Fic: There But for the Grace 2/2

[rivkat]

Part 1 

Track Two

“You judge yourself too harshly,” Castiel announced.

Sam controlled the reflexive shudder. “Don’t,” he snapped, and turned a fraction further away from Castiel. “What do you know about it, anyway? You’re here for Dean, the righteous man.”

Castiel breathed out, and even though Sam knew the sound was needless affectation it still made him look over his shoulder to see Castiel’s serious face. “I know that those to whom evil is done do evil in return. And I know that Dean, the righteous man, sold his soul: the greatest sin of all, the voluntary submission to Hell. And then, because he had sold his soul, he chose to become a torturer. He was close to becoming a demon when I raised him. Not so different from you.”

Sam felt the tears slipping down his cheeks. Dean’s trip to Hell was his fault, his fault for turning his back on Jake, but it was also Dean’s choice. Dean had been raised to give himself for Sam at every turn, and he could have rebelled, could at least have let what was dead stay dead, but Dean never even let himself think that he had a choice. Sam and Dean, free will and destiny: Inextricable, bound together, and Sam had loved their closeness and hated it with every cell of his being for too long to even know who he was without Dean. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Repent,” Castiel said, even though Sam hadn’t really been asking him. “Forgive him, and yourself. Choose life, and make amends where you can. You have an opportunity very few humans have, Sam. You can make your repentance into a weapon to save this world.”

“What are you saying?” Sam whispered, though he was beginning to suspect.

Castiel knelt gracefully next to him, the trenchcoat puddling on the indifferently clean carpet, their heads at the same level. Sam thought, randomly, that Castiel’s five-o’-clock shadow could have been borrowed straight from Dean. “Perhaps—perhaps you and I are all that is left of Dean. Because of him, I have left my brothers and sisters. Because of him, you rejected the temptations of demons. There is a ritual Bobby showed me. Its purpose is otherwise, but I believe it could be modified to join the powers of a fallen angel and a risen demon. It may provide us with the strength to defeat Lucifer. It is extremely dangerous, and even if we succeed he will likely hurt us mortally. But I would do it. For Dean, in his name.”

Sam closed his eyes and concentrated on not collapsing from the pain in his chest. If Zachariah’s message that Dean was vital to stopping Lucifer meant only this—only that Dean’s memory was the necessary spur—then Sam was just about ready to let the whole fucking world burn.

Dean wouldn’t want that. But Dean wasn’t exactly represented in the discussion, so—

But of course Castiel was right. Saving people was the family business. He’d thought it was revenge for so long, revenge and self-defense, but neither of those things were worth getting up in the morning for. Letting other people love and lose, breathe and choose—that was what made the Winchesters hunt ghosts and monsters, protecting the world from the dangers it no longer believed in. This was just doing the job on a bigger scale.

“Hang on,” he realized. “You’ve—you’re a fallen angel now?” It made sense, he guessed, what with Castiel bringing Dean to him against orders. He just hadn’t thought—and Castiel hadn’t seemed afraid of being chased down by the other angels, like Anna had been. But Sam guessed that the remaining host was spending most of its time fighting the original fallen angel.

Castiel nodded confirmation. “And to kill Lilith required you to take on your demonic aspect in full. I believe that satisfies the definition of ‘risen demon’ used in the text.”

Sam remembered how it had been. His senses had been both sharper and flatter: he could see in the dark, smell human stench from yards away, hear around corners. But beauty had been nothing more than paint over decay, and even Dean’s voice had rubbed against him like sandpaper over a fresh welt. The world had been hateful to him and he had hated.

He shuddered. “I don’t want to go there again. I don’t want to be what I am.”

Castiel put a hand on his shoulder, warm but not quite as warm as Dean’s. “You should not need to return to consorting with demons in order to perform the ritual. If you are willing.”

Sam clenched his jaw, swallowed. “Yes,” he said. “For Dean.”

After a moment, Castiel squeezed his arm, deliberate but also reassuring. All Sam could think of was Ruby, how horrible and wonderful she’d felt against his skin. How it had all been a lie, and how she’d really believed that he’d be happy when he became the monster she’d always seen in him. Castiel had betrayed Dean too; angels seemed no better than demons. Which was reason enough to keep them from fighting their stupid proxy war.

Sam coughed and leaned back, jerking his head over to where the books of prophecy were stacked on the dresser. “So,” he said, “when do we start?”

Track 1

Just like it’d been at home, Anna Milton was at Connor Beverley Behavioral Medicine Center, for her own good. Only here, she hadn’t heard anything about him until a few days ago, when it was all, “Dean Winchester is returned.” That wasn’t any less creepy the second time around, but at least she recognized his name and was open to listening to two random strangers who claimed to know what was up with her better than her doctors.

After Sam gave him the nod indicating that he agreed that she’d be useful, Dean said, “We need to skedaddle to get your grace before the demons catch up—it’s in Kentucky.”

“My grace?” Anna repeated.

Dean remembered that she hadn’t yet been reacquainted with her true nature.

“Fuck, we have to stop for a hypnotist. I know just the one.” At least Pamela wouldn’t be so rightfully pissed with the Winchesters this time.

“Hypnotherapy?” Anna said, dubiously.

He looked her straight in the eyes, took her hands, and told her, “Trust me. You need our help.”

“A hypnotist?” Sam asked, just as disbelieving, when they signed her out.

“Actually, she’s a psychic.” He explained about how Pamela’s been a big help back in his old life, where the seals were breaking and the angels were a bit more active. Of course, given the way he naturally described her, that meant he ended up having to hiss at Sam how no, he hadn’t screwed Pamela (more’s the pity).

Anna sat in the back seat, thankfully Rubyless this time around, and listened to them give the barest possible outline of the stakes. The story must’ve sort of matched up with what the angels singing in her head had been saying, because she didn’t open the door and roll out at sixty miles per hour, even though honestly it might’ve been safer. He tried to make it sound like they had God on their side or whatever, though when she did get re-badassed she was going to see through that pretty quick. For now, she seemed willing to go along with the demons-and-angels-are-after-you flow.

He also had to dodge Sam’s pointed questions about Anna, asked at rest stops when Anna couldn’t hear them. The girl’s been hearing voices, he said. There’s names for dudes who do that.

In point of fact, he didn’t know what to do about the fact that he’d slept with her alternate universe version. He had a hard enough time dealing with girls he’d actually fucked, and that wasn’t even getting into Sam’s reaction to Anna, like a drug dog alerting to a trace of sexual interest in place of pot. Sam had even shouldered him aside when he’d tried to open the back door of the Impala for her, and he could tell she was nervous at Sam’s glowering scrutiny.

The demons didn’t seem to be after her yet, but they might not know she was in play again. While Anna slept, slumped to one side and flickering in and out of Dean’s vision in the rearview mirror as they passed the random lights on the highway, Dean told Sam more of what he’d heard in the angels’ green room.

“Brothers,” Sam said.

“Hunh?”

“Michael and Lucifer, they were brothers. They’re each other’s family.” He stared out the window for a while, then slammed his hand down on the inner sill.

“Hey!” Dean protested his baby’s mistreatment.

“Every one of Azazel’s ‘special’ children had a sibling. I never thought anything about it because they weren’t all born at the same time or anything like that—there were even the twins, remember? But if they’re looking for a matched set to possess, maybe—”

“Shit,” Dean said with great feeling. Then he realized that, with Lucifer risen and him gone, things might be even worse on the other side. Except that, unlike before, the angels would have a very strong incentive to push back the apocalypse, if their chosen warrior was going to be unavailable. “So we’re like a two-pack of archangel condoms.”

“It makes sense,” Sam said, and Dean had to admit that, of all the terrible things he’d heard recently, this at least had the virtue of being marginally logical.

They made a pit stop for caffeine and sugar. Dean made sure to buy Sam a fruit cup and shove it into his hands; after a while, Sam got really into telling Anna about his theories about supernatural evolution, forgot it was food, and ate it. Dean smiled to himself; the kid couldn’t be left on his own, and that was a natural fact.

Unshaven and unslept, they finally arrived at Pamela’s. The door opened before Sam could knock. Pamela stared at the three of them, and it was both freaky and awesome to see her eyes. Her eyebrows climbed the longer she looked at them, which was much less awesome. Dean cleared his throat. “I’m not exactly from around here.”

“Yeah, I get that. You’re not a ghost, but you’re not right, either.”

Pamela didn’t look like she minded, and it wasn’t anything Dean didn’t already know about himself. Still, Dean felt Sam’s frown, and he reached out to put a hand on Sam’s forearm. “We’re trying to save the world, I swear to you.”

“Oh, well, then no worries,” Pamela drawled, which was fair enough. “You all had best come in and explain yourselves.”

She let them walk past her, checking out the rear view. Dean just hoped that Sam would stick with embarrassed, like he’d been in the good old days, instead of getting jealous. Fortunately, Sam didn’t seem to be paying much attention to Pamela’s appreciation.

Once they’d seated themselves in her living room, Dean explained the basics: Anna Milton, fallen angel, needed to remember who she was.

“You don’t ask for much, do you?”

“It’ll work,” Dean said, with a confidence he usually had to fake. It was really nice to not be talking out of his ass, just once, even if the overall situation sucked.

“Hmph,” she said, but she did the job, sending Anna down almost immediately. This was a psychic who really knew her shit. Dean hadn’t appreciated that enough the first time around, but he was a fan of competence even more than of 34-Ds. Pamela coaxed Anna backwards in time until Anna came flailing awake, eager to escape the angels she now understood were coming to kill her.

She looked at her hands in wonder. “I don’t regret it,” she said, mostly to herself. Then she looked up at the trio of humans hovering over her. “We need to move fast,” she said. “They don’t understand how much you know, Dean, but they will soon.”

“Wait,” Dean said, when Anna looked like she was about to leave them and start running towards Kentucky if they didn’t get a move on. “Somebody else we’ve got to get in touch with.”

He elaborated: Castiel, angel of the Lord, eyes burned out and eardrums exploded without proper precautions. “And you need to talk to this jerk why?” Pamela asked when he faltered to a stop.

Sam’s hand on his wrist made it both harder and easier for Dean to keep his face still. Dean spoke what he knew to be absolute truth: “He needs to take a host so we can keep Lucifer from destroying the world. That good enough for you?”

Pamela leaned forward—whoa, Dean had totally forgotten how nice that rack was—and looked first at Sam, then at Dean. “You’re really confident that this is all going down unless you get in touch with your angel, but the Jolly Green Giant here doesn’t seem as excited to be here.”

Four fucking inches, Dean thought grumpily, and not even where it counted. Pamela winked at him as if she’d read his mind, which, he kind of hoped not.

Dean shifted uneasily. “I’ve seen what happens when all the seals break. Do you really think that a fallen angel with a breeding program and a thirty-year plan has only one option when it comes to icing Lilith? Lucifer is close to rising, and Cas—my Cas—he didn’t want that, and my guess is we could use his help. Angels are like nukes—having just one might not get the job done.”

“I agree,” Anna—Anael—chimed in, somewhat to Dean’s surprise. “Castiel was the best warrior in the garrison, and the most honest. He would not go along with a scheme to trigger the End Times.”

Pamela frowned. “So your plan is to get a message to him, and then what?”

“We tell him to take a host first, and then get his ass down here so we can figure out what to do next. And not Jimmy Novak,” Dean remembered. “Somebody who isn’t leaving anybody behind when they agree to be wrapped around an angel.”

“Fine,” Pamela sighed. “I can already tell I’m gonna regret this. You wouldn’t consider sweetening the deal a mite, would you?” Her leer made clear what she’d consider sufficiently sweet.

Dean felt real regret when he shook his head. Then, to his considerable surprise, Sam said, “You can watch.”

“She can what?” Dean demanded, but Pamela was already shaking her head.

“I’m a hands-on type of girl.”

They set up the séance with a minimum of fuss, Anna taking the place Bobby had the first time Dean had been to this party. The air got heavy quick. Dean wondered what Anael thought of humans ordering angels around. She’d seemed on Team Human, but they probably shouldn’t push it, especially given Sam’s little eye-color problem.

“Castiel,” Pamela said, this time more confident (probably too confident, since Dean had skipped the part where he’d convinced the other her to blind herself for his benefit). “This is a message from Dean Winchester. You need to get a vessel without a family and come on down, because we’ve got business to discuss.”

And like that it was over, quick as turning off the TV. “All right,” Sam said as they all stood up, “we’ve got some grace to find.”

Dean stayed behind to thank Pamela extra, because the last thing they needed was to lose the goodwill of a psychic who had their scent, or whatever it was psychics tracked. She grabbed his ass, which he figured meant he’d done okay.

Track One/Track Two

They were in a hotel room. Sam—Dean’s own Sam, messed-up hair and everything—was asleep. On the single bed.

He hadn’t bothered to get under the covers; Dean approached and looked him over. He was pale but whole. Dean didn’t see any bruises or new scars. He looked a lot like Sam-here. Or maybe that should be Sam-there, because they were visiting Sam’s reality. Dean frowned in confusion and decided to ignore the question.

“Sam,” he said, and Sam’s breath came hot in his ear: Sam had stepped closer, his shoulder nudging against Dean’s back.

On the bed, Sam’s eyes popped open and he jerked upright. It was a little like watching a doll, mechanical and creepy.

He barely glanced at Sam, saving his death glare for Dean. “This is a dream,” he said, flat and not even disappointed.

“Uh, kinda. I think.” Dean closed his eyes for a second, then steeled himself. “I, uh. I’m here to check in on you.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, and hitched a laugh that was as far from amusement as Dean was from Dad. “So you’ve said before.”

“Hunh?”

“Taking his face makes me hate you more,” Sam said conversationally.

“Sam,” Dean said slowly. “Whoever you think I am, I’m not. It’s me. I dunno how holy water and silver work in a dream, but you gotta believe me.”

Sam stared at him for what seemed like years, sparing only a confused glance at Sam beside him. Then his eyes narrowed and he pushed the covers off of his legs. “Are you—if you’ve been around all this time, just watching—”

Dean had an idea of what Sam suspected. But he’d given up on an epic destiny when Castiel had told him to torture Alastair. He’d known then that wings weren’t ever going to be part of his skill set. He shook his head. “They didn’t make me an angel or anything. I was gone.”

Sam’s hand clenched on Dean’s upper arm. “I’m still gone,” Dean corrected. “I just—I needed to see you. To make sure you were all right.”

“If you’re not just my dream,” Sam said, each word slow and careful, “what happened to you, and who the fuck is he?”

Dean swallowed. “He’s you. Kind of. He, uh, it’s some kinda parallel world thing. His Dean wasn’t around, so he made a deal with Lilith to get me.” No way was he discussing the fate of that other Dean. “What happened to you? Looks like the world didn’t end.” Without me, he didn’t say. Just one more thing that Castiel hadn’t been telling the truth about. He’d needed to see Sam, but he thought maybe he was just about done with this version of the world, the one where he was always a day late and a dollar short and it was all in the service of somebody’s fucking grand design.

Sam stared at him, then rose from the bed, stepping almost close enough to touch. “You disappeared,” he said. Sam pressed even closer against Dean’s back, like maybe he thought Sam was going to try to grab him back. “I thought—Castiel swore it wasn’t Heaven that took you. So I—” He looked down, then his jaw firmed and he glared at Dean again. “We’ve got a plan against Lucifer. Castiel and me. We’re going to do it. And then I’m—”

Dean spoke before Sam could say anything that might trigger the other Sam’s possessiveness. Not that it was likely that Sam would really stake a claim on Dean, weak and mewling as he’d seen Dean last, but it wasn’t worth the risk. “Then you’re going to get out.”

“Don’t you want to come back?” Sam asked, the pain so raw in his voice that Dean leaned back into Sam’s shoulder just to keep himself from rushing over to try to fix the problem. Having Sam sound like he wanted Dean with him was as seductive as picking up the knife in Hell had been, an equal relief, but a return wasn’t in the cards.

“One-way trip, Sam.” He didn’t want to lie, but he needed some truth that would keep the Sams from a cage match. They were already down far too many Winchesters. “But you don’t need to worry about me. Lucifer’s not out, here.”

“So that’s it?” Sam demanded. “I have to save the world and you’re just—gone, forever? That’s my reward?”

Dean shook his head and squeezed Sam’s hand harder, reassuring him. “You know that’s not how it works, Sammy. Not for us. Anyway, once you put Lucifer down you can, you know, get on with your normal life.”

Sam looked at him like he was speaking Portuguese. “That’s not—it’s not going to happen.”

Dean leaned forward, willing Sam to pay attention. “You can. I’m out of your way—”

“You are my way!” Sam yelled, and only Dean’s hand kept Sam from stepping forward; Dean could sense how every muscle in Sam’s body was clenched, one misstep away from pulling him out before he’d said everything he needed to. “Dean, I—I know you think I’m a monster. I know I don’t deserve to live. But—”

“Oh, that is some fine bullshit right there,” Dean snapped, even though he’d meant to keep his calm. “You deserve to kick Lucifer’s ass. Yeah, you fucked up, it’s the Winchester way, but you just told me you were gonna fix it. So fucking fix it.”

“If I’m not a monster, why are you so tight with him?” Sam demanded.

Dean stopped with his mouth open, because he didn’t have the first clue what to say. Sam decided for him by sliding his hand around Dean’s hip, possessive and nothing close to subtle. “Because he’s mine now,” Sam said, and then his mouth was sharp on Dean’s neck, biting wet and sloppy.

Dean shoved him away, but the damage was already done. Sam, the marginally less fucked-up Sam, was staring at them both in horror. Dean felt himself about ready to lose it. “’Bye, Sammy,” he managed, before his vision blurred and then went dark.

Track One

“She said she wasn’t taking you away from him,” Sam said. This wasn’t an argument he was having with Dean, even if he thought it was. This was Sam trying to talk himself out of his guilt. Dean didn’t tell him the fundamental truth about demons, because Sam already knew, and because he’d spent too much time tonight trying to convince Sam to let him reach out to his other Sam, using their soulbond, or whatever, the same way Lilith had found him. Please, Sam, he’d said. If it was you, you’d want to know. If it was me, Sam’d said, he’d never have let you go. But Dean’s persistence had worn Sam down, and now Dean owed him big. Big enough to forgive the jealous shit he’d pulled with Sam, anyhow.

“Doesn’t matter,” Dean said, because he couldn’t watch Sam tearing himself apart and not want to help. “I’m here.”

Sam took a deep breath. “Yeah,” he agreed. “And I’m going to take care of you.” The light in his eyes was the same determination he’d had before Dean went to Hell. Dean couldn’t let him down again. So when, ten minutes and a lot of pieces of clothing later, Sam asked, “Do you trust me?” Dean didn’t hesitate before nodding.

When Sam tied him to the bedposts, Dean made himself remember that these weren’t the hooks of Hell; they were repurposed ties from Sam’s FBI outfits. This was all for fun, and no one was going to get hurt. As he watched Sam strip down, his heart slowed down some, and he started to notice the way the cool air of the room ran over his skin, tightening his nipples and giving him goosebumps.

Sam bent over him, a wicked smile curving his lips. "Too tight, big brother?" Dean shuddered. He’d always liked the nasty girls a bit too much for his own good, and it turned out that it was the same with Sam.

Sam’s expression said he wanted an answer. “No,” he said, though Sam had no business asking him; the knots he knew were all designed to immobilize for real. Didn’t matter, because Sam was straddling him now, covering him up. His hands came down on Dean’s shoulders, extra hard over the handprint, and the warmth where his knees touched Dean’s hips made him feel even more exposed to the coolness of the room everywhere else.

Sam brushed his lips across Dean’s collarbone. “You’re gonna let me take care of you this time,” he said.

“Yeah, Sammy,” he said, and being tied up made it that much easier to let Sam tell him what to do. He hadn’t been able to protect anyone, not Sam and not even himself, but this, this he could do, close his eyes and beg and take whatever Sam gave him.

Sam had just pulled back enough to slip out, and by the way he was looking down at the mess on Dean’s belly he wasn’t planning to let Dean get cleaned up any time soon, when the door blew open. Sam was instantly on his feet, dick still wet but a knife already in his hand, and Dean fumbled for the razor blade he’d stuck into the headboard (he was willing to play along with Sam, but he wasn’t stupid), even though he wasn’t going to get out quick.

The person who came through the door was a Chinese girl, five foot nothing if she’d been in high heels. In fact, she was barefoot and wrapped in a cheap blue robe; she wasn’t obviously wearing anything else.

Dean knew that expression, the scientist examining a weird new bug through his microscope. “Cas? Castiel?”

“You summoned me,” the angel said. “Why are you fornicating with the abomination?”

Dean winced—that lovely nickname was another thing he’d left out of the story he’d given Sam—and managed to say, “Cut me free, Sam?” When he felt Sam relax fractionally, he raised his chin and looked Castiel in the eye. “We got a lot to talk about, Cas. Where I’m from, you and I are—” He couldn’t quite make ‘friends’ come out of his mouth. “You got me out of Hell, and you’re trying to stop Lucifer from ending the world, even though Zachariah and a bunch of other angels think that’s a fine idea.” The snick of Sam severing the ties was reassuring, and sitting up gave him the ability to flip a sheet over his pornographic torso. “We need you to do the same thing here.”

“Who are you possessing?” Sam asked before Castiel could react. Maybe Dean’s stories had soured him a little too much on angels and Heaven. (Or maybe it was all the demon blood that had done it.)

“As you requested, this vessel left no one behind to mourn. She was being held in a brothel.”

“In China?”

“In New Jersey,” Castiel corrected. “Your assumed national superiority is grating. There is a reason that my brothers and sisters are weary of humanity.”

“So you got the memo.” Dean wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing. If Cas had never plumbed Hell for Dean, would he have been able to see why a plan that the very first demon backed was not a good idea?

“I’ve spoken with Anael,” Castiel said. Dean relaxed a little. “She is a rebel and now a traitor.” He unrelaxed. “However, she is not wrong.” At this rate, he wasn’t going to need any demons to kill him; his heart would give out first.

Castiel stepped forward, closing the distance between them. Dean flushed further, knowing what he must smell like. He—she—put her hand on his shoulder. “This is my mark,” she said, solemn and troubled like Cas always was.

“I told you so,” Dean said, because how often did he get to surprise an angel? “Stamped my Hell passport when you got me out.”

Sam was glowering at them like he expected Dean to react to the busty Asian vessel instead of the angel wearing her like a prom dress. At some point, Dean was going to need to pull him aside and explain how there were people inside, just like there were with demons, though on second thought that might not be the best point to start with given how protective Sam was being.

“Look, I know we’re on a deadline and all, but could you give us a few so we could get cleaned up? It might not matter to angels, but if we’re talking apocalypse, I’d like to have my boots on.”

“I don’t see the relevance of footwear,” Cas said—yeah, that was Cas in there for sure—“but I will return in the morning, after I have made further inquiries.” Dean barely managed to shut his eyes before she blinked away. He knew from bitter experience that watching an angel demanifest gave him a headache.

“Well, come on,” he said, hustling into the bathroom and wetting a towel to give himself a hooker’s bath. Sam was going to want to talk, so there wasn’t enough time for a real shower. “If you don’t want me to be real distracted, you gotta get some pants on, man.”

He heard Sam moving around the room, thank fuck, and by the time Dean was rooting through his bag—the clothes still musty from being carried around for months in the trunk with no airing, ugh—he had even put on a couple-three shirts.

“I don’t know if I want an angel up close and personal,” Sam said, his arms folded as he stared at the door, which he must’ve propped back into place while Dean was cleaning himself up.

He could have been talking about his demon steroids, but Sam never did like to share his toys; he’d had few enough of them. Come to think of it, Dean suspected the demon steroids had pumped up that aspect of Sam’s personality. "Dude," Dean said, wonderingly. "You're jealous of Cas?" It probably didn't bear mentioning that, yeah, Dean had thought about it, back before he'd known that there was a person trapped inside the angel. "That's a real live girl there, and I'm pretty sure she didn't sign up for any funny business when Heaven came calling."

Too late, he realized that he probably should have made a different argument than one that acknowledged how hard he’d hit that under other circumstances. Sam's eyes flickered, blackout, and Dean very carefully didn't flinch. Not that being tough had ever helped in Hell, but this wasn't Hell. Sam wouldn't believe him if he said straight out that he didn't want anyone else (especially not now, after he'd started wrong footed), so he had to get them past this some other way.

"Sorry," he said, which surprised Sam enough that some of the tension went out of him. "You know me, my mouth runs faster than my brain sometimes."

"Turtles run faster than your brain," Sam said, but he was smiling.

"Weak!" Dean declared, lunging for him, and they were sparring. Sam was snake-quick, arm up to block Dean's punch, and Dean had to dodge to avoid getting knocked over first thing.

This was also maybe not the smartest idea, since Dean remembered too well the last hotel-room fight he'd had with Sam, and it made him both over and under cautious, swinging when he should've pulled back and dodging when he should've taken an opening. It quickly became clear that Sam was basically just playing with him—to give him a real workout, Dean would have needed to be willing to go a lot farther. But Sam's lips were peeled back in a grin, and Dean was pretty sure Sam wasn't thinking dangerous thoughts about Cas while he was ducking and dodging and finally flipping Dean onto his back.

Dean hit the floor with an unhappy 'umph,' breath knocked out of him, and before he'd had a chance to fill his lungs again Sam had dropped his full weight on top of him, pinning Dean easily.

"You got me," Dean conceded as soon as he could wheeze out the words. "Now whattaya gonna do with me?"

Sam's eyes flashed, pure human in his amusement, and if he knew he was being played he didn't make a big fuss about it. "Depends on how nicely you ask, I guess."

"In that case," Dean managed, pressing his luck, "I'd really like you to blow me. Pretty please with sugar on top?"

Sam chortled. "It's actively astonishing that anyone ever agreed to sleep with you."

Dean blinked and gave his best model face. "Mostly they don't want me for the talking," he pointed out, which Sam seemed to think was a good point, judging by the way he ground down on Dean's crotch. And then he bent to kiss Dean, hot and wet, and just as Dean expected there was no more talking.

Track Two

“He picked the other one,” Sam said numbly, his story finished. And then the numbness burned off like he’d been soaked in gasoline. “He left me.” He had to fight hard to keep from punching a hole in the wall, or something more fragile. He could feel the demon in him crying to come out. Even if Dean wasn’t here to strangle, there were others to hurt.

“Did he?” Castiel had been impassive throughout Sam’s monologue. Now he seemed puzzled at most.

“He isn’t trying to get back!” Sam ran his hands through his hair.

“And if it were you? If it were you, Sam, in his position, which Dean would you stay with?”

Impossible to imagine. “That’s not fair,” he snapped.

Castiel nodded. “Of course not. Which one would you choose?”

For the first time, he stopped and tried to think past the relief and the insult and the incredible hurt. God, he wanted a drink. “Uh. I’d stay with the weak one. The one who wasn’t strong enough to make it on his own.” It stung to say, not least because Sam had spent way too much time blaming Dean’s weakness for his own corruption. But it was the closest to the truth he could get.

When he made himself look at Castiel again, the angel was waiting, hands folded calmly on his lap.

“That doesn’t make it any better, you know,” he said, but even as the words came out he understood that they were a little bit of a lie. “Also, that other Sam? He was fucking Dean.” Whoops; hadn’t exactly intended to explain that part to Castiel. He definitely wasn’t going to elaborate on how he’d woken, hard and aching, and jacked off furiously with the image of Dean’s neck stretched as he surrendered his mouth to the other Sam.

Castiel’s eyes widened, which was his equivalent of Sam’s tantrum. “Is that …?” He clearly had no idea how to end that question.

Sam shook his head. “Honestly? It’s not the most fucked-up thing we could’ve done, but no. We never did. But I—” He stopped, because the greater implications were catching up with him. Castiel had brought Dean out of Hell, meaning that Sam hadn’t needed to bargain with Lilith for the same result, meaning that Ruby’s plan to release Lucifer had come to fruition. Meaning that the angels, no less than Ruby, had conspired to break all the seals—well, Castiel had been an innocent, but the angels pulling his strings had chivvied them very carefully into position. Ordering Dean back into the torturer’s ring, making Sam see how broken he was, convincing Sam that he had to press on with the demon blood to take that burden off of Dean.

“I think,” he said slowly, “Lucifer isn’t the only angel I’ve got a mind to hurt.” He didn’t need to turn to a mirror to know that his eyes were shining like oil slicks.

Castiel didn’t chastise him. Maybe he’d followed Sam’s reasoning to the logical conclusion. “Revenge can’t be our priority,” was all he said. And it was enough of a reminder of what had gotten Sam to this point that Sam sighed, stuffed down the demon powers, and tried to remember what ought to come next in the hunt for Lucifer.

Track One

After Dean gave Castiel a recap of what had happened in the other world and their theory of why the seal-breaking had restarted here, there wasn’t much to say. Castiel’s expression didn’t change, but she did believe them enough to carve angel-invisibility sigils into their bones (less painful than it sounded, though it would almost have to be) so that the other angels wouldn’t be able to find them without their consent.

Dean gave her a cellphone so they could stay in contact. “You trust me that much,” she said, looking down at it like it was a particularly unusual cockroach.

“I dunno,” Dean said. “Seemed like you cared, in your freaky way. I know you don’t think it’s right to wipe humans off the face of the earth. You went against your own kind to help me try to stop Lucifer from rising. So yeah, we trust you.”

Not all the way, though, because after Cas bounced, Dean told Sam about the angel-blowing-away sigils Anna and Cas had used, and how they could be drawn with blood. Sam practiced in pencil until he could do it without thinking. Then he offered his own addition: apparently, demons had keep-out symbols for angels, like inverse devil’s traps. Dean didn’t ask which demon had taught him that.

“I don’t know if it will work on people, but our tattoos are modified devil’s traps, so it’s worth a try.”

“A little help for people who aren’t complete geeks?” Dean said, but Sam was already tugging at his shirt, pushing him down onto the bed.

“Stay there,” Sam ordered. Pain seared across Dean’s shoulders and back, and he bit down on a yelp. “I’m putting Enochian sigils on you—it might at least slow down any angel coming at you.”

Dean understood that half of this was Sam reacting to Castiel and Castiel’s handprint, but it wasn’t a terrible idea.

Dean grunted as the burn punched deep into his muscles, though he had to trust Sam wouldn’t cripple him. “You gonna do this to yourself?” he asked. “Even if it’s me they want while you’re doin’ Lucifer’s work, the best way to get to me is to get to you.”

“Maybe later,” Sam said absently. The pain eased off, the raw heat turning to cold. Dean shivered as Sam’s fingertip traced the lines he’d made.

Sam rumbled, deep in his throat, a sound Dean doubted he knew he was making. “Proud of your work, hunh,” Dean said, but it didn’t come out in the joking way he’d intended.

“They’re not going to take you,” Sam said, ripping at his jeans, nails scoring Dean’s skin even as Dean hurried to help him. The jeans were still tangled around his ankles when he heard Sam spit. He widened his knees, knowing that was all the help he was going to get. The thick blunt head of Sam’s dick hurt like road rash going in, until the heat of Sam’s skin and the warmth of his mouth on Dean’s shoulder, over the fresh scars, started to loosen him up. Dean kept saying yes, yes to everything, Sam’s hands clenching on his biceps like strangling ghosts, Sam’s breath panting in his ear. Sam’s too-sharp hipbones grinding into his ass. Dean tossed his head back, the only part he could move, and said Sam’s name as he came, clenching down so hard that it must’ve been painful for Sam.

Afterwards, Sam couldn’t keep his hands off of Dean, roving hands stroking not just the angel sigils or Castiel’s handprint, but all the fresh unmarked spaces on Dean’s skin, where the scars Sam remembered had been. Fluttering touches not enough to rev Dean up again but enough to keep him from sleep, and he would’ve grumbled except for the wonder on Sam’s face, like Sam used to look when he talked about God. And then Sam slid his fingers down Dean’s crack and into where Dean was already loose and wet, and then he scooted down and used his mouth, which was nastier than any girl had ever gotten with him and took him from zero to sixty in a time that would’ve impressed sixteen-year-old Dean.

“Wow,” he said into the pillow the next time he could catch his breath. “Damn, if I wasn’t in another world already, that would’ve sent me there.”

Sam sniggered. “That is the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard you use,” he said, voice thick with affection and fatigue.

“Worked on you, didn’t it?” Dean pointed out, feeling pretty sleepy himself.

“Let’s get some rest,” Sam said with finality. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Track Two

“I can give you peace,” Lucifer said, sounding so very reasonable. “No one else can give that to you. No one else wants to. I can even give you Dean, or something very much like him, in your own private dream world.”

Sam knew better than to get into a dialogue with evil. If he deserved peace, the Devil wouldn’t be offering to give it to him. “No,” he said, and bit his tongue so hard he woke up.

Castiel was sitting beside him, which made him bolt upright. “Dean’s right,” he said, willing his heart to slow from its techno beat, “that’s creepy.”

“I couldn’t rouse you,” Castiel said, brow furrowed.

“Yeah, Lucifer-gram. He sends dreams, it’s not a big deal.”

“All right,” Castiel said, since he still had no emotional intelligence. “My plan is this: we open a portal back to Lucifer’s Cage. We push Lucifer through, using the power we have generated with the ritual that joins us.”

Sam blinked a few times, wondering if he was still dreaming. “Okay, right. How do we open the portal?”

“We collect the four rings of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Together they can be used as a key to his prison.”

Of course. Why hadn’t Sam thought of that? He suspected that sarcasm would be lost on the angel. “We can do that?”

Castiel paused long enough to make clear that, while he didn’t necessarily notice lies, he was considering telling one. “It’s not impossible,” he said at last. “And it’s the only thing I’ve found. Also, Heaven is unlikely to interfere, so long as Dean is missing. As you pointed out, Heaven shares your goal of recaging Lucifer until a like vessel is found for Michael. If the Horsemen can kill you, they will be satisfied. If you achieve the Horsemen’s rings and bind Lucifer, that will also suffice.”

“Awesome,” Sam said, and knuckled sleep out of his eyes. “Well, let’s start rounding up Horsemen.”

Track One

Bobby called. This time, Sam answered, and after a bit of back and forth about how they were all in agreement about fighting demons now, he put the phone on the table between the two of them. Bobby’s voice through the speaker was mistrustful, and not just of Sam. It hurt more than Dean would’ve thought.

After more grumbling, Bobby got to the point: “I don’t know whether this is part of the bigger demonic plan, but it sure ain’t natural: People have stopped dying in Greybull, Montana.”

Alastair. Dean froze, every memory crashing back like it was happening right then, right then and forever. Ten years in Hell is one month above but it’s eternities when you’re bleeding, and Dean had been, himself and all those other lost souls while Alastair smiled, always smiling even when the body he was using had nothing left but gums and bone. Dean thought he might be shaking; was pretty sure he wasn’t breathing; remembered how it had felt to stick a knife inside Alastair—no good at all, and a trick besides, all his fantasies about revenge dispelled for Uriel’s plot.

Sam was saying something—Sam didn’t know, not this Sam. Sam could kill Alastair, and Dean wouldn’t even mind being the weaker one, infirm and needier than Sam at six months old, if it got him Alastair gone, erased from existence.

Then Sam looked up and saw him. “We’ll check it out,” he said and cut Bobby off, which was going to make trouble later but Dean couldn’t care. “Dean?” He was already moving, his hand landing firm on Dean’s back, rubbing up and down. “Deep breaths, Dean, okay?” He kept talking, reassuring nonsense, as Dean tried to banish the memory of Alastair’s smirk and his twinkling eyes.

When he was able to make sense of the world again, he was sitting on the motel bed, Sam’s arm tugging him nearly into Sam’s lap, surrounded by Sam. He couldn’t meet Sam’s eyes—Daddy’s little girl broke—and Sam wasn’t trying to talk any more, just rocking him back and forth. “It’s okay,” Sam kept saying. Even though Dean should’ve manned up, and his inability to do so kept him flushed with shame, he still leaned into Sam’s bulk, so grateful that Sam was there and strong enough to take Alastair down.

He didn’t know how long it took him to calm down enough to speak. “Sorry,” he said, cheeks hot and wet, as if to remind him he had no dignity to lose.

“No, no,” Sam reassured him. “Don’t worry, Dean, we don’t need to go there. I’ll tell Bobby—”

“No,” Dean said, his voice gravelly. “We have to take care of it. You have to take care of it.” Haltingly, no easier the second time around, he explained who Alastair was and what the plan in Greybull likely was. “Maybe it’s not Alastair this time,” he concluded, since the timing was different.

He felt more than heard Sam’s next words, thick with rage and the ozone bite of power. “It had better be.”

Sam had told him the truth since he showed up here. If he hadn’t seen Dean at his worst, well, that was even better. Dean swallowed. “If we find him,” he said, tasting salt in the back of his throat, “I don’t want any speeches. I don’t care if he knows why he’s dying. Evil overlord shit like that makes people dumb. Just gank him, okay?”

Sam made a sound that was neither agreement nor refusal.

“I’m serious,” he insisted, forcing himself to meet Sam’s eyes. Sam’s look of tender concern made him shrivel even more inside, but he clenched his fists and went on. “There’s no payback for what he did to me, not if I spent a hundred years with him on my rack. This can’t be revenge. It has to be pest control.”

Sam took a while to process that. Even before the demon blood, vengeance had been at the top of his to-do list. Dean had never known how to divert him from that. He reached for Sam’s cheek, until he was mostly sitting in Sam’s lap, and then he gave up all dignity and full-on straddled Sam, cupping Sam’s sharp-stubbled jaw in his hand.

“He doesn’t deserve better,” he said. Sam’s eyes were kaleidoscopes, shards of green-brown-blue, changing with every shift of the light in a way that was one hundred percent human, one hundred percent Sam. “Sammy,” Dean said, and leaned in to kiss him.

This was the slowest time yet, Sam’s frantic urgency muted into a languid, honeyed pace. Each move melted into the next. Sam’s huge palm splayed over his neck and the side of his head, pressing Dean’s face into the bed, as he fucked Dean, his hips moving with the relentless motion of an ocean tide. Dean’s fingers opened and closed on air, little ‘ah’s escaping him every time Sam bottomed out. Dean was pinned under him, unable to do more than rock a fraction of an inch into Sam’s thrusts. Little nylon threads from the cheap bedspread needled his skin, but that didn’t stop him from using the friction to get off, groaning as Sam’s rhythm stuttered and Sam followed, the hot pulse of him so deep inside that even Alastair couldn’t have carved it out.

“Okay,” Sam said afterwards.

Sleepily, Dean wondered whether he’d need to fuck Sam silly every time he needed to convince Sam of something. Compared to ordering him around, it seemed more effective and a lot more fun.

Track Two

They cornered War in a sleepy town, courtesy of Castiel’s ability to see through minor illusions like fake black eyes, and ripped the ring off of his finger.

Famine was more difficult, since Castiel apparently didn’t have total control of his vessel’s bodily functions. Sam ended up facing him down alone.

“I can feel how hungry you are,” Famine crooned; Dean would’ve said he looked like a zombie Hugh Hefner. “Here you are,” he waved a claw at the demons flanking him, “a buffet to sate even your hunger.”

Sam shook his head. Yes, he’d drank from the first few who’d tried to stop him, but he had a different need. Drinking demon blood would never sate the emptiness inside him. There was only one thing that would, and he was unreachable, off fucking another version of Sam. Sam raised his hand.

From the way Famine reacted, vomiting out a bunch of demon essence hurt. That was gratifying, and almost worth the crash thereafter. Castiel said it didn’t matter much, that the ritual would cleanse him and that residual nonhuman blood in his system might even strengthen the effects, yet another reason Castiel had tried to maintain him on angel blood rather than making him go cold turkey.

Pestilence was vomit and muscle aches and Castiel using Ruby’s knife, his remaining angelic powers allowing him to drive the vessel’s body past what any human could’ve done. Sam wondered whether Jimmy Novak lived or whether Castiel was riding a dead body around like a demon might, but he didn’t ask.

After the first three Horsemen, Sam had expected to have to fight Death himself. Castiel made a side bargain with a truly annoying demon for the location, and Sam went to Chicago.

He walked into a restaurant full of the dead, slumped at their tables.

“Over here,” a bright voice said, neither malicious nor particularly friendly. Sam turned to find a sharp-nosed, hooded-eyed old man in a black suit and coat, diligently sawing away at a piece of deep-dish pizza.

“I know why you’re here,” Death said.

“You can kill me, I know that,” Sam said, his voice steady despite the hailstorm rhythm of his heartbeat. “But I need to put Lucifer back. After that, you can do anything you want to me.”

“I’m not interested in sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice, Sam,” Death said, and took a bite. “My concerns span galaxies. You’re not a big eater, are you? Too bad. The pizza’s delicious. Sit down.”

It wasn’t a request, and Sam sat. The smell of the food turned his stomach, but he kept the nausea out of his expression. He didn’t want to offend Death while Death was still being polite.

“I’ll give you what you want,” Death continued, “and you will release me from the insolent child who’s bound me here.”

Unlike the first three, Sam realized, he wasn’t helping Lucifer voluntarily. And it made a certain sort of sense: Death wasn’t a mechanism of destruction; he was the whole thing. The alpha and the omega, different in kind from the others. “That’s the plan,” he said, not mentioning his own uncertainties.

“Very well,” Death said. “Now listen carefully.”

Track One

The way it went down with Alastair was that Sam summoned him and did the Darth Vader hand thing, pinning Alastair in place until he crushed the demon inside, just like before. Start to finish, the whole thing took three minutes, fifteen if you counted the time spent on the summoning.

Dean didn’t mind the lack of drama. He’d tried to get closure before, and that ended with him bawling in a hospital bed. Much better to cut to the chase.

After he extinguished the summoning candles so they wouldn’t accidentally set the place on fire, he put in a call to Castiel and the angel arrived in a wingbeat. Changing the vessel hadn’t changed her habit of standing way, way too close.

“You stopped the breaking of one seal,” she said without preamble. “But there are too many options for you to stop them all, most of them not even on this continent. Our advantage is that we know the identity of the final, necessary seal.”

“Lilith,” Sam said, icy hatred making the name sound like a curse.

“Lilith’s death,” Cas specified. "You could simply refrain from killing her, but that’s not a long-term solution. We need to make sure that Lilith cannot be killed. Though Sam is the sole remaining abomination of his generation, there will be others." Dean remembered the kids whose mothers were dying in mysterious fires, back when they thought all they had to worry about was one yellow-eyed demon with a hard-on for Sam.

“Wait a second,” Sam said. “A seal is just a condition, right? Do this or that, and the seal breaks. So: we make Lilith unkillable, and Lucifer never gets out.”

Dean gaped at him for a second. “A, makin’ an immortal demon seems like it might have one or two downsides. B, can you even do that?”

“Okay, so we don’t need to make her unkillable,” Sam continued, his voice gaining enthusiasm as he went. “We need to make her unreachable, like Lucifer is now. Her death is the key to Lucifer’s cage. We make Lucifer’s death the key to her cage.”

Dean had to think that through. “Could that even work?”

Castiel was doing her statue thing, needing only a pigeon crapping on her shoulder to complete the picture. Dean waved his hand in front of the angel's face. "Hello? Earth to, uh, Heaven?"

Castiel reached out and grabbed Dean's wrist in a grip like cabled steel. "Sam’s idea, while inelegantly expressed, has potential merit."

“It’s a recursive loop,” Sam insisted, as if that ought to convince them.

Cas released him and frowned, looking like she was reading from a screen Dean couldn’t see. “Keeping a demon alive forever—”

“Even in a cage, that doesn’t sound like the smartest move,” Dean concurred.

“I was going to say,” Castiel said, “that keeping a demon alive forever would require powerful magic. A great sacrifice. "I must consult with others," she said, and disappeared. Every time that happened, Dean felt like his ears ought to be popping, but maybe Cas swapped out the air where she went so that there was no vacuum. It was still freaky as fuck, different than a ghost. With ghosts there was always a sense of presence—that was what ghosts were, so even if they disappeared it wasn't like the world had been wronged. What Cas did, it was more like what had happened to Dean, flip of the switch and he was in a different world.

The angel reminded Dean of this book he'd read once where everyone was 2-D. When real, 3-D people showed up they looked crazy weird, expanding and shrinking as they passed through the range that the 2-D folks could see. Cas seemed understandable enough at any given moment, but she/he was nothing like human, and the different meat suit was just like Castiel turning around, showing a different side.

Dean sure hoped Jimmy Novak knew what a good deal he had in this world.

"What do you think?" Sam asked, startling him out of his contemplation. Dean had forgotten how it was for Sam to want his opinion. Felt pretty good, actually.

"I think we've got one more chance than we had yesterday." It wasn't much, but compared to the crap hope he'd been living on before, Dean was prepared to call it a serious improvement. "It'd be nice to do the right thing, that's for sure."

Sam was staring at his own feet. "Getting you was supposed to fix everything, not start it up again."

"Hey, no," Dean hastened to say. "That wasn't what I meant. There was no way you could've known.

"Yeah," Sam said, and his smile was painful to see. "That seems to happen a lot."

"Being jerked around by demons isn't your fault," Dean said, certain, like he should have been all along. "You just need to listen to me once in a while." He needed to lighten the mood. "Whaddaya say we grab a beer before Hot Wings there comes back?"

Sam frowned, and Dean thought that he was upset with Dean's incipient (okay, maybe already arrived) alcoholism. But Sam's glower wasn't the Dean-you-don't-know-what's-good-for-you look that Dean had seen so often lately.

“Sammy,” he said, grabbing Sam’s bicep, the solid Winchester strength of him making something in Dean’s chest relax even now. “Listen to me, okay? I don’t cheat. Not when I’m with someone,” he said before Sam could start in on irrelevant high school shenanigans. “Castiel, Angelina Jolie, Dr. Sexy—none of ‘em. You hearin’ me? Because we need to keep our eyes on the prize here.”

Slowly, Sam nodded, some of the rigidity going out of his stance. “Yeah,” he said, and pushed nonexistent hair out of his eyes. “It’s just—hard for me to believe that you’re really here, with me. I’ve lost you too many times.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “But you gotta know—you’re everything to me. You or the world, it’s you every time. Maybe that's not how it should be, but it's not gonna change.” He felt fevered by the time he ended, so flushed he could’ve melted into the floor to get away from Sam’s scrutiny, but it was nothing but truth.

He returned Sam’s rib-creaking hug with gusto, leaning his head against Sam’s shoulder. They stood like that for a long time, gathering strength from each other.

Track Two

They went to Detroit, lacking any better means to find Lucifer and not wanting to attempt coercion before the very last moment, when it would truly be needed.

The walls of their squat were covered with Enochian, carefully drafted to keep out anyone but Lucifer. Sam watched Castiel finish the last of the lines. He wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans. Only one thing left to get right. Time to see if he was an inadequate monster, or an adequate one.

Castiel turned to him. When he began to speak, it was as if he were reaching out to a greater audience. “We are part of a cycle, Sam. The low become high and the high low. I will draw the remaining demon blood from your system. It will be extremely painful. As I have fallen, you will rise, and we will meet.”

Sam nodded. At Castiel’s urging, he offered the angel his arm, and Castiel slit it open with an angel blade. Sam looked like a suicide in progress, which maybe was true. Castiel rolled his sleeves back and presented his own forearm; Sam cut it with Ruby’s knife, deep and straight.

They clasped each other like some parody of a secret handshake, blood to blood, Sam’s fingers clenched at the bend in Castiel’s elbow. Castiel’s blood felt no different from anything else’s. Castiel began to chant. For a moment, there was nothing but his voice and the familiar sting of a bleeding wound.

Castiel screamed, and Sam nearly released him in shock. And then the pain hit.

His blood was acid in his veins, eating through his flesh. His bones were molten glass, searing him from the inside out. He was sliced, grated, segmented, something sticky and dark dripping from him, collecting at his feet in a puddle of filth. The world was white pain and the desperate grasp of Sam’s fingers on Castiel’s ice-cold flesh.

The pain pulled back a bit, like a false dawn, and Sam could hear Castiel’s panting breaths over the roar of his blood in his ears.

“You decorated for me,” Lucifer said cheerily. “I’m flattered.”

Sam opened his eyes. He didn’t think he’d passed out. Lucifer was here, face covered in sores.

“Now, Sam,” Castiel said. Lucifer flicked a hand at him and he was silent.

“It’s so sweet when family comes for family,” Lucifer said. “Castiel, I never would’ve pegged you for such an up-and-comer. Such diligence. For that, you can watch. I’ll even give you a chance to join up when it’s over.”

Sam couldn’t make the fingers of his free hand work. Lucifer in reality was overwhelming, like standing next to a nuclear bomb.

“What, the rings?” Lucifer asked, merry with disregard. “You aren’t strong enough. I made sure your whole life that you never would be strong enough.”

Sam didn’t have the breath to disagree. His back teeth were buzzing with discomfort. And at the same time the energy from being joined with Castiel was almost pleasurable in a painful way, like coming dry, like picking at scabs if the scabs had been on his soul.

Now or never.

He tossed the rings out and began to speak. The wind was roaring around him, inside his head, through his blood. He was icing up, rusting in place like the Tin Man.

Lucifer’s plot had cost him everything and more. Mom, Jess, Dad. Dean.

The power was whipping around inside him like an untethered firehose filled with corrosive venom. He could feel it eating away at him, dissolving parts of him into bloody shreds.

There was nothing left in the world for him, but for everyone else—

Lucifer was standing in front of the whirling vortex, hands in his pockets, but Sam thought he saw some tension in his shoulders.

“You might be able to open the door, but you and my little brother there can’t push me through, Sam. You know I’m telling the truth.”

If he’d still been drinking demon blood, he could’ve tried a psychic hammer blow. But the spell Castiel had performed had leached all that out; the only power left was in the ritual itself. Beside him, Castiel was frozen in the act of reaching out.

This can’t all be a waste, he thought. And then he thought: screw magic and demonic psychic powers. He was a Winchester, and there was one thing Winchesters knew how to do better than anything else.

He released Castiel’s arm and tackled Lucifer, hitting with all his two hundred pounds. Lucifer had half a second to look surprised as they hurtled backwards, into the portal, and then he disappeared. Sam had too much momentum to stop himself. He was in a maelstrom, every color and none, on the edge of a hole that went down into forever.

He felt a tearing pain in his ankle, like he was being ripped limb from limb, and consciousness disappeared.

Track One

“Are you disappointed in me?” Sam asked.

Dean raised his head from his pillow, then levered himself upright, scratching his head, on the theory that this was going to be a conversation best had while awake. “Of course not.” It was raw truth: he might’ve hated some of Sam’s choices, but he could never be disapointed in Sam.

“I made a deal with a demon. I was weak.”

“I started first,” Dean said. “I just wish you had something else, Sammy.” He sighed. “I wish you didn’t need the powers. I wish we could be the heroes I thought we were when we were kids.”

Sam sat down beside him, emitting not a watt of sexual intent. “We can be. At least, we can try.”

“You know something I don’t?”

Sam shook his head, smiling, not taking the opportunity to mock. “I heard from Castiel. She says it’s a go. We can do the spell this morning, if we want.”

“This spell,” Dean said, suspicious of Sam’s good humor, “what exactly does it do?”

“Like I said, it creates a recursive loop. Only killing Lilith can break Lucifer’s cage. When we’re done, only breaking Lucifer’s cage can kill Lilith. Like a paradox, kind of.”

“And what kind of juice is this spell going to take?”

“Not more than I have,” Sam said, shoulders relaxed and eyes clear. “They called me the Boy King. I’ve got enough mojo to take on Lilith—after all, that was the whole point. We’re just going to do it differently than they planned.”

“Okay,” Dean said, still worrying that this was all too easy. Yeah, he’d come with some useful information, but so far their luck had been Powerball good when Winchesters usually got seven broken mirrors’ worth.

“Castiel will be here soon,” Sam said. He leaned in to kiss Dean, then backed away at the last second. “And you have worse morning breath than a three-day-old corpse. Go brush your teeth.”

“Vile slander, Sammy,” Dean said, cheerful at last, and flipped Sam off as he headed to the bathroom, grabbing yesterday’s jeans on his way. He splashed water on his face and wished he had time for a long hot shower.

Sure enough, the angel was waiting when he came out. “We’ll need your blood,” she said immediately.

“Hello to you too,” he said, but Sam was already pulling out a needle and tubing. “Awesome,” he said and made his way to a chair in the little kitchen area. “Any chance you could pop out for a cup of coffee and a donut while I bleed for the cause?”

“I don’t want a cup of coffee and a donut,” Cas said, straightfaced.

Dean opened his mouth, then closed it, ignoring Sam’s snigger. He rolled up the sleeve of his flannel shirt and laid his forearm out on the table. “Okay. Trying again: would you mind getting me a cup of coffee and a friggin’ donut, so I don’t faint from hunger and blood loss in the middle of your freakin’ spell?”

“No,” Cas said.

Sam had stopped his prep because he was laughing too hard, albeit silently. Dean smiled, the way he smiled at teenage boys who were pissing him off. “No, you wouldn’t mind, or no, you won’t—?” There was something familiar in the tilt of Cas’s head, the unamused set of her mouth. “Are you fucking with me?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Cas said primly, and disappeared.

“Angels,” Dean growled, and waited out Sam’s hysterics. By the time Cas returned with coffee and an assortment of twelve different donuts, he was already down half a pint. Having so many tasty choices did a lot to make up for Cas’s twisted sense of humor. Dean had a maple frosted, a Boston cream, and an apple fritter thing that was like a slice of pie, but fried. Sam, of course, didn’t eat anything, since calories would hinder his concentration or whatever.

At last, Cas declared that they had enough human blood, and Sam took the bowl he’d been using and started to draw symbols on the floor, consulting with Cas occasionally on placement. Dean sipped his coffee and thought about having another donut. He could’ve helped—he’d done more with less blood—but Sam seemed to have things in hand, and explaining to Dean would probably take longer than doing it himself.

“Okay,” Sam said, exhaling hugely. “Here we go.” He began reciting guttural words, sounding more like a garbage disposal than a person. Almost immediately the lights flickered and dust drifted from the ceiling. Sam kept going until there was a deep rumbling boom, like a distant gong. Lines of fire leapt from symbol to symbol. Sam was surrounded by overlapping circles, triangles, and pentacles.

Sam looked up and met Dean’s eyes, then looked over at Cas. “You know what I want,” he said.

“If you succeed, I’ll follow the soulbond back and return Dean to his reality of origin,” Cas said.

Dean leapt to his feet, Ruby’s knife in his hand. “What the fuck!”

“Your Sam needs you,” Sam said, like it was the simplest thing in the world.

“So do you!”

Sam’s smile was watery. “Dean,” he said. “If this works, I’m not going to need you at all.”

Dean felt like he’d taken a horse kick to the chest. “No,” he said, and strode forward to knock some sense into Sam. At the first circle, he was stopped in his tracks, and Ruby’s knife bounced off the invisible barrier like it was made of rubber. “Get a new plan, Sam!” He was going to kick Castiel’s ass for this, going behind his back with Sam’s stupid idea.

Sam shook his head. “Magic this strong needs a powerful sacrifice. That’s what I am.” His mouth trembled. “I finally have a chance to fix this. To do something good with the life I never should have had. I got a chance to be with you, and it was perfect, but it's not what I deserve. I just want to know that somewhere, there’s a me who has you. Even if he doesn’t understand what he has.”

He began to recite again, ignoring Dean’s yelling and his fists pounding the hard air keeping them apart. When his knuckles started to leave smears of blood hanging in the air and he felt he might faint, he stopped thrashing and put his palms flat on the barrier, leaning so that his forehead touched too. “Please don’t do this, Sammy,” he choked out. “Don’t leave me.”

Sam looked up. “This isn’t your world,” he said. “It’s mine, and I have to do this.” He went back to his incomprehensible chanting.

The light began to build in the circle, shooting upwards like the bars of an intangible cage. Sam’s face glowed, and for the first time in years, Dean saw what Sam looked like happy.

“It’s okay,” Sam said, his voice just audible over the growing hum. “Even if it’s not in Heaven, I’ll be where Dean is.”

Dean knew he was telling the truth—distinguishing his Dean from Dean, now, at last.

“I love you,” he said, because he needed to say it, even more than Sam needed to hear it.

“Thank you,” Sam said. The hum turned into an avalanche roar, and the light became unbearable. Dean didn’t look away, but his vision disappeared, overwhelmed. The last thing he saw was Sam, looking upward, palms up like a man ready for the Rapture.

Track Two

“Hey,” the annoyed voice said, in time with the prodding at his shoulder. “You can’t sleep here.”

Dean startled awake, his body stiff with sleeping on what turned out to be the bench of a picnic table. He shook himself and blinked up at the park ranger, whose hand was drifting towards his gun as he got a better look at Dean.

Dean’s first attempt to speak didn’t go well. On the second try he managed, “Sorry. I’ll—go. I’ll go.”

He felt like he was a thousand years old. There was a road to the ranger’s left. Dean forced himself to his feet and started walking towards it. Something was wrong with his right thigh, but he ignored it.

“Are you okay?” the ranger said, more conciliatory now that Dean had demonstrated a willingness to obey.

He turned and couldn’t make the ‘sure’ come out, so he nodded weakly, hunched his shoulders, and tried to make good time even with his sore leg.

He didn’t need to call Bobby to know that he was back where he started. Castiel had sent him away. That meant that Sam’s crazy plan to build the bars of Lilith’s cage out of his own life had worked.

In the end, Sam had chosen being good over Dean. That was the right thing; even Dean knew he never should have made the deal that started all this, and Sam was putting right what had been done wrong. But he was the same selfish asshole as ever, and it turned out that, whether Sam was making stupid choices or good ones, he didn’t want to keep Dean.

Dean looked around to see if he could find any road signs and just like that, Castiel was there, not six inches away.

“Dean,” Castiel said. “Dean.”

He didn’t know what that meant. So he smiled into Castiel’s familiar-unfamiliar face, pale skin and dark stubble, blue eyes bright as the lights on a cop car, smiled even though it felt like his whole body was going to come apart like a shattered windshield. He didn’t know how to do this anymore, how to live here. How to live without Sam.

Cas grabbed him—biceps, not the shoulder, and Dean was pretty fucking grateful for that. “You returned.”

“How did you find me?”

Cas’s face twisted in what looked like a memory of pain. “My—counterpart—notified me of your general location when the breach between our realities opened. Even brief coexistence was extremely unpleasant. The resonant vibrations between us threatened to tear us both apart.”

“Uh, sorry,” Dean offered.

Cas ignored the apology. “Sam told me what happened to you.”

That made sense, if they’d been working together to save the world, but was also—weird. Castiel had always been his, the way Ruby’d been Sam’s. Not that Sam owed him hands-off, especially not after Dean had busted into his dream. But still, it made Dean’s stomach twist a little, thinking about them working together the way he and Sam used to do.

“Is Sam—?”

“Sam is whole,” Cas said, not quite meeting his eyes. Sam was alive; Dean could figure out Cas’s dodginess as soon as he had the highlights.

“And Lucifer?” he asked, nausea rising at the thought of having to do this all over again. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Making his deal had been wrong, no doubt, but if there was no other way than Sam sacrificing himself, then Dean was too much of a coward to watch, or even to be in a world that would force him to let Sam kill himself again, even if the only way out this time was eating his own gun.

“Contained,” Cas said, completely certain this time, and Dean sagged with relief.

“What happened?” Cas continued. He was so close that Dean could feel the heat of his breath. His fingers were like steel bands. “Your body—” He must be feeling the angel-repelling sigils, even unactivated. He was lucky Dean hadn’t cut himself shaving, or he might not have gotten within a mile. “Who did this to you?”

Dean swallowed and met his eyes. “You know what happened.”

Cas’s grip loosened. “The other Sam is dead, then.”

Dean couldn’t keep his face under control with that. Fuck Castiel for being so smart, for understanding it all immediately the way Dean never could.

“I am sorry,” Cas said. Dean believed him, even if angels were liars same as demons. Castiel tugged, and suddenly Dean was dampening the fabric of the angel’s ridiculous trenchcoat. Dean tried to divert himself wondering where Cas had learned to hug, but he probably knew, and the thought just made him miss Sam more.

“I don’t know how—how’m I supposed to do this again?” he asked, shaking. Cas had already seen him at his worst, soul stretched out on the rack before him and him standing ankle-deep in blood, so it was nothing that he was crying openly, weakly. “He should’ve—”

“He never should have taken you,” Cas said, with the same confidence he always had. “I will bring you to Sam, and –”

“No,” Dean told him, fisting his hands in Cas’s coat. “He saw—I’m poison, you get that? If it’s over here, then all I can do is make Sam miserable. He deserves—”

Cas’s hands cupped Dean’s face, forcing it up until their eyes met. “Sam told me everything. The only monstrous decision would be to conceal yourself from him, to deny him that choice.”

Dean felt his skin heat with shame. So there was further left to fall.

“Your love grew twisted, I will not pretend otherwise.” Cas’s eyes were so intense it was like having his body plunged into icewater. “But answer me this: did your presence with that Sam do evil, or did you reclaim him for the side of humanity?”

Dean swallowed a couple of times, then licked his lips. “Sam … he never meant to be on any other side,” he tried to explain. And if he’d made bargains, well, Dean had taught him that in the first place. It had been Dean’s fault Sam’s vision had narrowed so tight he couldn’t see the Hellfire surrounding him. Twisted, yeah, even before the sex.

“If there’s anything I’ve learned in my time on earth,” Cas said, serious but also with that twinkle of desert-dry humor that Dean secretly chased, “it’s that one’s worst choices can’t be reversed. They can only be dealt with. I believe that Sam understands that truth. Will you allow me to show you?”

Track Two

Bobby’s poorly-named living room was as good a place as any to recharge and try and figure out what came next, even or maybe especially with Bobby out on a rugaru hunt in Colorado.

Sam was vaguely thinking about getting himself a beer when he felt the subtle derangement of the air that signalled an angel invasion. He sighed and put down the book he’d been reading. Fiction, even. He’d thought he’d earned a break, maybe even a retirement, but he doubted Castiel had swung by for a casual chat.

But when he crossed the threshold into Bobby’s kitchen, there were two people waiting for him.

“Heya, Sammy,” Dean said, his smile twitching between real and anxious.

He turned to Castiel. “Did you—?”

Castiel shook his head. “Dean is returned,” he said.

The dam inside him where he’d put all his anger and his grief cracked. By the time he had control, he was simultaneously hugging and yelling at Dean, Dean’s hands scrabbling ineffectually against his chest. He couldn’t even see Dean through his tears, but he knew the weight of his brother, the smell, and this was Dean. Somehow he managed to let go long enough to let Dean push a few inches away, but he clamped his hands around Dean’s shoulders so he wouldn’t go further. “How?”

Dean swallowed and looked to the side. “He sent me back,” he said. “And I—I had to see you. Let you know I was okay. I’ll get out of your hair whenever you want.”

Sam felt like his heart had dropped five stories. So Dean had come back, not for a reason, but merely for a while. Whatever Dean had gotten from the other Sam was too much for him to be content with this lesser version.

His suddenly numb fingers uncurled, and Dean stepped back. Sam hadn’t noticed Castiel leave, but they were now the only ones in the room. After a moment, Dean cleared his throat. “So, uh, what happened, man? Cas was real light on the details.”

“We opened a gate to the Cage and pushed Lucifer back in,” Sam said, aware that he wasn’t being much more explanatory. He thought that pulling up his jeans and showing Dean his new scar, the handprint from where Castiel had dragged him back out through means both metaphysical and metaphysical before the portal closed, wouldn’t amuse Dean as much as it might’ve under other circumstances. They weren’t exactly a matching set; but then, they’d never been.

“What about you?” Sam said, poking at the scab.

“He, uh, he. Fixed it so that Lilith can’t get ganked. No final seal, no Lucifer rising. But he didn’t—yeah, he didn’t make it. So.”

“Well, at least you got second prize,” Sam said, and enjoyed Dean’s flinch.

“That’s not—” Dean said, helpless. “It wasn’t like that.”

“What was it like, then?” Sam demanded. “You found some version of me that wasn’t a monster, okay.”

Dean’s incomprehension was too total to be faked. “He was you,” he said. “Different things happened, but he was you. Bent on savin’ the world—” His voice cracked and he stopped. “You’re a better man than me.” Tears slipped down his cheeks unheeded.

“You said I was a monster,” Sam said.

“What? No.”

“In your message, before—” He dug his phone out of his pocket and poked at it, until Dean’s voice came out, except it was spewing poison.

“Sam,” Dean said, sounding sure of himself for the first time. “That wasn’t me. Douchariah using my voice maybe. I said I was sorry, Sam. I said we were family.” Dean took a breath and put his hand on Sam’s forearm, barely touching, as if afraid he was going to get shoved away. “I didn’t want to go.”

Sam was going to need a while to reassess his worldview, after so much time thinking that message was the last true thing Dean ever said to him. Dean’s explanation was a bandage on deep cuts, but the cuts were still there. That was probably why he sounded angry when he asked, “And fucking him?”

Dean turned red, but he didn’t withdraw his hand. “That’s why I said I’d get out of your hair. I know you wouldn’t—”

“You don’t know anything!” Sam snapped, his fist in Dean’s shirt. He shoved Dean up against the wall so hard that the glasses in Bobby’s cabinets rattled. Dean’s mouth was open, panting, but he wasn’t struggling. Wouldn’t defend himself against whatever Sam wanted to do.

When Sam kissed him, Dean gasped and then sank into it, his hands wrapping around Sam’s neck. Sam was grinding against him, wanting to get so far inside him that no one could ever take him away again. He bit at the line of Dean’s neck, needing to make marks. Dean dug his fingers into Sam’s shoulderblades in just the right place to make him even harder, and there was only one way Dean could’ve known immediately about those spots. Sam saw red, and without conscious thought he was shoving Dean across the floor, pushing Dean down by the back of his neck so that he was bent over the table.

“Dude,” Dean said, though his voice was shaking, “we eat here.”

Sam didn’t bother to opine about the grossness of the couch or the smallness of the guest beds. Dean lost his right to negotiate location when he tried to walk away. He unbuckled Dean’s belt and shoved at his jeans and shorts until Dean started helping, which allowed Sam to attend to his own fly. There was a half-used stick of butter on a dish near Dean’s elbow, and he reached for it.

He could feel Dean drawing breath to speak, so he preempted that: “Say Last Tango or call me Marlon and all you’re getting is spit.”

He studiously ignored whatever Dean might have mumbled in favor of slicking his fingers. Dean opened for him easily, of course, and Sam couldn’t wait any longer. He guided his cock to Dean’s ass and pushed in, moving steadily until he was all the way inside. He wiped his buttery fingers clean on Dean’s bunched-up flannel shirt, ignoring Dean’s protests, and then he began to fuck Dean in earnest.

Dean’s head was turned so that he could see Dean’s profile. He wanted to taste every freckle he’d thought he’d never see again. “Did he give it to you this good?” he demanded, pumping his hips as he reached around to circle Dean’s dick, hot and surprisingly silky in his hand.

Dean surged against him, speeding the rhythm, fucking himself and then fucking Sam’s hand. All he could say was Sam’s name, which Sam was going to take as a ‘no.’

He lasted just long enough to bring Dean off, coming with a shout that drowned out Dean’s own lower groans. He slumped over Dean, resting his weight on his brother, who didn’t protest beyond a grumble when Sam’s dick slipped out and trailed wetly across his thigh.

“I hope you know, you’re cleaning this up,” Dean said, but his tone said something else entirely.

“Yeah,” Sam said, and reached out to where Dean’s hand was still resting beside his head. He covered Dean’s hand with his own, entwining their fingers. “I know.”

End