There But for the Grace, SPN, Sam/Dean part 1

[rivkat]

There But for the Grace
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~26,000
Warnings: extremely dubious consent and one instance of mild consensual bondage.
Summary: The seals broke; Lucifer rose. But somewhere else, another Sam cut a deal with Lilith, and now Dean’s gone to a life where Castiel never gripped him tight and raised him from perdition. As Sam struggles to fight off a newly risen Lucifer with only Castiel to aid him, Dean contends with a brother gone almost all the way down the road to Hell. He might not just lose one world and one brother to apocalypse, but two. (AU from the end of Season 4.)

For runedgirl. I tried to go with power dynamics with toppy possessive Sam, and just a little soulmates and soulbonding. Thanks to giandujakiss for quick beta!

Prologue

The light speared past Sam’s screwed-shut eyes, deep into his brain. He heard sound, white noise, rising in pitch and intensity until he couldn’t stop himself from letting go of Dean and pressing his hands to his ears, even though that did nothing to protect him from the assault. Warm wetness on his face, streaking down over his cheeks and chin. It was his own blood—or whatever his blood was, not really his own since he’d been six months old, mixed now with other demons’.

He curled into himself as the light and the noise punched through him like bullets through glass, breaking him apart.

Somewhere in the chaos, there was a warm presence reaching out for him. It felt like comfort and concern and forgiveness, like everything he’d ever wanted from Jess, from Mom, even from Dad, but he could feel Dean’s absence and that overwhelmed everything else. The golden glow faded, chill seeping into his bones until he could feel cold stone underneath him, colder in patches where the blood had flowed and begun to congeal.

When he could stand again, he blinked to clear his vision, swaying onto his feet. “Dean?”

He knew even before he turned a full circle that he was the only person alive in the room. “Dean!” Yelling as if Dean was just in the hallway outside, taking a leak. As if he could make Dean return by demanding him back. “Dean!”

Voice raw, face a horrorshow mask, he searched for some sign of Dean’s passage, but there was nothing.

Lucifer was risen and gone. Dean was—

Ruby wasn’t around to tell him not to lose it any more, and anyway hers had been spectacularly bad advice, all told. Sam let himself slide to the floor, the blood he’d shed soaking cold through his jeans, and curled up, waiting for Hell to begin in earnest.

He didn’t know how much time passed, but his clothes were stiff with dried blood when Castiel dragged him up, one-handed, and shoved him back into the wall, palm jabbing hard into the center of his chest. Sam felt a stab of shame for the mess on his face, then realized there was no reason left to care.

“Where is he?” Castiel asked, his voice pounding in Sam’s ears like a waterfall. Sam had thought he’d seen righteous fury on angels’ faces before. He’d been wrong.

He guessed it wasn’t the first time Castiel had posed the question.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Castiel pulled back, and Sam flailed to stay upright. “There was light,” Sam tried to explain. “He was here, and then he was just—gone.” Castiel turned away, his coat swinging with him. “You’ve always been able to find us before. Can’t you—?”

But Castiel was already shaking his head. “He is not within my reach.” The angel’s hand twitched, as if he were trying to grab onto Dean, trying and failing. “He was our only hope against Lucifer.”

The angels didn’t care about humans any more than demons did. Less, maybe, since demons liked to toy with humans for sport. Possibly Dean was right and Castiel had some sympathy, but the rest of them had been playing a long game with Dean as much as Ruby with Sam. “That’s why you want to find him, so he can win your war for you.” He knew that he wasn’t entitled to the disgust in his voice, but he didn’t really care.

Castiel froze, and then looked back at Sam, anger mixing with something else for the first time. “Zachariah believes that Dean is vital to victory in the coming battle. He has never—Zachariah never deceived me. I do not know the precise source of his belief. But until now, everything he has told me has come to pass, including the rise of Lucifer. Without Dean, the Host has no plan for victory.”

Dean might be alive. Even if he was dead, Sam knew, there were ways around that. They just had to find him. And if they didn’t, Sam would already have Hell on Earth.

Sam made himself stop shaking. No one had time for his shame. “We’d better get started looking for him, then,” he said. Trust and mixed motives aside, angels were big mojo, and it made sense to pool their resources. If need be, Sam might even be able to use Castiel to bargain with Lucifer.

Apparently angels were enough like people to respond to certainty, no matter how little substance there was behind it. Castiel nodded sharply. “Where shall we begin?”

Track One

The light and the noise cut off like Dean had been shut in a box, except that when he blinked, he could see normally and they were in a completely different place, a motel room lit golden by a late afternoon sun. Sam was standing about five feet away, staring at Dean with stunned and hungry eyes, and if it hadn’t been for the white-eyed little girl forming the third point of a triangle with them Dean might have wondered for a moment if he’d gotten to go to Heaven after all, even after failing to stop Lucifer.

“There,” the girl said, tilting her head flirtatiously. “Done.” He could just hear her over the ringing in his ears.

“Dean,” Sam said, raising his hands as if he was afraid Dean would dissolve if he moved too fast. Then: “Christo,” sharp as a razorblade, scrunching up his forehead like he had an ice cream headache. The girl, who had better not be Lilith back from the dead, flinched and bared her teeth at Sam.

Dean boggled. “What the fuck?” he asked, quite reasonably in his opinion.

“Dean,” Sam said again, like some barrier had broken inside him. He was still wild-eyed and strung-out, the same guy who’d wrapped his hands around Dean’s neck and squeezed—but for the first time in months, he was smiling like he remembered they were brothers.

“Okay, I don’t know what’s going on here,” Dean said. “But Lucifer’s up and at ‘em and so we’ve got to get on that, and do apologies later. So you want to explain who the demon chick is, or do you just want to ice her?”

“Apologies?” Sam repeated, slow, his face falling almost comically. There was something off about him, now that Dean got a better look. More off than even when Dean had stuffed him into Bobby’s panic room, which was beyond disturbing. But he’d said Christo himself—that had to mean he wasn’t fully demoned up, right?

They stared at each other, and the unfamiliarity of it made Dean’s skin crawl, when being back together on the same side should have been the easiest thing in the world. He could feel his expression turning dangerous, and he wasn’t even sure that was a mistake.

The little girl sighed. “I tried to find a happy version for you,” she said. “But the only ones who smiled a lot had taken so much brain damage that they were just very pretty carrots. I know!” she interrupted herself, sounding thrilled, “I was shocked there was any difference! But anyway, I figured you wanted a soulmate that could tie his own shoes, so, you’re stuck with the boo-hooing.”

“Sam? Sam? What’s she talking about? Sam!”

It was like he wasn’t even speaking. Sam kept turning his head, like he knew he should be watching the demon but couldn’t stop his eyes from being dragged back to Dean. Come to think of it, Sam looked five years older than he had since Dean had seen him last, about four and a half of those years sleepless. His skin wasn’t corpse-pale—Dean had that image burned into his memory—but it was sickly, like the blood wasn’t flowing right, like the sun cringed away from him. Sam’s eyes were narrowed, but Dean could see how bloodshot they were. His hair was—holy fuck, that was what was so different. Sam hadn’t slicked his hair back. He’d cut it, ragged.

Dean was pretty sure that wasn’t how it had been back in the crypt where Lucifer rose.

“I can tell when I’m a third wheel,” the demon cooed. “I’ll leave you two alone. For a while.”

She popped out of existence like they’d changed the channel on her.

Sam shook himself, like he’d been asleep on his feet, and swept Dean up into a hug that Dean was way too freaked-out to fight. “Sammy,” he said, and a huge shudder wracked through Sam’s body, “tell me what happened. Last thing I remember is the final seal breaking.”

Sam was shaking his head, which made his too-short hair brush back and forth against Dean’s shoulder. He smelled of sweat and herbs, and Dean couldn’t help closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “Not here,” Sam said. “That didn’t happen here.”

“Here?” Dean knew Hell, and he knew Earth. He would have sworn he was on the latter, but maybe not.

Sam was speaking into his shoulder, his breath damp through Dean’s shirt and his words unintelligible. Dean thought about pulling away, but he figured that might slow down the explanation. “Uh, what?”

Sam didn’t move back, but at least he spoke up. “What do you know about parallel universes?”

Dean reconsidered the whole pulling away (and slapping Sam silly) thing, but he was beginning to think that his problems were too big to solve with yelling and punching. “That if you’re Evil Sam you oughta have a goatee.”

Sam snorted thickly, and Dean felt his mouth twitch in return. He brought his hand up to pat Sam’s back, just a little.

“Why aren’t you a demon, Dean? You went to Hell, so why aren’t you a demon?”

Well, that killed the mood pretty quick. Dean kept his hand moving, but it was artificial now. Sam sounded like he wanted a serious recap. Dean cleared his throat. “Because Castiel pulled me out of Hell before—” There was no way he could finish that sentence, because Castiel hadn’t come in time for anything worth saving. Especially after the angels got him to put Alastair on the rack, Dean had been pretty sure that all he was lacking was the black eyes, too weak even for that.

“Castiel?” Now it was Sam pushing him away, staring into his eyes with enough intensity that Dean kind of wanted the hug back.

Dean frowned. “Yeah, Castiel. Semi-friendly neighborhood angel? Resurrected me, pledged me to the service of God and His douchey angels, blah blah blah?”

Sam’s eyes were wide and near worshipful, reminding Dean too much of how Sam had been when he’d first heard Dean’s account of meeting Castiel. “Whoa.” Sam took a deep breath. His eyes were the same as ever, little slivers of gold among the blue and brown—every part of him so complicated. “Here, no angel came.”

Dean chewed that over for a while, turning his face from Sam so that he could clear his head even while Sam loomed over him. There was a lot to think about in those four words. But Sam’s presence was so familiar that he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the situation, couldn’t worry like he should, and there was only one question he really needed answered. “What happened to my Sam?”

“I’m your Sam,” Sam said immediately. He’d been prepared for that. “I’m him, but I’m here.”

Dean twitched, because his Sam—the Sam he’d left standing in Lilith’s blood—hadn’t been there for a while. “You know what I mean,” he insisted anyway.

“He doesn’t need you like I do,” Sam said with that total sincerity that got him even farther than his dimples and his kicked-puppy eyes. “That was part of my agreement with Lilith, that she’d go somewhere she wasn’t stealing you from me.”

And that was a kick in the chest; Dean felt the bruises Sam had given him in their last fight pulse with blood. Sam hadn’t picked up the phone. He’d grabbed at Dean at the end, but in all the excitement over Lucifer rising he probably would have hung on to Gordon Walker with just as much enthusiasm. Dean felt his shoulders slump as he turned further away and rubbed his hand across his mouth. “I don’t get this, Sam. Explain it to me.”

Sam made a small, lost sound, and Dean gave up: he sat down on the bed, patted the scratchy bedspread next to him. Sam took the invitation, sitting so close that their shoulders jostled for position. Dean leaned into Sam because if he hadn’t he would have been pushed over. Sam put his hands in his lap and stared down at them before he started talking. “After you—after you went to Hell I tried to get you out. I couldn’t. So I worked with Ruby until I was strong enough to bargain with someone who could.”

“Lilith,” Dean said.

“Lilith.”

Dean’s head was whirling. “But she didn’t get me out of Hell.”

“Yes, she did.” Sam let that hang in the air for long enough that Dean had to force himself to inhale slowly, fighting off the panic. “She brought Dean out of Hell.”

Dean closed his eyes, didn’t like what he saw, and opened them again. Sam’s face was blank, but his lips trembled. Dean swallowed and put it out there. “It was too late.”

Sam nodded.

“How … how long?” It wouldn’t help him at all, but Dean needed to know anyway.

“You were down there for a year and three months,” Sam said.

“And how long had I been—”

Sam twitched, his hands lifting from his lap as if he was going to lunge across the room, but thought better of it. “You said, a year, our time.”

Dean breathed out. Demons lied. Or maybe he’d just lost track. He’d lost track a lot, when Alastair had neglected to remind him.

He had to know. “Is he—back there?”

Sam shook his head. Dean wasn’t about to make him say what he must have done out loud. And Dean wasn’t about to say thanks, even though he should have.

“Okay,” Dean said. “So you went back to the drawing board, told Lilith to get you somebody a little less burnt-up. I get it. But, Sam, the seals are all broken where I was, Lucifer’s rising, and I—”

“I don’t care,” Sam said defiantly, like Dean was telling him one of Dad’s orders. “He had you long enough.”

Dean rubbed at his temples, because it was flattering that this Sam wanted him around, but his pretty words to Castiel about humanity wouldn’t mean shit if he couldn’t put the freaking rest of the world ahead of his own pathetic need for Sam’s attention. “You don’t get it, Sam, the angels said—” He stopped, because he didn’t want to tell Sam all over again that he’d gotten the shit end of the stick with the demon blood while Dean got to be, for real, on the side of the angels. It didn’t matter that angels and demons had turned out to be the same variety of suck: Dean remembered how Sam had been when he’d first met the angels, thrilled and grateful and respectful.

Plus, it wasn’t like Dean had reason to believe Zachariah, or whoever was pulling the strings behind Zachariah. The angels needed him for something, but saving humanity didn’t seem to be part of that plan. For all he knew, Zachariah’s next step involved having Dean be Typhoid Mary.

The more Dean thought about it, the less he was sure he was any kind of benefit to his world. Going back without knowing more could be like heading into D-Day except minus a couple hundred thousand fellow soldiers, and it was hard to keep Sam in mind when Sam was standing right in front of him, staring at him like he invented the internet.

And then—“Wait a second. So, here, what happened to the seals?” He already knew that the first had broken here, with him.

Sam tilted his head curiously. “A couple broke. Slowed down a lot once Lilith and I made our bargain. Really no point in going through a lot of effort if you know you’re not gonna get to score at the end.”

Dean shook his head. “Great. I got the party started, then Cas raised me so I could keep it going. Guess angels like us puny humans better here.”

“What?” Sam had that little frown line he got when he thought Dean was keeping secrets.

“Yeah, uh. Me stepping off the rack in Hell, that was the first seal, and I guess the angels brought me back to keep you on track, or whatever. When I got out, you decided that the only thing you wanted to do in life was kill Lilith. I thought—” he stopped and had to laugh at himself. “Fuck, I’m stupid. I really thought it meant something, Cas getting me to swear to serve God. I thought I had a mission, but I guess the angels just wanted to make sure you didn’t cut a deal with Lilith.”

“Swear?” Sam asked. “That’s twice you’ve mentioned some kind of oath.” His voice wasn’t pleasant. Actually it had an edge to it that reminded Dean of nothing so much as Azazel, and when Dean checked Sam out sidelong he thought maybe Sam’s eyes were changing color, though he’d convinced himself of that a few times before even after the ghost fever. He couldn’t trust anything else; why should his sight be different?

“Cas told me it was my only chance to save you,” Dean said, shrugging like it didn’t mean that much. “I don’t care how good your motives are, drinking demon blood just can’t be right.”

Sam flushed—more than his Sam would have done, Dean thought resentfully. “I don’t need to do that any more. After I—the powers are set now.”

After what, Dean wondered. He probably wasn’t going to like the answer any more than he’d liked the blood-drinking in the first place. “Okay,” he said. “So, seals are sealed, you and Lilith are at a standoff, that’s all awesome. Just—what do you need me for, then?”

Sam gaped like Dean had started diagramming sentences. He twisted on the bed, facing Dean. “Dean.” Like that was some kind of answer. Then: “I need to see you.”

And the sense continued to be missing. Dean gave his best what-drugs-are-you-on face, eyebrows raised and eyes wide.

“When you—Hell left marks. I need to see that you’re—okay.”

Whoo, did Dean not want to know the experience behind that one. Except that of course he did know. Now he was imagining what would have happened if demons had been the ones to drag him out of Hell. Even when he’d switched from victim to torturer, his body had still been hideous—as it should have been: form follows function, or so a high school shop teacher had told him once—some wounds never-healing and others scarred so bad that his flesh was as unfeeling as wood. Occasionally he’d be working on a lost soul and find that he hadn’t noticed when he’d sliced himself open along with his subject. Alastair had never ceased to find that amusing.

Dean swallowed and jerked his thoughts away from the past. He spread his hands out and tilted his face to show Sam how pretty it was. “I’m fine. Cas, he fixed me. Even got rid of the old scars. Only thing left was my tattoo. And his handprint.”

“His handprint?” Sam parroted.

Rather than use words, Dean shrugged off his jacket and his button-down and wrestled off his black T, edging back on the bed so that Sam could see the full Castiel body modification. His amulet bounced against his chest, warm reminder of a better time.

“Jesus,” Sam breathed, and flinched as the word came out of his mouth and his eyes plainly flashed demon-black, which was the worst news Dean had gotten since he’d arrived but not exactly unexpected. Then Sam was all human again, and Dean made himself ignore what he’d seen as Sam reached up to touch the red, raised skin. Sam’s fingers felt like brands against Dean, tracing the lines and making Dean shiver.

Sam’s eyes were locked on his hand, touching Dean. “Can you—what does it feel like?”

Dean swallowed. “I don’t—it’s like a scar, I guess.” Smooth like a burn, alien when he’d used his own fingertips to trace it, the skin not sending back the message that it was being touched. After the first couple of days he’d kept his hands off, even in the shower. He’d been a torturer in Hell. It made sense that the touch of an angel would burn him, made sense that the boundary between his own flesh and Heaven’s mark would be uncrossable even when they were side by side. He deserved it more than he’d earned any of his old scars, all his previous screw-ups made trivial by his hand on the razor.

Sam’s fingers were hot where they slipped against Dean’s unmarked skin. Dean bit his lip and looked away. There was nothing of Sam in this room, no laptop open on the table, no duffel spilling out clothes, not even a pile of beer bottles in the trashcan.

“How’d you get those bruises?” Sam asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Dean clenched his jaw automatically, which just made everything hurt more. “Sam—you—beat the shit outta me when I tried to stop him goin’ after Lilith. Ruby got him so turned around, he thought. He thought he was saving the world.” As he said it, Dean got it a little better. Still didn’t make a lick of sense, why Sam was so convinced that killing Lilith would fix things, but he did believe it—liked believing it, so he’d have a good reason to get his revenge, even—and Dean knew that none of the angels had ever explained why not. Which was just more evidence, if Dean’d needed it, that the angels had wanted the apocalypse all along. Dean’d been Sam’s mechanical rabbit, dragging him around the track. No wonder it didn’t matter to them how broken he’d been on the inside.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said now, and his sad eyes were just the same as ever (at least as long as Dean wasn’t praying). “I—if he was still drinking demon blood, he might be—volatile.”

Dean had to laugh at that one, short and sharp as a gunshot. “And you? Are you ‘volatile’?”

Sam frowned, his mouth pursing up like Dean’d just emitted a socially unacceptable bodily noise. “I’ve got it under control,” he said, which was pretty much what Sam had said every time they’d had this conversation, and look where that had ended up.

But Sam was reaching out again, tentative, like he was the one who needed to apologize. (And hadn’t he said as much? Same guy, different facts, and Dean didn’t know if that made him responsible, but it sure made it hard for Dean to think.) His fingers brushed over the aching flesh of Dean’s neck. “I don’t understand,” Sam said, almost to himself. “How could I ever—?”

Good fucking question. But this Sam deserved the truth too. “We’ve been—I might not be black-eyed, but I’m. Broken. Weak, I guess. I couldn’t—I fucked up worse than letting you get killed. I couldn’t figure out what it’d take to stop you goin’ after Lilith, and after a while all you could see was her. And Ruby,” unable to keep the disgust out of his voice, the jealousy, because it was one thing to have lost Sam to a bright future and a smart, gorgeous college girl and another bag of chips entirely to have some skanky demon wearing a stolen body be more than enough to win Sam away.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said, and Dean didn’t think he could handle it, muscles clenching to stand. But Sam wrapped those gorilla arms around him, pulling him in close, letting him press his face into Sam’s chest so that Sam couldn’t see and so he couldn’t see Sam’s pity, and Dean needed it so bad that he barely resisted. Sam’s hands stroking down his naked back felt strange and wonderful at once, so different from being sewn up from a bad hunt. Slow and warm, intimate; almost nobody he fucked touched him that way, like he needed time or care or anything other than a place to stick his dick. Under the woodsy herb scent that was probably left over from summoning Lilith, Sam smelled of sweat and road dust and the near-pine of that shampoo he’d carried around through the entire lower 48. Almost unwillingly, Dean brought his own hands up, hanging on to Sam’s neck, hitching breaths so close to crying as almost made no difference.

Sam’s thumb rubbed up and down the back of Dean’s neck. He wasn’t quite rocking Dean back and forth, but he was making a little rumbling noise in his chest, greedy and satisfied at once, and God but Dean wanted to stay like this until Lilith and Lucifer and the rest of them rotted to dust.

Track Two

Sam was busying himself copying the design on the crypt floor into his notebook, on the off chance that it would give them some information, while Castiel made another sweep looking for any trace of angels or demons. Sam wasn’t sure what the third trip around the building was supposed to do, but then Castiel was the senior demon-hunter and Sam’s daddy issues weren’t pronounced enough to make him snark about Castiel’s choices under the circumstances.

He looked up when Castiel strode back in, still moving like he wasn’t quite used to having solid form. Castiel’s expression had no trace of satisfaction, and he shook his head for extra confirmation that there was nothing.

“We need to try something else,” Sam said. Dean could be … anywhere.
He had to be somewhere.

Sam’s hands still ached from the throttling he’d given Dean, a lifetime of resentment at taking underexplained orders finally coming to a boil. But Dean had been right, and Sam’s punishment was that he’d lost Dean. Lucifer had taken his brother. Sam had betrayed him, and all he could think was that he needed to find Dean before he could start setting anything right.

Think, you freak. You’ve got a brain, and it’s obviously in better condition than your soul. How are you going to track the Lightbringer?

“Chuck,” he realized. “We need—”

Castiel was already putting his hand on Sam’s shoulder. Sam stopped trying to talk, too busy having his stomach turned inside out and backwards by the sudden transport.

"Omigod!" Chuck said, turning away from his computer. He wobbled in his seat, probably due more to the two empty bottles of Jim Beam on his desk than the shock of their arrival. "Castiel! You're alive!"

That distracted Sam from the conversation he'd meant to initiate. "What?"

"Castiel, well, he kind of blew apart protecting me, like tomato soup blew apart, fifty stories out a window blew apart, you know what I mean? I don't think I'm ever gonna be able to go in that room again—" Chuck gestured off to the side, and Sam briefly turned towards the kitchen. He could see through the open door that it looked like the back end of a zombie infestation, blood the least disgusting substance liberally coating the floor and cabinets.

Sam blinked and looked at Castiel, who seemed perplexed. "I do not recall how I came from the prophet's house to the convent," Castiel allowed.

Castiel's survival was interesting and probably deserved investigation, but there were more pressing matters. When Sam got Dean back he’d happily explore all the ins and outs of angelic resurrection. Right now, he didn’t give a winged fuck. He pushed his hair out of his eyes. "Okay, but where's Dean?"

"He's not with you?" Chuck looked more googly-eyed than usual. "In my vision you guys ended up on a plane just over Ilchester, don't know how, kind of a jump cut thing. But you were together. That didn't happen? Also, angel reassembly: what's up with that? I thought you guys were, you know, killable."

"It is of no moment," Castiel said, showing an admirable grasp of priorities. "We must find Dean."

"I don't know what to tell you," Chuck said after a long silence. "Right now, you and Dean should be stumbling out of the airport, trying to get back to Bobby Singer's. And you," he flapped his hand at the angel, "should be, like, recoalescing. You think it's divine intervention. You think God actually, finally, started paying attention to what his wayward children were getting up to. Except that none of that is happening. And Lucifer is most definitely out of his cage, ready to apocalypse it up. So if you can't figure it out on your own, then I guess we're all just fucked."

Track One

Dean turned the key and the engine roared to life, his foot already flooring the gas. Except the sound was wrong, she was about to tear herself apart, and he reached down to turn the engine off but the key was missing. He looked at his hand, at the empty space where the keyhole should have been, and heard the grinding sound of a rod being thrown.

He blinked himself awake, not sure when he'd fallen asleep. He was warm even with the air on his naked back, his side pressed into a warmer body. Crap, he hated passing out on a fuck.

But the smell, the size—

Dean rolled onto his back, blinking rapidly. Sam was propped up on one elbow, watching Dean and smiling.

"You been staring at me in my sleep?" Dean asked, and the question came out weird, rougher than Dean had meant it.

Sam shrugged, as best he could in the position he was in. "Perfect opportunity," he said.

From the way that the only light was from the lamp in the corner, Dean guessed that it was nighttime. His stomach rumbled, which meant—well, come to think of it, he hadn't eaten in about a day, so maybe that didn't mean anything.

"They have burgers in this world, right? Burgers and pie?"

Sam full-on smiled, and Dean couldn't look away. He wasn't sure the last time he'd seen those dimples, almost enough to make deals with demons forgivable. And wasn't that why he'd dealt in the first place? Sam following in his footsteps was—not okay, but not so much worse than anything else, not if he could still grin like that, brighter than an arc welder.

"It's good to see you, Sammy," he said, and meant it. He still needed to figure out what was up with his Sam, back in the other world, because he was pretty sure that parallel universes didn't excuse him from starting the apocalypse back home. But this Sam, so desperate for him that he'd actually crack open the world—it felt almost like he'd succeeded at something, no denying it. And there'd been way too much failure in his life in the last, oh, eleven years or so.

Sam was staring back just as hard, their faces less than a foot apart. He put his hand on Dean's shoulder, cupping Castiel's mark, the scar disappearing under his Bigfoot paw. Dean didn't exactly twitch, but something flipped over in his stomach, and he wasn't that hungry any more.

"Sam?" He didn't know what he was asking. Sam's smile disappeared, wiped away, and then there was just that look he got when he was hunting, ready and focused and something in the area was about to die.

“You still want to, right?”

“What?” Dean asked, and then Sam’s mouth was on his, tongue pressing in without waiting for Dean to get with the program. Sam grabbed his other shoulder, holding him in place as Dean squeaked like a bath toy and flailed his hands until he could shove Sam backwards.

Dean stared at him, panting. “What the fuck?”

Sam was flushed, his lips reddened and a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead. Dean very, very much wanted his shirt back now.

“When you came back,” Sam continued, as if Dean had just been talking about where he wanted to go for dinner or some other topic that Sam automatically tuned out, “you said you wanted this. Me.”

“Uh, Sam,” Dean said, careful as he knew how to be. “You know demons—”

“No,” Sam said, eyes gleaming as he shook his head confidently. “It was you, just—”

“Just evil?” And oh, it was so very plausible that Dean would have come out of Hell even more twisted than he’d been going in. Not like he’d ever practiced controlling his appetites much, even before he’d sold his soul. He could see it, how he would have taunted Sam by offering his body, double-daring him.
Except that Sam didn’t seem horrified, not now (and how many demons’ worth of blood had he drained, here?). He put his hand on Dean’s leg. Dean scooted backwards on the bed until an invisible force shoved him onto his back. Sam was on him in an instant, braced above him. Dean had a moment to figure out that he couldn’t move his arms or his legs and then Sam was kissing him again, bruising his lips.

Dean did his best to thrash; he would’ve kneed Sam in the balls if he could have managed it, but Sam’s control was too tight. He could feel the scrape of Sam’s shirt against his chest, the press of his—holy fuck, his hard-on—through their jeans. He could’ve bitten Sam’s tongue, taken a chunk out of his face. But it was Sam.

Sam, who was crying, pawing at Dean, losing it in rough proportion to the firmness of his mental hold.

Sam had stopped kissing Dean, the better to wrestle with Dean’s zipper, which for some reason he was doing with his actual, physical hands. “I need to know you’re here,” Sam said, which made negative sense, except that even back in Dean’s world Sam hadn’t really seen Dean in a year, just some sort of weak and tender Dean-shaped blur.

“Sammy—” Dean didn’t have a clue what came after that.

His jeans and shorts were pushed down, and now Dean thought Sam was using his powers to help, because somehow his boots were going with them, naked as a jaybird with Sam propped up over him. “I need to show you,” Sam continued, and put his hand between Dean’s legs. Dean’s face felt cool where Sam had left trails of wetness on his skin. Dean’s thighs spread apart as Sam’s too-dry fingers prodded at him. His other hand pawed at Dean’s chest, and he was blinking, his eyes crystalline and spilling over.

Dean was not going to let Sam destroy himself. Not a second time.

“Hey, hey,” he said, as soothing as he could get while his heart was jackhammering. He managed to raise his head off of the bed, craning his neck so that he could just barely reach Sam’s mouth, brushing a kiss across it, light as a feather.

Sam stopped his frantic caresses and stared down at Dean, his brow furrowed with suspicion.

“It’s okay,” Dean told him. He closed his eyes and found Sam’s mouth again, only a slight pressure, moving slowly, coaxing Sam along with him.

Sam sighed and relaxed into the kiss. He was still pinning Dean’s arms and legs with his freaky mind powers, but Dean could live with that. Sam’s weight settled onto him, heavy as a collapsed building. Dean was decided: he wasn’t going to wimp out of this or give Sam any reason to think he couldn’t be trusted. Taking it up the ass wasn’t the worst thing he’d feared when he’d woken up this morning. Plus, Sam was still Sam, useless for anything else as long as some obsession was front and center, and this Sam’s obsession was painfully obvious (and a little—okay, a lot—gratifying, even if Dean was literally getting fucked because of it).

Dean forced everything else out of his head, settled deep into his body, and concentrated on convincing Sam that everything was fine using just his tongue and the little bit of leverage he had to rock his torso up and down, thrusting against Sam’s cock.

Now that he was really paying attention, the friction felt good, the first real pleasure he’d felt in weeks. Sam was kissing him with enough force to shove him deep into the too-soft mattress, teeth sharp against his lips. Dean’s arms came free from their restraint, though his legs were still pinned by more than Sam’s weight.

Dean ran his hands up Sam’s sides, over smooth hot skin interrupted by scars. It was yet another unfairness, that Sam had all the marks of this life he never wanted while Dean, who’d worn his own scars with pride all his life, had gotten them erased. But Dean couldn’t fix any of that, not now, so he slid his hands up and down, pressing his fingers into the tight muscles of Sam’s back, the curve of his ass. Jesus, Sam was built; it was different to feel it this way than to be choked, that was for sure.

Sam’s cock pressed into Dean’s stomach, big and wet at the tip, totally fucking terrifying if Dean let himself think about it. His own dick was starting to get interested at all the friction, because it was even more brainless than Dean’s big head, and he rolled his hips to improve the contact, making Sam grunt with pleasure. “Yeah, you want this,” Sam said, almost to himself, then ducked his head and started biting his way down Dean’s neck, a move that never failed to get Dean hot. Had Sam watched, even before Dean went to Hell? Sam snorted against Dean’s skin when Dean thrust up involuntarily, but went back to his work quickly.

After he’d spent long enough to ensure that Dean would have a line of hickeys like a collar, Sam pushed himself up on one arm, grinding his hips into Dean’s, and stretched out his hand. A tube of lube smacked into it a second later. Dean had seen a lot of objects move apparently of their own volition, but this was the first sex-related use of telekinesis in his experience, and he couldn’t help smirking.

“Open,” Sam ordered—another test, as if Dean was going to change his mind about how this was going to go down. Dean’s legs released. He pushed his knees up and out, wrapping his hands around the backs of his thighs, his ass tilting up. Sam watched with dazed, hot eyes, black only where the pupils had dilated.

“You ever done this before?” Sam asked, breathless.

Dean unhesitatingly gave the post-Hell answer: “No.” From the way Sam’s mouth twitched, Dean had chosen right. And when the head of Sam’s cock pushed in, he sure felt he was losing some kind of virginity. Dean grunted and Sam’s hips stuttered forward, fucking in another inch. He’d sure as fuck never done it with a freaking porn star, and how bizarre was it that he didn’t say that only because he didn’t want to give Sam the gloating rights?

It was all too much, too soon after Lilith bleeding out on the stone, Dean on the motel carpet where Sam had put him, swearing himself wholly to serve Heaven as if there was anything whole left in him. That other world had just been a different level of Hell, and if this one was too then Dean would take his pleasure where he could get it.

Dean closed his eyes, fighting to keep himself still, trembling with the effort of letting it happen. The air was humid, thick with the smell of them, Sam’s sweat and Dean’s, Sam everywhere, mouth hot against his neck, the skin of their chests sticking together, Sam’s dick spearing into him, Dean’s choked-off noises harsh in his own ears.

He could feel his thoughts shutting down, like lights going out in a power failure. Usually during sex he got a citywide blackout but this time—maybe because he needed it so bad—it was nationwide, senses retreating into his skin until there was nothing but black and sweat and sex, hands clenched in the bedspread beneath him, heavy weight on top, pressing him into a new shape that just for now didn’t hurt.

Track Two

Sam’s head was pounding and the words on the computer screen were starting to blur past the point of comprehensibility. He knew what that meant, but Ruby wasn’t going to come by and offer him sustenance, so he was just going to have to deal with it.

They were holed up in one of those Americana specials that Dean seemed to locate as easy as breathing, Currier & Ives wallpaper peeling off the walls and curliqued lamps heavy enough to challenge an Olympic weightlifter. Sam didn't know whether Castiel had picked the place at random or whether Dean had convinced him that this was the height of traveling luxury. Anyway, the angel sigils now smearing the walls would probably require the place to redecorate after they left.

He didn't look over at the empty bed nearest the door. He'd gotten the double on autopilot. Maybe it was a good thing that they didn't have the Impala. If he'd had to look at Dean's duffle in the trunk, had to leave it there—

Sam rubbed at his face. His eyes stung like he'd been crying, but he'd been denied even that relief.

“You’re entering the first stages of withdrawal,” Castiel said from behind him.

Sam twisted around, nearly wrenching his neck. “What?”

In the yellow light from the cheap wall sconces, Castiel looked tired and nearly ordinary, a businessman at the end of a very long trip. “There is a physical as well as a mental dependence. Without further infusions, you will become very ill. You might well die.”

Sam swallowed. He had no right to live, not after what he’d done, but having Castiel put it out there like that was harsh. “How long do I have?”

Castiel stared at him. “We can’t afford the distraction of finding you another demon. It might communicate your location to Lucifer before we could incapacitate it.”

“I don’t understand,” Sam admitted.

Castiel shrugged off the trenchcoat, then his suit jacket. Sam spared a moment to wonder why it wasn’t dirty and torn; maybe Castiel regenerated the outfit every time he popped back into existence. But Castiel was rolling up his sleeve, baring his forearm, and this was beginning to look way too familiar for comfort.

Sure enough, Castiel brought out a knife. “Come here,” he commanded.

Sam closed his mouth but he was pretty sure his eyes were showing white all the way around (which, yeah, better than the alternative). “This is—”

“It is necessary. I can’t guarantee your survival if you simply stop.”

In retrospect, Sam understood that a plan involving drinking demon blood was probably inherently flawed from the outset. Angel blood didn’t have the same connotations. Nonetheless—“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Castiel gave him what Dean would have labeled a bitchface, with bonus head tilt. “To the contrary, it is profoundly foolish. If you wish to continue searching for alternatives, I will only remind you that St. Petersburg was a city of a quarter of a million souls.”

Sam flinched. They’d woken up to the news. Even the reporters were using the term ‘apocalyptic,’ and they didn’t know how right they were. He nodded, conceding the point, and stood up. “How, uh. How do you want me to do this?”

Castiel frowned, as if only now realizing that Sam’s height meant that he’d have to raise his arm, which would minimize the blood flow. Without further comment, he sat on the edge of the bed. After a moment, Sam joined him, his pulse fluttering as he realized that they were actually going to—his mouth was watering.

Fuck, he was an addict. He’d never really believed it, not until now, when everything that mattered was lost to him. And if Dean had been standing on the other side of him, Sam was sickly certain that he still wouldn’t have turned away from the promise of blood.

When Castiel drew the blade across his forearm, Sam grabbed it before his tears could obscure his vision.

Ruby’s blood had always tasted just like blood, salty and meaty. He’d never been able to sense the sulfur. Castiel’s blood was the same.

The power hit him immediately. The feeling was more intense than it had ever been with Ruby, which Sam guessed made sense if demons were just ex-humans. Maybe Lucifer’s blood would have the kick of an angel’s. Sam made a noise that he was glad was muffled against Castiel’s skin.

It poured down his throat, hot and calming, puffing him up with strength. If he had to tear the world apart to find Dean, he could do it now. He could feel it rushing through his own veins, down the capillaries and into every cell, making him more than human.

Castiel was whispering. “Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei, novi et æterni testamenti,” like some sick priest. The Latin was mixed with something else, Hebrew maybe. Sam knew this was no sacrament, no matter that it felt like he was being lifted on great invisible wings. There was no transubstantiation here, because Sam hadn’t started with anything as innocent as wine. Maybe Castiel was just trying to make himself feel better about participating in this horrorshow. Or maybe, against all odds, the angel still believed that grace was some sort of possibility for them.

Nothing that felt this good could be right. And even so, Sam chased it, his nerves singing with the frenzied excitement of it.

“Stop,” Castiel said, and put his free hand on Sam’s forehead to reinforce the point. Sam made a muffled protest: this was the power of Heaven, so sweet and clear inside him, like he was being cleansed at the same time as he was strengthened. “Sam,” Castiel repeated, voice deepening. “You must stop. You are endangering my physical form.”

Sam forced himself still, no longer worrying Jimmy Novak’s body with his tongue and teeth. After a moment, he was able to pull back, flushed with shame and worse, and to relax the bruise-tight grip he had on Castiel’s arm. “Sorry,” he said, eyes still fixed on the weeping cut on the angel’s arm, the flesh around red with irritation.

Castiel covered the wound with his other hand, and when his fingers passed over his skin, it was unbroken again, healed completely. “This is temporary,” he warned. “I cannot feed you as you have been accustomed to be fed.”

Sam nodded. Whatever the pain of withdrawal, he’d take it, as long as he could function enough to find Dean. “What do we do now?” he asked.

Castiel frowned. “Lucifer will take a vessel,” he said. “Did you reject him?”

Thinking back, Sam couldn’t say he’d done anything consciously, but—“I might’ve. There was some sort of presence, and then it was gone.”

When he dared to look at Castiel again, the angel’s gaze had gone distant, seeing nothing of the dingy hotel room with its bad seventies wallpaper and pilled-up bedspread. “If what I suspect is true, then Lucifer will continue to seek you out, because you are his true vessel. You must continue to refuse him. Without Dean, there is no one to match him.”

Sam’s stomach lurched as he worked through what Castiel wasn’t saying. “Dean’s—he’s supposed to be a vessel, too?”

“My brother Michael,” Castiel said, with a sort of calm hunger.

A wash of red obscured Sam’s vision. He felt the coiled snake of power inside him flex, eager to strike. Angels were just the other side of demons, right? “That’s why you pulled Dean out of Hell?” he asked, his voice shaking. “Just so you could stuff him full of your brother?”

Castiel examined him like a bird trying to determine whether he was a twig or a worm. “I was not made aware of the larger plan when I was sent to raise Dean. And I am still uncertain in my conclusions. But it does seem likely that Dean was to be sacrificed to Heaven, as you to Hell.”

“And humanity just gets caught in the middle,” Sam concluded. He launched himself from the bed, unable to sit quietly while Cas was calmly explaining just how little people—Dean—meant to the angels. He wanted to kill every one of the smug, self-serving—

No. Revenge had gotten him Lucifer. Revenge had made him stupid. Well, that and the demon blood, but given his present condition, he was going to have to compensate for the latter.

He made himself stop pacing, though he couldn’t look at Castiel. “So, without Dean, Heaven doesn’t win the apocalypse. That means we’ve got a common interest in stopping Lucifer before he goes all the way.”

“I don’t think Heaven will see you as a potential ally, Sam.”

Sam’s fists clenched, but he forced them still by his sides.

He jumped when he felt Castiel’s hand on his back. Then there was a searing pain through his chest, worse than being choked. “What the—” he managed to gasp at last, tearing away from Castiel and spinning around, raising his hand like he could exorcise the angel.

Castiel didn’t flinch, though Sam thought there was disapproval in the set of his mouth. “Without Dean, the obvious move is to kill you so as to inflict an equal injury on Lucifer's plan, to force both sides to less suitable vessels. I incised Enochian symbols on your bones that will make it impossible for angels to find you, even when we leave this room. That might keep you alive for a time.”

“On my bones?” Sam repeated.

“Tattoos can be … excised.” Castiel had the look of someone who’d seen it done and wasn’t fond of the memory. Sam swallowed and accepted that for the moment.

But if Heaven was after Sam, then—“You’re sure Lucifer doesn’t have Dean?”

Castiel’s brow furrowed. “My brother’s sin was ever pride. I believe that he would want to confront Michael full-on, rather than crippling him by removing his vessel.”

“You believe,” Sam repeated. “That’s just fantastic. You also believe in God, right? So where is He in all this?”

If anything, Castiel got stiffer. Dick move, Sam thought, hammering on a known weakness like that, and for no good reason. And then, because Castiel was there and Dean wasn’t, Sam made himself open his mouth again. “Sorry,” he said, still tasting blood in his mouth. “I don’t—what are we going to do?”

Castiel turned away. “We will have to find a vulnerability while Lucifer is yet in an unsuitable vessel.”

But if Lucifer really needed some kind of human host to start the apocalypse, and if Sam was supposed to be that host, then there was an obvious solution. If he’d known Dean was safe, it would even have been a relief. “Does that mean that if I, if we let the other angels find me—?”

“There has been enough sacrifice!” Castiel barked. In an eyeblink, he was face to face with Sam, curling his fists in Sam’s collar, pushing him back in unsteady steps with a strength far more than human. “Each time, each death, has been a loss, not a victory! We have no idea what will defeat Lucifer. For all we know it may require the willing resistance of his vessel. So cease with your whining and consider where we might find any insight into Lucifer’s weaknesses.”

Sam closed his mouth. Then he sat down and reached for his phone.

Track One

Dean watched through the open bathroom door as Sam brushed his teeth. Dean was probably going to do that too, in a minute. He’d steal Sam’s toothbrush; it wouldn’t be the first time. He was so tired, though. The bed was easy to lie in. And with Sam here, smiling and content and not hiding anything from him, it was hard to remember that there was another Sam out there, alone against Lucifer. (Sam who’d choked him out and thought he was weak and hadn’t answered the phone because Ruby meant more to him; Sam who’d be so disgusted with what Dean had just done with this Sam. Sam who didn’t need Dean dragging him down.) Even the just-fucked feeling helped keep him down, loose-limbed and ready for sleep.

But Sam here had his vulnerabilities, too.

“Lucifer’s minions can’t be thrilled with you deciding not to play your part in Apocalypse Now,” Dean commented.

Sam shrugged, looking kind of rabid with a mouth full of foam. “Haven’t heard from them in a while.”

“Yeah, not that reassuring.” He remembered the months they’d waited for Yellow-Eyes to show up again, and how it had turned out that Azazel was just training up the other special children to compete against Sam in the final showdown. When Satan did show his hand, Dean guessed, it was likely to be aces high. "So what happened to Ruby when you decided you weren't gonna kill Lilith for her?"

Sam's tanned skin practically glowed against his white T-shirt, muscles of his arms standing out as he leaned forward, bracing his hands against the sink. Say what you liked about demon blood, it seemed more like steroids than heroin. Complete with 'roid rage, Dean remembered, resisting the desire to touch the bruises on his neck.

Sam took a sip of water from a flimsy plastic cup and spat again, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "She kept me alive while you were ... gone."

"And believe me I appreciate that, even if I'm not a fan of the whole 'releasing Lucifer' thing. But—" speaking over Sam's protest—"I know she made you think she was on the good guys' side. So what I wanna know is how you figured out you were being played." And why my Sam didn't, he added. Had Dean's presence been so distracting, his weakness so total, that Sam hadn't been able to listen?

“Dean told me,” Sam said, not looking at his reflection in the mirror. “She was there, sometimes, when he was being—and demons lie, but he wasn’t.”

Dean nodded. For all he knew, Ruby had been one of the demons Alastair outsourced to when he was busy elsewhere, since they’d rarely told him their names. If Dean had stayed down long enough he might’ve learned to recognize her particular curl of black smoke. Or maybe Ruby would’ve come later, and Castiel had interrupted all that. He tried not to invoke memories of what he’d done those last ten years, but this was an exceptional circumstance. “Tell me you killed her slow.”

Sam snorted and came back to the bed. Dean suppressed a twitch when Sam settled next to him—he was much more used to having his own bed, and he didn’t know if he could sleep with someone else, let alone with Sam.

“If it helps, she begged for mercy.”

“I can’t say I’m hating the thought of Ruby on her knees,” Dean admitted.

Sam’s brows scrunched up. He leaned toward Dean and opened his mouth just as Dean realized what he’d said. “Not like that!” he hurried, and Sam looked at him with his ‘bullshit’ expression. “No, seriously, Sammy, that shit ain’t right. I wouldn’t—” Of course his Sam would, and had. “Did you?” he asked, diverted by the thought of what his Sam had gotten up to with Ruby during his four months.

Sam ducked his head, but without his bangs to cover his eyes the move was less effective. “You were gone.”

Dean nodded, because it wasn’t like he had any right to bitch in the first place. He flipped the sheet off of himself and watched Sam’s face go slack. “I’m here now,” he said, and then there wasn’t much more to say.

Track Two

“Sammy.”

Sam turned over, grumbling, and opened his eyes just enough to let the light in.

Dean was sitting on the bed across from him, legs splayed, wearing Dad’s leather jacket, his hair in those stupid gelled spikes.

Sam bolted upright. “Dean!”

Dean grinned. “Sort of.”

Hunh? Sam looked around. This was the guest room he’d fallen asleep in. But there was no sign of Castiel, or of Sam’s research, which had been strewn around the room when last he’d seen it.

“Lucifer,” he guessed, and Dean’s eyes lightened further.

“No flies on you. I never liked that nickname anyway, Lord of the Flies. It’s insulting.”

“What do you want?” If Lucifer had Dean—if this was, oh God, a possession—Sam’s brain refused to process further.

“Isn’t it obvious, Sam? I want you. You are my chosen vessel. You will be mine. I’m just here to encourage you to say yes to me sooner, rather than later. Before things get bad.”

Things are already bad, Sam thought, and tried to keep his face perfectly still. “No,” he said.

“Come on, Sam,” Lucifer drawled in perfect imitation of Dean. “Your brother left you to rot, same as mine did. But I’ll never leave you.”

“No,” he said. Even if Lucifer was telling the truth, it didn’t matter. He owed Dean that much, not to compound his error and give in to the end of the world.

“You’ll change your mind,” Lucifer said, smug certainty in the curl of Dean’s smile, the crinkles at the corners of Dean’s eyes.

“Where’s Dean?” Sam demanded, not that he expected an answer. But even a denial might have a clue in it.

Lucifer shrugged. “I can’t find him. I’m not lying,” he said immediately, reading Sam’s expression. “I’ll never lie to you, Sam. But your brother’s flight isn’t my doing. Maybe you should talk to some unfallen angels instead.”

Sam sat up into the waking world. The thin blankets didn’t keep out the chill of a North Dakota predawn. Across the room, a mirror showed him a junkie’s pinched face. The wallpaper was faded roses; the vines looked like prison bars in the gray light.

He rubbed his hand across his face and headed downstairs to continue his research. There wasn’t much out there on what could hide a person from God’s prophet, but Bobby had pulled the most out-there references he could find. The only references he could find; same thing really when you started getting this esoteric.

Sam couldn’t figure it out. If Lucifer had Dean, it was obvious that the next step was to ask Sam for a trade, but there’d been nothing. (Sam refused to consider the alternatives for what Lucifer might have done to Michael’s intended vessel.) Castiel was convinced that Heaven was also in an uproar about Dean’s absence. It was hard to figure out a third party that would have intervened.

Oh, and there was the small matter of Lucifer not giving up on the End Times. But apparently Sam’s job there was simply to say no. That, he was willing to claim expertise in.

The sun rose; Bobby slid a cup of coffee next to his elbow, and at some point Sam must’ve drunk it. He ate, possibly; there was only half a sandwich on the plate at the edge of the table, anyway. His eyes felt like they were covered in velcro, almost as painful closed as open. So much apocrypha, so many ways the world could end, and he couldn’t figure out which was supposed to be his story.

Shadows stretched their fingers across the room. When he moved it felt like his bones had been glued into place, cracking as he stood. He pissed and washed his hands and didn’t look at his useless, demon-blood-drinking reflection.

There were still a few books to go. If he listened carefully, he could hear the clanking of Bobby working down in the basement—he recalled Bobby saying something about preparing anti-angel and anti-demon weaponry, but he was leaving all that to Bobby. When Bobby put a knife in his hand, he’d use it.

Sitting down again hurt. He was glad. The room was as airless as if he’d been alone for years. It wasn’t worse than when he’d known Dean was in Hell, but that was a curve that went all the way down.

The stack of esoteric texts continued to dwindle. When he reached the end—he’d figure something out. He had to.

“You should know,” Castiel said slowly, startling him from his work trance, “that I don’t seek to take him from you.”

A corner of the fragile page Sam was translating from French crumbled to dust under his fingers. “Fuck! Why—no, I don’t want to know.” That lasted about two seconds. He swiveled in his chair. “I’m not—you think I’m jealous?”

Castiel inclined his head, like Sam was the weirdo in the room. “Yes.”

Sam launched himself to his feet, filled with the desire to hit something. “Yeah, well. I used to think being on the angels’ side was better. That doesn’t mean I—I’ve seen how you look at him. You wouldn’t be the first to pick Dean. He’s not—He can’t give you what you want.”

“I don’t think you understand what I want.”

Well, fuck you too. Sam felt his shoulders rise, and only then realized that having his hands in fists was an improvement: before the last seal, he would have raised his palm to Castiel. He would have tried to see what his powers could do with an angel. The thought was deflationary, and he sagged back into his seat. “Explain it to me.”

Castiel’s expression never changed. “As the result of my mission to redeem him from Hell, Dean and I share a profound bond. My desire is to preserve that, regardless of the battles ahead. But Dean would deny it, for your sake, if he believed that was what you wanted.” Sam was instantly swallowing back his tears, because Castiel was talking as if it was obvious that Dean was just away for a while, as if it was unquestionable that Castiel was going to get his chance at Dean. Sam’s anger seemed very small and faithless compared to the angel’s confidence.

Inexorably, Castiel continued. “You believe he is broken, and there are ways in which that is true. But you are far from whole yourself. Yet you need not fear. Dean has a prodigous capacity for love, and no one will ever come before you in his heart.” Castiel said it simply, with total acceptance. Sam didn’t understand how that could be.

Maybe, he thought, that’s what grace is.

He turned his head, because there were some things it was too painful to admit that another person could see. “I’m still pissed at the angels. But you’re not a regular angel, and he’s not mine,” although there was a throb in his chest that said something else. “He’ll need all the friends he can get.”

“When we get him back,” Castiel prompted.

Sometimes Sam wondered just how much psychology Castiel really grasped. For a being who presented as barely intersecting with humanity, he sure knew just where to hit. “When we get him back,” Sam acknowledged.

Track One

“So, do we still kill evil things here, or what?” Not that Dean particularly wanted to get out of bed—Sam had been just as enthusiastic for round three in the morning—but as long as he was stuck here, he ought to do some good.

Sam gawped at him from over at the table by the window, where he was drinking coffee and not eating his egg biscuit. A folded-over paper bag with slowly widening grease spots on the table across from him indicated that he was trying to indulge Dean, which Dean could really get used to.

“I know you’ve been busy,” Dean conceded. “And I’m not sayin’ I like the idea of you hunting out on your own. But ghosts and vampires and shit didn’t stop killing people just because some lousy seals were breaking, right?”

“… No,” Sam said. “They didn’t.”

“Okay,” Dean said, drawing it out. “So let’s find a hunt.” Maybe some righteous violence could get Sam back onto a less Lilith-consorting path, plus if they worked well together Sam might help him contact his own original Sam. (But this was Sam too; he felt it in his bones, a familiarity that had his guard all the way down, without the post-Hell distrust that had crept through them like rust on a junker.)

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, suppressing a wince. “And I mean by that, you get with the research, Brainiac. I’m gonna take a shower. Think you can find a job before I’m done?”

Sam’s shoulders automatically stiffened at the challenge in Dean’s tone. He stared at Dean a moment longer—he knew Dean too well to believe that Dean was completely okay with this, especially with another Sam on the line—but Dean did want something simple to hunt, and Sam could read him well enough to get that.

Because some things couldn’t be changed just by swapping universes, Sam had a lead on an unquiet ghost by the time Dean was toweling his hair dry.

It was so easy to drive the highways with Sam beside him, and the fact that Sam was staring at him instead of examining the scenery wasn’t a problem. Reminded him of before he went to Hell. A little nervous-making, because Dean wasn’t ever sure what Sam saw, but at the same time it was like sitting out in the sun the first day of spring, warm all over and happy to be alive. He couldn’t say he’d felt like that in a long time, even aboveground.

Of course, they had to stop halfway through so that Dean could realign the Impala. Dean hadn’t said anything about Sam’s hurried cleanup before they got on the road, even though the seats needed conditioning more than Sam’s hair did. But there were some things that couldn’t be ignored, like his baby pulling to the right. In other circumstances, Dean would’ve had words for Sam about his carelessness. At least this Sam had thought better of the iPod jack before Dean had to rip it out for him.

They found a garage where the owner took a couple of hundreds to let Dean hang out in the corner and jack up the Impala. (Dean was sure he didn’t want to know where the cash had come from; at least Sam wasn’t whammying the guy.) The suspension was loose, like he’d suspected, and he lost himself in the simple pleasure of replacing worn-out parts. He’d be lying to say that having Sam watch him work like Sam was a kid again, impressed with everything Dean could do, was awful.

“C’mere,” he ordered when it was time, “time for a magician’s assistant.”

Sam rolled his eyes but went where Dean pointed. Dean had the chalk out of the trunk, from the same box they used back in his world, and he held it up as Sam spun the tire around, creating a perfect line around the circumference. “Hands of a surgeon,” he said with satisfaction.

“I’m not sure there’s enough room in this yard for you, me, and your ego,” Sam said, but he was smiling.

Says the guy who broke open the universe to get me, Dean almost said. Might be a sore subject though, so he just gestured Sam over to the next tire.

After a while, Sam went to get them lunch. That was good, Dean thought. Sam knew that there wasn’t any place here Dean would go without him. And then his attention was occupied by measuring, loosening the nuts, and adjusting the tie rods, which lasted just long enough for Sam to reward him with a meatball sub.

He chewed with his mouth open, just to see Sam grimace. He almost didn’t care whether this was some fever dream. Maybe he’d never made it out of the convent and this was a concussion dream, last few moments on Earth before Lucifer took everyone out, and his overstrained brain was letting him write his own happy ending. Okay, he wouldn’t have expected the fucking, but right now, out in the sun with his T-shirt sticking to his back and the slight ache in his arms and thighs from a job done well, Sam at his side and a beer in his hand, it was hard to see what else he would’ve changed. And honestly, he’d always been way too wrapped up in Sam. The whole world could see it and even people who only read about them got the message, so maybe the fucking wasn’t as surprising a part of the package as all that.

“You done admiring her?” Sam said, balling up his trash and tossing it unerringly into a can ten feet away. “You were the one who was hot to trot this morning.”

“Hot to trot every morning,” Dean shot back without thinking, and then felt himself turn red from his chest to his ears, much to Sam’s amusement.

The rest of the drive was uneventful, and the ghost was no problem to find. Dean did nearly swallow his own tongue when she appeared and lunged at Sam and, instead of ending up choked against a gravestone, Sam thrust his hand out like the world’s pissiest traffic guard. The ghost froze, like a crappy VCR tape put on pause, flickering a little but gaping just as much as Dean was, before he remembered he had a fucking job to do and dumped the rest of the lighter fluid onto the corpse.

Sam held his pose even as Dean dropped the matches in. His face was serious, but he didn’t look like he was straining—nothing like the effort he’d put in with Samhain or Alastair. Of course one pissant ghost was nothing against major demons like those, but Dean knew what Sam looked like when he was using a skill that’d become so ingrained it was second nature.

Sam glanced over at him as the ghost disintegrated. Dean shook his head. “That doesn’t even seem fair,” he said, keeping his tone light.

Sam snorted. “Death’s not fair.”

Dean couldn’t argue with that.

Track Two

Sam recognized the twitchiness in time to avoid total embarrassment. He told Castiel, not meeting his eyes, and Castiel agreed to feed him, to help wean him off the power in the blood without seizures. Angelic methadone, in its own way. This time, fighting with every ounce of stubborn Dad ever accused him of having, Sam forced himself to stop before Castiel made him stop.

“I’m pleased with your progress,” Castiel said once they’d separated. “It’s unlikely that you’ll die of withdrawal at this point.”

Dean would’ve laughed at Castiel’s tactless frankness. Sam appreciated the honesty, but not his brother’s absence. “So what’s next?”

“I don’t know,” the angel growled. “I have no answers. I have no orders. I had thought of going in search of God, but I have no way to find Him.”

Sam sat down at the table where most of his research was spread out. He leaned an elbow on a tiny patch of wood not covered with books and propped his head on his hand. “What about a location spell?”

“For God?”

“For Dean.”

Castiel blinked at him. Apparently he hadn’t gotten the memo about the Winchester commitment to family. “If Dean were in Heaven or on this plane of existence, I would know it. A human soul has a distinctive pattern, a vibration through etheric dimensions, and Dean’s is more distinctive than most.”

“And what if Lucifer’s got him locked up in Hell?” He knew he’d asked before, but he was desperate, and maybe repetition would shake some key detail loose. That was how you worked a case. If Dean was a case, then there was hope.

Castiel shook his head. “After what I learned during my journey to rescue him there, I would also know.”

“Stashed in Purgatory, then,” Sam guessed.

“That’s not how Purgatory works,” Castiel said, and forestalled Sam’s queries by holding up his hand. “But the idea of locating God—if Dean were here, his amulet would burn hot in God’s presence.”

Sam sat up straight. “His amulet?”

“It’s a long story,” Castiel said. “In any event that’s not an option without Dean. Still, you’ve given me some ideas.” That was his version of goodbye, because he disappeared with that wingbeat whoosh that somehow never made the air move.

Sam sighed and pushed his hair off of his forehead with both hands, smoothing it behind his ears. Dean would’ve been humming ‘Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til Its Gone,” if he’d been there. Or, really, he would’ve been sticking a knife in Sam, like he’d promised.

Sam owed Dean a chance to be the one who put down the monster he’d become. He still had a number of volumes to consult. He’d done despair before, and it hadn’t worked out well. This time, he was going to get it right.

Track One

Dean came to consciousness with the buzz of an unfamiliar phone. He blinked sleep-gummed eyes—nothing like getting good and dicked to let a man sleep without nightmares—and fumbled around in the jeans piled on the floor until he found the phone, since he could hear the water running in the bathroom and figured Sam wouldn’t mind him answering.

“Yeah?”

There was a pause. “Sam?”

“Bobby?” Shit, he hadn’t made Sam spread the news—hadn’t been sure that Sam was still talking to Bobby, what with the consorting with demons and all. He didn’t even know whether Bobby knew about Dean’s first return from Hell in this world.

“Dean?”

Okay, this was going to turn into Who’s On First pretty fast. “Yeah, hey, Bobby. Um, if you want we can swing by and you can run all the tests, but long story short, it’s me.”

There was a pause, during which Bobby was surely calculating how many different monsters Dean might be and how long it would take him to get to Dean’s location. “Where’s Sam?”

“I’ll get him out of the shower,” Dean said, since that would save everyone time and energy.

He put Bobby on speaker and headed over to open the bathroom door. “Sam!” he yelled. “Get out here and talk to Bobby!”

The water shut off with a clunk and Sam stepped out, frowning. He grabbed a towel and wiped his face, but didn’t cover up, which was more than a little distracting.

“Hey, Bobby,” he said, not particularly friendly. “What’s up?”

“Why don’t you tell me? There’s demon sign all over the place, all of a sudden. Like demon Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And whether that’s Dean back or somethin’ else, I’m finding it hard to think that’s unrelated.”

They looked at each other. “It’s Dean,” Sam said, which was close enough to the truth that Dean didn’t feel much need to correct him. “And I don’t know anything about the level of demon activity, but we can look into it. You got some locations?”

There was a longish pause. Eventually Bobby must’ve decided that even an Evil Dean couldn’t do too much with the information Sam was asking for, and he began listing places—places Dean recognized.

Sam saw it in his face and held up a finger, signalling Dean to keep his fool mouth shut. That didn’t sit well with Dean, but they could fight about it after Bobby hung up.

“I have a couple of ideas,” Sam said. “Let us look into it.”

“You planning on explaining Dean as any part of that investigation, Sam?”

Sam closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, his nostrils flaring. At least his eyes didn’t glint yellow. “I’ll tell you about Dean too, I promise. But this sounds important.”

“Yeah, and the return of the boy I practically raised ain’t?”

Dean couldn’t help but feel a warm glow over that. “Sorry, Bobby,” he said, because clearly he was going to have to be the peacemaker in this Winchester family too, which was kind of hilarious given how bad he was at it overall. “We will call, I promise. Even come by so’s you can throw holy water on me.”

“You better,” Bobby grumbled, but let them go.

“Those are all places where seals broke,” Dean said as soon as the connection ended. “I’m thinking the apocalypse is back on.”

Sam cursed.

“It’s me,” Dean said, sick certainty in his stomach. “Whoever wants this showdown, they know I’m back. There are angels making this happen, I know it.”

Sam shivered, and Dean didn’t think it was just because he was still wet. “How do we fight angels?” Yeah, that reverence thing Sam had going on got old even faster the second time around.

Then Dean realized: he knew somebody who might be able to help, and they could help her.

“Anna Milton,” he said.


Part 2