Reversebang post: Shell Game, 3/3

[rivkat]

Part 1
Part 2


After they were brought back to life (a first for Dean, but Sam and Adam were jaded enough that they were both surprised at how freaked out Dean was at having to ditch his shirt because of the holes from the shotgun blast), Castiel deigned to give them an update on the broader strategic situation.

“Lucifer is destroying his flawed vessel,” he said with his customary deadpan. “He can continue to switch to inferior vessels with collateral bloodlines, but it is painful, and he will feel that it is beneath his dignity.”

“Sure,” Adam said. “It’s so annoying to be stuck in the wrong mud monkey.” Sam didn’t blame him for remaining resentful. It was one thing to condescend, and another to be a filthy traitor. Among the many regrets Sam had from that time, Uriel’s death wasn’t on the list.

“We must expect that Michael will attempt to find and exploit you,” Castiel continued, his eyes never leaving Adam’s face. “If Michael takes his true vessel, he will be powerful enough to defeat Lucifer. And to trigger the End Times. That is why you and Sam are significant: your souls can enhance the power of the possessing angel. It is the difference between an internal combustion engine and nuclear fusion.”

Sam had kind of guessed that the angels weren’t playing for Team Human, but to hear it like that still made his stomach lurch. “You’re sure, that’s the plan?”

Castiel deigned to frown at him. “Even in an ordinary vessel, Michael should prevail in single combat. The additional benefit of a host with the true bloodline is the ability to reset the arc of existence. Have you not noticed that Sam has carefully been preserved alongside Adam? Either one would suffice for their plan.” Castiel, Sam noticed, was calling his fellow angels ‘they’ now. Maybe, Sam thought, he could forgive the way Castiel kept leaning in too close to his baby brother.

Okay, that explained why Michael hadn’t showered down on some poor believer the way Castiel had. Just beating the tar out of Lucifer wouldn’t get his plan anywhere. He needed Adam.

Who was looking dangerously close to puking. “Cas,” he said. “I don’t know if-what if I don’t hold out?”

They were all thinking of him stepping off the rack in Hell, picking up his razor like a good little torturer. Sam wanted to scream-that too must have been part of the angels’ plan. Breaking Adam, then gluing him back together but with an intimate knowledge of where the fractures were, so they could be smashed again when needed.

“You will,” Castiel insisted, his voice as rough as broken concrete.

“We will,” Sam said, forcing his tone to hold the confidence he didn’t feel. “We’ll put Lucifer back in the Cage, and then Michael can go pound sand.”

****

As it happened, Sam’s genius plan for stuffing Lucifer back into place involved wrapping him in Sam. On the basis of not much evidence, as far as Dean could see, they thought that Sam could fight him off just long enough to jump into the Pit.

Since the alternative seemed to be that they’d be hounded and tortured until one of them broke, Dean understood the principle. He just didn’t like the odds. Or the price tag.

That furnace of anger inside him was churning all the time now. He wanted one of those angel-killing knives, to make a matched set with the one for demons. He wanted to be able to do that thing Castiel did where he white-lighted a roomful of demons into screaming corpses, only with angels instead. (He’d make an exception for Castiel, because the dude did seem remorseful, and Adam was into him, which might be Stockholm Syndrome but they weren’t in a position to turn down good vibes of any kind.)

He wanted a lot of things he’d never imagined before he’d found out about ghouls, and brothers, and the Winchester family business. He knew why Sam had drunk demon blood now. Anything, any advantage, that might work against these assholes was worth trying.

On the last night before Sam said yes, they had a nearly silent dinner together, and then Adam said he needed some time to clear his head. Castiel and Sam traded significant glances, and when Castiel nodded it was pretty clear he’d heard Sam’s unspoken order to make sure Adam didn’t do anything dumber than usual. Adam could lean on Castiel, and that was going to be important in the days to come if this plan worked. Dean would do what he could, too, but he knew that being Adam’s brother might be more painful than helpful, at least for a while.

That left Sam and Dean and an empty motel room. The air seemed heavier inside, more than the funk of three guys (and one angel) under great stress. There was an old-fashioned clock on the wall, ticking loud as breaking branches until Dean ripped it off of the wall.

“Dean,” Sam said, like he could apologize for what he was going to do, the way he’d been apologizing for months. But this was a different dumb idea than the past ones, driven by thin hopes and not by the narrowed-vision haze of revenge.

The one thing Dean could do was make sure Sam understood that. He dumped the clock and its trailing wires into the trash and turned to Sam. Sam was sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes wide beneath his shaggy hair. He needs a haircut, Dean thought, and nearly doubled over with the realization that he was never going to get one.

Sam licked his lips. “Listen,” he said, his hands clutching at each other like that was the only comfort he could get.

Dean interrupted before he could put himself down again. “You know you’re a hero, right? It’s not your fault you got fooled.”

“By a demon,” Sam said.

Dean walked right up to him and crossed his arms over his chest, staring down at him like a cop who’d just pulled over a guy going fifty in a twenty-five zone. “Did you think you were going to set Lucifer free?”

This was not a rhetorical question, and he waited for Sam’s answer, which came reluctantly: “No.”

“Then you deserve a walk of shame, dude, but this whole thing? It’s not on you.”

“I killed someone. A person. And don’t say so have you-” Dean shut his mouth-“because it’s different in a hunt. I killed someone to help myself get revenge against Lilith, and yeah Ruby lied to get me to do it, but I did it. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t know it would start the apocalypse. I can’t bring her back, but if I can protect the rest of the world, then that’s what I have to do.”

Dean would’ve said that even murderers didn’t generally have to lock themselves to Lucifer in Hell, but he didn’t think that would help. “You’re still a hero.”

Sam looked like he was going to keep arguing (in other words, he looked like Sam), so Dean did the only thing he could think of to shut him up. He leaned forward, put his hands on Sam’s cheeks, and kissed him.

It wasn’t a chaste kiss.

Sam’s hands-God, they were huge-grabbed his hips, pulling him into Sam’s lap as Dean opened his mouth and tasted Sam for the first, the only, time. Like this, Dean had to tip his head down to kiss Sam, Sam’s hands roving over his back, tugging his shirt free from his jeans.

Sam leaned his head back far enough to speak. “Wait,” he said, even though his fingers were still digging into Dean’s waist.

“I don’t care,” Dean said, each word separate as a gunshot. “We’re not hurting anyone, and it’s not fair, and I-” The last time he’d said he loved someone, it was to his mom. Even as a horny teenager, he’d never been able to give that lie to a girl. But it was true: Sam was strong, and beautiful, and so brave he made Dean’s heart ache. Sam’s mistakes hadn’t made him curl up and die, the way Dean would’ve done. Sam kept fighting, and he made Dean want to be strong enough to do the same.

He kissed Sam before Sam had to figure out how to respond. Sam didn’t fight very hard to stop him this time, and soon they were pulling off each other’s shirts like they were filming an amateur porno, all wet sounds and grabby hands. “God, you’re hot,” Dean said, without meaning to, staring at Sam’s incredible chest and abs. Who wouldn’t want to rule and/or destroy the world looking like that?

Sam mumbled something and tugged Dean into an embrace that brought their chests together so that he could stick his hands down the back of Dean’s jeans, grabbing Dean’s ass in his hands, so big that Dean could feel him everywhere. Dean groaned and tilted his head back, and Sam’s mouth fastened on his neck like Sam was thinking about going vampire. Dean got his knees up on the bed just enough that he could grind their hips together in the dirtiest lap dance possible with both of them still in their jeans.

“C’mon,” Sam said, and Dean realized he’d been saying it for a while. They disentangled just long enough to kick off the rest of their clothes, and then Dean pushed Sam back into the bed. Knowing that Sam only went because he wanted to, that he could’ve wrestled Dean into submission at any moment, just made it all hotter.

They humped like kids for a while, kissing and mapping each other with their hands. Dean was frantic with the knowledge that there was no time. He’d never be able to do everything he wanted, and he couldn’t choose. Sam’s dick slipped against his belly, hot and thick, and he wrestled a hand between them so he could get a grip on it, running his thumb from the base up to the flare of the head. Sam made a noise closer to a growl than anything else.

It was so good. Wanted back by Sam, who knew him, who’d seen him drunk and bloody and crying for his mom, who was going to save the world. He needed to see Sam come.

He rolled them, pulling Sam on top, spat on his hand, and started jerking Sam in earnest, his other hand pushing Sam’s shoulder up so that he could see. His own cock rubbed against Sam’s and against his own fingers, his hips pulsing uncontrolled.

Sam’s tattoo flexed with every breath. He was watching Dean watching him, the two of them panting in time, the slick red head of Sam’s cock winking in and out of Dean’s grip. When Sam came, streaking hot over Dean’s chest, Dean held on and felt every pulse, almost like it was his own.

Sam collapsed to the side, repeating Dean’s name like it was the only word he knew. He rubbed his hand over Dean’s stomach, collecting his own come, and curled his fingers around Dean’s aching dick, but he was clumsy with aftershocks. They both moaned when Dean closed his hand around Sam’s, smaller but still strong, and helped him get Dean the rest of the way there, making Dean even more of a mess.

He wanted so much more of Sam. He didn’t care why, or whose awful plan it had been to link the two of them together. He just wanted to freeze time, sticky and warm together in this dark room.

He roused a bit when Sam got up. “Shh,” Sam told him. “I just-I’ve gotta talk to Adam.”

Dean nodded and let himself drift.

****

Sam cleaned up before he went outside to call Adam, leaving Dean asleep on the bed. That was going to be hard to explain, and he was almost glad he wasn’t going to need to be the one to do it. But he didn’t need to call, because Adam was right there, sitting on the hood of the Impala, a six-pack next to him but only two beers gone.

“Where’s Castiel?”

Adam looked up at the stars and shrugged. “We had a couple, and then he said that it was almost time for our conversation and blinked out.”

Sam briefly wondered just how much Castiel knew about what had happened between him and Dean, then pushed the thought aside. “Conversation, hunh? I guess he doesn’t know you that well after all.” He hoisted himself up so that they were side by side.

“He was telling me that I have to let you do this, not because you’re my big brother but because you’re the only one who can.”

“Adam, I want you to know-” Sam said, meaning: I’m sorry I wasn’t a better big brother. I’m sorry I couldn’t stick around. I’m sorry I ever made you feel like it was you I didn’t respect and not hunting. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you from Hell.

“Shut up,” Adam suggested. He knocked his shoulder against Sam’s, and they stared up at the night sky. When he was a kid, Sam knew all the constellations; now, they looked more like runes to him-Norse, Enochian, a couple of other traditions, scattered across the firmament: a testament to how his imagination had narrowed over the last few years as the supernatural ate away at everything else he cared about. But that didn’t matter any more. What mattered was right next to him, and in the motel room nearby.

“You have to promise me not to try to get me out. Keep going, keep fighting, whatever makes you happy, but no more deals. The price is too high.”

Adam looked down at his empty bottle. “Happy,” he said.

Sam winced. “Promise me you’ll make a life. That you won’t hate yourself when it gets better. Let Dean look out for you. It’s what I want.”

Adam’s lip twitched. A long time ago, when he’d told Sam not to worry about him being in Hell, Sam had pointed out that Adam didn’t get to have an opinion on the subject since he wasn’t going to be around. Turnabout was probably fair play, not that the Winchesters would recognize fair play if it hit them in the ‘nads. But Adam didn’t say that, just picked at a fraying patch on the knee of his jeans.

“When I was a kid,” Adam said finally, “I didn’t understand how you could love someone enough to let them go. It took me a long time to get there, and I hated the whole time.”

“Does that mean you’re actually going to listen to me for once in your life and promise me to leave it alone?”

“You gotta admit,” Adam said and tipped back until he was lying flat against the hood of the car, staring up at the clouds rushing past the moon, “last time pays for all.” He sighed. “Yeah, I promise.”

Sam felt a hundred pounds lighter. Caging Lucifer was Sam’s duty. Looking after Adam was his job. With Dean and Castiel there for him, Adam would be okay.

“By the way,” Adam said from his sprawl, “I guess that ‘last night on earth’ thing actually works on the ladies, hunh?” At Sam’s confused-edging-on-horrified look, he clarified, “You smell like shower, dude, which you always do after you get laid. Myself, I like to enjoy the scent of a woman, really let it sink into my skin.”

“That’s because you’re indescribably gross,” Sam said, voice thick with tears.

“Don’t hate the player,” Adam said, not exactly steady himself.

They stared up at the stars and waited for the morning together.

****

Dean woke in a room that reminded him of something out of Dangerous Liaisons, all gold-and-white striped wallpaper and couches too slippery to sit on, which he proved by promptly sliding to the floor and then flailing to his feet.

“Fuck!” he said. He was only in his T-shirt and boxers-at least he wasn’t naked-and he could still feel Sam’s marks all over him. “Sam?” he called out. “Castiel?”

Instead, his dad materialized-his dad from way back, the one he had in a picture. He knew this part of the story. “You must be Michael,” he said. “Pleased to meet you, now fuck off.”

“I brought you here to offer you a chance to save your world,” the angel said, more calmly than Dad had ever spoken.

“Thanks, but I think we’ve got that covered,” Dean bluffed. Castiel was okay, for an angel, but that was pretty much his limit on tolerating human-body-stealing creatures with powers ripped from eternity.

“Yes, your plan to hold Lucifer in Sam’s body as you reopen the gate to his prison,” Michael said, which was an unpleasant shock. Michael must have figured it out because they’d kind of visibly chewed their way through the Horsemen. “Sam isn’t strong enough to fight off my brother. Do you really think an addict, however briefly reformed, can hold back the Prince of Light? You’ve never even seen a human being throw off an ordinary angel.”

Dean started. They’d thought about Lucifer as a demon. Demons could, sometimes, be fought by someone who knew what they were doing-they’d seen Bobby do it. But if it wasn’t the same with fallen angels, then they were completely fucked. And Lucifer had sure seemed to hold ordinary demons in contempt when they’d confronted him with the Colt.

Michael leaned forward, his expression the same as Dad’s when he knew that Dean had been concealing some misadventure carried out between Dad’s visits. “I know you care for him, and he’s no worse than any other human in his weakness. But can you bet the world on this untested strategy?”

Dean didn’t want to talk about this, especially not with someone with his father’s face. “Can’t you … wear somebody else for this conversation?”

Michael’s eyes were indifferent. “Why?”

“I guess you wouldn’t understand,” Dean muttered. Michael’s Father, after all, didn’t seem to have disappointed him-or maybe Michael just hadn’t admitted it yet.

“You will be my host,” Michael announced. “Your blood is strong enough to bear my grace for the limited time necessary to discipline my brother.”

“What?” Dean felt dumb, but that was a curveball.

“He cannot be allowed to prevail before the Final Battle,” Michael said, clearly agreeing with Dean’s assessment of his own intelligence. “I need a vessel, however inferior, in the human world until Lucifer is contained. Your lineage suffices.”

“I’m gonna go with no on that,” Dean said.

“Or I could torture your consent out of you,” Michael said, and Dean was consumed with pain, his lungs collapsing as his bones seemed to go to liquid lead inside him. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream; his eyes filled with red and he could feel his hair, his fingernails, his skin starting to loosen and slough off as the blood poured out of him.

When Dean’s vision cleared, he was on his (intact) hands and knees. The marble floor was clean and cold.

He spat-there was no blood in it-and looked up at the angel. Well, that fully sucked. “Answer’s still no.”

Honestly, he didn’t know how long he could hold out against that kind of pain. But he was betting that Michael didn’t know either.

The angel looked peeved. “You do know that I can control time. We can have years of this in the moment it takes your brothers to notice that you have disappeared.”

“Wait,” Dean said. “You mean-it’s still night, in the world.”

Michael tilted his head: the ant was, inexplicably, arguing over the precise position of his blade of grass. “Yes.”

Dean’s head was still buzzing with the echoes of the pain, worse than he’d imagined possible. But if no time had passed, then Sam hadn’t said yes yet. If Michael could take Lucifer out now, in his deficient vessel, then Sam wouldn’t need to.

The angels must think that Lucifer was getting some sort of advantage on the ground-that he was going to be in position to win the apocalypse. Somehow, Michael needed a temporary vessel long enough fight Lucifer to a draw, and to convince his permanent one to say yes. Dean was going to be a stepping stone to Adam. And Michael could end the world as easily as Lucifer could in a true vessel.

Unless the angels wanted not to lose more than they wanted to destroy humanity. From what he’d seen of angels, Dean thought that just might be the case.

“Your brother,” Dean said, slowly.

“Lucifer,” Michael clarified, as if he wasn’t sure they were on the same page.

“How badly do you want to beat him?”

Michael lifted his chin. For the first time, his expression changed. “He lost his place by our Father’s side, but his arrogance remains untouched.”

“I’ll take that as ‘very badly,’” Dean said, and hoped that the way he was shaking with fear wasn’t that noticeable to an angel. “You’d rather stop him now than have him win, even if that means losing your true vessel.”

Michael frowned. “I will have my true vessel.” Like he was saying one plus one equals two.

Well, Dean thought, we’re not doing math today. “But if you had to choose: apocalypse or kicking Lucifer’s rebellious ass.”

Castiel, Dean realized, was kind of an amateur at the ‘puny human, your concerns are meaningless and incomprehensible to me’ look. But Dean had learned to wait it out, and sure enough, Michael liked to hear himself talk. “My brothers and sisters are not united, but I decide. I will see Lucifer humbled.”

“I might be able to get on board with that,” Dean told him.

“You must know, if you say yes, the experience will destroy you, utterly, just as I will destroy Lucifer.”

Now, he had scruples? Well, maybe he hadn’t been involved in the day-to-day manipulations that had screwed over the Winchesters so very thoroughly. “Let me tell you something, pal,” Dean said. “I’ve seen Heaven, and you can keep it.”

As long as Adam didn’t say yes, Michael wouldn’t be able to start the apocalypse, just clean up Lucifer’s mess. The world would be safe, and all it would cost was Dean-a fuckup whose life had improved by becoming fugitive and illegal. Adam and Sam had been heroes all their lives, whereas Dean had been a waste of space. If Dean fixed this, Sam could live to fight more monsters. He could even find a girl and settle down, the way Adam always passive-aggressively reminded him that he wanted.

Between the two of them, there wasn’t really much of a choice.

“I want to make a deal,” he said, each word feeling like a fifty-pound weight.

“I am no crossroads demon,” the angel said, and there were eerie harmonics in its voice.

“And I’m not some believer you can just order around,” Dean snapped back. “Sam, Adam, and Castiel: they stay safe, which means no Adam sockpuppet for you. You give me your word or I guarantee I can hold out long enough for you to get bored with me screaming. Come on, what’s it matter to you, anyway? Just two people and a minor angel. That’s pocket change for an archangel.”

Abruptly, Michael was only a few inches away. Dean realized: he was exactly his father’s height. He’d never gotten a chance to find that out, before. “I swear to it. Do you consent?”

Dean closed his eyes and drew in a breath. He’d had a good run, really. Weird, but good. “Yes,” he said.

The world dissolved into white.

****

Sam stared down at the trunk full of gallons. In the low light, the blood looked as black as a demon’s eyes, even though he knew it was the same red as any other human’s. Mostly he wanted to be sick, but there was still a little part of him that wanted the rush. Probably there always would be-though in this case, ‘always’ had a pretty short expiration date.

He’d asked for privacy, even though he knew Adam and Castiel weren’t more than fifteen feet away. Regardless, he needed to pretend that he was doing this on his own.

He picked up the first jug.

“Sam?”

He spun at the sound of Lucifer’s delighted voice. A circle of demons surrounded him, and Sam heard the soft pop of air indicating that Castiel had done the smart thing, grabbed Adam and got the fuck out of Dodge. This wasn’t anywhere Sam hadn’t already been heading.

“You win, okay?” Sam said. He uncapped the jug and brought it up to his mouth to prove his point. The smell of it, meaty and sharp, made his mouth water, and he nearly gagged.

“Halt!”

They all turned, and the demons vanished in explosive puffs as Dean snapped his fingers.

No, not Dean. Something in Dean’s body, holding it in a kind of stillness that Dean could never achieve. “What did you do?” Sam whispered, the jug slipping from his nerveless hands to splash on the concrete.

“Will you not repent, Lucifer?” Dean-Michael, it had to be Michael-asked. “This is not yet written.” But he said it wearily, a cop reading Miranda rights, no expectation of any change in the result.

“You know I won’t,” Lucifer said. “Heard from Dad lately, by the way? A millennium’s a long time to wait between newsletters.”

Michael raised one of Dean’s eyebrows. “My faith is complete. I need no additional instructions.”

“So you grabbed this random idiot, and you’re tearing him to pieces as we speak. Tell me, how does that make you any better than me?”

“I have the mandate of Heaven,” Michael said with calm certainty. “Now is the time to cleanse the earth of every worthless, rebellious thing, to end this ridiculous experiment with free will.”

Castiel and Adam popped into place beside Sam, Castiel’s hand on Adam’s shoulder. The idiot angel must have given in to Adam’s demands to return, even though there was nothing they could do-a fact proved when Michael gestured and Castiel exploded, showering them all with blood and guts.

Sam tried to think. He was weaponless; if he opened the portal now, there was no way he could force Lucifer in on his own. And Michael didn’t seem inclined just to shove the Devil back into the Cage and let bygones be bygones.

Lucifer scoffed. “You came too soon, brother. Do you really want to settle this with such inferior hosts?”

Michael’s eyes flashed-literally, they flashed, a bluish glow like lightning. “That’s where we all erred, it seems.”

Lucifer hesitated, and Michael smiled, Dean’s drop-your-panties grin appropriated by this genocidal being. It made Sam’s skin crawl. “He is my true vessel. The Lord truly works in mysterious ways.” His crow’s feet started to disappear into the glow of his possessed eyes.

Sam’s mind shuddered. Dean had been played somehow, just like him and Ruby. “But-that means-”

“Yeah,” Adam said. “Apocalypse nowish.”

Michael hit him and he bounced off of the car and was silent.

Sam lunged and was also thrown back, staying upright only because he’d crashed into the Impala. “You,” Michael said. “You kept throwing your brother off track. You and your weakness, your pride.” He hit Sam again, shattering his cheekbone. The pain was like a starburst inside him.

He raised his fist, Dean’s fist, and Sam could tell that it was going to go straight through his skull and into the metal of the car.

Dean, it’s okay, Sam tried to say. It’s okay.

He waited, his breath wet and painful-he’d broken at least two ribs, and he thought there was some internal bleeding-and he wished he’d told Dean that he loved him, just once. He hoped Dean knew anyway.

Slowly, Dean’s fist uncurled, his hand hanging in the air. He started to pant, vibrating like he was getting ready to run a race.

He’d done what Sam was supposed to, Sam realized: he’d grabbed the wheel back, at least for a moment. Michael had the power to destroy the earth, but not just yet.

“The plan,” Dean said. “Gotta stick with the plan, Sam.”

Sam opened his mouth to insist that this was in no way the plan, and Dean shook his head, then grimaced.

“Not much time,” Dean gritted out. “Don’t make this all for nothin’.”

Dean was a true vessel with an angel about to claw its way out. There was only one place they knew that could protect the world from that. Sam, feeling like he was made of stone, reached in his pocket and threw the interlocked rings on the ground. Dean grunted as the hole swirled open.

Out of nowhere, something hit him from the side, and he went over.

Lucifer, in his stolen, inferior host. Too angry at his wayward brother to leave, even when the danger was gaping open right next to him. Sam could see that the sores had spread. He looked like a zombie out of a late-night B movie. Dean roared, and for a second the light spilling out of his eyes was back, Michael fighting to the surface. Then Dean was standing again, his arm around Lucifer’s throat, snorting with effort. Lucifer, oblivious to Dean’s strain, struggled wildly.

There was no way he could hold them both for long. Dean’s eyes were soft, understanding. “Sorry,” he said, almost too low to hear. “Be happy, Sammy.” Holding tightly to Lucifer, he let himself fall backwards into the Pit.

Epilogue

Sam was still frozen in place, staring at the empty space where they’d vanished, when Castiel reappeared to heal his and Adam’s injuries.

Dean was in Hell. He’d sent another brother to Hell. This time, he’d done it on purpose. He’d gone along, even knowing what it would mean for Dean.

He gagged, but there was nothing inside him. He’d fasted, because he’d thought he was going to have to drink gallons of blood.

“If he was the true vessel, then Michael could have destroyed this world even without Lucifer,” Castiel told them. “This was his sacrifice.”

Sam couldn’t even look over at Adam, knowing how Adam must be remembering his own suffering.

Sam wanted to say yes to Lucifer, now; he wanted to have the power to tear the world apart. If this was all there was-this unfairness, God’s thirst for blood, this absence of mercy-then it should be destroyed.

Adam’s arms around him were a shock. He remembered Adam-smaller, less muscled, less beaten down-doing the same thing when he’d rescued Sam from watching Jess burn alive. Adam was always pulling him away from his losses. Sam fought for a few seconds, then collapsed, hiding his face against his little brother’s chest.

After a few days, Adam found them a hunt, and they went. What else were they supposed to do? Castiel was off doing something warlike in Heaven. Sam could happily have watched the heavenly sphere burn, and barely excluded Castiel from that, but anyway the angel was out of the picture after one last intense conversation with Adam.

Sam had a brother, saved from the Pit. (Sam would never let himself think he had the wrong one: it was all wrong, and he wasn’t going to play the game of guilt and shame when something else was pulling the strings.) Dean had been tricked into making the wrong move, just like Sam. Sam was supposed to have been the one to pay for his mistake, just like Sam was supposed to have died in the first place.

He should’ve been even angrier now, but the emptiness was too great even for that. He felt like a burnt-out shell, an outline only recognizable by the spaces where he used to be. Adam did his best, but he could tell that something had cracked inside Sam. Slowly, they cut back on the hunting, spending more time hustling or even traveling. They followed a couple of bands halfway around the country, the way Sam had always wanted to when they were younger but had never been able to convince Adam to do, since there were always hunts to be found instead.

Adam started talking about finding Sam a place where he could go back to school. Adam wouldn’t leave him, not when Sam was like this, but Adam was a hunter and eventually he was going to get tired of coddling Sam. He’d wait for Sam to get over Dean, the same way he’d waited for Sam to mourn Jess, and he’d plan to leave Sam secure and healing, back on track for a normal life. Sam didn’t have the heart to admit that he was broken for good, this time around.

****

Sam and Adam had stuck together, which made them easier to track down when Dean decided it was time to reconnect. Then it was just a matter of researching potential hunts and cross-checking fake credit cards. Really, it was surprising the Winchesters hadn’t been caught more often by the cops, though Dean guessed that it was easy to form the wrong impression when you didn’t believe in the monsters.

There was a lot of boring and pointless yelling, mainly from Sam, which was weird given that Adam was the one who didn’t like him nearly as much. Then the tests, which Dean had expected, though Sam came up with a couple Dean hadn’t known about despite all the time he’d spent studying with Samuel and his crew. That taken care of, Dean figured, they could get back to business.

“Glad you’re still in the game,” he said, and picked up a rifle that was lying on one of the beds, a sure sign that Adam had just reassembled it.

“What happened?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know,” Dean said, shrugging. “I just woke up topside. Maybe God finally spotted us one. And I’m not lying like Adam was-I really don’t remember.” Samuel Campbell and his merry band of hunters were a complication that he wasn’t yet sure the Winchesters needed to know about. They got kind of irrational around matters related to poor dead Mary, and here ‘related’ was the important word.

“Wait, you don’t remember anything?” Adam demanded, like having him ask instead would get a different answer. Jealous, probably. Dean didn’t blame him, but his incredulity was still annoying.

“Nope,” he said. “Anyhow, you’re here because of the werewolf attacks, right? So what’s the plan?”

****

Dean was back, but he wasn’t Dean, which was obvious from the moment he convinced one of the hikers to stake herself out as bait. Sam missed that conversation, but he didn’t miss Dean aiming to take out the biggest wolf first, even though the smaller one was closest to the hiker.

If Adam hadn’t been such a crack shot, she’d have been dinner, and then next month they’d have had to put her down too. If Dean didn’t do it preemptively before then, which from his icy green glare Sam thought might have crossed his mind when he checked her over for injuries, pausing only to leer down her shirt.

Sam thought he might be in shock.

Dean wasn’t in shock. He moved through the forest like he’d been a hunter all his life. Like the only thing he cared about was killing monsters, with saving people a tolerable side effect.

It was PTSD, maybe. Sam had done enough reading when Adam came back to know that there were lots of ways of reacting to trauma (case in point: Sam’s own addiction; he wasn’t going to pretend to be emotionally intact himself). Even if Dean was telling the truth about his memories, there were all kinds of ways a person could protect himself from trauma, and Dean’s reflexes might be telling more of the truth of what happened than his mouth was.

Dean might not even have his memories of what had happened just before he went into the Pit. Sam didn’t know how to ask: hey, so, that one time we had goodbye incest, do you remember that as fondly as I do? Did they use that to torture you with?

Sam was still trying to formulate askable questions when they got back to the room, filthy and reeking. Dean hadn’t made a crack about the condition of the Impala, even.

“I need to get laid,” Dean said as he wiped the last of the werewolf’s blood off of his face. “I was getting it regular from this one hunter chick, but she didn’t take it too well when she found out I was also banging the witnesses. I always wondered what it would be like, to have a girl you kept going back to. Turns out there’s a lot of yelling. Bars are a lot simpler. So, you in?”

At Adam’s horrified gape, Dean smirked. “Worth asking.”

Sam didn’t bother to try to keep him from leaving. He’d sought them out, and whatever was going on with him, that meant he’d be back.

“What. The. Fuck,” Adam said, as soon as Dean’s footsteps were no longer audible.

“Can you call Castiel?”

Adam raised his eyebrows, an echo of his maddening teenage condescension. “I’ve sent two prayers and three texts already. Bobby?”

“Speaking as the guy who got locked up in his panic room at least one time too many, I’m gonna go with no on that. Not yet.” He hesitated. “You’re our expert on getting out of Hell.”

Adam sighed and scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t know jack about the Cage. If they even have a rack in there, it’s probably just for shits and giggles.” Adam had a point. Human souls were tortured to turn them into demons, but inside Lucifer’s Cage there was no reason to think it worked the same way. And whatever was going on with Dean, he wasn’t black-eyed.

“Hey,” Adam said, like Sam was the one who needed careful treatment when the subject of Hell came up. “We’ll figure it out, okay? Like we always do. Eventually,” he amended with tactless honesty.

Sam remembered what it was like to know his brother was always up for a fight. Losing that certainty before had convinced him to go along with Ruby and her supposed plan to save the world. Getting that confidence back was like going from a dark tunnel into a warm spring morning. Yes, something crazy was up with Dean, but they’d figure it out together because between the two of them there was nothing they couldn’t stomp into submission.

“I can see you planning to hug me from here,” Adam said warningly.

“Guess you’re ready for it, then,” Sam said, and Adam didn’t in fact wriggle all that hard. At the end he did try to give Sam a wedgie, but that was just for show.

****

Dean had assumed that he’d get to fuck Sam again, and he’d been looking forward to it, enough to put up with Sam’s picky eating habits and Adam’s commitment to soaking every towel he could find and leaving them all on the bathroom floor like he was hoping to create a new and clammy carpeting trend. The memory was pretty spectacular, even if Dean couldn’t quite understand why they’d been so intense about it.

Unfortunately, Adam turned out to be an exquisite cock-block. Dean could’ve sworn he knew that Dean had designs on his brother, his full brother that was, and he managed to be in Dean’s face every time Dean thought about proposing even the quickest of quickies. And Dean knew that Sam wouldn’t go for it unless he thought that Adam didn’t know-or at least unless he could pretend to himself that Adam didn’t know. The man had been addicted to the blood of the demon he was screwing. He knew how to lie to himself when it got him what he wanted.

And he wanted Dean. Dean was as sure of it as he ever was. Lots of people looked at him like they wanted to fuck him. Most of them did want, and a fair number of them would act on that want when given the opportunity, because Dean was prime rib in a world of McDonald’s. Dean had made a couple of mistakes about the difference between want and would when he’d first gotten back topside. He figured it was because he was asking more often now; a drifter didn’t have to worry as much about getting punched by the coworker whose wife he’d screwed last Saturday night. But he always recognized the want, which among other things usually made getting what he wanted easier, whether that was information, money, or just the average screw.

Anyhow, Sam was on the long list of Dean’s admirers, which Dean confirmed by doing his workouts where Sam could see and taking his time about getting dressed after his showers. This had the disadvantage of Adam regularly throwing sopping-wet towels at his head, even though his big head wasn’t what Adam wanted him to cover up. But if he wasn’t going to get to fuck Sam at least Dean could enjoy making him squirm. Pretty soon, Dean was sure, Sam was going to break and go at him even if Adam was on the other side of a very thin wall.

****

Eventually, Castiel diagnosed Dean soulless, which meant that Dean’s soul was still suffering down in Hell. It was just like it had been with Adam, only horrible in a different way because of the Dean-shaped shell following them around, leering at Sam and ignoring Adam’s increasingly freaked-out reactions. The only thing that mattered was getting Dean’s soul out.

So at the four-month mark, which had obvious emotional significance, Adam did his usual stupid ill-thought-out move and contacted Death by virtue of deliberately flatlining, which was a clusterfuck all around. Except that he brought Dean back, right there in Bobby’s living room. Screaming and flailing and cringing, yes, but Sam had expected trauma. “There’s enough of him left to fit in a doggie bag,” Death said. “That’s impressive. Try a little gratitude.”

Adam’s hand on his chest stopped Sam from explaining just how grateful he was.

They sedated Dean with enough drugs to knock out a blue whale, and Sam settled in to keep watch over him. What with Dean tied to the bed for his own safety, there were going to be messes to clean up, and Sam wasn’t going to ask Adam to do that. Thinking through the basic physical details helped calm him. These were real things that he could do, and they would help Dean, or at least not make him worse.

Adam knocked on the door and came in without waiting. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Sam said back, meaning, I’m not breaking down or relapsing, so that’s one worry you can cross off your list for now. Adam nodded his comprehension. Some days, it was good to have a brotherly code that was so well-distilled.

“Look,” Adam said, scuffing his toe on the ground, “I think I need to get back out there. I’m gonna try to figure out what crawled up Cas’s ass.” He stared at Dean’s still face. “You … just help Dean.”

“Don’t go without me,” Sam said. He wasn’t going to let Adam down again, no matter how much it tore him up. Dean would-Dean would get better, and he’d understand.

“Man, you’ve got-look, I know you and Dean-whatever, don’t make me say it. But I gotta know what’s up with Cas, and I’m guessing we don’t have all the time in the world. I’ll be as careful as I can.”

“You’d better be,” Sam said at last. “I can still whip your ass if I need to. And, thanks, Adam.”

“Whatever,” Adam said, in the way that meant ‘right back at you.’

Maybe Dean would never be all the way better. Maybe Heaven and Hell still had some unexploded grenades lying around. But on the third day, after Dean had woken for the first time without screaming, when Sam crawled into bed with Dean and wrapped his arms around him, Dean stopped shaking.

Two days later, after Sam had helped him to the bathroom and back, while Sam was easing him back down, he rasped, almost inaudibly, “Sam?”

“I’m here,” Sam said, and if he cried a little he was entitled. Dean didn’t say more, just curled up and let Sam mold himself around Dean’s back, both of them trembling and Dean’s fingers wrapped in a bruising grip around Sam’s wrist, holding his arm in place around Dean’s waist.

Sam knew that a happy ending was unlikely. So he let himself be happy, right then. Just for now.

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