-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

-Early Post! Yeeeah, that's right, I couldn't handle another two week gap either so I'm posting super early before I go off on my trip. I can't help it; I'm excited about this chapter. It's jam packed with lots of not-niceness (my favorite! Say it with me: No good...dirty rotten...)

-Reviews: I have not had time to answer reviews or most PMs in about three chapters now, and I am so sorry for that. I'll be trying to catch up in the next week or so. Feel free to bug me further if you feel I've forgotten you. I really do enjoy talking with you guys, so pester me all you want until I reply.

-Chapter Warnings: There's so much going on in this chapter. Bobby and the boys are back together, the former proves he's a badass researcher, the latter's looking for a case and making coffee, Bobby's finding (and losing) things that shouldn't even exist, Chuck's cursing Singers now too, and Sam's having a little trouble sleeping. Oh. And maybe Cas shows up? So. Much. Happening.

-o-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)

Season 2: Chapter 20

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

In the six weeks it took Ellen's contact to walk into the Roadhouse, the boy's got back on the road and tackled several hunts, most of them mundane. They started by returning to Bobby's; they'd left pretty abruptly with some of their less necessary gear still back at the older hunter's house, and, oh yeah, a braindead human being that was their responsibility.

Bobby greeted them with his usual raised brows and gruff that each of the Winchester boys could read easily enough as a 'welcome home' of sorts. They'd kept him at least somewhat up to date on the Elkins case, but had neglected to call about the Roadhouse or Ellen. They filled him in while they ate burgers that the boys had picked up on their way in. The older hunter hadn't been up to much. Checked in on their girl a couple of times, kept up the search for their mystery green-eyed woman, and ran research and interference for a few hunters. For now, it seemed quiet on the apocalypse front, which Dean wasn't all that surprised about.

He knew they had roughly a year until the next big crisis. Since that crisis was Sam's death, just thinking about it turned the delicious burger in his mouth to ash and dread. Dean swallowed it down forcefully and shoved the thoughts away. They had a year to figure it out.

Both Dean and Sam checked in on Angela, who was breathing away, oblivious to the world (or so they hoped. They hadn't actually asked Cas what would happen to the woman's soul back in that comatose state. Hopefully she wasn't just trapped in there, aware but unable to move. When Dean first threw the question out there, a nervous little laugh tacked on to the end as he stared at Sam for answers the kid didn't have, it bothered the kindhearted Winchester. It bothered him enough that over the course of the day he found himself sitting bedside by the braindead woman, reading his research on Canaanite culture aloud, just in case she was in there and could hear them. When Dean caught him doing it, standing in the doorway staring with something a little sad and a lot unfortunate painted across his face, neither of them said a word.

The next morning, Dean stopped in again to check on her (he'd actually checked in the middle of the night too. Housing a body on a ventilator was creepy. And nerve-wracking). He awkwardly said good morning to the unconscious woman, then fumbled because that just felt damn weird to say to an otherwise empty room. His recovery – stumbling through some sort of something (and yeah, looking back, he had no idea what he said) – didn't go much better, leading to him lingering for just a little too long to watch her chest rise and fall with residual anxiety. Eventually he left the room, feeling both paranoid and like a voyeuristic creep.

Awesome, just what he needed. Being responsible for a human's life with zero to little control over the thing keeping that human alive was friggin' stressful. And sucked.

Dean headed back downstairs for some grub and coffee, scrubbing at his face and deciding that those feelings, like all the others, could be dealt with later. Sam was already down there (morning people, man. They were the real freaks), flipping through the newspaper with his laptop, a couple open books, and an empty plate spread around him. There was half eaten bagel with a (pathetically) light spread of cream cheese in his hand. Knowing Sam, it hadn't actually made it to his mouth anytime in the last fifteen minutes. God, it made Dean's eyes hurt just to look at; that was way too much research way too early in the morning on way too little sustenance.

"Find us a case?" he asked as he crossed the kitchen with one goal in mind: coffee. He reached the life-giving pot of steaming, liquid gold and rooted around in Bobby's upper cabinets for a mug. He gestured Sam's way once he found one, but the kid shook his head, setting what was left of his breakfast back on the plate and lifting a glass of orange juice for a sip instead. (A morning person with juice. His brother was beyond saving, now.)

"A couple potentials," he answered when he was done with the OJ. The kid lowered the newspaper to lie across the table, a few articles, most of them small, circled in red sharpie, like he was job hunting. In a way, Dean figured they were. "A language professor at Princeton went missing from his office. Turned up in Wyoming a week later, dead."

"Our kinda thing?"

"Maybe," Sam offered with a shrug of his ridiculously broad shoulders. "The death was pretty nasty."

Dean leaned over his brother's shoulder while pouring the contents of the coffee pot into his mug to look at the circled article, a little larger than the others, complete with a picture of the guy. He looked normal enough. Pretty stereotypical higher-education professor with large circular glasses, an ugly sweater, and greying hair. The death could have been something supernatural – one of the larger quotes on the page said the wife was adamant it was foul play – but it wouldn't be the first time the boys had run into some old dude tired of his lady, sneaking off cleverly to find some younger, hotter piece. Those types usually weren't far off from a violent death, either by a pissed off boyfriend or brother, or a vengeful wife.

"How nasty?"

Sam cleared his throat, an awkward, tight-lipped smile on his face that Dean knew well. Okay, apparently really nasty. "They, uh, found his tongue shoved where the 'sun don't shine.'"

Dean pulled his head back with a scrunched up face. It was pretty much the same face Sam had made when he'd first read it. "Aw, ew, man. Come on, I haven't even had coffee yet."

"You asked."

"They put that in the newspaper?" Dean did a full body shiver and made another face, trying to wash the image out of his mind with scolding hot coffee. It…sort of worked. Okay, not really.

"God no," Sam chuckled, shaking his head. "The article was missing just enough of the right words. So I hacked the coroner's office for the report. It's uh… It's not pretty."

Dean leaned over his brother's shoulder again – already knowing he shouldn't, brain yelling at him not to, but curiosity was a bitch – and made another gagging sound at the picture on the kid's screen, a report next to it. "Jesus. You were eating looking at that?!"

Sam just rolled his eyes and minimized the photo (like it had been for most of the morning and certainly his entire meal, thank you very much). "It may not be our kind of case. The kill was excessive, but nothing else suggests supernatural involvement."

The disappearance was the most intriguing part of the case, and the only part weird enough for them to even look into it. Security cameras on campus showed Dr. Charles Mann entering his office at 8:12pm last Thursday, a room on the fifth floor of the language building with only the one door and no fire escape. The man never came back out and his wife reported him missing the following morning. But there could be plenty of normal explanations for that, too. Not to mention, a week was more than enough time to end up halfway across the country and there were a million ways someone sneaking away from his family could get end up murdered. Plus, a language professor with his tongue… uh, well, cut off, sounded like a message. Those usually came from revenge-driven people, not monsters.

Dean was idly thinking of the first time they'd run into Loki. That sounded like his sort of just desserts, and it had been a college campus the first time they'd bumped into him. But Dean was pretty sure that was the wrong tree for barking. Loki wasn't usually violent. Well, that wasn't really true, Dean thought with a slight wince. Sam's nuts would certainly disagree, as would Cas's face from wherever Gabe had sent him in that nightmare TV Land. And murdering a professor by pushing him out a window on the top floor of a school building had been what first drew them to Loki's playground.

Crap.

The man from the future took another look at the professor's photo. Honestly, it probably wasn't Gabriel. That death was really excessive, and not exactly in the category of trickster behavior. And yeah, Dean may be hedging, but truth was, if it wasLoki, they should probably run the exact opposite direction anyway. Gabriel was going to be nothing but trouble for them until they could convince him to join their side, and Dean had no idea how he was going to do that this time around.

Until he did, he'd really rather not spend a couple hundred Tuesdays dying.

"Could be a normal psycho," Dean offered instead. They'd run into their fair share of normal, murderous psychopaths and serial killers in their time as hunters, after all. Or, at least, they would.

"Sure," Sam supposed. "As normal as a psycho can be."

His brother snorted and went back to his coffee and cooking up what sounded like eggs and bacon. "What else you got?"

Sam listed off a couple more, including what was probably a ghost in Iowa that sparked a flicker of déjà vu for Dean. He said as much and Sam agreed it was worth checking out. The college dude's death didn't sound familiar – Dean definitely would have remembered details like that – and if it was Loki, then they weren't going anyway.

So they agreed to head east to check out a potential ghost. Dean didn't mention Loki, since he was pretty sure it wasn't him, and Sam seemed agreeable enough to let the professor case go so Dean didn't have to. As he was mentally routing out the quickest drive and Sam folded up the newspaper, Bobby came in from the study, where he'd been sprawled out at his desk nose deep in about six different books of his own, feet propped up and coffee cup almost empty.

He tossed one of those books on the table in front of Sam, mug in hand, and kept moving further into the kitchen for the last of the brew. Dean raised his eyebrows at his brother, even as Sam picked up the heavy book. All it took was a single passage – the layout of only one page – for Sam to recognize what he was reading. The kid cast an incredulous look over his shoulder at Bobby, who'd turned back their way as he stirred up the sugar cube he'd dropped into the black, steaming liquid. When the hunter's expression remained neutral – not a joke – Sam looked back at the King James Bible he was holding.

Dean, curious what the two of them were going on about silently, leaned over his brother's shoulder. His eyebrows went straight up at the passage the book was open to. "Sodom and Gomorrah? Aren't they those two sin cities that God sank?"

"That they are," Bobby confirmed. "He sacked five of 'em in all, or so the story goes, but those two were the most well-known and largest." The older hunter turned a pointed look Sam's way. "Gomorrah had a large temple at the city's edge. On a hill. Overlooking the rest of the city, at least according to a couple accounts."

"You're kidding." Sam stared at the words on the page, realizing what Bobby was getting at. There was no way he'd been in a Ziggurat in the destroyed city of Gomorrah with Azazel and that woman. That would be… incredible. And make no sense.

"That was my opinion too," Bobby offered dryly, sipping on his coffee.

"What are we talking about?" Dean asked, glancing between father figure and brother, definitely not sure what they were discussing. They might as well have been speaking tongues for all he was getting.

"The city from my vision," his brother explained. "The one with the green-eyed woman. Bobby and I have been trying to find it."

"And…" Dean looked between the two of them again, expression growing more and more skeptical, not to mention incredulous. "You think it's Sodom and Gomorrah?"

Sam shrugged because, no, not really. What would Azazel be doing in a city burned to the ground by God? Or…burned into the ground, if that dark, cavernous space he'd been in was what was left. Still, what would some strange, supernatural creature be doing in a tomb in an ancient, destroyed town? What proof did they have, except a possible Ziggurat Sam might have been inside and the right area for the language that he'd seen on those tombs?

"More than a man and his family…" Sam muttered, staring at the Bible passage but mind back in that stone grave with those green eyes and tangled hair.

"What's that?"

Sam looked up at Bobby and his expression – part amazement and part dread caused by the two-plus-two equation his mind was busy solving – wasn't exactly encouraging. "Something she said. More in the city deserved to be saved than just one man and his family."

Bobby's eyes widened a bit, but Dean was back to looking completely lost again. The older hunter rubbed at his beard, thinking. "Lot and his daughters were pretty famously smuggled out of Sodom by angels right before they sacked it. The only 'righteous' man they could find in all five cities."

Dean was looking back and forth between them again like a tennis match. One incredulous tennis match. "So…what? Azazel went and found the remains of two of the most famously destroyed cities in the Bible, and raised…. Some super demon who was in the city when God sacked it?"

"I don't know…" Sam looked pretty uncertain of that himself, shrugging a little helplessly and a little self-consciously. It had been his dream after all, and his name the woman mentioned. And him Azazel was after. "He- Azazel, I mean, said she was some sort of guide to lost children. And she was angry about the loss of life."

"Doesn't sound like a demon," Bobby offered, though the information was hardly helpful, putting them back at square one. Not that they'd even been at square two yet, by any account.

If anything, Dean looked even more befuddled. "What the hell would Azazel be digging up some bleeding heart for?"

Sam bit back his most immediate response, which was that the woman had hardly fit that description. Not with the anger she'd radiated, the violence in her stance and bitterness in her words, or those fierce, terrifying green eyes Sam had seen just before he'd been violently shoved out of the vision. He shivered, but said nothing. No. Bleeding heart definitely wasn't the right phrase.

"I'll keep digging into the lore," Bobby said, hand moving up from his beard to pull off his baseball cap and resettle it on his head again absently. He was busy working through the problem with a brain just flat out wasted on auto repair. "The cities were primarily pagan – one of the reasons they weren't redeemable according to the Bible. Some of the Canaanites worshiped Egyptian gods, and Mesopotamia wasn't that far away. It's got a pantheon all its own. Who knows, maybe one of 'ems got a deity for kids who got caught up in God's spring cleaning."

Sam nodded almost absently, still thinking back to his vision. But he'd been over it a dozen times, and the details were already starting to fade. He wasn't going to find any new clues there.

"I can ask Cas next time he checks in," Dean offered, a little one shouldered shrug pairing nicely with how ultimately unhelpful the offer felt and sounded. "See if he knows anything about it."

"She." Both brother and father figure corrected at the same time, causing Dean to roll his eyes while trying to maintain a deadpan expression, which really didn't work out all that great in his favor or as a defense.

"Whatever."

-o-o-o-

The boys were back on the road by lunch that day. They did one last check-up on Angela, who was still steady and stable and breathing away, packed their bags, and said their farewells to Bobby. They were leaving him John's truck to do with as he pleased (most likely to keep on backup as a second running vehicle with a decent load capacity, great for a hunter) and Dean's stolen Ford Pinto, which he'd likely strip for parts just as soon as he had the time.

It was nine days, actually, before Bobby found a spare day on his hands that didn't have him driving off for a case or running his garage for actual money to pay the bills, or researching this or that for other hunters in need. When he did finally break down the Pinto, he didn't get very far into it before he found a small wooden box in the front seat, under the footwell where it wasn't easy to spot.

The old hunter stared at it, turned it about, curious of the irregular star symbol carved on the front. Settling against the edge of the passenger seat, already having been crouching in order to clean out the footwells, Bobby slid open the wooden lid warily. There was a key inside, old looking design, with the same elongated star in the center of its oval head.

Bobby eased it out of the box – cautious of any traps because the thing just screamed supernatural artifact – and flipped it over. There didn't seem to be anything more to the key than the star. Same with the box, which turned out to be empty and without inscription or clue as to its purpose.

"Huh," he mumbled, laying the old key back into the box as equally cautiously as he had removed it and sliding closed the lid. Either it was a trinket from the previous owner of the car – doubtful, given the rundown state of it and the other odds and ends Bobby had found so far – or Sam and Dean hadn't seen it in the footwell and left it behind. He tucked the box into his pocket and made a mental note to call the boys about it.

Four hours later and well into the breakdown of the Pinto, Bobby went back into the house for a well-earned beer and a late lunch. He pulled the box out of his pocket and left it sitting on his desk, so he wouldn't forget about it.

Of course, back-to-back calls from both Bucky Sims and Steven Wandell, not even halfway through his sandwich, with one needing to know how to get a chupacabra out of a fox's burrow that went deep ('I'm talking more than arm's length here, Bobby. The sucker is really in there. Don't even know how he got his chubby ass in that far.') and the other in pretty dire straits and likely needing backup in the Maine area for an unidentified monster that had already added three additional people to the death toll since Steven had gotten there, meant that by that evening, Bobby was exhausted, in need of a drink, and his desk had enough new books and papers cluttered atop it that the box and it's mysterious key were buried and forgotten.

Another couple of days would pass before Bobby had to hastily sweep the more incriminating – or at least brow-raising – objects on the desk into multiple drawers by the armful before he let in Sheriff Mills, who was knocking pretty insistently on his front door and hollering, more good-naturedly than demandingly, that she knew he was in there and they needed to talk about reports of stolen vehicles on his property.

After all that – with Bobby easily talking his way out of the good Sheriff's suspicions (or, at least, out of a ticket or handcuffs) – it would be months before anyone remembered or found that special key, buried in one of Bobby Singer's desk drawers.

-o-o-o-

This time, Chuck – or, really, God at that point – hit his forehead against his desk multiple times. Un-freaking-believable. Winchesters. Winchesters and Singers.

Chuck stood, closed the lid of his laptop with a shake of his head, and decided he needed a break. A nice break. Maybe he'd go have himself a long dinner at that diner he liked. The one with the waitress who smiled prettily at him. Chuck liked her.

He pushed away from his desk and computer, abandoning the story for the time being, and pulled on a pair of jeans over his two-day old boxers (three day old? Maybe he should do some laundry soon…). Chuck grabbed his house keys and pathetically light wallet, slid some sandals onto his feet that had seen better days, and left his house and the Winchester Gospels behind.

-o-o-o-

Sam knew he was dreaming. The awareness was instantaneous the moment he opened his eyes, just like the swell of warmth in his chest at the site of Jess, asleep, face inches away from his. She breathed soft and deep, her hair moving with each exhale. A strand tickled Sam's nose and he slid his hand up the length of mattress to rub at the offending appendage as discretely as possible.

With a smile more nostalgic than loving, as sad as that may be, Sam reached between them and tucked that strand of hair behind her ear. He took the moment, since none of this was real anyway, and carded his fingers through her hair. Jess hummed lightly, a small smile starting in the corner of her mouth. Beautiful blue-green eyes slid open, crinkling at the corners to match that smile, and she stared at Sam in the dim light of their Palo Alto apartment.

"Hey, you," she whispered in the quiet night, shifting her head against the pillow to undo the hair he'd so neatly tucked back. He grinned across form her, shifting himself forward another inch as well.

"Hey," he answered back, content in this moment, however contrived it might be, to just be with her. There was something oddly comfortable about them, like this. The need – the ache – for this to be real, for him to be able to touch her – really touch her – wasn't nearly as sharp as he expected. He still missed her. God, did he miss her, but there was also relief that her absence from his life was no longer that sharp ache or the slow, miserable pull that it had been.

"How's the new semester?" Sam asked, if for no other reason than to play along with the wishful dream his brain had offered him tonight. He knew any answer she gave would be conceived entirely by his own mind. Still, it was nice to pretend, if only for a few minutes.

"Boring." She scrunched up her face in distaste – it was far more adorable than it was anything else – and he laughed. She resettled her head against the pillows, eyes opening and smiling playing across her lips. The strands of her hair were once again spread all over the pillow, tickling Sam's face. "Would be better if you were there."

The pang that echoed through him at her words was distant, more guilt than actual longing. He didn't want to go back to school. Not really. It was a realization he'd only recently embraced: only truly in the days following his father's death. Acknowledging that it wasn't the life John had wanted for him, Sam figured – in and among his grief and regrets – that he should honor at least one of his father's wishes. More than that, though, he didn't know how he possibly could return to school. Even if he and his brother ended the plan for the apocalypse tomorrow, something that seemed unlikely (to put it lightly), returning to Jess and his previous life… Well. He'd been lying to himself when he dreamed he could ever have a white picket fence and a dog. That life was gone now. Sam was content knowing Jess would still have it, if that's what she wanted. He was grateful that being with him hadn't cost the woman he loved her life, her future. And he could be content with the rest.

"Be careful what you wish for," he said jokingly, knowing that excitement was just about the last thing the real Jessica Moore wanted out of life right now. Good old boring school was exactly what she needed to get her feet back under her. Mundane. Safe. Normal. "Did you go get that coffee with Brady?"

He didn't know why he asked it. Part of him didn't want to know. But part of him did. Part of him knew he'd ask it in the real world, so why not test run it here. It was the bigger part of him, actually, which he was happy to realize. He wanted Jess and his best friend – even if that best friend had been a lie for two years – to be happy. Even if that happiness was found in each other.

Jess had told him the last time they'd talked that Brady asked her out for a coffee. Fumbled it quite spectacularly, actually. The two had met back up almost three months ago, bumping into each other on campus, much to Jess's surprise. She never thought he'd be back at school so soon. Maybe rightly so.

Brady had been a…disaster. Back at school because he couldn't tell his family about anything that had happened. Couldn't face his parents as a drop-out or even tell them he was taking a break. They wouldn't understand why and they had always pressured him in school. He was at least seeing a psychiatrist, but had to lie about almost everything they talked about. Meeting up with Jess, as awkward as that first encounter had been post-possession, had probably saved his life. For a second time, really. She'd given him the contact information for the same woman Bobby had sent the Moore family's way, and Brady finally had someone – two someones – to talk to about what had happened to him.

So, a few months later, Sam wasn't that surprised that the real Brady stumbled through a quiet request for a coffee. As maybe more than friends. He also wasn't that upset about it, either, surprising even himself. Sam felt fairly neutral about it, like hearing good new coming from a friend who's life didn't much impact you – which was perhaps the part that truly stung – but whom you were still happy to hear from. Sam didn't know if it would last; the two of them would be building a relationship largely on shared trauma. That could go either way, for either of them. But if nothing else, Sam was grateful that they had each other, in whatever capacity they decided.

Jess had seemed less sure. Not quite ready for a relationship (it had only been half a year since 'losing' the man she'd pretty much planned on spending the rest of her life with), uncertain about dating her ex-boyfriend's ex-possessed best friend, even if she was growing quite close to him, and unsure if she should even be telling any of this to Sam. He appreciated it, though. For the peace of mind it brought him, for the trust she still had in him despite everything he'd put her through, and because he still cared for her deeply and he'd meant it when he said he was there for her, no matter what.

So he'd stuck to his guns about that last bit and told her to go for it. Meet Brady for coffee and perhaps the opportunity for more. Be honest with him about maybe not being ready. And let whatever happens from there on out happen. It wasn't as hard to say as he thought it would be. The truth was, Sam knew what he had with Jess was over the minute his brother woke up in a car outside of Jericho ten years in the past. He didn't want her to put her life on hold waiting for a man who would never come home.

She'd told him he was absolutely terrible at relationship advice, and he'd just laughed, happy to hear the relief in her voice.

"Not yet," Dream Jess finally answered, her smile souring just a little. Sam wondered if it would do that for real, or if he was putting it there all on his own. "I chickened out."

"You still should," Sam insisted, voice dropping to the softest of levels; a conversation meant only for the two of them. Not that there was anyone else in his head to hear them. "It could be good."

"It could be terrible," she countered immediately, but there was still that twitch of a smile on her lips. He reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear once more, pulling the strands away from his own tickled skin. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. "I don't understand why, Sam."

"Why what?"

He pulled his arm back, settling it on the crisp white sheets between them, painted blue in the darkness of the room and the slivers of moonlight peeping through the corners and slats of their blinds. She opened her eyes in the absence of his touch.

"Why you don't want me anymore."

The words alone were painful. No longer the punch to the gut they once would have been, but still a vice around his heart, squeezing until his chest ached and there wasn't much room left. Yes, the words hurt, but it was Jess's eyes that had Sam scrambling away from her, staggering off the bed. His breath caught in his throat, his pulse skyrocketed through his veins, and horror-fueled adrenaline flooded his system.

Her eyes were glowing a brilliant, unnatural green.

Jess sat up on the bed as he clambered away from her and to his feet. The sheet slid off her pale skin and nightgown to pool in her lap. Those wrong eyes were wide with concern. "What's wrong, Sam?"

It was still Jess's voice. Still her expression of worry and confusion and a touch of hurt. But those weren't her eyes and Sam was suddenly certain this bittersweet dream had taken a nightmarish turn.

"Yeah, Sammy-boy, what's wrong?"

The voice called from behind him, sending chills down his spine and aligning each of his vertebra with rigidity built from hatred and fear. Sam spun around, fists already clenched hard enough to hurt, even in this dream world that was suddenly far too real. Azazel stood just inside the door of their bedroom, leaning against the frame with crossed arms and a lazy, amused smile painted across his face.

"You," Sam bit out, as much a growl as it was an accusation.

"Me." The demon spread his arms wide, that grin turning to a smirk.

"Get out of my head!" the hunter yelled, putting himself between Azazel and the bed he once shared with Jess. Not that he needed to shield her; none of this was real. He couldn't hurt her here. It didn't matter; Sam knew he could not watch this murderer hurt any version of the woman he still loved, real or not. Wrong eyes or not. But even as he looked over his shoulder, he was surprised to find the bed empty. The sheets were still pooled Jess had been.

He whipped his gaze back to Azazel, who merely shrugged.

"Like you said, Sam, we're in your head. That big, powerful brain of yours that can do so much more than you know." The demon pushed off the door and started towards him. Sam scrambled back step for step. He should have stood his ground, he knew, but there wasn't an inch of this demon – of what he could do, or what he could make Sam do – that didn't terrify him. "You don't have to hide her from me, of course. We have a deal, sport. As long as you keep up your end, she's safe. Well, from me at least."

Sam's fingers bit into his palms hard enough to almost bleed. He backed his grip off only after a spike of fear pierced through him and he realized that drawing blood into this sickening dream, with Azazel right in front of him, was a terrifying and horrible idea. He didn't want that coppery scent anywhere near this nightmare. Azazel's eyes darted down to his hands, like he knew – maybe he did – and Sam took another step back, almost to the nightstand now.

"So long as you don't change the rules, right?" The biting words were pure venom, rage and terror fueling the hunter as he took that final step, the back of his thigh hitting the lip of the small table.

The demon flashed his teeth like yellow fangs in the dim light of the room. "Ah, you got me there, kiddo. I probably would if I could, I won't lie. Picking a crossroads demon was smart of you, Sammy. Or was that your brother's idea?"

Azazel side-eyed him, eyebrows raised suggestively. Sam didn't take the bait, and Azazel eventually continued, "Crowley made a contract and everything. And as much as I could care less if he dies, he was very thorough with the loopholes and I can't have your life forfeited before the big showdown."

As the demon spoke, Sam managed to wedge his hand into the drawer of the nightstand, the movement hidden behind his broad back, and he sought out the gun he used to keep strapped to the underside of the tabletop. Even out of the life for four years, Sam hadn't been able to let go of his training.

He pulled the weapon, cocking the hammer and firing directly in Azazel's direction with zero hesitation. The demon didn't move, but his body did jerk with the bullet that slammed into his torso. Yellow eyes glanced down at the little hole and the growing circle of blood on his shirt. With a sardonic twitch of his lip and a raised brow, the demon raised his head to regard the hunter almost passively.

"Can't kill me with that, Sammy. Even in a dream." Azazel tilted his head, expression turning thoughtful, with a malicious little tilt to his smile. "Well, not yet. But a few more lessons with me…"

Sam shot him seven more times, emptying the clip into the demon's chest and head. He aimed the last one right at the bastard's groin, just because, and snapped, "It's cathartic."

God, did he wish he could kill him for real. Dean had told him how and when it would happen; that they had to wait for him to show back up at the Hellgate with the Colt. Sammy could wait till then, but it didn't stop him from (literally) killing the bastard in his dreams. Azazel had all but destroyed his family and ruined his life. First taking his mother from him, then his father (this time right out from under him, knocking him out in that boiler room. His dad had been right there. He'd been right there, damnit!) and ultimately destroying any chance at a future with the woman he loved.

He reached into the nightstand, ejected the spent clip, reloaded with the spare he kept in there, and emptied that one into Azazel too. It didn't do anything other than amuse the demon, of course, but Sam hadn't been spouting just words. It was a release of sorts, even if it wasn't nearly enough of one. Only killing the bastard for real would be, he figured.

"Ya done yet, sport?"

Sam was out of ammo, so he lowered the gun to his side. It took more energy than he cared to admit not to chuck the spent weapon at the demon's head like a child. Biting the inside of his cheek, he spat out, "I want my father back, you son of a bitch."

The demon's smirk grew into a vicious grin. "In exchange for what?"

The young hunter faltered, anger bleeding out in sudden surprise, because the demand had been…childish. Needy. Hurting. Not necessarily serious. Sam's breath hitched in his throat at the idea that he could bring John back.

"Tit for tat, Sammy-boy," Azazel continued, that grin all the worse as it turned knowing. "That's the way the world works. Tell you what. How 'bout…we get you get back on schedule, and I'll give you daddy Winchester."

The demon reached behind his back and withdrew a jar of demon blood, held in his open palm like a sick peace offering.

"He could probably use a break from the rack right about now," Azazel added, bouncing that glass playfully in his hand, the red sloshing along the sides.

Sam visibly paled and slammed his eyes shut, against the blood or the demon's words, he didn't really know. It didn't really matter and it was too late anyway. They were both there, and he was suddenly so certain he could smell the blood. His stomach cramped and folded in on itself. His brain begged for it, for an end to the memory of a thirst that robbed him of his ability to swallow, for the power that relief promised. His veins were suddenly dry and shriveled and hurt throughout his body. Sam clamped a shaking hand over one wrist; the pain radiating up his arm was almost enough to make him cry out.

The hunter spun away from that jar and the terrible truth. He clenched his teeth against the pain and the hunger.

This is a dream. This is a dream. This is my dream.

He repeated it again and again in a mantra of desperation.

"It may be your dream, slugger, but that doesn't make me any less real." Azazel's voice came from right in front him (Impossible. He had turned into the nightstand. There wasn't room. This wasn't real. He wasn't real). When he opened his eyes, Sam scrambled back with a gasp. Those pale yellow irises were just inches from his, and that damn jar of crimson pressed between their bodies.

Sam bolted backward, putting himself wide open in the center of the room (vulnerable, indefensible, stupid) but all he could focus on was getting away from that blood. He couldn't take it – couldn't accept it or even look at it – no matter what. No matter what Azazel threatened him with. He couldn't.

"I'm not taking that stuff ever again," he declared loudly and firmly, voice impressively steady for how much the rest of him shook.

"But think of the things you could do on it!" Azazel matched his movement into the center of the room at a much slower pace: a predator who knew his prey had nowhere to go. He could take all the time in the world and he would still get his prize.

Sam swallowed roughly, having never felt as helpless as he did right then.

"You were strong, kiddo. Maybe not strong enough to kill me, but you could be." Azazel stopped, giving the hunter a few feet of space that Sam knew was entirely of the demon's decision. Sam had no power here and he knew it. Azazel knew it too. There was nothing he could do, nowhere he could run that the bastard couldn't follow, couldn't find him and force that blood down his throat.

Azazel didn't seem to notice that his prey was almost hyperventilating. "Hell, you let me train you up – let me bulk you up-" the demon hefted the jar again for emphasis- "and I'll stand here and let you kill me."

The demon was grinning, like the idea of it was his greatest dream, his greatest achievement, and Sam thought he must be crazy. But then again, this was the demon who spent decades making deals for infants, who killed dozens, maybe even hundreds, and ruined so many lives in his pursuit of releasing Lucifer. Sam doubted sanity really factored into that equation.

No, Azazel was a fanatic. Those types would readily offer up their life if it meant their goal was achieved in the process. A goal of pumping Sammy up on enough demon blood that he was strong enough to contain Lucifer while he destroyed the world. But that was only after being so addicted to the substance that Sam would be easy to manipulate and tricked into releasing the Devil in the first place.

Sam's tenacity grew. His resolve strengthened. He would not be that puppet. The hunter clenched his hands and forced them to stop shaking. He raised his eyes and refused to look at that jar again. He breathed through his mouth and erased that copper smell of it from his memory.

"It's. Not. Happening."

Azazel's glee dampened. That open, friendly demeanor, crazy as it had been, slunk off his form and left something dark and ugly and dangerous in its place. His grin faded, turned right upside down, and he tossed the jar of blood onto the bed beside him. It sloshed and bounced as it rolled on the mattress. Sam swallowed hard and refused to look at it.

"Now, kiddo, I've got a schedule to keep," the demon began, his tone one of warning, in the realm of a parent quickly losing patience. He rolled the sleeves of his flannel up to his elbows as he spoke, and Sam got the distinct impression of a father about to beat obedience into his child. "You can help me with that, or I can force it down your throat. Either way you wanna play it, you're gettin' that next dose."

Sam couldn't stop his body as it resumed its trembling, but he tilted his chin up, jaw clenched, and stood his ground.

Azazel sighed again, this time in a mockery of disappointment. He ran a hand through his thinning hair. "You know, Sam… you pulled through that last little withdrawal by the skin of your teeth." The demon dropped his arm and raised his head, yellow eyes locking on hazel with dangerous intent. "I think we both know you won't survive a second round."

That hard stare lasted the length of a single breath – just long enough for dread to pool in Sam's stomach like cement – and then the demon was on him. Sam was sure he hadn't blinked, hadn't taken his eyes off the bastard, but one moment Azazel was beside the bed and the next he was in Sam's face. Their chests nearly pressed together, one hand clamped painfully tight around the back of the hunter's neck. That hand pulled him forward, towards those terrible eyes, as much as it kept him from rearing away.

Sam brought his arm up on instinct – elbow aiming for the demon's face, forearm aiming for the hand around his neck to break the grip there – but Azazel was too fast. Too strong. He caught Sam's arm in his second hand, fingers tight enough to bruise, grip hard enough to make bones creak. The hunter hissed under the pressure, biting back a cry. He faltered in his defense, knowing he was beat even as his free hand wrapped around that wrist holding his neck in a flimsy attempt to keep the demon from pulling him any closer.

Demons didn't have weaknesses. Not like humans. No pressure points to pinch or press. Sam could dislocate that thumb pushing into the vulnerable, soft spot just beneath his ear and Azazel wouldn't even flinch. The part of Sam's brain that ran on instinct and survival chided him for his foolishness. For believing that bravery was ever going to see him through this unharmed.

Unbidden, against everything he was still trying to fight for, Sam's eyes slid to that jar of blood, abandoned on the bed. In that moment he knew, with petrifying clarity, that Azazel was playing games. Taunting him. Warning him. Showing exactly how little control he had in this and in everything to come. The demon was a kid with a magnifying glass directing an ant – little Sammy-boy – wherever he wanted. The threat of heat and agonizing pain was just on the horizon if he didn't comply. Azazel could so easily point him towards that blood – towards addiction and power and the utter surrender of all sanity – and there was nothing Sam could do to stop it.

The hopelessness was overwhelming: the defeat deafening. For the first time in all of this, since Dean had told him what was coming, Sam didn't see an outcome where they could win. He was going to fail, he wasn't strong enough, he had no way to resist, and there wasn't anything he or his brother could do to change that.

Azazel's hand slid from the back of his neck to his throat and then up, up to his jaw. The pressure only increased as he moved, to the point where Sam had to relinquish his clenched jaw or risk a broken mandible. He gasped under those fingers, digging into his cheeks, surely leaving marks behind, and he breathed harshly through his open mouth. Those pale, flinty yellow eyes slid to the blood, just waiting there on the bed, and Sam shivered.

More games. More forced direction from the magnifying glass, moving ever closer to burning him.

The demon could feel the kid trembling in his grip and he relished the fear. Fear that may not lead to obedience, but oh, how boring it would be if it did. Azazel didn't need obedience, didn't want boring. He needed fight. And this boy, red in the face and spitting fire from his eyes even as Azazel taunted him with his own weakness, even as he shook with horror, had that fighting spirit in spades.

"You can always change your tune the next time we cross that bridge, Sammy," the demon whispered, practically against his face. Sam flinched and tried to pull away from the hot breath and smell of sulfur against his skin. He tapped his index finger against the hollow of the boy's cheek, if only to remind him how easy it would be to feed that blood to him. If only to remind him he could. "I'm forgiving, especially for my favorite kiddo."

He released the hunter and Sam stumbled back, breathing raggedly as he wrapped his hand around his no-doubt sore jaw. The kid was rigid, ready for a last defense, even if he knew he'd lose. Fighter through and through. Just what the devil ordered.

"Be seeing you real soon, tiger." Azazel kept those eyes locked on Lucifer's future vessel and didn't bother hiding any of his intention. One yellow eye closed in a wink. "Sweet dreams."

-o-o-o-

Sam sat up gasping, hand still raised to his jaw, which ached like the demon had been right beside him, fingers clawing into bone. Something was ringing: an obnoxious, repetitive sound that set his teeth on edge and his harried nerves aflame.

On the next bed over, Dean groaned, clearly still asleep, and fumbled for his cell, charging on the nightstand between them. Sam was still shaking, still back in his bedroom in Palo Alto, still smelling the copper tang to the air. Dean managed to find the vibrating device, disconnecting it from the cord by yanking as hard as he could. One blearily, half-cracked eye caught a glance at the caller ID before the older Winchester threw an arm over his face to block the morning light and pressed the phone to his ear.

He didn't notice Sammy sitting upright in the bed next to him or see the fear in his kid brother's face or the rigidness of his sharking form.

"What's up, Bobby?"

It was not Bobby who answered, but a female voice, low and gravely, that Dean was just starting to get used to hearing.

"Hello, Dean."

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

-Mystery Woman: She wasn't originally going to be in the story yet (past Azazel digging her up) but I'm enjoying laying down the breadcrumbs way too much to stop :D

-Bunker Key: Yeeeeeeeah. Hey, at least I didn't leave it in the car. That's better, right guys? Plus, I mean, come on… I threw in a Jody cameo and everything! That gets me bonus points, right guys? ...Guys? ….Are those crickets I hear back there?

-Chuck and the Winchester Gospels: I kind of like to think that when God stops writing, bad stuff is more likely to happen because he's not attending to the story. i.e: He goes to get dinner and Azazel starts dream walking through poor Sammy's head. Not saying Chuck would have stopped him, I don't think he interferes much, but I like to think maybe it wouldn't have gone quite so terribly if he'd been around to write it. If that makes sense… :P

-Jess and Brady: I actually have a whole deleted scene for these two (not completed yet but I will post it when it is), where they ran into each other back at Stanford and a friendship unfolds (a real one this time, since he was possessed the entire time she knew him) which maybe turns into more. I haven't actually decided if it goes anywhere. Part of me thinks no, but I really love the thought of Jess having a full life after Sam, and maybe Brady's the start of that.

-Dream Blood: Apparently I can't handle just writing happy for a little while. No, as soon as Dean starts to get to a good place, with his angel back in play and his poor horny body misbehaving to the comedic enjoyment of all… Well, guess that means it's time to torture Sam as much as possible. I'm starting to think I'm not really a nice person...

-Hello, Dean: (Case and Point:) wouldn't it be fantastic if it wasn't really Cas, but Uriel taking over Cas's vessel while he's got our poor angel strung up somewhere in Heaven until he can talk some Lucifer-sided sense into him? Meanwhile he forces the Righteous Man to get the apocalypse going (not that Dean would fall for Uriel-pretending-to-be-Cas for long) Eh? Eh? Wouldn't that be just super cruel of me, guys?

XD I promise it's not actually that. I'm not that mean. (…..well…not yet, anyway…)

-Up Next: We finally get to see how that chat with Uriel went (not great, but poor Cas and his not-very-good character judgement skills don't quite pick up on it), and then Cas rejoins our boys for a little episodic case time while Sammy tries not to have a panic attack, knowing Azazel and his jar of blood might be around every turn or corner.