Archive of Our Own

A soft thumping sound woke him and Dean opened his eyes and stared at the striped pattern on his pillowcase right up against his eyelashes. He knew the bed beside him would be empty before he even lifted his head, but that was okay.

After three days of Jacks, the bouncer at the bar down the street where Dean liked to go for a beer or two (or three) every evening, molesting his ass with his eyes, Dean had finally given it up and taken the guy home for the night. Jacks was an attractive guy, but if Dean hadn’t caught the guy making eyes at him on more than one occasion, he never would have pegged him (no pun intended) for gay. Not that Dean wasn’t perfectly fucking fine with that, thank you very much, praise the man Jesus, can I get a hallelujah. Or something along those lines. Jacks was pretty damn hot and, now that Dean could say so from experience, a fine lay to boot, but the guy had that thing, that something that some men have. That something that will shock the ever-loving hell out of a person when you find out they’re into dick.

Dean liked to think of it as “Dude-ism”. Bikers had it, farmers, ranchers, pit-fighters, and truck drivers (even the female ones, in Dean’s experience). Hockey players, cops, coal miners, and yeah, bouncers. But hey, if one of those bouncers was really nice to look at with a sexy voice and hands with fingers so long he could palm your face, well Dean wasn’t going to tell the guy to go hang. He was in a town of maybe 8,000 people, about thirty miles northwest of New Orleans called Sola and he hadn’t seen Sam in over a month. He hadn’t heard from Sam in about two weeks.

He was a Sammy-less Dean Winchester and a sad figure of broken-down humanity and he’d wanted to forget about it. With a really fine bouncer dude eyeing him like he was a sugar-glazed blow-up doll, what was he gonna do, say no? Hell no, he was gonna get laid, which is exactly what he’d done the night before.

And he still felt pretty good about it. All lethargic and muscle-sore with that fucked and tired energy humming under his skin. It felt good, so why the hell was he feeling all defensive now that he was alone? Defensive and a wee bit guilty…

Because there was Sammy—or rather; there wasn’t Sammy. Sammy was gone and Dean didn’t know where he was or why he’d left but here Dean was fucking off in Sola, living out of a loft apartment on borrowed time and whatever money he made cheating at poker, swindling pool and rolling drunken tourists. Why wasn’t he looking for Sam?

“Because the trail went cold,” Dean whispered. His throat was dry and his voice sounded cracked in his own ears. He thought about getting up to get a beer out of the refrigerator, then just rolled onto his back and stared up at the light slanting over his ceiling, licking his dry lips.

The last thing he’d heard from Sam had been some kind of voice mail on his phone two weeks before. Some existential crap that at first he’d attributed to Dante or Plath or some other academic fuckwad he couldn’t remember from high school English.

“There are so many stories about angels losing their way and falling from grace. There are none about demons finding redemption and being taken back into Heaven. Things fall, they don’t rise.” There had been a long pause, during which Dean could hear Sam breathing hard, maybe fighting tears. He told himself at first that was bullshit, but he’d listened to that message a hundred times and had every syllable committed to memory. He was pretty sure now that it had been tears. The only other explanation for that kind of faltering breath was laughter and that was somehow worse to think about. When Sam spoke again, he asked a question and Dean still didn’t know if he’d been asking Dean or himself: “Do you still think you might be going to Heaven?”

And that was it. For two weeks now, and not a peep or a word or a single sighting. Nothing.

So what was Dean supposed to do?

He still didn’t know. The way he figured it, after exhausting every option he had, all he could do was wait for something to happen.

That same pinging sound that had woke him, like a feather beating against a drainpipe, drew Dean’s attention to the windowsill. He turned his head on the pillow and looked under the curve of his arm. There, by the open window, was an overturned Kerr mason jar that Dean used as a drinking glass and trapped inside it was a single firefly banging itself against the glass.

Dean lifted an eyebrow and sat up, letting the cool white sheet slide off him. There was something else. “What the fuck?”

He crawled across the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress to get a better look at it, but from the one glance, he was already pretty sure he knew what it was: money. Jacks had left him a hundred dollar bill on the windowsill, weighed down by the wide mouth of the mason jar.

Jacks was a fairly weird dude, Dean decided. He liked the guy a lot and he’d really just wanted the piece of mind that good sex with an amiable stranger could give him—no charge—but hell, money was money.

Dean snatched the bill from under the jar without lifting it to release the firefly. He started to put it in his pocket then remembered he didn’t have pockets and got up to retrieve his pants from the floor by the bedroom door. He stuffed the money in his right pocket then decided he needed to use the bathroom before he put them back on.

Dean was on the toilet, right in the middle of one of the best shits of the decade, the kind where muscles strain just right and your back pops, but you know when its over it’s going to feel awesome—when the phone in his left pocket rang. He glared down at his jeans in a pile on the floor by his foot where the sound was coming from then snatched them up to get his phone on the off chance it might be Sam.

If it was Sam, well that would be embarrassing, but they were brothers and all, he was sure Sammy would forgive him.

Except it wasn’t Sam, it was Bobby, and Dean didn’t know that until he answered the phone and the man yelled, “Good morning, sunshine!” in his ear.

“Jesus, Bobby, keep it down,” Dean said, holding the phone away from his face.

“Why, you got company?” Bobby asked, sounding suspicious.

“No, but I’ve still got eardrums, man and I’d like to keep them,” Dean said.

“Boy, I’ve heard that trash you call music, don’t even get me started,” Bobby said, scoffing.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dean said.

“Might not sound so much like a couple a mating cats dying under a lawnmower if you’d turn the shit down, but then there’s my point,” Bobby said.

“Okay, Bobby,” Dean said. “Mind if I put you down for a minute? You caught me in the middle of something.”

“Middle of what?” Bobby asked.

“You know what they say about curiosity, don’t you?” Dean said.

“Yeah, but I’m surprised you do,” Bobby said. “Alright, do your business, but be quick about it, I ain’t got all day.”

Dean grinned and put the phone back down, trying to bury it in his jeans to muffle any sounds. Then he finished his shit and put on his pants before picking up the phone again.

“Now, then, what’s up, Bobby?”

Bobby didn’t say anything for a minute, then he must have decided to let whatever it was he’d thought he heard go and said, “Someone saw Sam.”

Dean froze in the doorway between the bathroom and his bedroom and stared blankly at the firefly beating itself stupid in the mason jar on his windowsill. “What? Where? Who saw him? When?”

“Who ain’t important—or any of your business—but as for where and when… Yesterday about seven o’clock in the evening, outside a liquor store in Camden.”

“New Jersey?” Dean said, incredulous. “What the fuck is Sammy doing in New Jersey? He hates New Jersey.”

“Might be why he’s there,” Bobby said.

“I’m sure that’s supposed to sound very ominous, old man,” Dean said.

“Hey now, no name calling,” Bobby said, but Dean could hear the grin in his voice.

Jesus, he missed Bobby. He missed Bobby and Jo and Ellen and Ash and his dad and Sam. He missed the way things were when things had been so much simpler. When things were just find the mysterious, unnatural creature, kill it, call it a day and a job well done. The end. None of this flaming swords and eternal damnation shit. No demon blood—drinking it or having it—no angels and their glory or grace or what the fuck ever that shiny exploding shit was. No. He would have felt really stupid saying it, he guessed, but he missed ghosts and curses. He missed ghouls and zombies. He missed the days when a stake through the heart was the way to go with damn near everything if you could get close enough to do it because it didn’t just kill vampires, it killed most anything else.

“You best get over to Camden and have yourself a look-see,” Bobby said. “Hope to God the boy didn’t hate the place as much as you think, or it might not still be there when you get there.”

“Yeah,” Dean said.

He wiped the back of his arm over his forehead and sighed. Bobby was being overdramatic—probably on purpose—but whether he knew it or not, he still had a point. Dean thought of Lilith on the floor with blood running out of every orifice in her face—and probably others, though he hadn’t looked—like it was trying to get away when Sam had killed her. He remembered that pit blooming in the floor of the old church and Sam telling him to wait, telling him that he was coming.

“Yeah, okay,” Dean said. “It’s only…” He turned his phone over to look at the clock on the wall. “Three forty-six in the morning here. I’m gonna try to catch a few more hours, then a shower and then I’ll go. Keep your fingers crossed he’s still there.”

“He’s still there,” Bobby said, like he knew for certain.

Dean supposed that maybe he did know. “Good. Anyway, thanks, Bobby.”

“Not a problem, kid,” Bobby said. “Go getcha some rest.”

And he rang off.

Dean hung up his phone, then turned it off and crossed the room to fall back on the bed. He reached out for his cigarettes on the nightstand and lit one with a festively decorated little Bic lighter. He lay there for a while with his chin propped up on his forearm, smoking and listening to the firefly thump lightly against the side of the Kerr jar.

He sat up and leaned over to the window to lift the very edge of the mouth of the mason jar from the windowsill and exhaled a lungful of Camel tobacco smoke, complete with all the nicotine, rat-poison and other deadly chemicals it held, into the jar with the fly. He sprawled back on his bed to watch it.

As his eyes were drooping closed and his cigarette was burning down to the filter, Dean watched the bug through the grey haze and smiled a little. He put the cigarette out in the ashtray on his nightstand and lay there watching it until he fell asleep again.

Jacks was a weird motherfucker, Dean thought.

His last thought before sleeping was that Sam, his Sammy, with all of his demon blood and damnation… Sammy would have rescued the firefly.

Something fluffy, smelling of rainwater and mothballs brushed over Sam’s face and woke him. He moaned in despair and swatted the cat off his chest where it had been happily grooming itself, tail swishing in his face so that its long kitty hairs went right up his nose.

The scrawny, ugly, mangy looking creature had stood outside his motel room door the second night he was there, yowling pitifully. Stupid, bleeding heart that he was, Sam let it inside and fed it. He’d petted its black fur, feeling the bones stabbing at its hide like a sack of sixteen penny nails, and called it Envy because of its green eyes.

Now the irritating beast wouldn’t leave him to die in peace.

Not that he expected death for him to lead to anything particularly peaceful, but for fuck’s sake. The black cat was clear evidence that no good deed, great or small, went unpunished. “Envy” had to have the world’s most irritating voice and wow did she like to use it. Sam figured this was probably why the animal was a stray in the first place.

“Shut up,” Sam snapped at the cat, kicking at it half-heartedly on his way to the bathroom.

The cat hissed at him and sauntered off with its tail held proudly aloft to bed down on the chair by the window.

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam grumbled. He wasn’t keeping it; he told himself yet again, he just hadn’t gotten around to throwing it out yet.

He went to the bathroom sink, wincing at the whirring of the overhead fan as he leaned over to swish water in his mouth. His mouth tasted like the bottom of a dirty toilet bowl and he couldn’t remember where the hell he’d left his toothbrush.

He’d been hoping to not have any need for it again after last night, but no dice. He turned his left wrist over to examine the place where he’d slashed it open, right there between the two tendons, where the artery was. There was another scar over several other bright red little lines, all of them bunched together like pick-up-sticks. Saved again, it was a miracle, can I get an amen? Sam supposed he could. And had.

He sighed and let his arm drop back to his side. He peered through his hair at his reflection in the yellowed mirror on the wall and frowned.

In the sink, under the running water, there was a pile of single-edged razor blades turning pink as the tacky blood washed away, growing rust like a sepia colored mould. He never threw them away, just left them there at the bottom of the sink as they counted up and he became more desperate. He put the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the doorknob if he left, and it seemed that the motel’s cleaning service took it seriously, because everything was always untouched when he returned.

That, and he was fairly sure that if the plump little cleaning women employed by the Dew Duck Inn saw the carpet in room 115-A, he’d be lucky to leave the place not wearing handcuffs or a straightjacket.

His feet squishing lightly in the once-taupe-now-reddish-black carpet, Sam went to the bed and dug through the sheets in search of his toothbrush. He found it in the nightstand right next to the bible and went back into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

As he squeezed Colgate out of a little sample tube onto his toothbrush, a ghostly hand caressed his mind and Sam paused.

“Go away,” Sam whispered and started brushing his teeth vigorously.

“What are you doing?”

“Fuck off,” Sam said, spattering the mirror with toothpaste froth.

“I thought you had your heart set on suicide, Samuel. Why then are you brushing your teeth?”

Sam shook his head then rinsed his mouth with water, spat and said, “Because.” He was not talking to the Devil. Of course, the only alternative was he was talking to himself. He didn’t know which was worse.

“Childish”, the Devil chided, doing something inside his head that felt like fingers stroking his brainstem.

Okay, well maybe he did. He thought maybe this was worse. If he were crazy, he could be medicated, but if he weren’t crazy… well, he’d tried suicide (repeatedly) and that didn’t work. He thought he might be a little fucked up in the head at the moment and probably not in any condition for problem solving of this magnitude, but he was out of ideas.

“Why do you want to kill yourself, anyway?” the Devil asked. He asked Sam that a lot. Probably because he didn’t like any of Sam’s answers. “You know where you’re going, don’t you?”

“Maybe I think Hell is better than having Satan setting up housekeeping in my fucking head,” Sam said. He tapped his toothbrush against the side of the sink and went back into the bedroom.

“You’d be wrong. Ask your brother.”

That stung a little, more for the thoughts of Dean that the statement evoked than for anything that had to do with Hell, but he tensed a little. He chose to ignore it and got dressed, then sat down on the side of the bed to put on his boots and tie them.

“Where are you going now?”

“I’m out of razorblades,” Sam said, jerking the knot tight on his right boot.

When the Devil first started talking to him, Sam had thought it was strange that he had to ask Sam questions and didn’t just pluck the answers from his mind. But after a while he’d figured out that for some reason, it didn’t seem to work like that. Satan could set up housekeeping all he wanted, but it looked like the doors to all of the closets where Sam kept his precious secrets had locks on them.

Thank God—or whoever—for small mercies.

“Why don’t you try a gun this time? You’ve got several. Put a hollow-point in it and blow the back of your damn head off. Give me a bit of a challenge this time, won’t you?”

“No,” Sam said. He’d thought of that, but the problem with guns were that they were loud. People would bang on the door or call the police and even if he survived it, he’d be arrested or evicted—both things that he would really like to avoid. Even if he made a silencer for the gun, the bullet could go through the wall or something.

“Fine”, Satan said, tapping his little mental fingers along Sam’s medulla oblongata, giving him the beginnings of a wretched headache.

“Now whose being childish?” Sam muttered. He felt in his pockets for his room key and his wallet as he went out the door and rubbed his temple, making a mental note to add aspirin and cat food to the list with the razorblades.

“You’ll get tired of it before I do, you know,” the Devil whispered, and Sam imagined he felt a tongue in there, stroking his sore mind.

“Of what?” Sam asked as he closed the door and slipped his key back into his pocket.

He felt a piece of paper against his fingertips and took it out of his pocket. It was a folded scrap of yellow paper—the receipt from his lunch at a café the day before. The pretty waitress had written her number on it with For a good time call jokingly scrawled above it. She’d grinned at him and dropped him a wink as she handed it to him and he remembered that he had almost taken her up on it then decided to stay in and kill himself instead.

“You’ll get tired of trying to kill yourself before I get tired of healing you”, the Devil said. “After all, I’ve got nothing but time.”

Sam smirked and started across the parking lot to find a cab. “Yeah, well, thanks to you, neither do I.”

At CVS, Sam got his razorblades, cat food, and aspirin, as well as two candy bars and a bottle of neon blue PowerAde, and was soon on his way back to his motel room. There had been a moment in the store where he thought, from the way the pimply little guy behind the counter was eyeballing him, he might walk out the door and into the waiting arms of local police, but nothing came of it.

It occurred to Sam that he might be developing an overactive case of paranoia. But then he remembered the Devil in his head and had to think for a few minutes about whether or not he’d been talking to him aloud as he shopped. He didn’t think so, but he couldn’t be 100% sure.

It took six aspirin, both candy bars and a beer from the mini fridge by the door to get rid of Sam’s headache. He sat in the bed with his back propped up against the wall with a pillow for support, watching Jay Leno while Envy purred herself to sleep on his belly.

“Ready to try again?” Satan asked, breaking his silence with an unsettling whisper.

Sam involuntarily smacked the back of his neck, like he was swatting at a bee. “Shit,” he hissed under his breath. In his lap, Envy woke up and stared at him with her large, baleful green eyes. “What are you looking at?” Sam muttered, pushing her off the bed. “Go eat your Friskies.”

The cat twitched her tail at him and went into the bathroom. Probably on her way to drink out of the toilet, Sam thought.

“So?”

“So stop pressuring me about it,” Sam snapped. He hit the mute button, cutting Leno off in the middle of a joke. “It’s my suicide. Leave me alone.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” Sam asked, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

“Because I’m bored and if I hear one more joke about Sarah Palin, I might have to leave you alone for a minute to go kill Jay Leno.”

“You can’t do that,” Sam said.

“Sure I can,” the Devil said. “Don’t worry. No one would blame you. It would look just like a heart attack. He has a preexisting condition, after all.”

“No, I mean you can’t do that. I’m watching that,” Sam said.

“No you’re not. You’re sitting there pretending to watch that so you can pet your cat and not kill yourself. See? You’re getting tired of it already.”

Sam sighed and let his head fall back against the headboard of the bed. “She’s not my cat.”

“Whatever you say, Sammy.”

“Don’t call me that,” Sam nearly shouted, banging his head twice back against the headboard.

“I must be missing something. Why are you hitting yourself?”

“I’m trying to hit you,” Sam said hatefully.

“Is that so?” Satan asked, sounding amused. “Well, you missed.”

Cursing under his breath, Sam moved to sit on the side of the bed. He rubbed his temple and reached for the pack of razorblades on the nightstand next to his toothbrush. “Please, get out of my head,” he whispered, taking one out. The light from the television and the faint light from the bedside lamp hit the blade and flashed. “Please, please leave me alone.”

“I can’t do that,” Satan said.

He almost sounded regretful, but then Sam dismissed that idea and decided the Devil was just fucking with him. “Why the hell not?”

“For starters, because everyone has to be somewhere,” the Devil said. “Besides, I like it here. It’s cozy.”

Sam moved the razorblade between his fingers like he was dancing a coin over his knuckles and shook his head. When he did this, it always felt like he was facing down some unknown enemy with six-guns at high noon instead of contemplating the vein under the scars on his wrist with the pointed edge of the blade in his hand.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

“Will you shut up?” Sam hissed. His hand shook and he almost dropped the razorblade off the back of his index finger.

Envy stood in the bathroom doorway watching him for a minute, then walked around the blood that had spread out and gummed the carpet around the bed to curl up in the chair again.

“I’m going to Hell, aren’t I?” Sam asked, barely a whisper. He had the edge of the razor pressed between two red scars and he was staring at it. “Aren’t I?”

“Everything is rather chaotic at the moment,” Satan said. “How do you know you’re not already there?”

“But if there’s a Hell… Wherever it is, that’s where I’m going,” Sam said.

“Probably.”

Sam took a deep breath, nodded, and quick like you rip off a Band-Aid, he cut. Quick and deep. Quick and bloody. The first squirt of blood shot out and hit him in the mouth. It was slightly salty, vaguely metallic and still warm from his fiercely beating heart. Sam grimaced and ran his tongue over his teeth as he watched blood bubble up like a tiny red waterfall and soak into the already spongy carpet around his feet.

There is a gallon of blood in the average human body and Sam had been at this for over three weeks now. He hadn’t changed motel rooms and a gallon of blood a night soaking into the same carpet and splashing across the same wall for three weeks added up to one hell of a gory, stinking mess.

He spared a second to pity whichever motel cleaning lady should draw the short straw when they opened his door and found his body, then switched hands and slit his other wrist. The blade tried to slip out of his fingers from the blood, but he pinched it tightly between finger and thumb and did it quickly before letting it fall.

The blood started to flow from his body more slowly and Sam blinked, lightheaded with a high, electric ringing in his ears. He slumped back on the bed then his weight took him to the floor, but he didn’t feel himself fall.

Distantly, as he lost consciousness, he thought he heard someone pounding on the door. He heard the Devil’s old, familiar laughter and all he could feel was tired.

“Good night, sweet prince…” Satan whispered.

Sam felt fingers petting his cerebellum gently as he finally slept.

Cursing his way through the alphabet, Dean gave up trying to kick in the door and went in search of a housekeeper with a master key.

He found one, a plump, short, motherly looking woman with iron grey hair twisted back in a severe bun. She didn’t speak very much English and Dean’s Spanish was pretty much limited to swearing and alcohol. Through shouting and bastardized sign language, he managed to get his point across, though and was soon standing behind the lady as she helped him break into Sammy’s room.

The smell, like rotting meat, old pennies and piss, hit them both like a cast iron sucker punch. Dean clapped his hands over his face and took an involuntary step back. He watched the cleaning lady move away from the door, lean her back against the wall and retch.

Once he got past how revolting it all was, Dean’s first panicked thought was, Oh fuck, he’s dead! Because really, nothing that smelled that bad could be alive.

“Sammy,” Dean choked. He coughed and tried again, screaming, “Sammy!” as he threw the door open and started to go in. He halted for a moment just inside the door, eyes wide and shocked at the mess.

He’d never seen anything quite like it. The closest thing to it were pictures taken in old slaughterhouses back in the days before the FDA got their fingers into what people were eating. Back in the days when you were apt to find a human finger in your creamed corn.

There might have been a square inch of carpet not saturated in blood, but he doubted it. Blood was so thick in the carpet fibers that it was stiff and looked kind of slick. There was blood sprayed and spattered over the walls, mostly around the bed and leading to the bathroom. The bed itself was garishly white in the room, which had been made darker with the gore. In the center of it all, at the back of the room under a window, there was a cheap little easy chair with light green upholstery which cast the whole thing into a shocking relief. Sitting in the chair, staring at him curiously, was an ugly black cat with eyes the size of tea saucers two shades darker green than the chair.

For a second, Dean couldn’t even think about his panic, all he could do was stare. A person, especially in the line of work he and Sam had been in all their lives, expected a certain amount of blood and violence as part of the scenery. It came with the job—one of the fringe benefits, Dean sometimes thought. But this… well, to say it exceeded expectations was quite the understatement, to say the least.

“Oh, Jesus,” Dean said.

Behind him, just outside the doorway, the housekeeper shouted something to him in shrill Spanish. Dean didn’t understand her, but right away he figured he had about ten, maybe fifteen minutes to get Sam out of there before cops, state troopers, FBI, CIA, NCIS and whoever else showed up with badges flashing and guns a’ blazing to arrest everyone.

He’d figure out whether or not his brother was dead once he got them both away from there.

He didn’t even see Sam at first, though. Then Dean’s eyes focused, his mind once again sharpened and he looked beyond the black and red mess. Rorschach test, he thought vaguely. Where are you Sammy?

Then he saw Sam, slumped half-on, half-off the bed and didn’t even take time to process the blood caked on his arms, in his hair, and plastering his clothes to his body. He could think about those things later.

He crossed the room, trying to ignore the way the floor squelched under his feet as he walked and lifted Sam off the floor, using the bed to lean him against until he could get him up. He put his shoulder down and rolled it, hefting Sam’s weight like a heavy sack of stones and staggered back out the door carrying him.

Outside, the cleaning woman watched with her mouth hanging open as he took Sam to the Impala and lay him down in the back seat. Dean could sympathize. He knew the feeling.

“Phew, Sammy, if you ain’t dead, you’re gonna need a bath,” Dean muttered, bending Sam’s long legs a little to fit him into the back of the car.

When Dean got Sam settled snugly down in the Impala, he went back into the motel room and swept the place for Sam’s wallet, his I.D., possible library card (it was Sam, after all), grabbed his laptop and his room key and left. He tossed the room key to the confused housekeeper and dumped Sam’s shit in the back of the car with him.

“Checking out,” Dean said to the cleaning lady, enunciating carefully.

He waved to her to show that they were leaving now and then froze with the driver’s side door open. There was that ugly black cat in his passenger seat. It was watching him and purring contentedly.

“I don’t think so,” Dean said, and reached for it. The cat growled low in its throat and batted his hand, scratching his fingers. Dean yelped and put his wounded index and middle fingers in his mouth. “Fucker,” he grumbled around his fingertips. “Fine, whatever. Stay.”

He could always dispose of the creature later, he told himself. And who knew? Maybe the cat would do him a favor and leap out the window while they were going down the highway.

“…AND JUST WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING NOW?”

Sam groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to get rid of the screaming in his skull. “Oh, God, make it stop,” he muttered.

“God’s dead. Don’t you read Nietzsche?” Satan asked.

“Not with any enthusiasm,” Sam said, rolling onto his back. “Why are you shouting?”

“Because your brother is being a complete nitwit,” the Devil said. He sounded like he was gritting his teeth.

“Well, do you think you could tone it down a notch?” Sam said, opening his eyes to stare blindly up at the ceiling of the Impala. “You’re going to make my head explode if you don’t watch it.”

“Then maybe you need to sit your ass up and talk to him because he’s not listening to anything I say,” the Devil said.

“Maybe he can’t hear you,” Sam said.

“Nonsense,” Satan scoffed. “I wish to be heard—I actually rather fancy the idea of making his head explode—therefore, he should be able to hear me perfectly. He’s just being an ass.”

“Yeah, he does that,” Sam said. He was still half asleep but things were starting to make a little more sense as time passed and the Devil kept up his irritated tirade. He sat up and looked around. “Where are we? I mean I. Where am I?”

“I believe we are parked outside of some sort of rest stop establishment selling candy, soda pop, gasoline and what appears to be your dear brother’s drink of choice, beer.”

“Great, but where?” Sam asked. He could look around the little Chevron parking lot and see all of that for himself.

“Lebanon.”

“Oh, shut up, we are not,” Sam scoffed. It was almost dark, about five or six o’clock, but he could see a kid hanging on the hand of his mother coming out of the store sucking on a Slurpy, walking on his Nikes and wearing his Dallas Cowboys ball cap backward. They were definitely still in the good old U.S. of A.

“Tennessee,” the Devil clarified. “And if we could get back to the object of my annoyance, please. You’re brother is going to kill us.”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me, what?” He wasn’t really happy that Dean had found him, especially not that Dean had found him unconscious in that particular motel room, but he wasn’t going to go so far as to accuse his brother of attempted murder. Never mind how redundant that would be even if it were true as Sam had spent the better part of a month trying to kill himself. Dean was probably seriously pissed, might even threaten to kill him, but he would never do any such thing. “You’re exaggerating again. What did he really do?”

And why did Sam feel uncomfortably like a parent playing mediator to a couple of spoiled kids?

“He removed the license plates,” Satan said.

Sam marveled at how exactly like a tattling little boy he sounded.

“That’s actually a good idea since someone probably saw him and they’d remember the car,” Sam said.

“Yeah, well they’re still gone. He never replaced them like an intelligent criminal would,” Satan said. He sounded a little too smug about it. “We were chased by highway patrol all the way through Kentucky.”

“Okay,” Sam said, considering it. He ran his fingers through his matted hair, pushing it out of his face. “But we got away, didn’t we?”

“That’s not the point. You both could have died,” the Devil said and he almost sounded like he cared.

“Yeah, and that would suck for you wouldn’t it?” Sam said. In the front seat, Envy had gotten up on her back legs to look at him over the seat and he lifted his hand to pet her before realizing how sticky with blood it was. “All alone in the middle of nowhere with two dead bodies and no one to ride home with.”

“True,” Satan said. He didn’t sound like he was admitting to defeat though. He still sounded like a smug bastard to Sam. “I suppose that means you don’t care to hear how much he’s been drinking, then.”

Sam could only imagine. “Not really, no.”

“Fine, then,” Satan said. Then, almost as an afterthought, he said, “He’s mean to the cat.”

Sam looked at Envy, who seemed to grin back at him as she hopped up on the back of the passenger seat and stuck her head out to sniff him. She was purring.

“Liar,” Sam said, but he was grinning himself.

“I am not,” the Devil said, offended. “I never lie. Just because certain people and uppity asshole deities don’t like what I have to say does not make me a liar.”

“Whatever,” Sam said, dismissing him as he saw Dean coming out of the store and walking toward the car.

Dean had his arms full with a paper bag, out of the top of which stuck the baby blue plastic top of a bag of potato chips. Jesus Christ, he looked good and Sam was really hungry, so the bag looked even better. The only thing missing was coffee. Sam could really use a cup of the stuff right now.

“Almost enough to make you want to go on living, isn’t it?” Satan whispered inside his mind.

Sam shivered, thinking that must have been the tone he used to seduce Eve into biting into that damn apple. He hated how much he liked the way that voice slithered through his brain and made his skin prickle. The son of a bitch was trying to manipulate him and he should have been angry—furious, really—but he wasn’t. He was… tempted.

“No, it isn’t,” Sam choked out. “I’m just hungry, that’s all.”

“Now who’s the liar?”

Dean saw that Sam was awake and sitting up and put his bag on the roof of the car so he could lean down and look in the window at him. “Hey there, Sleeping Beauty,” he said, his voice rough with anger. “I think you’ve got some explaining to do. Why don’t you come up front?”

“Ah… Look, Dean, you shouldn’t have come after me,” Sam said, not moving to get out of the back of the car. “I think… I think I’ll just get out here and—”

Dean snorted and stood back up, his face leaving the frame of the window as he got his bag off the roof and threw it into the passenger seat as he got behind the wheel. “You’re not doing any such thing,” he said, starting the car. “For one thing, you look like a mass murderer fresh off a rampage; you stink, you look like absolute shit and you need a shower. And I want some fucking answers, so get your ass up here now.”

“Are you honestly going to let that little boogersnot speak to you that way?” Satan demanded of Sam, outraged.

Sam winced and shook his head as he reached over to open the car door and get out, almost falling as he stood and closed the door. Now he was getting it from both sides and yeah, his head was starting to throb again.

As for whether or not he was going to let Dean talk to him like that? The short answer, which he muttered under his breath as he rounded the hood of the Impala and got into the passenger seat, was, “Yes.”

Yes, he was going to let Dean speak to him like that because back when they were kids, when Dad was gone, Dean had been the dad. When something happened to Sam, Dean was there. When Sam was in trouble, Dean either got him out of it or punished him for it by making him feel like shit about it. Dean nuked the Spaghetti-O’s; made sure Sam brushed his teeth and sometimes kept watch over his bed with a handgun at night. So when Dean spoke to him like that, like he was really mad and not just being a dick, Sam listened because anything else was like telling your mother to go fuck herself.

And this time, Sam figured he probably deserved the ass-chewing that was most likely imminent.

Dean watched him as Sam shifted the bag to the floor between his legs and moved the cat into the backseat. “You’re stalling,” he growled.

Sam turned his head and looked at Dean through the dirty hair falling in his face as he opened the bag of chips. “No, I’m not. I really am hungry. How long was I… out?”

“Two days,” Dean said, his jaw clenching with emotion as he looked away from Sam back out the windshield. He swallowed and desperately wished for a beer from the bag at Sam’s feet.

Sam saw the way Dean glanced at the bag and his lips twitched. He reached down and got a bottle of Coors from the bag, handing it to Dean and attempting a smile, hoping to coax an answering one from him.

Dean took the bottle gratefully and twisted the top off, but there was no smile. “Thanks,” he said, and drank deeply.

“Sure,” Sam said. “Dean…”

“No, spill it, Sammy,” Dean said. “I want to know what the fuck happened, why did you leave like that? What the hell’s going on? And here, hold this while I back out,” he added, pushing his beer into Sam’s hands to shift.

Sam held the beer and didn’t say anything until they were on the highway. Then Dean put a hand out for it and Sam gave it to him and said, “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” Dean said. “I don’t even know what for, but I already don’t believe you.”

“Is he always like this?” the Devil asked.

“Like what?” Sam whispered, ducking his head to pretend like he was eating potato chips, not talking… to himself.

“Like this. Irritating and self-righteous. That guilt-tripping bullshit makes me want to squeeze his throat until his eyes pop like grapes in a microwave.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, biting his bottom lip to keep from laughing. He ate a chip, which was salt and vinegar flavored and made his mouth burn.

“Sammy?” Dean said, watching him cautiously out of the corners of his eyes. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Alright,” Sam said with a sigh. He put the potato chips back in the bag with the six-pack of beer and whatever other munchies Dean had bought (pie probably wasn’t a bad guess) and sat back, staring out the side window. “I’ll tell you; just… it’s a long story. Maybe you should find someplace to pull over for the night. I really do need a shower.”

“Do you think that’s wise?” the Devil asked him.

“Well yeah, I really do stink,” Sam muttered. “I mean, I can’t smell myself, but I bet—”

“Sammy, what the fuck is going on?” Dean demanded, turning his head to look at him.

He looked a little scared and Sam felt bad about that, but he couldn’t help it.

“You keep out of this, you idiot,” Satan hissed, presumably at Dean, who could not hear him. To Sam he said, “I actually think a long bath sounds like a splendid idea. I can smell you and take it from me, you smell horrible. What I meant was, do you really think it’s a good idea to tell him everything?”

“I don’t really have much choice,” Sam said.

“My dear boy, you always have a choice,” Satan told him. “Now, sometimes that other option is an unsavory one, but it leaves you with a choice nonetheless.”

“No,” Sam said, shaking his head. “Look, I’m going to tell him, so just—”

“Damn right you’re going to tell me,” Dean said. “Starting with who the fuck you’re talking to.”

“For example, he keeps a handgun under the passenger seat, doesn’t he?” the Devil said. “Were you in a more cooperative and homicidal state of mind, you could always reach down and get it out and blow his pretty little brains out. Spray them like some great contemporary modern artwork right there across the window. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“No,” Sam said, his stomach turning as he envisioned it happening just like the Devil had described it far more vividly than he would have liked. “No, I will not. You shut up.”

“Sammy, I love you, but don’t make me break your nose,” Dean said, his eyes flashing.

“Go ahead and try it, you pussified little mud weasel,” Satan said.

At the same time, Sam said, “Not you.”

Dean scowled out the windshield and watched the road signs for a place to stop for the night. “Then who—”

“Just…” Sam pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “Just stop. Both of you, stop it.”

Dean’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Both of who?”

“Dean, please,” Sam said tiredly.

“Please let me smite him,” Satan whispered, and there were those pleasure fingers on Sam’s brain again. “I’ll even be nice about it. Make it painless.”

“No. Shut up,” Sam snapped.

“But why?” Satan asked, almost whining it.

Sam gritted his teeth and turned his head away from Dean’s prying eyes and ears. “Because I love him,” Sam whispered. Not because it was wrong, not because he shouldn’t or because it would be evil. No, Sam was a much more simple, much more selfish creature; he would not kill Dean because he loved him.

“Oh, I know you love him, though I’ll be damned if I can figure out why.”

“You’re damned anyway,” Sam said, smiling to himself a little. “If you do or if you don’t.”

“There’s a campground two miles from here, we’ll stop there,” Dean said. He sounded a little breathless and shaky and Sam thought maybe Dean had heard what he said anyway. “We can… we’ll just sleep in the car.”

“Okay,” Sam said. “Fine. Then I’ll tell you what’s going on and you can tell me where we’re going.”

Dean lay stretched out on the trunk of the Impala, trying to figure shit out while Sam showered in the little brick building the campground had just for that purpose. He didn’t know why Sam had left or what was going on and as if all of that didn’t freak him the fuck out enough as it was, now Sam was hearing voices. Or talking to somebody. Probably seeing things, too, although he wasn’t acting like it. Yet.

And maybe there was a really big part of Dean that wanted Sam to be crazy. Hell, if anyone deserved to have themselves a little break with reality, it was Sam. Except Dean couldn’t just dismiss all the other supernatural possibilities. He wanted to, but he wouldn’t be very good at his job if he did.

“Wouldn’t still be alive either,” he muttered to himself.

It was cloudy out, but whenever the clouds passed by, he could feel the sun warm on his skin, turning the backs of his eyelids red, heating the black metal of the car against his back and Dean liked that a lot. He shifted on the trunk of the car, pushing himself up a little farther on it and folded his arms over his face as the sun slipped behind another cloud. It was really fantastic weather for taking a nap and he was tempted, but he couldn’t do that. His mind wouldn’t let the puzzle of little Sammy Winchester go.

So what was he going to do about it?

“Meow.”

Dean lifted one arm and glared under it at the cat who had jumped up on the back of the car beside him. “Fuck off,” he mumbled and let his arm drop back.

The cat purred and watched him as it started to groom itself.

“Cat, I’m kinda busy right now,” Dean said. “I don’t have time to pet you or whatever. Besides, we’re going to drop you at the first animal shelter we come to, so there’s really no point in getting attached, is there?”

The cat purred so deeply Dean could feel the trunk of the Impala vibrate against his ass.

“So long as we understand each other,” Dean said, just like the animal had agreed with him.

So, what was up with Sam? He’d left without a word, told no one where he was going, he didn’t call, he didn’t write, nothing. The only times that Dean could think of where Sam had done anything like it were when he was deeply addicted to demon blood and he’d taken off with Ruby. Like… right before he killed Lilith.

Maybe if Dean used that as the starting point, he could trace it back there and figure this out. Lilith died which opened that big hole in the ground and was supposed to release Lucifer from Hell. Which was actually, once he stopped to think about it—which he’d done a lot right after it happened and several times since—was pretty stupid. If Satan rules Hell and all of his little baby demons can come and go as they pretty much please, then why the fuck was he trapped down there? And, well, how did such a thing happen? Dean still didn’t know the answers to that but, he reminded himself, he was getting off the topic at hand.

So, Sam killed Lilith, thereby opening this door, Dean killed Ruby—for no ritualistic reason, just because she’d pissed him off and ruined his day—and they’d stuck around to watch Lucifer rise.

Except nothing happened. Some roaring and this really scary flaming hole in the ground… then nothing. The fire went out, the roaring stopped and he and Sam had looked at each other and shrugged. They waited around for a little bit, but with Lilith and Ruby laying there staring at them in the dark with their dead fish eyes, all that unused adrenalin was still spiking through their veins making them jumpy and the place was… creepy. So they left.

It was pretty disappointing. Not that Dean necessarily wanted Satan let loose from Hell to run amok, but with all the special effects and then nothing, not even an ugly little goblin with horns and a pointy tail had climbed out of that hole for him to poke at. It was really anticlimactic.

But, anticlimactic or not, that was when Sam started acting weird. Okay, maybe that wasn’t when he started acting weird because for one, Sam had always been a little thrown off and Dean figured chasing around with demon bitches, drinking their blood and doing their bidding counted pretty big in the Big Bad Book of Weird. But with said demon bitches dead, he had thought—after a brief period of withdrawal—that Sammy would level out.

No such luck. Sam was more like himself in a lot of ways, but he was also intensely distracted. For a week after it all happened, Sam wandered around the motel where they were staying, rubbing his temples and staring off into space. Sometimes he sat in front of the window and stared out at the parking lot and it took Dean shouting at him or throwing something at him to get his attention. Still, it hadn’t occurred to Dean that Sam might be losing it. Hearing voices, seeing things… that was just one more perk of the trade.

But if it was something more, why hadn’t Sam talked to him about it instead of running away like he did?

“Meow.”

“Shut up,” Dean muttered, and swatted blindly at the cat.

The cat butted its head affectionately against Dean’s hand and purred.

Dean huffed out an annoyed breath and stroked its back. “You better not have fleas,” he said.

With a tiny bar of soap, a tiny bottle of shampoo, and an equally tiny bottle of conditioner that Dean had taken from a motel and kept for emergencies in the glove box, Sam scrubbed himself until his skin was raw and pink. The dried on blood sloughed off in flakes like lizard skin, melted into the water to turn it pink, and disappeared down the drain. Funny how he hadn’t even noticed it much until he went to wash it off.

Disgusted, Sam stood under the spray and picked clumps out of his hair, thinking he might actually have to cut the stuff now because some of that shit was just like gum. But in the end, after four washings, it all came out—along with some of his hair—and about the time the water was beginning to run cold, Sam was done.

“What are you going to tell him?”

Sam sighed and picked up the shirt Dean had lent to him earlier. “I guess you’ll just have to wait and find out.”

“I hate waiting,” the Devil said, pouting.

Sam smirked and held up the shirt to examine the front. It was light blue (though he suspected it had once been white) with a lewd depiction of Popeye standing there with Olive Oyle kneeling between his legs. There was a comic-book style speech bubble over Popeye’s head with “Well, blow me down!” in bright red letters. Sam raised his eyebrows and shook his head, then decided to use the shirt to dry his hair with. There was no way in hell he was going to wear that.

Which he suspected might have been Dean’s intention all along.

Sam walked out of the showers, barefoot, drying his hair with the Popeye t-shirt and wearing a pair of Dean’s jeans, which he left unbuttoned because they were too small. Despite how much of a complete pig he was, Dean was apparently on a diet. They probably would have been too small anyway, but a year ago, Sam would have at least been able t o get the button closed.

Sam looked up at the sound of Dean talking to the cat, Envy and paused to admire the view. Dean was lying sprawled across the trunk of the Impala, legs splayed off the back of the car with his heels on the bumper, one arm thrown over his eyes to shield them from the sun, which peeked through the quickly moving clouds overhead. It was hot, almost 80 degrees, and Dean still had a light flannel shirt on over his t-shirt, but the t-shirt was hiked up over his bellybutton, showing a line of lightly tanned skin above his belt.

All of which was very nice, but then Sam narrowed his eyes and looked past all that to see the way his muscles were tense even in relaxation. Unguarded like that, when his brother didn’t know he was watching him, Sam could really see the burden of exhaustion and worry in Dean’s features and body.

“My, my, would you just look at that,” Satan said, admiring the view with him.

“You be quiet,” Sam said under his breath.

The Devil just laughed.

Sam closed his hands, fingers itching to touch, and started walking again as Dean looked up and their eyes locked. Dean sat up and started to speak, but Sam was already there and he slipped an arm around Dean’s back to hold his neck as he kissed him to silence.

“Nicely done,” Satan said approvingly. “Distract him and don’t tell him a thing.”

Sam broke the kiss with a light nip to Dean’s lips and hissed, “Shut up.”

Dean ran his tongue over his mouth, feeling the tender places where Sam had bit and stared at him. “Sammy, what’s going on?” he asked for what felt like the hundredth time.

“Well, fuck,” Satan muttered. “Hurry, kiss him again.”

“Will you please fuck off and mind your own business?” Sam demanded. He was still standing between Dean’s open legs, still with one arm around him and their mouths inches from touching as he spoke.

“Ah, Sammy, maybe we should wait on this and you should just—” Dean began.

Sam stood away from him and held up a hand for Dean to be quiet. “Just a second,” he said. To the Devil he said, “Go play around in my frontal lobe or something. I don’t need you for this.”

“You may not need me, but you certainly don’t know what you’re asking or you would know that you could well benefit from my experience and vast knowledge of decadent behavior,” the Devil said.

“Look, man, I’m sorta starting to get used to you hanging out up there, but there have to be boundaries,” Sam said. “Limits, you know? A guy needs his privacy.”

“Like say, when a guy’s about to fuck his big brother over the trunk of a car?” Satan asked.

“Exactly,” Sam said, ignoring the ‘big brother’ jibe. He was so completely over that by now. “So, like… you don’t have to leave, I guess, but you have to be quiet. I don’t want a running commentary or anything like that, okay? It… you know… makes a guy self conscious.”

Dean scratched the side of his head, feeling deeply confused and more than a little creeped out. “Um… so,” he said.

“So?” Sam said. He looked back down at Dean and noted the searching look he was giving him, like he was trying to find the crazy flitting around in Sam’s eyes somewhere. “So, I don’t think we should do this on the trunk of the car,” Sam said.

“Okay,” Dean said, just to have something to say. “Why not?”

Sam grinned and dropped the shirt he’d been drying his hair with on the ground so he could slide both hands up Dean’s back to stroke the back of his neck. “Because it probably won’t be very comfortable and the car would likely collapse under our weight.”

“It wouldn’t,” Dean said, trying to defend the Impala’s honor despite the distracting things Sam was doing with his fingers in the muscles along the back of his shoulders.

Sam lowered his head to lick into the hollow of Dean’s throat, nipping lightly when Dean moaned and it hummed against his lips. “Alright,” he whispered. “Even if it didn’t, this is a campground. People bring their kids here to fish and hike and shit like that.”

“So?” Dean said. He let his eyes fall closed and swallowed, feeling the way Sam’s mouth moved against his throat when he did. “They got to learn about it somewhere.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam said. “But what I mean is… they have security.”

Dean opened his eyes, an amused smile curving his lips. “What, like park rangers?”

Sam chuffed out an amused laugh and trailed his fingers up into the back of Dean’s hair, where he tightened them and gently pulled. “Dean, get in the back seat.”

Dean laughed, the sound low and rolling in his throat, half of it a pleasured moan from the way Sam was touching him. “What, I don’t even get a date first? Maybe a corsage?”

“Rather irritating little fucker, isn’t he?” Satan piped up, startling Sam.

Sam growled low in his throat, a sound of frustration that Dean misinterpreted and apparently really liked, because he arched against Sam and put out an arm to hook it around Sam’s neck and pull his head down for a deep, biting kiss. Dean caught Sam’s bottom lip in his teeth and tugged lightly and Sam pushed his tongue against Dean’s teeth until he let go.

“I’m ignoring you,” Sam whispered, sing-song.

“Yeah? How’s that working out?”

Dean caught one of Sam’s hands in his and laced their fingers together, gripping tightly. “You have got to tell me what’s going on with you, Sammy,” he said, and jerked Sam’s hand down to graze his teeth along his knuckles. He saw Sam’s wrist, frowned and turned his hand to look at the crisscross of raised pink scars there, one or two of them running the length of Sam’s forearm almost to his elbow. “Wow,” Dean whispered, and ducked his head to lick them.

Sam caught his breath, surprised by how turned on he was by such a simple, sweet, completely un-sexual gesture. He grabbed Dean, pulling him off the car and against his body, his hands tugging at Dean’s clothes as he pressed quick kisses over his mouth and along his jaw. “Want you,” he murmured, kissing down to Dean’s chin. “Missed you.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, trying to kiss back and keep his balance under Sam’s manhandling.

Sam shoved Dean back up against the side of the car and Dean reached behind himself to grab for the door handle that was suddenly stabbing him in the back. With Sam kissing his way along Dean’s throat to his ear, Dean turned his head to look over his shoulder as he opened the door.

“You have to tell me,” Dean said, panting as Sam backed him up again and started to push him down into the car. “I need you to tell me.”

“I will,” Sam said. He pulled Dean’s flannel shirt down his arms and off, using his body against Dean’s to force him into the back of the Impala. Sam crawled in after him, kneeling between his legs and leaning down to lick at Dean’s mouth as Dean tried to kiss him. “I will,” he said again. “Later.”

Dean pushed himself up on his elbows and ran his tongue out over Sam’s as Sam licked his mouth. Dean put out a hand to push against Sam’s stomach and pulled the zipper of his pants down. “You’re… putting it off,” he said. He smoothed the palm of his hand over Sam’s belly, smiling faintly when he felt his skin contract and shiver a little at the contact. “What’s the word I’m looking for?”

“Procrastinating,” Sam said, looking down at him, wanting to touch him again so badly. “I am not.”

“Okay,” Dean, said. “If you say so.” He was losing track of the thread of the conversation/argument/whatever the hell anyway because Sam was suddenly pulling at his shirt to get it off like he was going to die soon if he didn’t get their skin to touch.

Dean’s shirt went in the front seat and Sam’s hands went to his chest, thumbs rolling over his nipples until Dean’s breath caught and he gripped Sam’s arms to pull himself up. “I wish you would stop leaving me,” Dean said, speaking between light, sucking kisses along Sam’s shoulder and throat.

Sam had to keep his head down because of the limited space to move in the back of the car so his face was right next to Dean’s ear when he licked it, then caught the lobe in his teeth and pulled. Dean gasped and with a grin, Sam released him to breathe heavily against the side of his neck. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, pleased to feel Dean shiver under him.

Dean made a soft sound in his throat and sat back to look Sam in the eyes, his hands roaming down Sam’s back to slip inside his jeans and grab his ass. “Hurry,” he demanded, pulling a little, making Sam sway toward him. “Get my belt.”

Sam grinned and kissed him, shoving him back down on the seat as he licked inside Dean’s mouth with a growl. “Feel kinda like… the high school quarterback… on prom night,” Sam said as he kissed him, amusement in his voice.

Dean laughed breathlessly and wrapped his arms around Sam’s neck, tunneling his fingers in his hair as Sam opened his belt with a sharp jerk. “Guess that makes me… head cheerleader,” he panted.

Sam eased back just enough to pull Dean’s pants down his hips. With one foot braced on the ground outside of the car and the other folded beneath him pressing against Dean’s thigh, Sam lowered his head to lick over Dean’s hip, tonguing the place where the skin was thinnest. He grazed his teeth over the bone there lightly and smiled as Dean moaned and stroked his hands through Sam’s hair.

“I think you’d look great in one of those short little skirts,” Sam whispered, his smile broadening when Dean choked back a laugh. “Really hot all spread out in the back seat of the car with it flipped up.”

Dean tightened one hand against Sam’s scalp to urge his head back so he could look down at him and see his grinning mouth. “God, you’re kinky, Sammy,” he said, amused and a little aroused by the idea.

Christ, his skin was alive and itching with want. The less Sam touched him, it seemed, the more Dean wanted him. Sam was denying himself the same way, though. It was driving them both a little crazy. He trailed sucking kisses that nearly left hickeys down Dean’s hip, along his thigh to flick his tongue over the sensitive skin at the back of his knee. Licking and sucking there, making Dean pant and moan and squirm, Sam finally pulled Dean’s shoes off and yanked his pants off, letting both fall outside of the car.

Sam didn’t pause to admire the view now that he had Dean naked. There would be time later, wherever they were going, for slow, leisurely sex in a motel bed. Right now, Sam was impatient. He couldn’t tell if Dean was impatient too or just going with the flow and matching his needs to Sam’s—he sometimes did that—but once he had Dean naked, all the foreplay was over. Sam quickly got rid of his own jeans and crawled back in the car over Dean, urging his legs up as he settled between them.

“I don’t guess you’ve got anything,” Sam said, smoothing his palms up and down the underside of Dean’s thighs as he waited for an answer.

Dean looked down his own body at Sam kneeling there, his head ducked under the low ceiling of the car, shaggy hair in his face with hungry eyes staring out at him. He licked his lips and swallowed, then shook his head. “Only… only one guy since last month,” he confessed. “And he was clean.” At the look Sam gave him, he hurried to add, “Oh… Um. There’s lube in the glove box.”

Sam cocked his head to one side, considering that, then decided the glove box was just way too far away and put the first two fingers of his right hand into his mouth to suck. He watched Dean’s face as he slowly moved his fingers in and out of his mouth, licking between them and slicking them with his saliva. He saw understanding of what he intended to do flash in Dean’s eyes as a combination of anxiety and anticipation made him tense beneath him and Sam’s lips curved into a slow grin around his fingertips.

Dean let his head fall back on the seat with a harsh exhalation and a softly whispered, “Oh, fuck.”

“Mmhmm,” Sam agreed and took his fingers from his mouth, lightly licking over the tips one last time before he dropped his hand to the seat cushion between Dean’s spread legs. He braced the back of his hand against the seat and carefully started pushing both fingers into Dean’s ass. “Relax,” Sam murmured when he felt Dean’s body tense around his knuckles.

Dean huffed out a breath and nodded. “I’m trying,” he said. “That… Spit isn’t really that great for this.”

Sam smiled a little and pushed his hand against Dean’s ass again, working his fingers in a little further. “I know that,” he said.

Dean made a soft whining sound in his throat, then sat up and reached for Sam’s cock. Sam’s fingers slid mostly out of him when he did and Sam had to stop. He withdrew his fingers and gave Dean a questioning look.

Panting and shaking, his skin prickling with shivers and goose bumps, Dean closed his hand around the base of Sam’s dick and squeezed. Sam made a startled, half-swallowed moaning sound in his throat and Dean grinned. He leaned toward Sam as he started to lightly pull, allowing the soft skin to slide through his fingers tightly.

Dean ran his tongue out over Sam’s mouth, tracing the curve of his bottom lip and dipping his tongue into the little dimple at the center of the top one. He nipped Sam’s mouth as Sam moaned again and smiled against his lips. “How bad do you want to fuck me?” he whispered.

Sam closed his eyes and swallowed. Dean stroked his cock, his knuckles brushing Sam’s lower belly as his stomach clenched. “Really bad,” Sam admitted without shame.

Dean tightened and relaxed his fingers, squeezing just a little as he started to jerk him off. Sam gasped and rolled his hips into it and Dean kissed him, pleased by the way he could feel Sam’s breath hitching in their mouths as he flicked his tongue inside.

Sam broke the kiss with a light nip to Dean‘s lips. “Really, really bad,” he whispered.

“Really?” Dean said, teasing him.

“Uh-huh,” Sam confirmed, and suddenly shoved Dean down on his back again. “Really.”

Dean ran the ball of his thumb over the head of Sam’s cock, slicking it with his precome. “Good,” he said, giving Sam a quick kiss and a last tug on his cock to slick him up. “This should work then.”

Sam reached between them and took Dean’s hand away from his dick, closing his fingers between Dean’s as he lifted his hand to bite lightly at the back of his knuckles. Dean’s eyes widened when Sam ran his tongue over Dean’s fingertips, licking through his own bitter precome, watching Dean’s reaction with a smile.

Sam settled between Dean’s legs again and rocked once against him, testing. He let go of Dean’s hand and grabbed his right leg under the knee to shove it up, forcing a soft grunt from Dean as he pushed him up on the seat. Sam pushed his first two fingers into Dean’s ass again and quickly opened and closed them, stretching the muscle, making Dean gasp and cry out at the burn of it.

“Gently,” Dean hissed, grabbing Sam’s shoulder and squeezing. “Slow it down, Sammy.”

“Sorry,” Sam said. He turned his head and nipped lightly at Dean’s inner thigh as he started to work his fingers more carefully. He kept himself tightly in check, reminding himself; gently, slowly, when what he wanted to do was finger Dean open just enough to get inside him right now.

Dean sucked a breath through his teeth and jerked, his fingers digging into Sam’s shoulder again.

“Sorry,” Sam said again, turning his fingers in Dean’s ass, stroking, trying to be more careful. He kissed Dean’s thigh where it was lifted and braced against the back of the seat and murmured his apology into his skin.

“No,” Dean said, shaking his head and pulling a little at Sam’s shoulder. “Do that again.”

“I… oh,” Sam said. He looked down at his hand moving in and out of Dean’s body and curved his fingers inside him, stroking them just right over something. He’d found his prostate and the discovery made Sam grin mischievously as he began to play with it and manipulate it.

Dean gasped and his stomach muscles twitched and jerked as his body contracted around Sam’s probing fingers. Sam bit his lip and made a low moaning sound, rolling his hips against the back of his hand as he pushed his fingers deep. Dean cried out and Sam withdrew them, feeling like his skin was starting to burn and crack. Then he noticed how badly he was shaking and how heavy his heart was pounding in his ears.

Sam held Dean’s leg up with one hand and wrapped his other arm around Dean’s waist, lifting him into his lap and supporting his lower back with his hand as he started to enter him. Dean caught his breath and held it, watching Sam through the lashes of his half-closed eyes as Sam eased inside him. Sam thrust once, moving hard and deep and Dean arched, his body drawing up, shivering. Sam let got of his leg and Dean instantly closed them both around his waist.

Panting, his heart beating so hard and fast against his temples it was making his vision blur, Sam started to move and Dean rolled his hips up to move with him. There was urgency again, like marching ants and that impatient skin hunger was back. Sam growled into the side of Dean’s neck and held him up, throwing his weight behind his thrusts until Dean was making those hitching little whining sounds in his throat that meant he was biting back cries and screams. Sam gritted his teeth as pleasure raced under his skin like those marching ants had been set on fire. He lifted Dean up, hands on his back, curving over the backs of his shoulders to hold Dean astride him while he fucked him so Sam could watch his face.

There was sweat on their skin and Sam watched it gleam in Dean’s short hair as they moved, the light through the car windows slanting over his back and neck, making him glow a little. Dean opened his eyes and caught Sam watching him. He smiled faintly, his lips parted around his panting breath and pressed his face into the curve of Sam’s shoulder to lick up his neck. They both had their shoulders hunched against the low ceiling and it put their heads down close together. All they had to do to kiss was turn their faces and press their lips together.

There was salt in their mouths from their sweat and their skin was hot from the heat of the day trapped in the black car with them. It was like fucking in a cramped sweat lodge, but there was too much to feel for either of them to think about that or care.

Sam moaned into Dean’s mouth and Dean clenched his hands in the back of Sam’s hair, forcing his head back, baring his throat. He licked, flicking his tongue over Sam’s rapid heartbeat, over his Adam’s apple where the flesh slid as Sam swallowed, up to his mouth to kiss and bite. Sam was shaking all over, his flesh raised with bumps despite the heat and the sweat rolling down his back and Dean leaned back to watch him.

Sam started to say something, but Dean put his fingers against his lips and Sam only made a low whining sound in his throat and caught Dean’s middle finger in his mouth to suck and nibble at. Dean petted his other hand through Sam’s hair, down his slick back, and shifted in his lap. He rolled his hips, grinding his own cock against Sam’s belly as he moved, twisting his body a little as Sam grabbed his waist. Watching with pleasure the way Sam shook, his body betraying his pleasure even when he made no sound, Dean deliberately tightened around his dick, muscles gripping as he lifted himself up.

Sam moaned and bit Dean‘s finger. “Dean—”

“Hush,” Dean said roughly.

Dean moved his hand away from Sam’s mouth to cup his jaw as he leaned in to kiss him. He pushed himself back down on Sam’s cock and Sam jerked, snapping his hips up. They both cried out as pleasure rang through their bodies. Then they started to move faster, harder, their attention narrowed down to nothing that existed outside of each other and their own bodies. They moaned and panted, nails biting into skin that they later kissed, teeth biting flesh and leaving bruises that they licked, desperate but always careful not to cross the line and draw blood.

Dean put out a hand to catch himself on the back of one of the front seats as he started to fall back and Sam turned them a little, shoving Dean’s shoulders up against the headrest. Sam grabbed the seat over Dean’s shoulder and used his hold for leverage, working his cock in Dean’s ass with quick, deep strokes that had his muscles contracting with pleasure. There was a skin-sticking friction to Sam’s thrusts from lack of lubrication, but they were both past the point where they would have noticed any pain and it wasn’t in either of them to be gentle right now.

Sam pressed his face to Dean’s chest, feeling Dean’s fingers slide in the sweat on his skin. He flicked his tongue over one of Dean’s nipples, felt his breath hitch under his mouth, and bit down as he felt between them to grasp Dean’s cock and pull. Dean cried out and his back bowed, his hips slamming up as Sam thrust into him. Sam let the oversensitive nipple slide through his teeth as he lifted his head to look down into Dean’s face. Jerking him off slowly in counter to his quick thrusts, Sam watched him. Dean’s face was flushed, sweaty, his eyes wide but unfocused, and every mark on his body stood out in bright relief. His chest rose and fell with rough, gasping breath and as Sam watched, a bead of sweat fell into another bead of sweat and trailed down his throat, over his erect pink nipple. Sam made a low humming sound of pleasure and lowered his head to lick it away.

At the light touch to his oversensitive flesh, Dean whimpered and caught his bottom lip between his teeth. Then Sam took the nipple in his teeth again, bit down lightly and rolled it under his tongue. Dean bucked against him and came with a shout, his hands scrabbling at Sam’s shoulders, then digging in against his back as pleasure washed through him.

Dean’s body tightened around Sam and Sam cried out from the exquisite sensation of Dean’s heartbeat pounding around his cock. He flattened his hand on Dean’s chest and pushed it up to cup his throat, feeling it beating there against his fingers too. His orgasm built in the base of his spine like a growing heat, then flared through his body to his fingertips. Sam gasped and wrapped his arms around Dean’s waist, holding him tight as pleasure hummed and throbbed through his body.

Dean moaned at the thick, full sensation of Sam coming inside him and ran his hands lightly up and down his back soothingly. Sam murmured something under his breath into Dean’s skin, but Dean didn’t ask him to repeat himself on the off chance Sam hadn’t even been speaking to him. He lay there with his back against the back of the front seat, Sam’s breath washing over the sweat on his skin, cooling it, and closed his eyes.

“Did you hear me?” Sam asked, turning his face toward Dean’s ear.

“Hmm?” Dean forced his eyes open again to regard Sam tiredly. “Were you talking to me?”

“Yes,” Sam said, a little frown creasing between his brows. “I said I’m sorry,” he whispered, his eyes darting away so he wasn’t meeting Dean’s gaze. “I said I missed you. I said I won’t… I won’t do it again. I—”

“You did not say all of that,” Dean said, his eyes drifting closed again.

“Well, I’m saying it now,” Sam said, uncomfortable with it just the same. “Dean?”

“Hmm?” With great effort, Dean opened his eyes again.

“I love you,” Sam said, voice a little less than a whisper.

Dean groaned and patted Sam’s back where his hand was resting. “Okay,” he said. “Can you maybe… turn us so I can lay down? The seat’s digging into my back.”

Sam’s frown deepened, but he shifted around on the back seat and got them turned around so he could let Dean go and they could stretch out. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Mmhmm, me too,” Dean said. He lay back on the seat and pulled at Sam’s arm to get him to lay down with him. “Gonna hurt like a motherfucker tomorrow.”

He sounded remarkably pleased with the idea, though.

“This isn’t going to work,” Sam said, squirming half on Dean, half off the seat. He was almost laying in the foot well. “I’m gonna go lay down in the front.”

“Okay,” Dean said. “Close the door, okay?”

“Sure,” Sam said. He got up and crawled backward off Dean and out the door. Outside, he picked up Dean’s shoes and jeans and tossed them on the floor in the back before closing the door.

“Sammy?” Dean said as Sam went around the Impala to get his pants and put them back on.

Sam grunted by way of an answer and got in the front of the car to stretch out on his back across both seats. He put his arms behind his head and exhaled on a sigh. “What?”

“I love you, too,” Dean said.

Sam’s lips quirked. “Okay.”

“I still say you’re procrastinating,” Dean said.

Sam just huffed out an exasperated breath and said nothing. Sometimes that was the only thing you could do with Dean. It was the middle of the day and damn hot, so Sam didn’t think he’d be able to sleep, but he lay there only a few minutes before he heard Dean snoring softly in the back and he soon drifted off himself.

Sam was still obliviously snoozing in the front of the car when Dean woke up. He lay there for a little while trying to decide what had woken him—the desire to piss or the ugly black cat sitting on the trunk of the car glaring death at him through the glass of the rear windshield.

Or the fact that he felt somewhat like he’d been forced slowly through a meat grinder. Fantastic and frantic sex aside, now that it was over, he hurt everywhere.

Grumbling sleepily under his breath, Dean scrubbed a hand down his face and sat up. It was dark now and Dean looked over the back of the front seats to peer at the clock on the dashboard. 3:48 in the morning. Wonderful.

Somewhere on the floor, Dean’s phone started to ring. He fumbled for it, snatching at his discarded clothes until the phone tumbled out on the floor. Growling out a soft curse, Dean grabbed it and answered it to make it stop ringing before it woke Sam up.

“What do you want?” he snapped. They were calling him at the bare ass crack of dawn, they would just have to find a way to cope.

“Ah, well you know me. I’m a lonely sort,” Bobby said calmly. “Just makin’ random phone calls in the middle of the night to whoever’s out there, hoping to find someone that cares.”

“Dude,” Dean said, making a face. “Stop it. I’m sorry, okay? What do you want?”

“World peace and a million dollars’d be nice,” Bobby said. “Short of that, I wouldn’t mind knowin’ if you’ve found your brother yet. And if so, might he still be among the living?”

“Wha—Er, yeah,” Dean said, a little thrown. All things considered, it was way the fuck too early for this shit. “He’s fine. I mean… well, maybe not fine, but it’s Sammy, so he’s fine. “

“Uh-huh,” Bobby said. “And what exactly might that mean this time? You gonna need to lock him up in the panic room again for a little down time? You better start talking, boy, you’re costing me minutes and I ain’t got that rollover shit. I want to know what—”

Sam reached casually over into the back seat and took the phone away from Dean. “He’ll have to call you back about all that, Bobby,” He said. He hung it up and tossed it back to Dean.

Dean scowled at him and immediately started to call Bobby back.

“Don’t do that,” Sam said. He had his chin resting on the back of the passenger seat, looking at Dean over it.

Dean locked gazes with him and got the very uncomfortable impression that it wasn’t Sam looking back at him at all. Then Sam smiled and the feeling was gone. Gone, but not forgotten.

“Why don’t you want me to talk to Bobby?” Dean asked, suspicious.

Sam lifted his eyebrows and shrugged. “Dunno,” he said. “You were so impatient to hear what I have to say before we… got distracted, I thought you might want to finally hear it.”

“Okay,” Dean said slowly. He looked around for his clothes on the floor, got them and started getting dressed. He hated that he smelled like spunk and fuck and he could feel the dried-on come on his thighs and belly flaking off and pinching at his skin, but he’d be goddamned if he was going to have this particular conversation naked.

“So what do you want to know?” Sam asked.

Dean zipped up his fly and got out of the car to find his shoes. “First, I want to know who you’re talking to when you’re talking to yourself,” he said. He went around to the driver’s side door and got in. “Shove over. I might as well drive while you talk.”

“Erm… I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Sam said. He had his head cocked slightly to one side as he said it like he was listening to something. He reminded Dean of the RCA dog with his head tilted toward a phonograph.

“Why not?” Dean asked. He lifted his hips to feel around in his pockets for his cigarettes and a lighter. He found his lighter and managed to rescue one only slightly bent cigarette from the mangled pack that had been in his left front pocket. “You ain’t talking to Dad, are you? Or maybe Mom?”

“Ah… no,” Sam said. “Nothing like that.”

“Okay, then spill, man,” Dean said, talking around the filter of his cigarette as he lit it. “Who the fuck’s hanging out in your head with you these days?”

“Satan,” Sam said, looking into the dark of the foot well where his feet were so he wouldn’t have to see Dean’s reaction.

He figured at the very least, Dean would laugh at him. Maybe suggest getting him some medication. At most, well… he’d believe him and Sam didn’t really like Dean’s track record with that kind of thing. There was the whole thing about Dad telling Dean to kill Sam if he had to, then the demon blood crap—drinking it and having it—so mostly Sam didn’t want to have to deal with that shit anymore, especially from Dean.

He was tired of Dean looking at him and wishing he was different than he was. Sick to death of Dean looking so sad, so sorry, so disappointed. Then some of the crap that he said. Wow. Whoever came up with that sticks-and-stones bullshit had never had their big brother tell them that he might think about hunting them.

So yeah, Sam didn’t mind the idea of dying so much these days, but he wouldn’t have Dean blaming him and cursing him over this. Or if he did, Sam wasn’t going to dignify his screaming tizzy with anything. So he was looking at the floor.

“Satan, huh?” Dean asked. He didn’t start the car yet, just sat there with the window rolled down, blowing smoke rings out at the moon and thinking about how it had all seemed to start with that fucking hole in the floor. Flames and roaring and then… nothing. Except apparently there had been something.

Sam swallowed and nodded. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to work out the strain there, but he didn’t look at Dean. He couldn’t. Dean wasn’t shouting yet, but that didn’t mean anything. There were sayings about calmness and storms just like there were about sticks and stones for a reason.

“Huh, well that explains a lot,” Dean said, and started the car.

“Maybe I won’t have to smite him after all,” Satan said. “Although, it seems to me he took that entirely too well.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. He had finally lifted his head as Dean pulled the car out of their space at the campground and drove by SUVs and RVs and pup tents until they were at the turn off back onto the highway. “You believe me?” he asked Dean. He sounded a bit shocked, but then figured that was okay because he was a little.

“Yeah, I think I do,” Dean said. He took a last drag off his cigarette, then flicked it into the bushes next to a Smoky the Bear sign about forest fires and pulled out onto the on ramp.

“But…” Sam dragged his hand through his hair and stared out the windshield. “You’re not mad?”

“Not your fault, is it?” Dean asked, glancing at him.

“Bit slow on the uptake, that one,” the Devil said.

“Yeah, but…” Sam hesitated, then blurted, “That never mattered before.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up and he turned his head to look at Sam again, thinking maybe Sam had been right and this was a conversation best left on the side of the road. “If it didn’t matter before, don’t you think you’d be dead already?” Dean said.

“I…” Sam frowned and looked out his window. “You’re a lot more… calm about it this time,” he said. “It’s different, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well I’m tired,” Dean said. “Not sleepy, but fucking tired. Like let shit that does not matter slide kind of tired.”

“Is he kidding?” the Devil said, mildly offended by the notion that he might not matter to a piss ant like Dean Winchester.

“Dean… this is the Devil we’re talking about here,” Sam reminded him. He pointed at his temple. “In my head. The Devil, Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, whatever you want to call him, in my fucking head. That’s not nothing. That’s not something that doesn’t matter. All David Berkowitz had was a dog and look what happened. I have Satan.”

“Not Beelzebub,” Satan said.

“What?” Sam said, scowling at the interruption.

“I’m not Beelzebub,” the Devil clarified. “That was someone else.”

“I don’t care,” Sam said. “Shut up.”

Dean slanted a look at Sam and desperately wished for another cigarette. “What’s he saying?”

Sam sighed. “He says he’s not Beelzebub, that was someone else.”

“Uh-huh,” Dean said. He looked back at the road and shook his head. “Okay, look, I’m gonna turn off at the next off ramp and find an Ihop or something. I’m starving, I know you’ve got to be starving and this is too fucking weird for me to keep listening to without even a single cigarette to make it more bearable. So…”

“Oh, good. Food,” Satan said.

“I don’t know what you’re excited about, you can’t eat it,” Sam said.

“Yes, but I can watch you eat it and I can smell it,” Satan said. “It’s almost the same thing. Can we get some of those twisted pastry things?”

“Um… cinnamon rolls?” Sam guessed. He turned around in his seat and reached into the back to get the flannel shirt Dean had been wearing earlier.

“I’m not sure. They smell like sugar and spice,” the Devil said.

“And everything nice,” Sam muttered, unable to help himself.

“What?” Dean asked. He was now trying to watch the road and Sam at the same time and it was proving rather difficult.

“Nothing,” Sam said, buttoning the shirt, which was a little tight across his chest. “He wants a cinnamon roll.”

“Ah… can he taste it if you eat it?” Dean asked. He felt really damn strange just asking it but he had to know.

Sam thought about it. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Are you sure that’s the Devil talking to you and not some dead fat guy accountant or something?” Dean asked.

“Pretty sure,” Sam said.

Dean saw an off ramp and took it, then started looking for an all-night diner. “How sure?”

“Like maybe ninety-five percent,” Sam said.

“This is too fucking weird,” Dean muttered.

“Yeah? Try being me,” Sam said.

“Hate to bust up the pity-party here but has anyone thought of trying to be me?” the Devil demanded. “I mean, I’m just minding my own business, poking the dead people, tormenting the damned, keeping all my records in order so no one gets forgotten or misplace then along come you two geniuses with those two busybody harpies and here I am. Like a splash of cold water in the face right in the middle of a really fantastic wet dream. And all you two can think about is yourselves. No one even bothers to apologize.”

“What’s he saying now?” Dean asked, pulling in to an all-night pancake house and cutting the engine.

“He’s been hard done by or some shit like that,” Sam said. Truthfully, he’d started tuning it out somewhere around “poking dead people”. “He was involuntarily evicted from Hell and it’s all our fault. Something about a wet dream. I dunno. I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

“You’re taking this way the hell too lightly,” Dean said, and got out of the car.

“For once, I agree completely,” Satan said, sounding thoroughly miffed.

Sam ignored him and opened the door to get out and follow Dean, then had to stop and lean against the side of the Impala as pain spiked through his skull. Sam envisioned tiny imps with pitchforks and nasty tempers bouncing around in his head, stabbing his brain. He gritted his teeth and shook his head, hoping to rattle the parasitic demon into some semblance of submission.

“Look,” Sam growled, taking deep breaths until the pain receded. “I don’t have a lot of extra room up there for you to be jumping around, so knock it off.”

“Then I would like a apology,” Satan said.

He did something else that felt a lot like someone jabbing the point of their elbow right behind Sam’s left eye and Sam clutched at the side of the car, moaning at the pain. Dean turned at the sound, saw him collapsed against the side of the Impala and came back to him.

“Sammy? What’s wrong?” Dean asked.

He sounded so anxious that Sam imagined a small dog hopping around his feet, barking, though Dean was doing nothing of the kind. Had to be the Devil fucking with his brain, he decided.

“I want you out of my head,” Sam hissed, lifting his hand to dig at his own hair like he could somehow claw the Devil out of his mind with his fingers.

“Yes, well not everyone gets what they want, as I’m sure you’re aware,” Satan whispered back. “In fact, true happiness is a rare thing.”

Sam screamed as his head filled with lights and flashes. Distantly, he felt Dean grab him around the waist and put him back in the car. He knew there were other people there, too. A young couple that had just come out of the restaurant and a trucker that was on his way in. There was staring, someone might be calling the cops. They probably thought he was a junkie.

Sam couldn’t even make himself care about any of it. His mind flooded with random images; butterflies with electric wings, castles of smoke rising from sugar-coated lips, flowers carved out of flint bursting into flame. It didn’t hurt anymore, but it scared the hell out of him and if Dean hadn’t put him in the car again, Sam would have fallen to the ground. As it was, when it stopped, he was curled up with his face pressed against his knees and his forehead up against the glove box.

“What do you want?” Sam whispered. “What do you want? Tell me what you want.”

“Many things, as you know,” the Devil said. “For now, I’ll settle for a simple apology.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam said. He wasn’t even sure anymore what he was sorry for, but he was sorry. Yes he was. “I’m sorry, okay? Happy?”

“Not even close, but thank you,” Satan said. He sounded a little smug.

“Oh, fuck this,” Dean said. He pushed Sam’s door closed and went back around the hood of the car to get back in himself. “Fuck this. We’re going to the drive-through at Wendy’s and I’m calling Bobby.”

Sam sat up suddenly and got out of the car as Dean put the key in to start it again. “You can’t do that,” he said, and closed the door.

“The fuck I can’t,” Dean said, getting back out and following after him toward the pancake house. “I can and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. You were right, this is not nothing. I’m sorry, I should have—”

“What?” Sam demanded, rounding on him. “What should you have done? Taken it more seriously and blown my fucking head off? God, I wish you could but it’s not that easy. What do you think I’ve been doing for three weeks in that motel room, Dean? Believe me, it doesn’t work.”

They had reached the restaurant and were still nearly shouting as they entered the outside lobby. When they noticed the hostess staring at them and two people in a corner booth looking at them and talking to each other in hushed tones, they both fell silent until they were seated alone at their own booth on the opposite end of the room.

“So you’ve been trying to kill yourself all this time,” Dean said, regarding him with a blank expression across the table.

Sam frowned down at the polished tabletop and nodded. “But I can’t,” he said. “He won’t let me.”

They were quiet again as a waitress brought them menus. Her name was ‘Dolly’ Sam noted, glancing at her nametag through his lashes without lifting his head. She left them menus and quickly disappeared, all without a word.

Sam wondered if someone was going to call the police. Then he decided probably not. These 24 hour places likely saw a lot of this kind of thing. As long as no one threw any punches, he and Dean would probably be left alone.

“What do you mean, he won’t let you?” Dean asked, ignoring his menu.

“What the fuck do you think I mean?” Sam snapped, suddenly irritated with the whole situation. “I slit my wrists, pass out, wake up with a scar and a migraine, but I’m basically good to go. Slit my wrists again, take a bunch of pills to make sure I get it right this time, I wake up in a puddle of my own puke with another scar. Every time. It’s like that movie Groundhog Day, only so much more fucked up, you don’t even know.”

Dean tapped his fingertips on the tabletop and looked off over Sam’s head, thinking. He saw the waitress start toward their table and shook his head. She shrugged and turned back. “Why didn’t you come to me? Or if you couldn’t tell me about it, why not Bobby?”

“That’s a stupid question, Dean, and you know it,” Sam said.

“Agreed,” Satan said.

Sam flinched a little and did his best to ignore him. “I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t… I didn’t know what you’d do. What you’d say. And I…”

Dean was watching him with narrowed eyes but he made a gesture with his hand for Sam to continue when it seemed like he might not. “And you what?”

“And I didn’t want it to infect you—or Bobby,” Sam said.

“That’s ridiculous,” Satan said. “I am not a disease.”

“I didn’t—don’t—know what could happen,” Sam said. He ran his hands through his hair, pulling it out of his eyes, then dropped his hands with a defeated huff. “I… sometimes it’s okay. I think I might be getting used to it. Like Stockholm Syndrome, in a way, but in my head. Then sometimes… it’s not. Sometimes I think he could make me do things if he really wanted. Sometimes I’m sure of it.”

They sat there quietly for a long time, Sam staring down at the tabletop, watching Dean’s reflection in the glossy varnish, Dean watching Sam, trying to decide what to make of it all and what he could do. When they had been sitting there for about ten minutes without saying anything, the waitress came back and asked if she could take their order.

Dean ordered a breakfast burrito with peppers, onions, and extra cheese, sourdough toast and coffee.

Sam ordered coffee and a cinnamon roll and waited for Dean to comment on it.

When he didn’t and the waitress had left, Sam finally looked up from the table and said, “Will you please say something?”

“What do you want me to say, Sammy?” Dean said.

The waitress brought their coffee and Sam’s cinnamon roll and disappeared again. Dean stirred two creams and a sugar into his and sipped it, then added two more sugars. Satisfied, he sipped some more and watched Sam pick at his pastry.

“If you don’t want it, why did you order it?” Dean asked.

“Because he wanted it,” Sam said. He peeled a piece of the cinnamon roll off and popped it into his mouth. The sugar and fine sweet bread melted on his tongue and there was a low purr of approval somewhere in the back of his mind. “See? I don’t know what could happen. What I could do and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“What do you want me to do?” Dean asked, fearing the answer even as he asked the question.

“Kill me,” Sam whispered. He licked powdered sugar icing from his bottom lip and leaned over the table toward him. “I can’t do it, I know that. I’ve tried. Maybe… if someone else does it, it could be different. If you—”

“No,” Dean said, growling it out through clenched teeth. “Absolutely not. I will not.”

Sam looked at him, eyes begging him to change his mind. “Please, Dean. For me? Please?”

Dean’s hand shot out and he grabbed Sam’s chin, thumb and forefinger gripping so tightly it felt like it might bruise. “Everything I do is for you,” he whispered. “Everything. Don’t you dare ask me to do this. I won’t.”

“You promised me,” Sam said, turning his head to pull his chin out of Dean’s grasp. “Do you remember?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Dean said. His eyes flashed with annoyance at the memory, but he remembered it. “That had nothing to do with this.”

“You still promised me then,” Sam said. “Now I’m asking you to keep your damn word.”

Dean smiled, slow and without humor and sat back. He lifted his coffee and sipped it, watching Sam closely over the steam rising from his cup. “I lied,” he said.

Sam slumped back in his seat. He felt the Devil stir in his head and tore off another section of gooey cinnamon roll and ate it to appease him. “I knew that,” Sam mumbled.

“What?” Dean asked.

“I said I knew,” Sam said. “I knew you were lying. But…”

“You had to ask,” Dean finished for him, understanding in his way.

“Yeah.”

“This thing really is scrumptious,” Satan said, not the least bit concerned by their conversation. “What did you call it again?”

“A cinnamon roll,” Sam said. “Now shut up, we’re plotting to kill you.”

“Oh, well by all means, have at it,” the Devil said. “I’m sorry I interrupted.”

“What does he want?” Dean asked. “Do you know that?”

“So far as I can tell, all he wants is my body,” Sam said.

Dean coughed into his coffee cup. “What?”

“My, you know, body,” Sam said, gesturing to himself like it might help Dean understand him better.

“Okay,” Dean said, eyeing said body with a frown. “So why you and not me? I was there too, remember?”

“No idea,” Sam said. “Except I’m way hotter.”

It took Dean a second to catch the joke, what with the seriousness of the situation, and when he did, he didn’t think it was very funny anyway. “You wish, geek boy,” he said.

The waitress returned with Dean’s food and he picked up the fork, took a bite, chewed, swallowed and made a soft sound of appreciation before returning to the conversation. “Maybe it’s that demon blood shit again,” he suggested.

Sam frowned and had to admit, he was probably right. “I guess.”

“So,” Dean said. He took another bite of his burrito and gestured with his fork as he spoke. “So, he wants your body. Like the angels with the ‘vessels’, huh? Doesn’t seem to be doing him much good, though, since you’re still in it.”

“Yeah, well I guess that’s the catch,” Sam said. “He can’t just take it over and go walking down the sidewalk to wreak havoc.”

“That’s comforting to know,” Dean said, taking a huge bite of his burrito. He had to chew slowly so none of it would slip out the corners of his mouth.

“I would do no such thing,” Satan said. “I’d go to a movie, maybe take some pretty girl—or boy—dancing, probably have a few drinks, then return you to yourself good as new. I swear it.”

“Except I would be the one puking up tequila the next day and dialing a doctor because I’ve suddenly developed a mad case of the clap,” Sam said. “That’s assuming all you did was take a night out on the town and not go on a psycho killing spree.”

“And why in the world would I do that?” the Devil demanded. “I like humans. They’re useful, creative and very entertaining. They don’t seem to like themselves very much—they’re always murdering each other and jumping off buildings—but there you go with that entertainment thing again.”

And because he actually did sound pretty annoyed, Sam decided he was probably telling the truth. “Sorry,” he said. “But the answer’s still no.”

“Well, why the fuck not?” the Devil asked. He was whining a little. “I promise not to do anything too terrible. I’d get drunk, get laid, go have some fun for a few hours. You wouldn’t die and it’s nothing that would get you arrested.”

“No,” Sam said. He ripped off another section of cinnamon roll and ate it, hoping to distract him. Across the table, Dean ate and followed the conversation as best he could when he could only hear Sam’s side of it. “No, I’m sorry, but no.”

“You annoying little shit,” Satan hissed.

Sam flinched, expecting another headache or some more flashing lights, but there was none of that. There was just this sense that the Devil was irritated and trying really hard to control his anger.

There was an exasperated sigh, then Satan said, “Fine.”

“That’s it?” Sam said.

“For now,” Satan said.

Sam started to relax.

“Except what if I promise not to do any drugs or hurt anyone’s feelings?” the Devil asked. “And… I’ll confine my sexual recreation to your brother, if you like. That way you don’t have to feel like you’re cheating or being slutty.”

“No,” Sam said, appalled by the idea. “Absolutely not, no.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Satan said impatiently. “Why not? He’s attractive enough and you’re already fucking him. And it’s not like he’d know the difference. I fail to see a problem here.”

“No,” Sam said flatly.

“You’re saying that a lot,” Dean said. He picked up a slice of toast and bit one corner off. “What’s he want?”

“Nothing,” Sam said. Inside his head, the Devil laughed.

“So…” Dean said, wiping his hands on his napkin. “So, can he like… infect me? Like maybe he gets tired of riding around in your meat suit because you won’t do what he tells you. Can he go into someone else?”

“Fuck if I know,” Sam said and shook his head. He slumped back in his seat and let his head thump back against it. “I don’t think so.”

“I’ll never tell,” Satan said, sing-song like a little girl playing jump rope.

“Did he say something?” Dean asked, seeing the look that passed over Sam’s face.

“Nothing important,” Sam said. He looked at Dean’s empty plate. “Are you done?”

Dean jerked a shoulder and stood. “Sure. Let’s get out of here.”

They didn’t talk once they were outside. Not because they were angry with each other or anything like that, but because they were both thinking their own thoughts.

Dean took another broken cigarette out of his pocket, pulled off the broken end, and lit it. He leaned back against the side of the car and smoked his half a cigarette, trying to think of something they could do. Sam was miserable and just the idea of Satan being in his head—whether it was the real Satan or just one of Sam’s own creation—did not sit well with Dean. He was pretty sure that was about how Bobby would see it too… assuming Dean ever told him about it.

They were hunters. Just about the worst thing they could imagine happening to them was that they’d become possessed by or transformed into the creatures they hunted. And the Devil was… the Devil. You didn’t get much worse than that.

And Dean didn’t know any Devil exorcising spells or incantations. He doubted there even were any. Besides, it probably didn’t work that way this time because wasn’t Satan originally an angel? And there weren’t any angel exorcising spells, he knew that for sure. Except when he thought about all he knew about demons, Dean vaguely remembered something about how they all used to be angels, so maybe Satan wasn’t the exception to the rule.

Except it was Satan, so there was probably a catch.

Dean finished his broken cigarette and flicked the butt out into the parking lot. He turned to open the car door and get in, then froze and drew his gun from the small of his back and pointed it into the back seat. There was something in there and he couldn’t see what it was, but it had two glowing eyes.

“Dude, what the fuck are you doing?” Sam asked, looking at him like he’d lost his mind—and wasn’t that just ironic?

“There’s something in the back seat,” Dean said.

Sam stared at him and frowned. He hadn’t even known Dean was carrying a gun, but he’d think about that and what it meant later. “Yeah, man, there is,” Sam said, going for a calming tone as he opened the passenger door. “You’re pointing your gun at my cat.”

Dean glanced at him. “What?”

“The cat,” Sam said. “Don’t shoot my cat, okay? And put the gun away before someone sees it and calls the cops.”

Uncertainly, Dean squinted into the dark backseat of the car and leaned his head a little in the window. The cat meowed and got up on the side of the door to stick its head up and sniff the barrel of his gun. Dean cursed, put the gun back in his waistband and got in the car.

“I feel really stupid,” he muttered under his breath, turning the key.

“That was pretty stupid,” Sam agreed. The cat hopped over the back of the seat and nuzzled Sam’s hand for attention. He petted it and said, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Dean turned his head and looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”

Sam made a vague gesture with his hand before dropping it back down to pet the cat. “I mean, you seem like you’re taking this whole thing… really well. Except maybe you’re not, huh?”

Dean stared at him for a minute, then narrowed his eyes thoughtfully and looked back out the windshield. “Maybe,” he said, and backed the car out. “I don’t know. Maybe… you’re just gonna have to give me some time, Sammy.”

“Sure,” Sam said. The cat settled down in his lap, purring while Sam stroked its fur, watching them both like it was following the conversation perfectly and found the entire thing tedious as hell. “Sure, I can do that,” Sam said. “Just promise me you’re not going to… try to kill me in my sleep or anything.”

“I thought you wanted to die,” Dean said, pulling the Impala back onto the highway.

“Yeah, but I don’t want you to die,” Sam said. “And I’d be asleep, so… I don’t know. Just, if you change your mind, let me know and we’ll do it while I’m awake.”

“I’m not going to change my mind,” Dean said.

“I know, I just meant if—”

“No,” Dean said. “No if. There is no if, so forget it.”

Sam sighed. “Whatever,” he said. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going or is it a surprise?”

“Sola,” Dean said.

“Huh?” Sam said.

“Sola, Louisiana,” Dean clarified. “I’ve got a place. One of those little… what do they call those? Loft? Um… one of those apartments where everything’s in the same room. Except there’s a bathroom and the bedroom’s kinda separate, but there’s no door. Anyway, I’ve been staying there while you were off trying to kill yourself. It’s cheaper than a motel room.”

Sam looked at him and cocked his head a little, studying Dean thoughtfully. Dean flicked a quick glance at him and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “And you like it,” Sam said.

Dean frowned and shot him an annoyed look. “So?”

“So nothing,” Sam said. He personally couldn’t give a shit where they went. Every place was the same to him. “How far is it?”

“I don’t know,” Dean said. “Couple hundred more miles, give or take.”

“Okay,” Sam said. “So why don’t you tell me about Sola?”

Sam liked Sola. It wasn’t really a city, but it wasn’t a small town either. It was big enough that it had more bars and nightclubs than churches and everybody didn’t know everybody’s business. It didn’t have the anonymity of a place like Manhattan or even New Orleans, but mostly people minded their own business and Sam liked that a lot.

They settled into a kind of tentative domesticity in Dean’s old apartment. It wasn’t a big place, but they were used to sharing a single room or the cramped space of the Impala when nothing else could be had, and basically motel-hopping. Staying put took some getting used to, but they stuck with it and eventually the fights petered off into arguments, then back to their old bantering routine where they were most comfortable.

At first, Dean bitched and grumbled about the cat, Envy, and even threatened to take it to the pound (with the implication that he would be giving them an extra twenty bucks with strict orders to have her gassed). Even though Dean knew her name, he would insist on calling the creature “Sammy’s little familiar”. Unfortunately for him, it seemed that, though the cat liked Sam well enough and would curl up in his lap if he were around, she had decided that she rather fancied Dean. If he were there, it was to him she went for her early morning and late evening dose of affection, and it was his legs she would wind around when she wanted to be fed. When Dean came home, Envy would greet him at the door with a welcoming meow and hop from her favorite perch atop the shelf over the dryer onto his shoulder. Sam never said a word, but sometimes Dean would catch him grinning at him while he fed her something off his plate she’d been begging for or when he sat in front of the TV petting her and Dean would glare back, telling him curtly to, “ Shut up, Sammy.”

They didn’t officially give up hunting, but they took a big step back from it and they both figured that so long as no angels came knocking at their door trying to enlist them, they’d be fine. Their reputations preceded them in demonic circles anyway so the demons fought their little Heaven and Hell battles and left them the fuck alone. Which was how they liked it.

Dean suspected some of it probably had to do with Satan renting out space in Sam’s head. He thought it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that they might smell the Devil hanging around and kept their distance. He wondered sometimes if it might be the same reason why no more angels had come after him to fight their battles for them. He never said any of this to Sam, but he thought Sam might already know it anyway.

As for that, well there didn’t seem to be anything that could be done about the Devil. There weren’t any spells, potions, or symbols to cure Sam’s particular problem—mostly because it didn’t look like there had ever been anyone with a problem similar to his before.

After a while, Sam and the Devil seemed to come to a sort of truce and understanding, and Sam decided he didn’t mind having him around so much. It still bothered Dean a little—especially when he’d catch Sam looking at him a certain way, or hear a tone in his voice when he spoke to someone, that didn’t belong to the Sam that he knew so well—but he tried not to think about it most of the time and Sam didn’t tell him what Satan was saying unless Dean asked him. Which he rarely ever did anymore.

They both agreed not to tell Bobby the truth. Instead, they made up something about Sam having an emotional breakdown and pointed to the scars on Sam’s wrists to prove it. Bobby suggested they send Sam to a therapist and get him on some medication. Sam agreed that might be a good idea and started seeing a shrink named Dr. Berkinshire who, in Satan’s expert opinion, had a fantastic rack. Dr. Berkinshire put Sam on antipsychotics after his second appointment and Sam started selling pills to pill heads for a huge profit.

From what Sam told him, Dean got the distinct impression that Sam’s sessions mostly consisted of Sam and the Devil taking turns fucking with the poor doctor.

Dean still went to the bars to shoot pool and drink, but he wasn’t always alone now. Occasionally, Sam would go with him. He still sometimes rolled a drunk tourist now and again, but he started trying to find real work, too. The only problem was, he wasn’t good at anything but hunting and the only thing he could do with skills like those other than hunting was… hunting, and he flatly refused to kill people for a living. It seemed like the exact opposite of what he had been doing his whole life while he was hunting things and saving people.

Sam suggested he try being a bodyguard, but the first time Dean refused to pull a gun on a spoiled little rich girl’s pussy ex-boyfriend, he’d been fired. It put a pretty bitter taste in his mouth for that kind of thing, so Dean went back to the proverbial drawing board. He tried being a bouncer, which he was actually pretty good at, but since he mostly stood around trying to look mean while also trying not to fall asleep, he lost interest in it pretty quickly.

“You could always be a kept woman,” Sam suggested with a wink when Dean came home one night after having walked out on his job again. “It’s not like you need the money. Haven’t you heard? I’m completely batshit and the federal government feels honor bound to help me. Which means I get all the pills I could possibly need to exorcise my demons. Except I’ve got just the one and I’ve gotten pretty used to having him around.”

“I am not—I will not be a kept anything,” Dean said, feeling completely useless just the same. “I’m bored, that’s all,” he admitted.

“Uh-huh,” Sam said. “Well… what do you like to do?”

“I already tried doing what I like to do,” Dean said. “It didn’t work out.”

“That’s because you’re not really,” Sam said. At Dean’s impatient glare, he shrugged. “It’s like that bug I found dead on the windowsill that first night when we got back. You could have let it go or killed it, but you just left it there because it didn’t matter. That’s what this shit is like.”

“Explain that so it makes more sense to me,” Dean said.

“Okay,” Sam said. “It’s like this, you don’t like beating up people because they’re people. For one thing, it’s too easy. And then you probably don’t like it because all that supernatural hunting shit was about protecting people, so in a way, it feels a little wrong. Not so wrong that you feel bad about it because, let’s face it, it’s you. But still wrong. So you don’t like it. It’s like the bug under the glass; you can take it or leave it.”

“Satan gave you this fucked up argument, I just know it,” Dean said.

“No,” Sam said. “Look, I’m not saying I like the idea, but maybe hunting really is all you’re good at.”

“Well, thanks, Sammy,” Dean said dryly.

Sam shrugged. “I suppose you could be a prostitute, but I think I’d like that even less.”

So Dean decided to finally go back to hunting. He swore to himself, and to Sam, that he wouldn’t get involved in any of the war shit between Heaven and Hell. He’d just hunt down the bad shit and protect people. Let the angels figure their own problems out for themselves.

He did a little digging and found a haunting in a little town about a hundred miles west of Sola. Dean decided to check it out the next day, packed the Impala with enough firepower to take out a small metropolis, then couldn’t sleep because he was too excited.

He lay there in the bed next to Sam and stared at the ceiling. He didn’t like the idea of going it alone now after so many years with Sam watching his back, but he didn’t want Sam out there with him now. It wasn’t because Dean didn’t trust the Devil in Sam’s head—though he was still uncertain about that sometimes—mostly it was just that he didn’t want Sam out there where the angels could get him. He didn’t like the idea of going to war with Heaven over Sam. He would do it, no question, but it would mean losing Sam and he didn’t think he could take that again.

Dean rolled onto his side and looked at Sam laying there beside him, stretched out and sleeping, the sheet around his waist moving gently with the light breeze through the window. Dean ran his fingertips lightly over the raised scars on one of Sam’s arms where it lay close to him on the bed. He remembered all the blood in that motel room where he’d found Sam and how bad it stank. Some of the scars on his arms were from wounds that should have opened his forearm clean to the elbow, severing tendons as well as arteries.

Sam should have been dead laying right there next to Dean, where he was sleeping soundly, and Dean never let himself forget it.

Dean put a hand out and ran his fingers through Sam’s hair where it had fallen over his cheek and was touching his lips. For no reason he could really name, he leaned down and kissed Sam’s mouth, then whispered, “Thank you, Satan.”

“You’re quite welcome,” replied a soft voice in his head.

Dean froze, startled. He had not been expecting an answer. “Hello?” he said, cautiously like there was something out there that might bite him.

The voice laughed and Dean shook his head, a sensation like fingers petting his brain making him look around frantically like there was something he could do to make it stop. “Who are you?”

“I think you know,” Satan whispered. “I’ll be going now. You’re mind is nowhere near as comfortable as I‘m accustomed to.”

He sounded like he was complaining about a pair of shoes that were two sizes too small, Dean thought. He swallowed and shook his head like he could make the voice leave by doing that.

“Careful,” the Devil said. “You’ll give yourself whiplash that way. I just wanted to say you’re welcome… you know, firsthand. I’ll go now.”

“Okay,” Dean said, doing his level best not to freak the fuck out. “Thanks. Bye.”

“Of course,” Satan said. “We’ll chat again later. Do try to get some sleep. We’d hate for you to get your head torn off because you were a little off your game.”

“We?” Dean said. “Um.”

“Yes, we. Me and your brother. He loves you quite a lot. It’s disgusting, really. But then, I find you amusing from time to time myself, so yes, we would not like it if you were to die out there. In fact, we might take it somewhat personal.”

“Okay,” Dean said. “I’ll… go to sleep. I promise.”

“That’s fine then,” Satan said. “And I’ll just be leaving you to it. Sleep well.”

“Erm, alright,” Dean said. He didn’t feel the Devil leave any more than he had felt him enter and that was probably the most unsettling part of the whole experience. He couldn’t tell if he was still there or not.

Dean decided that he would have to talk with Sam about it in the morning—though there wasn’t anything Sam could really do about it—and closed his eyes, determined to sleep. Which he did, after a fashion. It was sleep full of all kinds of disturbing and unusual dreams. Dreams where demons picked their teeth with the bones of saints while wearing bright headdresses fashioned from the wing feathers of captured angels. He dreamed that he stood on a mountain, looking down on them and their revelry and smiled, completely at peace.