Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

            No one even remotely friendly with the Winchester brothers would ever say anything about it, but the two of them were unhealthily codependent. They did drastic, world-shattering things when they were separated, whether they meant to or not. It could’ve been because of how they were raised –or not raised, as it were– under the eye of John Winchester. It could’ve been because they were cursed. It could’ve been because they were soulmates. The point stood: Separate the brothers, and trouble would follow. And not everyone would live to regret it.

            Every demon, monster, and angel who came against them would flout it, shout it from the rooftops, use it against them. That codependency. That disregard for their own welfare, just so long as the other was safe, alive.

            They always seemed to forget, though, the consequences. That one way or another, when separated, the Brothers Winchester would cause an even greater mess than they could together.

            Hell included.

            “Sam.”

            Pain like fireiceelectricity lanced through his eyes, down his spine; Sam arched and gasped even as he dug into Grace with hooked fingers and peeled. Lucifer gasped.

            “Sam, Samuel, Sammy, so good for me, just for me, Michael can’t have you.”

            Lucifer’s focus shifted to Sam’s back and seared deeply, replacing the mirrored damage inflicted by Michael, from where the other Archangel had shredded the Devil’s wings during their last fight. Replaced it with his own mark. Sam snarled wordlessly and twisted, biting the limb that loosely represented an arm, swallowing it down as Lucifer hissed something both pained and pleased. Searing cold enveloped him completely as Lucifer pulled him in impossibly closer, edges blurring together in painful, perfect harmony.

            “You still burn so hot—” murmured through him as he was pulled more deeply towards the Archangel’s arctic core.

            Completely enveloped, Sam didn’t fight anymore, nothing beyond some twisting, clawing motions as Lucifer laughed and froze his skin off layer at a time. The pain was negligible to either of them, the action of inflicting it as mindless as the words the Devil spoke.

            “The way you act, Sammy, you’d already be just another demon in this pit if you weren’t mine. I wish you could see yourself—you’re so bright. You’re mine, Sam. So much more than that bastard half-brother of yours’; you get brighter the longer you stay with me.”

            A small eternity of silence passed between them, after, as silent as Hell could ever be. Outside Lucifer’s Grace was impossibly hot; loud with a chorus of chains and screams and the rush of eternal flames. There were demons out there, somewhere, but the Cage was deep in the pit—even though there was no doubt of its existence, now, the light of two Archangels disallowed their unholy presence.

            Lucifer sang ‘Stairway to Heaven’, over and over, sad and watching Michael across the Cage.

            Sam tried to sing ‘Dead or Alive’ only once, stopped halfway through and missed Dean until it hurt more than his skin peeling off.

            (He sang ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, later, and Lucifer laughed and sang along until Michael lunged at them with the Righteousness of Heaven burning hotter than hellfire.)

            Lucifer picked Sam apart and Sam let him, tearing up bits of the Fallen Archangel in turn. Made for each other. Unmade, remade by each other.

            Time passed irrelevantly, measured in pain, loneliness and the fluctuating brightness of the two human souls trapped in the Cage.

            Adam faded and Michael let him. Michael barely fought Lucifer anymore, didn’t even scream Enochian like they had for so long; sat silent as far away from his brother as he could get. The distance between the two gaped like an open wound.

            Sam missed Dean more than the bits of himself that Lucifer tore away, though the pain was almost the same sometimes.

            The increasingly rare times Lucifer and Michael tore into one another, Sam slipped from the Devil’s embrace, more willing to face the burn of Hellfire than the vicious blows of Heaven’s Warrior. Only then could he go to the far reaches of the Cage, and every time things looked just a little bit different; he could see more, and farther, the actual rings of Hell while he stood at the very center.

            Screaming in Hell never felt like release, but it was even more pointless to suffer in silence. Hell was Hell—there was no shame in it. (There was nothing that wasn’t shameful in Hell.) Sam screamed. He screamed until Lucifer came back, and then sometimes they would scream together until they drowned out the sounds of Hell around them.

            He didn’t start hearing things until later. Lucifer noticed when Sam stopped in the middle of carving his name (his sigil; Lucifer taught him) into a loose representation of the Archangel’s heart, fingers stilled as he strained to hear… Dean, it was Dean. Lucifer sighed, halfway between genuine and mocking, pained and euphoric, and purred that it was just another punishment for an angel in the Cage; to hear the world outside of it and be able to do nothing. Sam ate Lucifer’s heart and didn’t feel any better.

            Sam didn’t like to think as much anymore, but he was still smart, and sometimes there were lulls where he was self-aware and guilty enough to consider his lot. What he and Lucifer did to one another was torture, but was it mutually consensual or retaliatory? It had been so long. He couldn’t remember ever deciding to start.

            Lucifer liked when he engaged.

            He though about demons. When he was alone, he wondered about himself, and then about Lucifer. No matter what the Archangel thought, Sam couldn’t help but wonder…could it be that they both really were demons? Profane things that wore such bright light over their corruption? Physically or metaphysically, their dark spots were only darker beside the shining light. It didn’t even require much looking to see that.

            Michael wasn’t looking after Adam, not like Lucifer looked after Sam. Adam was starting to blacken at the edges. If he turned demon, would the Archangel’s presence destroy him?

            (What would it have been like if Dean were here with him instead?)

            And then…

            “Sam?...Sam…Sam! Sammy!”

            That was—that was Dean. He sounded like—

            “No…no-nonononono. Oh God… Oh God… Sam!”

            It sounded like Dean was in Hell.

            “NO!”

            It had already been seen once; Sam Winchester did drastic, world shattering things when his brother went to Hell.

            He wasn’t in Hell anymore—or the Cage, anyway, Sam couldn’t tell. It might’ve been Hell—he still hurt, nothing made sense, and the only thing leading him was the feel of his brother’s voice.

            “What am I supposed to do? Sammy. God.”

            Sam didn’t think about Lucifer, or how he had slipped both the Archangel’s hold and the Cage’s bars.

            “What am I supposed to do?”

            Dean. Dean. He had to get to Dean and—something. Do something.

            “WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?!”

            He was going to do it. He had everything in the trunk; picture, grave dirt, yarrow… Dean shut his eyes to block out the sight of his little brother, too still, too pale on a dirty mattress. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. He was supposed to have protected Sammy, kept him from getting hurt, from…

            …dying…

            Sam didn’t deserve this. He was the only one in their messed-up family that could’ve gotten out, that did get out. He didn’t deserve…this.

            Dean couldn’t do it, couldn’t be here, alive, alone. Not when his little brother, his Sammy, was gone.

            Dean was selfish, and he was gonna get Sammy back.

            He breathed in deep, shuddery, and didn’t even try to hell himself that the burning in his eyes and the wetness on his cheeks was anything but what it was. God, Sam.

            There was a piercing screech of sound and a blinding flash of light, bright enough to burn his eyes even behind his eyelids, behind his back.

            And then…

            Breathing. Great, wavering heaves, the kind taken by someone who’d just drowned. Someone with no air in their lungs, and were starving for it.

            Coming from the bed behind him.

            From Sam.

            Dean whipped around, too stunned to feel anything at the sight of Sam, sitting up and gasping, blood hemorrhaging from his nose and his eyes wild. It wasn’t possible, it couldn’t be possible, but…

            “Sam?” His fingers itched for the holy water on the table, tattoo be damned, but it was Sam. Then Sam looked at him, eyes bright, scared, too much white.

            “D-Dean?” It took a minute for his eyes to focus, but Sam looked him in the eye. And damnit, it was that same look he used to give when he was still too small to hunt, when Dean came back with Dad from one of the bad hunts—one of the ones where they were gone too long, or came back with him bloodier than he should be, new wound messily stitched because even then, Sam could do it neater than Dad. And that look just wasn’t fuckin’ fair, because Dean wasn’t the one that just rose from the dead like something out of a Romero flick.

            “Dean.” Sammy said, less a question this time, shaking bad but there. And then his eyes flicked over Dean’s shoulder and his already pale –pale as death– face leeched bone white, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he went down.

            Dean didn’t even think, didn’t hesitate, to lunge for the mattress when Sam slumped down, one hand going for his neck and the other his chest. And there it was, what he’d been wishing for since it left—rise and fall under one palm, pulse under the other, both unsteady and too fast but undeniably there.

            Right then, he didn’t even care it was too good to be true, because he knew that this was Sam.

            Dean laid his head down on his brother’s chest and just…unclenched. Let go. But just for a minute before that ‘something’s not right’ niggle –the sense that was fine-honed and had saved his bacon more times than he could count– started up. Sam’s heartbeat wasn’t slowing down.

            Dean wanted to kick his own ass as he manhandled his yeti of a little brother onto his side because –fuck– the kid was stabbed in the back and could still be bleeding out—

            His breath hissed out through his teeth in one long sound. The hole in his brother’s back was gone. Scarred over. A knot of slivery-white that looked more like marble than anything, even if it felt like skin under his fingers. Sam didn’t so much as twitch, though there was a suspiciously whimpery noise coming from his throat now.

            Alright. Screw this. He needed Bobby.

            And if he dumped a little holy water on Sam on the way there, well, he was only being careful.

            “Sam. Sam. Sammy! Open those eyes, Sammy, you’re gonna want to see this.”

            Lucifer.

            Sam opened his eyes to Lucifer standing over him, and an intricate –Key of Solomon– Devil’s Trap on the ceiling. There was so much wrong with that that Sam very nearly passed out again, the very first thing being that Lucifer looked like he was wearing Nick again, and not the True Form Archangel that he’d grown accustomed to.

            This wasn’t Hell. Sam knew Hell, Lucifer knew Hell, and this wasn’t Hell.

            “Sshhh, Sam, listen.” His eyes twitched over and caught Lucifer’s smirk, and the exasperated eyeroll at the confusion that must’ve been plain on his face. “Don’t tell me you forgot already? Sammy. You’ve been pining after him for how long, and you don’t remember Dean?”

            That was it—that’s what got Sam up like a fire’d been lit under him. There’d been Dean, he’d needed Sam, been screaming for him, and—

            And Sam slipped the Cage. Somehow found himself in his body with Dean above him…and Lucifer standing over Dean’s shoulder, laughing like it was the world’s biggest joke. There’d been something hauntingly familiar about it, but Sam just couldn’t think—

            “Come on Sam, listen already, will you? You’re missing the good part!” It didn’t make any sense; if he was out, what was Lucifer doing here? Why wasn’t he possessing Sam? How was he even here? Because Sam was sure now; this was Bobby’s house and— “Sam!” How was no one coming to check in with Lucifer yelling like that?!

            “Shut up,” Sam hissed, even as he staggered over to the doorway Lucifer was peering through. He was struck by a spike of confusion—since when was there a couch in the study? But there was now, he had been sleeping on it…and it was right under the strongest Devil’s Trap in the house. Something in the vicinity of his heart unclenched when he was able to pass through it unhindered.

            He stopped beside the Devil, ignoring the icy hand that closed possessively around the back of his neck—that wasn’t what was giving him chills. It was Dean, Bobby and Ellen around the kitchen table, pale and strained. And Dean, Sam knew what was off now—he looked so damn young…

            “Tell me that’s not what I think it is. Why would Colt build a hundred mile Devil’s Trap?”

            Lucifer started laughing again as his hand inched up into Sam’s hair in a motion like anyone else would pet a cat, all mirth and barbed affection. “Congratulations, Sam. You went and did it now; you went ahead and broke the world.”

            Dean was doing everything he could to stay focused and not think about his little brother comatose in the next room, carefully centered under a Devil’s Trap. No matter how damn disturbing it was to have Sam out of sight, he had a job to do and it couldn’t wait, not for anything. Not for, Jesus Christ…

            “Tell me that’s not what I think it is. Why would Colt build a hundred mile Devil’s Trap?”

            Dean didn’t know how he heard it, but he did. That same quiet little whimper Sam’d kept up the whole drive to Sioux Falls—and damnit, was that fucked up or what? Sam didn’t whimper, not even when he was so beat up he couldn’t move, not even when he was a kid—only it was behind him now, too loud for his brother to still be in Bobby’s study.

            “Sam,” And fuck that, fuck it, Dean’s voice didn’t come out cautious. Just because Bobby had no fucking clue how Sammy was breathing, either, just because he’d passed every monster test they could think of. He was not freaked out by his brother, but when do Winchesters ever get what they wished for without some fucking serious strings attached? “Sammy, you okay?” God, he wanted to kick himself. His little brother rose from the dead, of-fucking-course he wasn’t okay.

            Bobby and Ellen were watching Sam, too, no doubt seeing the same things he did, even if they didn’t get it the way Dean did. Sammy had his shoulders hunched, his chin practically touching his chest, but he was watching them through tangled bangs with wide, wild eyes. And Dean got that part; that was Sammy’s freaked face, sort of how he looked after he got a vision. No, the part Dean didn’t get was the way he was angling his body to one side, why his eyes kept darting slightly in that same direction, why his hand looked like it was holding onto something where there was only empty space.

            He didn’t say anything, though.

            “Sam, boy, say somethin’.” Bobby sounded understandably cautious, but if his hand got any closer to that gun he hand under the table, Dean would have to clock him. He wouldn’t pull that punch, neither.

            “Sammy, c’mon man.” And there went his little brother’s eyes again, and that was really starting to piss him off –and freak him the fuck out– because that was Sam’s ‘I’m listening’ face but it wasn’t at any of them. “Sam!” That got his attention, and God, how could that kid still pull off the puppy eyes?

            His giant little brother stumbled into the room, looking around like he expected everything to disappear if he didn’t pay close enough attention. He got right up to the table, and it was all Dean could do not to twitch at all the tension the two older hunters were radiating. Sam didn’t even seem to notice, his eyes –too wide, too wet; something was wrong– on the map of Wyoming spread out across the table, complete with connect-the-dots star.

            Almost like he was in a trance, Sam reached out and tapped the little boneyard marked right in the middle of the star. “Hell Gate,” he murmured, like he wasn’t dropping the conversational equivalent of an H-Bomb. Then his eyes –God damnit– darted to the side again and his whole face darkened with an unfamiliar sort of disdain. “Azazel.”

            “Sam—” It seemed like that was the only thing he’d been saying lately—Sam, Sam, Sam, as if he was trying to convince himself of something. But it was Sam, damn it, not some demon using him as a meatsuit. (Yellow Eyes hadn’t smoked at holy water, either, but that’s what the exorcism had been for.) It was impossible and there were so many things wrong that he didn’t have time for because the fuckin’ world might be ending. (And, shit, did he have to think that? Because now all he could remember was something Sam had rambled about years ago, how it said in the bible about the dead rising during the Apocalypse and fuck.)

            “Dean, we have to hurry.” His baby brother was staring at him imploringly, already the most he’d said since coming back to life. All the breath left Dean, like he’d been holding it and hadn’t noticed; he’d started to wonder if Sam had come back with brain damage or something. (He’d already been dead more than a day.) He almost missed what came next with how quickly Sam was speaking once he got started. “We have to get there before Jake can open the Gate, Dean, he’s working for Azazel and he’s going to let out a demon army if we don’t—”

            “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Sammy, hold the phone! Jake? Who the hell’s Azazel?” The ‘confused’ line formed between Sam’s eyebrows and, again, his eyes focused on something that wasn’t there before they went sad and wet, like he was about to cry. Ellen was looking less like a wary hunter and more like a mom who wanted to wrap the kid in bubble wrap and keep him safe forever. Dean sympathized. He’d always wanted that for Sam, almost as much as he wanted him hunting right alongside him.

            “Dean,” Bobby said quietly, also watching Sam like he wanted to tell the kid to lay down, but also like he was an old book full of very interesting lore. “Azazel’s a demon name. A powerful, old demon.”

            It hit him like ice water dumped over his head. “Yellow Eyes?” Dean was embarrassed by the croak that was his voice, but then— “Sammy, did you say a demon army?”

            Sam wasn’t looking at him anymore, though –surprise, surprise– but at the empty space at his side, forehead crumpled like he was solving a hard problem. Or like he was hearing something that made no sense. All on their own, Sam’s eyes made their way back to him—to his chest. And before he could blink he had his arms full of giant baby brother and Sam…Sam was clutching onto his amulet like it was a lifeline. Dean patted his back awkwardly for a minute, then gave in and hugged the kid when he started flinching for no reason. He didn’t like that pitying look on Ellen’s face, and almost missed Sam’s muttering as he thought of a way to tell her to fuck off without getting himself shot.

            “You didn’t sell your soul—you can’t Dean, you can’t go to Hell, you can’t.” If that cold feeling didn’t stop coming on soon he’d start shivering, he was sure. Instead, Dean swallowed it and put his hands on Sam’s shoulders, pushed him back until he could see his brother’s face.

            “This a psychic thing, Sammy?” But Sam was back to not answering, and this time Dean could feel the fine tremors shaking through him as too-bright hazel eyes went to empty space and then to the other two hunters that he hadn’t acknowledged before then.

            “We need to go. Now. Jake has the Colt, he’ll open the Hell Gate.” Sam shuddered, hands gripping the sleeves of Dean’s jacket, tight, like a lifeline. “He’s one of the psychic kids. He can do mind-whammys now, like Andy. You need to kill him before he can talk to you.” Dean very carefully did not look at Bobby, did not need to see what face he was making at hearing Sam –Sam– say they needed to kill some human, psychic or not. Didn’t want to see an incarnation of ‘It might not be Sam’ or ‘He coulda come back wrong’.

            “Sammy,” Dean said slowly and, damnit, carefully. “Sammy, who is Jake?”

            Sam blinked hazily, but was still wearing a shadow of his ‘why don’t you know this, jerk?’ face. “Cold Oak. He killed me, Dean.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 2

“Aww, Sammy, that’s sweet. Look at you clinging to big brother. You know he thinks you’re nuts, right?” Sam shot Lucifer a vicious look and said nothing, but didn’t loosen the death grip he had on the sleeve of Dean’s jacket, either. Dean didn’t mind. Dean was the one that had Sam sit on the chair next to him in the first place. The Devil smirked at him and made a show of looking around the room, but especially at where Ellen and Bobby were still looking at the map. “Tick-tock, Sam. You don’t leave soon and that Gate’s gonna get blown wide open. Might not even get closed, and then you’ll have really done it.”

He was right. Lucifer was very, very right. Sam tore his eyes away from the amulet resting against Dean’s sternum and blinked hard, disoriented and trying to make himself focus. Remember. It had been so long ago now, and he had been confused, fresh from his very first death, but he knew there was a very strict deadline here. Jake had practically flown to Wyoming with the fire Azazel had lit under him.

Though he was trying hard not to think about it too much, Sam knew exactly when he was. It was hard not to, the way it had been branded into his memory; then, some of the worst days of his life. The fact that he was here at all, in his years-younger body (his non-demon-blood-addicted body) meant he’d already managed to break the ‘you can’t change the past’ tenant, so he figured, why not? Save Dean from Hell. Save the world from a whole lot of suffering. Keep the Apocalypse off the table.

(If he could.)

(He had to try.)

Just by getting out of the Cage, coming back when he had, had saved Dean from selling his soul. The next step was keeping the Hell Gate closed.

The idea was made easier by Lucifer’s unspoken agreement. The Fallen Archangel didn’t like demons, either. Sam couldn’t quite get a lock on Lucifer’s angle in all this –the Gate was one of the starting points to the Cage opening, after all– but the Devil pretty much seemed to let Sam do what he wanted with no interference. He looked amused, though. He hadn’t actually stopped looking amused since Sam woke up.

“Sam.” He blinked and looked away from Lucifer –the angel was staring dubiously into a pot on the stove– to Bobby (Bobby—he still remembered the feeling of Grace wrapped around his head and twist—), who looked like he wanted to say something but was biting his tongue. It was like the softer cousin of the look Sam could hazily recall Bobby giving John before that last fight. But it might’ve had more to do with the ‘I’m one wrong look from shooting you full of holes’ vibe Dean was leaking everywhere. “How’d you find out about all this?”

Oh, right, Dean didn’t know, so Bobby couldn’t know, either. But there was more to that… Sam hadn’t told him about the Battle Royale, the other psychics. Azazel’s supposed plan. When he looked, Dean was watching him, and his brother didn’t know. About Mary (mom, no, but she gave him to Lucifer before he was even born) or her deal with Yellow-Eyes, or the demon blood. Or angels and True Vessels (but Dean hadn’t really known about that before, either, because he’d never said Yes to Michael).

Sam wasn’t even aware that he’d stopped breathing until Lucifer had snuck an ice-cold hand up under the front of his shirt and shocked him into gasping a deep hit of air into his lungs. The Devil was draped over his shoulder, breathing air that smelled like snow and blood and ozone and ash over the side of his face, looming like a threat and a promise. Sam wanted to crawl into his skin, just like in the Cage, and shivered when Lucifer curled his fingers and drew stinging lines across his stomach. “Go ahead, Sam, you can do it. Tell big brother all about Azazel’s naughty game and the winner’s prize. You could even tell him how my servant chose you, or what he did to you all.”

Sam couldn’t quite get his eyes to focus, the feeling of Grace in him like bottled lightning, but he still found Dean; Bobby asked, but Dean deserved to know. Lucifer shifted, stubble dragging roughly across Sam’s cheek, and Sam’s back bowed slightly under the increased pressure. “Azazel told me. He collected us all, and told us only one would walk away. One winner. He said he wanted a general to lead his army.” His already blurry vision distorted further, but Sam wasn’t particularly worried, because Dean was here, and this Dean didn’t have a reason to think that Sam was a monster, yet. Lucifer chuckled in his ear and moved far enough away that Sam could just barely see his face out of the corner of his eye, cold fingers tapping out ‘Dead or Alive’ across his throat. Sam swallowed, eyes hot.

“I don’t want to go alone, Dean.”

“Christ, boy, I don’t think you’re ready to go anywhere, alone or not!” Not even Ellen’s sudden intrusion –he’d thought she was still busy poking around Bobby’s bookcases for more info on ‘Azazel’– could make Dean look away from his baby brother, who was lost in his own little world again.

He really, really didn’t want to admit it, but Sam was starting to scare him.

Not that he had any doubts, no; this was Sammy. Dean could feel it, just like he felt it when Sam had died (a screaming cold black pit yawning open behind his heart), but Sammy was wrong somehow. It had a lot to do with whatever his little brother was seeing that the rest of them weren’t.

Too bad that he believed Sam too much to give that problem the attention it deserved. It wouldn’t matter much if Sammy wasn’t all there if the world got taken over by a demon army, would it? Especially not if they were all led by the dick that’d killed him in the first place.

“C’mon, Sammy.” He reached out for his brother, mind made up, and was glad that Sam cooperated in standing with only a tug on his elbow. Dean wasn’t sure what he’d do if Sam fought him. “You two comin’?” He didn’t look at the two other hunters he was talking to, too focused on trying to figure out the expression on Sam’s face, why he kept tilting his head to one side like that.

“Dean, Sam’s not in any shape to go—”

He cut Bobby off without even looking, towing Sam in the direction of the bathroom –kid hadn’t said anything about needing it, but, well– and doing a damn good job of keeping his voice lighter than it wanted to be. “All hands on deck, Bobby. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think it’s a great idea to leave Sam here alone. They already got him once, and look how that turned out.”

He looked at them over his shoulder just before he shut the door behind him, at Ellen’s bleached-white lips and the way Bobby’d tugged the brim of his hat low. They weren’t arguing, at least. “I’m leaving when Sammy’s done.” ‘Be ready if you’re coming.’

Sam still looked completely out of it, but he twitched and gave a full body shiver by the time Dean got him in front of the toilet. It was enough of a clue that he backed off as much as he could in the cramped bathroom and let his brother take care of his business by himself, ready to lunge if it looked like he was gonna fall. He was fine, though, if you ignored the twitches and the way his eyes kept tracking things that weren’t there. They were surprisingly clear when he met Dean’s in the mirror above the sink.

“Ready to go?” Sam blinked and turned around, wiping his wet hands on his jeans and only briefly looking at the whole lotta nothing at his shoulder.

“Wyoming?” He was quiet, not hopeful but almost. Dean suddenly had a horrible thought about what Sam had said earlier, about going alone. A nasty suspicion that Sam would’ve snuck off by himself if they’d taken too long to decide.

Dean was a good brother, though, so he didn’t say anything about it to his obviously traumatized, newly resurrected little brother. If his voice came out hoarse and raw from holding it inside, he ignored it, and Sam wasn’t all there enough to notice.

“Yeah, Sam. We’re gonna get the fucker that killed you and keep those demons in Hell.”

The smile that Sam gave him in return was small and not…

(not his own)

“Thanks, Dean.”

Dean swallowed around the lump in his throat. “No problem, Sammy.”

Like keeping the Gate shut, getting that Jake guy back, was a favor.

Seeing the Impala again was…

“Home sweet home,” Lucifer said from the backseat as Sam sank as deeply as he could into the front, the smell of aged leather, sweat, and blood almost taking him into a stupor. Dean was still outside, talking to Bobby and Ellen, his back a stiff line like he was making a point. There was something strange about that, but then Lucifer’s hand was on the back of his neck, thumb pressing his vertebra, and Sam couldn’t help rolling his neck, feeling it crack. “Gonna keep letting big brother play the big, strong protector for you, Sammy? Azazel’s going to cut him down like nothing. I can’t imagine he’s very happy about missing out on another Righteous Man’s soul.”

“I’ll kill him before he can,” Sam muttered, because he would, and didn’t move when the Archangel started pushing cold fingers through his hair, complaining that it was too short.

“How, thought? Yeah, there’s the Colt…if you can get it. Or, you could be smart and—” he snapped –Sam sawfelt the sensation of Grace reaching and—(Castiel a spray of fine blood and barely-there Grace). “You’ve got the juice for it.”

(can I/I can)

“No.” Working hard to swallow down bile, Sam shook his head instead of repeating that singled syllable until his tore his throat bloody.

“No?” The hand tightened in his hair, sharp brief pain, before it relaxed again. “I didn’t think you remembered ‘no’ anymore, Sam. I’m happy you kept that rebellious streak, but I gotta ask. Why no?”

Sam peeked at the Archangel out of the corner of his eye, still half expecting light and incomprehensible form, and got an expectantly raised eyebrow from Nick’s patient face. He watched the leather of the seat back dip under Lucifer’s fingers, hands settling on either side of Sam’s head, the smell of sub-arctic ashes blocking out the scent of home as Lucifer leaned in close.

“Dean wouldn’t want me to.” There was more to that, there had to be, but the cold was making him shiver too hard to think.

“I dunno Sam,” Lucifer said, dubious. “I don’t think big brother would mind too much. It’s not like he knows where you got ‘em from this time.”

This time. No, Dean didn’t know about the demon blood. This time. This time, anything he had didn’t come from the blood; it came from Lucifer. Dean probably wouldn’t like that any better, and Sam said so.

Lucifer was back to running his fingers through Sam’s hair when he replied with an amused huff of breath. “Dean doesn’t believe in angels yet, does he Sammy? You say you get your powers from Satan, and what’ll big brother think? You’re nuts.”

Lucifer was right. Lucifer was always right.

“I don’t want to.” Sam said quietly, instead of ‘no’, but…

“You can’t lie to me, Sam,” Replied the Devil, the fingers in his hair suddenly a fist, his throat bared when Lucifer pulled. Cold breath over his pulse when the Archangel hissed, “Say what you mean.”

Sam swallowed with difficulty, throat clicking. “I won’t…unless I need to.” Lucifer gentled his grip but Sam stayed just where he was, watching his face. It had been easier to understand the angel while they were still in the Cage.

“You will.” Lucifer looked surprised when, in retaliation, Sam contorted enough to twist and bite down on his wrist. Not quite enough to completely break skin –the briefest taste of bitter poison and superheated copper– but enough to make him hiss and then laugh as he tore the limb from Sam’s teeth, just close enough that if he—

“Who ya talkin’ to, Sammy?” Dean asked from just outside the door, and Sam hadn’t even noticed him coming. His hands were pushed deep into the pockets of their dad’s old leather jacket, almost casual if Sam hadn’t known every one of his brother’s tells. Dean may as well have been speaking it, because Sam could hear him saying: “What’s wrong? Oh God just tell me what’s wrong—what can I do?”

And then there was Lucifer, firm hands on either side of his throat, gentle but steadily increasing pressure until sparks were popping in the darkness creeping over his eyes.

“Not yet, Sammy,” the Devil whispered, burning his ear with the subzero wisp of his breath. “You can tell Dean all about being Satan’s bunk-buddy later. I think you need a nap.”

Sam didn’t answer, his eyes glazing over and slowly falling shut, and Dean didn’t think he’d imagined the brief flash of sheer panic across his brother’s face just before. It made him want to punch something. Sadly, there was only Sam, which was unacceptable, or the Impala, and she didn’t deserve it.

Bobby and Ellen were waiting on him, piled into one of Bobby’s fixer-uppers across the yard, and Dean knew what it felt like when someone was staring at him; he’s damn sure that they’re watching. Wondering. He almost wished he didn’t need the two other hunters for this clusterfuck.

It’d been Ellen that saw Sam moving around through the Impala’s windows, twisting in the front seat like he was trying to crawl into the upholstery, and then freezing. His brother, suddenly, eerily still. And then his lips moving. Stopping, tilting his head. Listening. Shaking his head, lips moving over and over, ‘no’.

“Dean…How was it you said Sam came back?” Ellen asked slowly, when she damn well knew Dean hadn’t said a single thing to her about it. His mouth was dry, though, watching Sam talking to something that wasn’t there. Watch him duck his head the same way he had when he was really little and Dean would ruffle that ridiculous mop of hair.

“A bright light, made my eyes feel like they were gonna melt.” Dean rasped through a throat that kept trying to close, not really thinking until it was already out. Ellen was a hunter, and not someone he’d known for most of his life like Bobby. It felt like fighting a magnetic pull, but he managed to drag his eyes off his brother long enough to glare at her. “Don’t you say anything about Sam, Ellen, I heard enough from Bobby already. It’s him.”

“I ain’t sayin’ he’s not,” she said, tired, and just for a minute Dean wondered how long it’d been since she’d slept. The Roadhouse had burned something like two days ago, and she couldn’t have had much time to rest on the run. “Just…You don’t know how he’s even alive, Dean. What coulda brought him back. Maybe somethin’ came back with him. It wouldn’t be the first time I saw a spirit stick to someone, and your brother bein’ psychic?” Ellen reached out, hand on his elbow and gentle pressure to face her that he ignored to keep his eyes on Sam. She sighed. “I’m just sayin’ that he doesn’t seem…all there, Dean. You have to consider he might not—”

“Might not nothin’.” Dean shook her off. “Don’t you dare say that shit where Sammy can hear you.” And then he went to his brother.

The drive to the Devil’s Gate was long, and quiet. Dean didn’t want to take the risk of waking Sam, so the radio stayed off, and the only sounds besides the roar of the engine came from his brother, a low rumbling that never quite made it out as words. Bobby led the way with Ellen navigating from shotgun, and it was something he was distantly grateful for because Dean spent almost as much time watching Sam as he did the road.

Sam slept, and Dean worried; unformed thoughts and feelings of slow, creeping dread. The same sort of sick unease he felt after Dad told him that if he couldn’t save Sam…

(Save his from what? This? But he’d already died and hadn’t stayed that way, and anyway, Dean couldn’t.)

The Impala jolted over thick iron tracks, a little too hard because there was no way they were going to slow down and get caught by the demons that must’ve been lurking around, and Sam’s breath hitched for the first time in hours, since he’d gone out so suddenly. When Dean snuck a look, glazed hazel eyes were watching him back, an almost golden shine in the light of a bloody orange sunset.

“Sam?” His voice came out rough from so many hours of silence, almost drowned out by the growl of the engine. Sam pushed himself out of the corner made by the seat and door, confused but not as vacant as he had been, looking around the car, at Dean, the scraggly wilderness outside the window.

“Dean, where?” He wasn’t as weak or quiet this time, either. The only thing that kept Dean from going completely weak from sheer relief was the sentence fragment; that was usually a sign Sammy was getting sick, but now..?

“We just passed the tracks, Sammy. We’ll be there soon.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw his brother’s mouth open, the familiar wrinkle between his eyes, and the jarringly strange way he tilted his head as he closed his mouth without having said a word. That’s what made him turn his head to really look at his brother—the road was straight, anyway. “What is it, Sam?”

Sam’s eyes settled on the empty back seat for a torturously long minute –Dean fought down a shiver through sheer bullheaded stubborn– before he wet his lips and actually looked at him. The sun hadn’t quite set yet; the shine of it in his brother’s eyes was still there, a weird pale gold that made the lingering blankness of Sam’s face seem…inhuman. “Can you put on some music?” Sam kept staring, like he’d forgotten the rules about eye-contact since he passed out, and Dean had to look away this time.

“Requests?” There was that head tilt again; he saw it from the corner of his eye, just like when Sam looked at the back seat again.

“Stairway to Heaven.” Dean relaxed into the cradle of the seat at the sound of a smile in his little brother’s voice. Sam even handed him the right cassette…though he didn’t think he had forgotten to rewind the tape last time. The first notes came out of the speakers low and distorted. Sam might’ve been humming along under his breath.

“Sam?” Dean swore he could feel a physical weight touch the side of his face; Sam made a noise, only slightly louder than the engine. “Sammy, how did you come back?” The song finished and one of Sam’s long fingers ejected the tape before his brother spoke again.

Dean almost instantly regretted asking.

“I heard you screaming for me, Dean,” Dean bit down on his cheek hard enough to taste blood, fighting down another cold chill at how distant Sam sounded. “I couldn’t leave you in Hell alone.”

It wasn’t the answer he’d asked for, –how?– but the why was enough to lock him up completely. By the time he could manage to look at Sam again his brother’s eyes had gone vacant and mostly closed, his body twisted halfway around to the back.

That was something else he was going to have to force out of Sam, now that it looked like these comatose episodes were going to be Sam’s new ‘normal’ (hopefully only temporarily, but who was he kidding? Winchester Luck.). Sure, his little brother had been sensitive to shit like ghosts since his ESP crap had started up; hell, that thing with Mom at their old house had proved it well enough. If Sam had somehow picked up a…ghostly tagalong from his trip through the veil, Dean needed to know who it was so he could burn that fucker’s bones. No spectral parasite was allowed to leech off his brother.

He must’ve been more distracted that he thought, because Dean didn’t even notice that Bobby had stopped –that he had as well– until the passenger door slammed shut and he was staring at Sam’s back as he wove through a field of crumbling headstones. Dean scrambled out of the car, barely remembering to check that he had a gun tucked into his jeans as he took off after Sam. The string of sour curses on his tail implied that at least Bobby’d decided to follow. Hopefully Ellen had the sense to ammo up before she came after them.

For a heart-stopping minute, Dean completely lost sight of his compromised little brother in the gloom, and it took every bit of pride he had –and a little more– to keep from screaming right there in front of Bobby. All he could think of was Sam, collapsed, a bleeding hole in his back, and that same fucker that did it last time was supposed to be here. He ran, almost tripping over the crumbling remains of an old cross, and had to clamp down hard to keep from lunging at Sam and checking him over. The need to make sure that Sam wasn’t hurt –hadn’t been hurt the minute Dean wasn’t watching him– was overwhelming. Like how it had been after Sam had been kidnapped by those fucked-up hillbillies, times a million.

But Sam was fine. And that was what stopped Dean dead in his tracks, a violent shudder shaking him. Sam was sitting in the cold dirt, his back flush against the door of a crypt (and he’d bet anything that it was the fucking Devil’s Gate), head tipped back and mouth moving slowly. A couple steps closer and Dean could hear him, and then he couldn’t make himself go any farther. He was still frozen in place when Bobby came up next to him.

“Is he singing?” Bobby asked dubiously, and then more alarmingly. “What language is that?”

Dean swallowed thickly and somehow managed not to step backwards when alien hazel eyes almost seemed to glare at him before they went back to peaceably staring up at nothing, voice not faltering once.

“I dunno, Bobby, but Sam can’t hold a note to save his life.” The noise coming from his brother’s throat was low and smooth and like something from a freaking choir.

That wasn’t Sam.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3

Cold iron a sharp pressure at his back – the barrier between Hell and Sam a bubble-membrane’s thickness, but impenetrable without the right key.

(Cage or Gate? Cage or Gate?)

The searing burn at his back, the biting cold before him, and there was Lucifer, looming. An impossible, incomprehensible (but not, because he was Sam and Sam was him) creature. Even wearing the visage of his former vessel, the Fallen Archangel was still more than tall enough to block Sam’s sight, standing firmly with his feet bracketing Sam’s knees. He had to crane his neck back to look Lucifer in the eyes, see the smirk he already knew was there.

Lucifer liked it when Sam had to look up at him.

Then, Lucifer opened his mouth and sang, soft and pure, like nothing a creature of Hell should sound like. The first word hadn’t even fallen before Sam joined him, mindlessly and almost at peace, because this was special and Lucifer never let him forget it.

The singing had been there nearly from the beginning, because Sam often thought of Dean and Lucifer knew everything that Sam thought, so classic rock sung duet by the Fallen Archangel and his True Vessel’s bared soul filled the time between the angel’s battles. It only changed later, when Michael grew listless and derisive of his brother, and Lucifer turned the full capacity of his attention to the soul he never let go far.

The first time Lucifer truly sang to Sam, it was tainted with a spited, bitter, vengeful sort of glee, and the angel took care to hide it from Michael; the Fallen had drawn Sam deep into his core and crooned verse after verse of sweet Enochian to him for what felt like –and probably had been– decades. He did it until Sam could sing with him; every word, tone and note, confident and pure. And, when Lucifer had finally unfolded from him, softly, exposing him to the brutal heat and darkness of the Cage, the Devil began to sing again, Sam with him, and Michael sang back.

Michael sang back, until the song ended, and the First was still as if entranced.

And then, Heaven’s Warrior turned wrathful. He was hot fury and thunderous sound, bearing down on them with the aim to rip Sam from Lucifer and destroy. Even in Hell, there was only so long one could fear before that part simply broke, and so Sam had seen it for what it was – (had known it anyway, because he was a little brother)–, Lucifer doing something, anything, to get a reaction from Michael.

It sparked a battle more fierce than any Sam had ever seen; had it taken place on Earth, he knew with certainty that nothing would’ve survived. Lucifer kept Sam tucked inside the entire time, because the mirror-image wounds that appeared from Michael’s attacks were less devastating than the raw wash of volatile Grace the two put off. Their fight lasted lifetimes. The silence after was deathly, all of Hell held still.

In the end, that was what had ruined Adam, blackened by Michael’s fire and shattered by Lucifer’s ice. The angels never noticed; Sam wondered that he could still care enough that he had.

Lucifer drew Sam even more deeply into himself, where Michael couldn’t hear, and sang once more. All of Heaven’s songs, and then others, Enochian twisted into the profane that must’ve been Lucifer’s own; it all came easier after the first, the one that set Michael off.

“It was the Archangel’s Hymn,” the Devil crooned, holding Sam open and immobile, searing tender sigils into his soft insides. “Michael had a part, and I, and Raphael, Gabriel. It hasn’t been sung since before my Fall, long before my name was struck from the Archives of Heaven and I became Lucifer.” The burning cold light of his Grace wrapped around Sam’s heart –the illusion of his heart; his body was gone and Sam was little more than light and soul–, an inevitable bind like a parasitic vine.

“They don’t remember that name, but I do. I’m giving it to you now, Sam. Just for you. Pay attention now; this is your sigil.” The Grace around his heart –the core of his self, the center of what he was– turned sharp and so cold it felt hot, and the Fallen carved.

“Heylel,” Lucifer purred, dark but so very bright, the sudden end of a star being swallowed by a black hole. “Sam, Sammy, Samuel. Sam-u-el. Another name for you, Sam. Boy King. Heylel. My other half: All these names are nothing less than you deserve. You should have more.”

Slowly, slowly, the Devil drew himself out, unwrapped and uncoiled and unfolded multitudes of sharp-bright wings. Sam quivered and shook from the exposure, the raw agony at his very center, but when Lucifer began the first verse, Sam’s voice rang out steady and true. Heylel’s part of the Archangel’s Hymn, sung duet.

Michael sang back, call-and-return, and the cycle began again.

It was a reflex, deeper than any muscle memory. When Lucifer sang, so did Sam. And this time, the First Archangel didn’t sing back, and it made Sam angry, because Michael had never foregone his part of the Hymn. Had never looked ready to fight before he even sang.

“Oh, Sam,” Lucifer sighed, leaning down, a hand on Sam’s cheek turning his head away from…that wasn’t Michael? “My poor, broken Sammy. Already forgetting. You got us out of the Cage and rewrote history, all for a brother you can’t even remember.” Lucifer tipped his head to the side, contemplative, and sank down to Sam’s level, straddling his knees. The hand on his cheek moved, cold fingers lightly brushing his throat. “Although, if you had to mistake anyone for my big brother, Dean really is the only one it could be. How much farther do you think we need to push until he turns to wrath?”

With difficulty, Sam choked down the quiet murmur of the Hymn, his throat tingling with numb cold as he clenched his teeth on the last syllable. He shook his head, once, twice, until it felt like his brain was swishing around and the difference between then-and-now, Cage-and-Gate, was a little clearer. He couldn’t ignore Lucifer, the unmovable weight of the Archangel planted on his knees and cold like icewater trailing down his neck, but he could see the graveyard for what it was. A dark spring night, Dean and Bobby standing at a distance, fear and betrayal etched into his brother’s face. It made him resemble the Dean Sam remembered from just after he had let Lucifer free.

It hurt like being gutted, slow agony and the promise of a long wait for death.

Dean was looking at him like Sam was a monster.

“No, Dean,” He couldn’t stand that look; Sam would’ve gladly taken Michael’s fire to ever seeing that look again. “Please, no.” What did he even do to deserve it?

(Nothing, yet.)

His brother took one step back, eyes hard, and Sam needed to go to him, to fix it somehow but Lucifer still wouldn’t move. Not when Sam pushed or clawed or screamed, and sometime in-between Dean and Bobby disappeared into the gloom of scraggly trees and deep shadows while Lucifer’s hand inexorably crawled up to cover his mouth and held until Sam could make himself stop.

“You’ll have time for that later,” the angel said, pale eyes almost colorless under the moon, cool and amused. “But you need to pay attention right now. What do you hear, Sammy?”

Sam glared hot death at the Archangel, both hands still wrapped around a wrist that felt more like stone than flesh. He listened, though; he couldn’t help but listen. It took a minute to get his lungs under control, so he wasn’t panting through his nose anymore, but Sam heard it. The silence. Not a single cricket chirped. Not a single, distant cicada. Sam swallowed dryly; Dean and Bobby couldn’t –wouldn’t– have gone far, and Ellen should’ve been nearby, too. But everything was so quiet. Lucifer finally allowed Sam to push his hand away; the Archangel looked expectant.

There was…something else, though. It wasn’t so much as if he was really hearing anything, but it was the closest sense his body could process. It grumbled like the stomach of a great, hungry beast, low; the sound the earth made, heard from the mouth of a deep cave.

Then, full minutes later, came the sound of snapping twigs and crunching leaves, the shuffle of someone coming closer. The sound-that-wasn’t came with it. The Devil’s lips curled, and the black-hole gravity of his weight slid off Sam’s legs, until they were suddenly pressed shoulder to shoulder instead.

“Know what that sound is?” the angel asked softly, as the previously steady crunch of leaves slowed, quieted. Caution, much too late. The rumbling was still there, louder, but easier to tune out by the second.

“Jake,” Sam said, reply, question and demand, all in one. (Lucifer was good at that, too.) Loud enough for the man who had murdered him to hear, clear enough that he would know who was saying his name.

(Dean was still out there somewhere (he had to be), in the dark with a killer who had powers that his brother couldn’t hope to protect himself from. The thought of it was almost enough to force Sam’s brittle, fragile-feeling body to stand, but.)

“That’s right, Sammy, but do you hear? Remember that?” The Devil wore his human form better than Sam, right then. It was…distracting. Distressing.

Remember what?

“It was a busy and exciting time, I know, so I’ll forgive you just this once.” Lucifer leaned harder into his side, as if he were trying to force them back into the same shape. “It’s almost the same sound you heard when we took care of Azazel’s little pack, back in Detroit. Jake over there embraced the blood, and is well on his way to being just another smoky bag of puss.” The Archangel’s lip curled. “Holy water might sting him now,” he added callously.

Jake was turning into a demon? But he hadn’t even drank any more blood—

“Did I ever sound like that?” his mouth asked without having consulted his brain at all. Lucifer’s laugh shook through him, long and low.

“No, Sam,” he murmured. “No, my sweet little abomination, you sounded like me. You always have.” His tone changed from contemplative to smug. “You sounded more like me than Dean did to Michael; that’s what really got the little seraphs so angry. How dare the boy with the demon blood be a better match than the elder brothers!”

Jake stepped out of the darkness, the Colt clutched in one hand, eyes wide and fever-bright. Sam blinked at him slowly, calm. Jake was in the open now, and that meant he was away from Dean. And he needed to get through Sam if he wanted the Gate open.

Lucifer started laughing, loud and carrying in the stillness of the graveyard.

“I killed you,” Jake accused, quiet, as if afraid of being heard. His eyes twitched, like he wanted to look around but couldn’t drag them away from where Sam sat, and the Colt was very slowly being lifted. Lucifer muttered a withering remark about the effectiveness of pea-shooters. “I killed you!” The not-sound grumbled under his voice, the whites of his eyes streaked through with sooty-black, and Sam felt a light push against his skin that made the Devil narrow his pale eyes dangerously at Azazel’s child and stand in one intimidatingly smooth movement.

“You’re going to Hell,” Sam murmured, eyes slowly tracking the blond angel as he went, the ghost-echo of his True Form leaking out around the edges, wings and tails and claws and horns. Everything that made an angel’s first words to a mortal “do not fear”; the very words that Lucifer never had and never would utter. It was almost enough to keep Sam from noticing the sudden appearance of something else, trailing Jake’s wake like fog, pale gray with only the vaguest suggestion of anything like a form. It seemed to condense when Jake suddenly jerked the Colt up, sighting Sam down the barrel.

“Yeah,” Jake said, the pale mist behind him molding into a human shape. “Yeah, I am, and you’re in my way.”

And all at once there was a Reaper standing over Jake’s shoulder, Lucifer laughing gaily, and Azazel’s Child toppled over sideways, dead, a bullet through his head while Dean came from the shadows with his own gun still raised.

“Looks like big brother’s still on your side after all, Sammy,” the Devil mused, suddenly beside Sam once more, both of them watching the Reaper watch them, even as it collected Jake’s thrashing soul. “Maybe that’s for the best. It’s gonna be a wild ride after this.”

Dean’s hands were rock steady on his gun, like they always were when he had a monster in his sights, and he kept it trained on the guy who had killed his brother until he was sure the fucker was stone cold dead. Then he let himself look at Sammy, still up against the crypt and serene the entire time…

No, that wasn’t true. Not the entire time. Just when he was staring down death again. He hadn’t been so serene when Dean’d turned tail like a coward, so absolutely sure that it hadn’t been his bother with his back to Hell and singing like an angel.

And maybe it hadn’t been Sam singing, but it had been Sam screaming, crying out for Dean to come back, thrashing like he was pinned, hands curled around something only he could see as his voice went muffled and his breathing went ragged. Until he went quiet in that way that Dean was pretty sure meant he was listening to his tagalong. Who Dean was now pretty fucking sure could possess his baby brother on a whim, fuck with him something damn close to physically without ever showing its ugly face to anyone but Sammy.

And, Christ, did it burn to have to stay hidden behind scraggly trees and half-gone gravestones, Bobby’s hand gripped tight on the back of his jacket while Sam was thirty feet away, thinking Dean had abandoned him. While Sam stayed down in the dirt, murmuring to the… thing only he could see, apparently unconcerned with what it could and had already done to him. Everything about it was just… wrong.

Dean was peripherally aware of Bobby following him out, Ellen slinking hunter-smooth from the direction of their cars with her gun still half up. He ignored them and went to his knees beside Sam, who was watching him like he wasn’t sure if Dean was real or not. And that stung. But Sam didn’t pull back when Dean reached out. He leaned into the hands Dean cradled his face with, hazel eyes big and imploring and watching him instead of the parasite that had attached itself to him.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean said, hoarse. “You alright, little brother?” He was close enough this time to hear Sam swallow, see his eyes go shiny-wet when his hands latched onto the front of Dean’s shirt. There was a speck of blood on Sam’s cheek, and Dean wiped it away with his thumb, the same way he’d done for as long as he could remember. “C’mon, c’mon, stand up for me, let’s get you outta here.”

Sam came up off the ground easily enough, but he felt cold when he leaned into Dean, like the crypt had leeched all his usual almost feverish heat from him. Without thought, Dean was shrugging out of his coat and tucking the worn soft leather around Sam’s shoulders, almost tuning out the quiet conversation going on behind his back until his brother lifted his head and made a small, indistinct noise.

“…should prob’ly burn him, no telling what sort of ghost would come from this boy.” Bobby was saying, and Dean felt that same hot rage bubble up inside him again. Forget burning him now; if he could, Dean would bring Jake back just to burn that fucker alive.

“I’m not arguin’ with you, Bobby, I just think that maybe we should be a little more worried about how we’re gonna get outta here. We’re surrounded by a storm of demons, if you hadn’t forgot. It’s a damned miracle we got past them on the way in, and I haven’t had a trace of a signal on my phone since we crossed those tracks.” Ellen sounded harsh, but more than that, she sounded worried.

Dean spared a second to look at Ellen and Bobby, just in time to see Bobby slipping his fossil of a cell phone back in his pocket with a shake of his head; Dean didn’t even bother reaching to check his own. He startled and caught Sam’s wrist when his hand suddenly moved, going for the knife sheathed at Dean’s hip.

“Whoa there, Sam, what’d you need that for?” He might’ve been a little more alarmed about Sammy suddenly going for his knife if his brother had fought the firm grip Dean had on him. He didn’t, though. Sam looked at him with more clarity and focus than he’d had since they got to this damned –literally– boneyard.

“I know a ward that can hide us from demons,” Sam said, eyes darting away quickly, narrowing, and coming back to rest on Dean. Dean tried to will his heartbeat steady, his voice calm and level. No matter how much he wanted to, now was still not the time to ask about his brother’s tagalong – undoubtedly the source of all this useful, hellish shit he should not know.

“Okay. So why do you need my knife?” Sam’s cool, bare wrist turned slightly under his fingers, though he still didn’t pull away. His brother had apparently forgotten the rules about holding prolonged eye contact again, though.

“The sigils need to be drawn in blood,” Sam said slowly. Then his head tilted a little, his voice changing just slightly. Lilting. “You didn’t give me my weapons back before we left. I need yours.”

“Does the blood need to be human?” Bobby’s voice made Dean jump; Sam didn’t so much as twitch, just looked the older hunter’s way with more of that unnerving focus. Sam didn’t look at people like that.

Bobby looked a little cautious, but he must’ve decided that their situation was too bad to pass up even the slightest chance of getting out of here, even if it meant trusting his unstable little brother and his spectral parasite. Sam narrowed his eyes a little and shook his head, expression still fixed in a way that made Dean’s hair stand on end; it looked cold, alien. Bobby nodded, doing a damn good job at keeping his own face clear of whatever the hell he felt about Sam just then. “Good. I got a jar of lamb’s blood back in the truck that’s still good. Do you need to put ‘em on us, or the cars?”

“The cars,” Sam answered without hesitation, though a second later his eyes drifted away from Bobby. Sam was clearly tracking…something…moving around between them, his eyebrows coming together, and when he spoke again he sounded faint, distracted. “They can’t know you’ve even left if you want to survive long enough to see Azazel dead. He’ll know something isn’t going to Plan already.”

It took Dean a second to realize why what Sam had said made him feel so on edge. Sam wasn’t including himself among them, but how exactly wasn’t clear. But Dean wouldn’t ask now. Not in front of Bobby and Ellen. Bobby at least might’ve been family, but he wasn’t Dean; no one cared for Sam like Dean did, and if Sam said something that turned the older hunter against him…

“C’mon Sam, let’s go get this fingerpainting done so we can get the hell outta here,” Sam blinked and looked down at him, hand twitching like he had just realized that Dean was still holding onto his cold –why was he still so cold?– wrist. But his baby brother just tilted his head a little and let himself be pulled along.

“Don’t forget the Colt,” Sam (Sam?) said, voice just a bit…off. “Not very smart, leaving the key in front of that door where anyone could come along and open it.”

Dean shivered. They had to kill Yellow Eyes –Azazel– but the damn second the demon was dead, they were gonna find out just who was leeching off Sam and getting rid of it.