this?" Azazel raised a brow in the younger brother's direction. "Spotting our double agent before the big event? A magical gun no one's seen in a century? Let's not forget the sudden willingness to offer baby Sammy's soul as a bargaining chip for one little woman."

Sam hissed at the mention of Jess, face reddening as he pushed and pushed against the demon's power. But he could tell that his own strength, that vibration beneath his skin, was almost gone. His eyes darted to the jar blood once more.

"You've always been a good hunter, Dean. Better than your Daddy, for sure." Azazel snagged Dean's chin once more, tilting his head up to meet his one eye. "But suddenly, you're just a little too good. And I have to wonder why that is."

Steel blue eyes blinked yellow, then drifted down to stare at Dean's chest. The hunter's swimming mind couldn't fathom what the hell the dude was looking at, and honestly couldn't put more effort into it than a quip about where his eyes were. If the darkening edges of his vision were any indication of his current state, he wasn't going to make it through much more of this scintillating conversation.

Azazel ignored his comment, eyes still focused on the boy's chest, searching for something he didn't have the power to see anymore.

"Do you believe in angels?"

Dean managed not to suck in a breath of air mostly through luck. His hearing was sort of going in and out, and while he'd love to claim he had super ninja spy skills and a hell of a poker face that kept him from giving away the spike of fear that shot through him, it was mostly because he registered the question several seconds after Azazel had already moved on. He didn't dare meet Sam's wide-eyed gaze, though.

"Our scouts on Earth reported one making a run for your friend's house. Bobby Singer, isn't it? Well, the halo didn't stay long – blasted out of there almost as quick as it came. Why do you think it would do that?"

The man from the future honestly had no fucking clue. Mostly because he had no idea what the demon was talking about. No angel had stopped by Bobby's for a visit - at least not one they were aware of. The hunter breathed through his nose, mostly to keep his burning lungs and aching chest cavity under control. His nose had pretty much gone to shit: almost certainly broken and definitely clogged with blood. It was just as good as a paper bag for his hyperventilating system and panicking brain.

Dean refused to look over at his brother. He knew the question Sam would be asking with his eyes and Dean honestly wasn't sure he could keep from answering it. Not that he knew the answer.

'Cas?'

His chest ached in response, and his uninjured hand twitched with the need to rub at his sternum.

"Yeah, sure, pal," he managed to say instead, pushing thoughts of the angel as far from his mind as he could. Personally, he should be getting a damn Oscar for the way his voice stayed steady and even sounded like his usual, sarcastic self. "I thought I was the concussed one. There's no such thing as angels."

"Ah, well. You may not believe in them." Azazel's yellow eyes tracked back up to his face. He licked his lips, as though remembering the taste of something. "But I think one of them believes in you. And I wonder what he could have left behind to make your blood taste so…disgustingly righteous."

The demon pulled his arm straight back, close to his side with his palm turned inward and hand flat and rigid. Sam had half a second to wonder what on earth Azazel was talking about – was he talking about Castiel? – before the demon plunged his hand and arm straight through his brother's chest.

Sam screamed, but it was nothing compared to what Dean did. The hunter's voice was raw and shattered with unmanageable pain. His eyes were blown wide and his body tried to double over, but had nowhere to go with the demon taking up new residence in his chest cavity. Sam all but started hyperventilating, certain that Azazel had punched straight through his brother's ribcage, maybe even going after Dean's heart like he'd seen a werewolf do on a hunt gone terribly wrong when he was eleven.

But Dean kept screaming, which meant he kept breathing, kept living. His voice eventually cut out due to the fact that his brain overloaded on the sheer amount of pain signals it was receiving and his throat closed up. There was no blood, no splatter that should have come naturally with a giant hole punched through a human's chest. Azazel didn't pull back, didn't rip out his brother's still beating heart like something out of a terrible sci-fi movie. Sam kicked and screamed against his bonds, but he kept his eyes locked on his brother's face. As long as Dean was clenching his teeth, skin reddening, and sweat and tears trickling down, he was still alive.

Dean, for his part, couldn't breathe. And yeah, that may be because a demon was elbow-deep in his chest cavity where his lungs normally resided, but he had a feeling it had more to do with the seizing pain rippling through every fiber in his being. His nerves were on fire, his brain could barely function under the onslaught, and he had one single thought circling his brain over and over again that he couldn't seem to shake.

Damn it all to hell, I actually feel bad for putting soulless Sam through this.

No one, not even dickless, soulless, robotic not-brothers deserved this level of agony.

He had no idea what Azazel was looking for with a soul-search. A panicking brain managed to remind him this could let the time-traveling cat out of the bag, but it wasn't like he could do anything to stop it. The clawing hand went deeper, and Dean honestly wanted to die. Frozen fingers that burned like dry ice rooted around in his chest, igniting flares and setting his torso afire. They wiggled where they didn't belong, where there wasn't room for them. The pressure started to build beneath his ribs as the demon went deeper into his being.

Abruptly, it all stopped. There was a single moment of peace; a revitalizing breath of air filled his screaming lungs; a second of eerie silence soothed his aching head. Dean's chest went cold, but not in the ghost right behind you going for the kill kind of cold. It was opening the freezer and sticking your head inside on a hot day. Refreshing. Invigorating. Relief from the fire and flames.

Then Azazel reached out and touched it and the calm exploded.

-o-o-o-

Sam didn't know what happened. One second, his brother was choking on screams so painful he couldn't get them past his throat. Azazel's whole arm was buried in his brother's chest in a metaphysical manner that only ghosts were capable of. Then Sam's vision – the entire cabin – was rocked by an explosion of white-blue light.

The hunter slammed his eyes shut against the onslaught, but the blast from the explosion caught him across the chest and he was ripped away from the pillar and the power holding him there. Sam went cartwheeling through the air, further back into the cabin. He landed hard, twisting in a way that made his back muscles scream. The light faded, leaving Sam gasping for breath on the cabin floor, fingernails digging into the dirt-streaked, rotting wood.

He looked up, limbs shaking from adrenaline and fading pain. It took a second for his vision to clear from the exposure. Azazel was sprawled a couple feet in front of him, just starting to pick himself up. He was laughing as he climbed to his feet. Dean was collapsed once more against the wall, legs sprawled out in front of him, arms limp at his sides, head lolled to the left. He wasn't moving.

"Dean!" Sam scrambled to his feet, but Yellow Eyes flung out a hand and Sam found himself careening through the air once more, slamming into side wall of the cabin. His back protested, but he hardly felt it. The young hunter struggled against his invisible confines that he was quickly growing sick of, desperate to get to Dean and at least confirm his brother was still breathing.

"Well, that was refreshing!" Azazel's eyes were still glowing yellow, but there was a crazed gleam to them as he raised his arm. Sam's heart stuttered along with his lungs. The limb was charred – blackened beyond recognition – from his fingertips to mid bicep. Where the sleeve of his shirt had been before there was nothing; charred bits of flannel stuck to his melted flesh like a sick rendition of a skin graph.

The hunter turned away from the grotesque sight, fearful eyes searching his brother. He stopped breathing altogether when the same burns were evident in a blast pattern across Dean's chest.

"Dean?" The whisper was a scared little thing coming from a nine-year old boy during his first hunt, when his brother had taken a hit from a ghost straight into a tombstone and didn't get back up. Sam shuttered his eyes, shoving that little boy back down. "Dean, get up!"

But he didn't get up. He didn't move, and Sam couldn't tell from his pinned position against the wall if his brother was even breathing. Azazel was still laughing, indifferent to the useless, crippled limb or the unknown state of his captive.

"Oh, I didn't know the haloes had it in them," he announced loudly, finally lowering his ruined arm that no amount of power short of a soul exchange could heal. He moved towards the downed man, towering over his slumped form. The last embers of blue light were fading from the hunter's chest. The glow died out, leaving cloth and skin blackened from the defensive blast caused by a sliver of grace hidden away in the kid's soul. "You may not be one of mine, bucko, but you're somebody's alright."