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Description
Corruption
A SPN fanfic

{Warning: Language, shipping (aka man/man, soon but not yet), torture, and violence ahead.}

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Chapter Two

Three Weeks Later

“Dean.”

“What?”

His brother’s voice is taut, curt. Cold. Sam practically shivers at the borderline hostility haunting his brother’s voice. It’s been like that for some time now...almost three weeks.

Ever since Cas disappeared.

Sam keeps going, for some reason urged by the sound of Dean’s voice. “Stop the car.”

Dean seems to know already what he was going to say. “Fuck you. We’re thirty minutes away.” Sam blinks, surprised, but his eyes flicker with restrained irritation. It’s misplaced, he knows it. Dean’s anger is too.

He tries not to let his own anger bleed through his words...it doesn’t exactly work. “Fuck you. I don’t care how close we are to the next ice cold lead. Stop the damn car, Dean.”

Pulling the side abruptly, the Impala jerks to a halt and Dean’s neck snaps to his right, fixing an icy glare on Sam.

“What?” he practically spits, eyes darkening as his eyebrows slant in anger. Sam sucks in a deep breath and meets his brother’s eyes. The absence of engine noise leaves the interior of the Impala empty and cold despite the July heat outside, and Sam tries again not to shiver.

“Dean.” Sam’s voice is calmer now, but still holds the determination fueled by his brother’s outrage. “We need to find a hotel. And you need to sleep.”

Dean’s eyes are the color of a raging hurricane, forest green and stormy, and they bore into Sam’s own like knives. “We’ll be up to the next crossroads in half an hour. We question it- like the others. Then we find Castiel.” Sam starts to open his mouth, but Dean vehemently cuts him off. “It’s simple, Sam. If it doesn’t talk we make it talk. Eventually one of them has to know where he is- it’s been three weeks already, Sam! And we haven’t fucking found him yet! If we don’t find him soon I’m gonna-” Dean cuts himself off there before his voice can start to crack, and he steels his expression again. But not before Sam’s green eyes glitter with compassion.

Dean tries to ignore that goddamn puppy-eyed look his younger brother was giving him and slides his angry mask back on. But his rage cools to a degree as the anger shifts targets- from Sam to himself. “I haven’t found him yet, Sammy. But I have to. And I will. If it’s the last thing I do.”

Sam sighs. “Please. Dean- you need sleep. We’re not gonna find Cas any faster with you so exhausted.”

“Do I look exhausted?” Dean growls. There are dark circles under his eyes and the skin under his cheekbones is slightly gaunt, accentuated by his poor pallor. But his face is stern and his jaw is sternly set. Not to mention that fire burning in his eyes.

Sam just raises an eyebrow and continues. “It doesn’t matter what you look like, Dean. It’s been three weeks. Three weeks since you’ve gotten more than an hour of sleep every, what, three days? Not to mention food. Jesus Christ, Dean, when’s the last time you ate?”

Dean purses his lips, nostrils flaring. But as he speaks his expression steadily grows more agonized. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about sleeping right now- not when Cas is out there, probably being tortured by some psychotic demon bastard and every second we waste talking about this is another second he has to fucking wait-”

“Dean!” Sam can’t keep his voice from a shout this time. It’s killing him, hearing those words, knowing they were true, seeing that pain on his brother’s face. It’s almost too much to stomach. “At least- at least one night. One night of sleep. The crossroad will still be there. The demon will too.” He feels like a selfish dick, asking it of his brother, let alone asking it of the angel who has to wait longer for them.

“And so will Cas,” Dean whispers, his voice so low it became a rumble, cracking like dry earth.

Sam feels his throat choke up in guilt, but he stares at his brother until he gives a watery groan of what he hopes is assent. His eyes slide out the window as the last few weeks sweep through his mind.

The search for Cas has been, if possible, even more obsessed than the hunt for Dick Roman- because it was both Winchesters this time, throwing themselves back into their old life without a second thought. Both Sam and Dean, frantically working together against time to bring back their only friend, the only family they had left. And in one piece, alive and breathing.

And Castiel has to be alive. They- whoever the hell they were- wouldn’t have taken him, tortured and kidnapped him, just to kill him. No, whoever took him needs Castiel alive. And despite how grave that is, it’s what Sam and Dean rely on the most.

Dean’s turned off all of his emotions besides determination and anger. He won’t let himself despair, won’t let himself grow distraught or curl into a lost, sobbing ball like the smallest part of him wants to. Not when Cas is still out there, in the grasp of psychotic bastards who are most likely torturing him at this very moment. A couple minutes ago was the most choked up he had gotten since that fucking night in June.

The way Dean rushes forward, pouring through clues and data and lore with no sleep and little food is almost scary to Sam. Not almost, it is. Frankly, Dean’s behavior is terrifying Sam. He’s remained strong for his brother’s sake, shoved aside his own worry for the angel so he could be there for his brother in case he fell apart, but now it seems that Dean doesn't need anyone or anything to find Castiel. Just air to breathe and gas in the Impala.

It’s even worse than when Dad or Bobby died.

That night, after hastily packing up their gear and clothes, they had sped out in the Impala to the closest crossroads they could find to demand of the demon where the hell their angel was. It had to have been demons, of course. There were no scorched wings in their home from the bodies left there, and the house had reeked of sulfur with particles of the yellow substance scattered over the crime scene that used to be their living room. They had pondered summoning Crowley but last time they saw him he’d been practically human and had been evidently whisked back to Hell- the King of Hell had left no trace of himself and he hadn’t been heard of since. It was more likely a powerful demon who wanted revenge on the Winchesters for a possible myriad of reasons-- God knows how many creatures they have pissed off in their day.

He remembers the reaction the crossroads demon had had when seeing the infamous Sam and Dean Winchester, the greatest and most hated hunters of the century standing there with weapons drawn and fierce determination in their eyes. The look on her face-- which had been naturally pretty in the way crossroads demons’ tended to be-- would’ve been almost funny if Sam and particularly Dean hadn’t been so enraged. Dean had been seconds from strapping her down right there and then and torturing her the way the demon Alastair had taught him-- to Sam’s absolute horror-- but he also knew she didn’t know a thing. He could just tell, tell by the way she had balked and cowered under them, artless terror in her red eyes. He stopped his brother from doing the deed, terrified of what further damage would be done to him if he did, and because he knew it would have been futile.

Dean killed her the second he realized she was useless.

It was the look on his brother’s face when he killed that had deeply disturbed him-- almost more than his threat of torture. That senseless, haunting rage that twisted his features to something akin to an animal. Every good thing about him vanished during that second, leaving Sam cold and worried about what this would really do to Dean. He imagined it would be just the same if someone had taken him instead of Cas-- realistically, he knew he’d be fueled by the same insane drive to get Dean back. Plus Cas was...Dean’s. But even so...

He's told himself, half to ease his own vexations about the disintegration of Dean’s conscience, that the second they find Cas he would be back to same old Dean with same old moral qualms and light in his eyes. The Dean who could laugh, make corny pop culture references, and sing to hard rock like an idiot.

At the thought of music, Sam’s eyes flicker to the dormant stereo in the Impala, taking care not to let Dean catch him looking at it.

Dean won’t listen to music anymore.

That seems so insignificant, as it would’ve been if it was someone else. But it isn’t someone else. This is his big brother.

Dean loved music. It was his own pastime, his way to get lost in thoughts and lift his spirits. But he hasn’t played a single tape since Cas left. Refuses to listen to the radio. Occasionally he’ll listen to news radio in case there’s any kind of demon activity, but that’s it. It’s further proof that what’s happening to Dean isn’t just shredding his conscience, but stripping off the good parts of him that make him Dean. This realization makes Sam feel even worse.

The thirty minutes pass faster than he expects, and soon they’re parked on the side of the road. Dean opens the door and slams his boot on the ground, a expression of fierce determination on his face, with the pinch of anger that was almost a given with him now. Nostrils flared and eyebrows slammed down, his face is as intimidating as it could be, and when Sam clambers out of the car into the evening heat, he feels the familiar wave of worry.

That worry gets stronger and stronger every fucking day.

The evening is sweltering, but calm. The lush violet of the sky is streaked with vivid orange and pink smears near the horizon, and the sun has disappeared beneath the blurred green edge of forest hills miles away to the west. They‘re in a town so deserted there isn’t a name for it, just a random gas station two miles away in rugged East Kentucky, on all sides confronted by hilly mounds of green. The crossroads are barren and gravelly as most country roads are, and the stillness of the night fills the younger Winchester with a telltale sense of dread. This isn’t going to go well, it tells him. It’s an instinct he knows is all too correct.

So far none of this has went well.

He lingers near the car door, and watches silently as Dean yanks a handful of anti-demon weaponry and the necessary ingredients for a summoning out of the trunk. Clomping over to Sam, he shoves a gun and a pair of demon cuffs into his arms without a word, then steps into the intersection of the crossroads. There he stoops, kneeling abruptly onto the dirty ground and then digging into the dry earth with a small garden shovel.

A wild urge to speak, to shout or to scream something-- anything at all because he just needs Dean to see-- pries open Sam’s mouth without his permission.

“Dean,” he says quietly. He realizes he has absolutely nothing to say, and regains control of himself. He clamps his mouth shut, unable to express the wordless, tumultuous emotions that knots in his chest like barbed wire. To his slightly saddened relief, Dean doesn’t give him any notion that he heard him-- whether he had or not is unfathomable, since all Sam has to guess from was the quick, driven movements his brother is making. Dean straightens, swiftly burying all the dirt with a boot and stamping it back down.

Then he backs up two steps. And waits.

For a moment, it seems like nothing is going to happen. Like maybe the demons finally got smart and decided not to show up that day-- having discovered exactly who was knocking on their door, and what they planned to do. Sam isn’t surprised-- it has been on the demon radio for weeks now that Sam and Dean Winchester were tearing up the country, slaying demons left and right in their search for the angel Castiel. It wasn’t the first time the demon had decided not to show. Basically, they spooked every them all until they eventually stopped coming.

But then they got smarter.

It was Sam who had suggested the idea-- placing someone else’s photos and belongings inside the crossroad deal box. He honestly didn’t think it would work-- tricking a demon isn’t exactly easy to do. Especially with something so unoriginal and, quite frankly, simple. If Dean had been his normal self, he might have said something like “It’s so simple it’s stupid”. But he wasn’t his normal self, and anything that would let him get his hands on another demon was something he was willing to try.

But Sam still couldn’t believe his luck. Or the demon’s vulnerability. He’d originally thought that, certainly, the urge to answer a deal-- so long as it wasn’t with someone on Hell’s Most Wanted list (which Sam and Dean most definitely were)-- was a choice. They wouldn’t be so stupid as to show up at the deal-makin’ spot without the slightest notion of who was there and what they wanted-- demons were way too suspicious for that. Sure it was their job, but demons valued their own lives as much if not more than humans did, and they weren’t stupid-- at least, not the crossroad ones.

It was basically a ‘what the hell, let’s just fucking do it’ plan-- that had worked out surprisingly in their favor. Sam hypothesized all they saw was the identity of the person in the photo and boom- “Hello, doll, what can I do for you today?”

Man, demons are stupid.

All of them realize their mistake the second they see the angry mug of Dean Winchester bearing down on them, as wrathful as any warrior of God. All it takes it a devil’s trap bullet or a cuffed arm and before they can say “Oh, shit” they’re on their knees and they’re Dean Winchester’s little bitches.

This time it seemed they’d finally figured it out. Sam would be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved, a little bit at least.

A throaty gasp broke through Sam’s thoughts and suddenly a beautiful, red-eyed brunette was in front of them, horror etched on her face. Her scarlet eyes darted around wildly, from Dean to Sam and her lips twisted from a seductive smile to a surprised, defensive snarl. She was literally one second from getting the hell out of Dodge when-

Bam.

The sound of the gunshot nearly made Sam jump as Dean pulled the trigger on his weapon, firing the devil’s trap bullet straight in between the demon’s eyes. She gasps again and sways, but her feet are held firmly in place and she opens her mouth slightly, ready to flee her vessel, when to her utmost horror she realizes she can’t. Her eyes grow even wider and terror forces a choked moan from her throat.

“What...what is this?” she cries, her voice wavering and pathetic with fear. With confidence her voice could have been sultry and smoky, but not it was cracked with terror.

Dean walks forward slowly and purposefully while Sam hangs behind. He’s seen this before, and Dean’s the one running the show. He wants no part in what Dean has planned, despite his own hatred for the creatures. There are lines he won't let himself cross anymore, not since he recovered from soullessness. As for Dean...Sam tries.

But no one makes Dean Winchester do anything.

Sam doesn’t need to see his brother’s face to know that it’s colder than ice and darkened in smoldering fury. That mask he always wears when he set about his form of interrogation. Sam is terrified Dean was one day going to wake up with that mask permanent on his face, and that the Dean Sam used to know, his big brother and closest friend, will be lost forever. And it'll kill him. It really will.

Focus. The younger Winchester forces his brain out of his concerns and into the situation he’s in, right now. He slides his knife into his pocket and holds his gun tightly in his hand, so tightly his knuckles turn white. Dean is inches from the demon, and while she tries to hold her ground like the bad little demon she is, her body cringes anyway.

“I don’t know where he is-” she yelps, skipping all the ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ bullshit and heading straight to the pleading. Dean’s arm jerks forward and snatches her by the chin roughly, halting her words as he cuts off her airway.

“Castiel.” Dean says the name with such definity and such magnitude Sam nearly trembles. The demon most certainly does, her red eyes flickering to a dark brown. It makes the fear in her eyes all the more real and the unease in Sam’s gut grows stronger. They aren’t humans, they don't deserve his sympathy, but he can't help but think of the people inside, the people Dean is hurting in order to get their angel back.

“I don’t know where he is,” she gurgles, voice strangled but insistent. Her tone, despite its garbled nature, is obviously laced with fright.

“I don’t believe you,” Dean says simply. Simple and cold, that’s how he usually keeps it, even when he’s covered in blood that’s not his own and screams are penetrating the nights. Sometimes he loses control, lets out his frustration on whatever’s in front of him, but he thinks himself weak when he does that. He knows it makes the demons think he’s weak too. So he reigns himself in, shoves any scrap of conscience he has down deep inside, and soon finds himself slicing, cutting, burning.

All it does is damage. Damage everyone.

Sam’s throat seems clamped together, and the pit in his stomach grows larger and larger. His gun shakes in his hand and he tries to goad himself into toughening up, tells himself he’s being a pussy and that this is the real world and that it’s the only way they’re gonna get Cas back.

He doesn’t believe himself for a second, but still he doesn’t move. God knows what Dean will do if he does.

The older Winchester still has the demon’s chin gripped tight, his short nails digging into her soft pale skin, and his breath huffed from his flared nostrils short and angry. But that was all the anger he was going to show tonight, if he could help it. With a free hand, Dean draws the demon cuffs up and dangles them around on a finger. The demon follows each quick swing with her eyes and gulps.

“I don’t know where he is.” Her voice has dropped to a whisper. Dean’s expression doesn’t change. “But...”

Sam nearly starts at that ‘but’. A lead a break a clue oh god have we got one finally?!

Dean’s expression still doesn’t change, but something shifts in the wall behind his eyes.

“Tell me.”

His voice transcends an order or demand, it’s a fucking command. It holds all the warning that if she lies she’ll regret it. Regret it until she draws her last godforsaken breath.

She opens her mouth with some difficulty considering Dean is still clutching her chin. He interrupts her once before she can drag a word out.

“If you lie to me, I won’t kill you.” She pauses, brought up short in confusion.

“I won’t kill you,” he repeats, cold and blunt like a knife, but slow like he’s speaking to a child. So it can sink in. But the words are all too cruel for a child, too cruel to be said by a good man’s mouth. But right now Dean is not a good man. Everyone knows it, knows that Dean isn’t bluffing either.

And when her eyes widen in realization Sam knows they finally have something.

Because that threat meant Dean would keep her alive.

Alive and screaming.

Sam doubts anyone in the world would hold up against that threat.

Description
Corruption
A SPN fanfic

{Warning: Language, shipping (aka man/man, soon but not yet), torture, and violence ahead.}

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Chapter Two

Three Weeks Later

“Dean.”

“What?”

His brother’s voice is taut, curt. Cold. Sam practically shivers at the borderline hostility haunting his brother’s voice. It’s been like that for some time now...almost three weeks.

Ever since Cas disappeared.

Sam keeps going, for some reason urged by the sound of Dean’s voice. “Stop the car.”

Dean seems to know already what he was going to say. “Fuck you. We’re thirty minutes away.” Sam blinks, surprised, but his eyes flicker with restrained irritation. It’s misplaced, he knows it. Dean’s anger is too.

He tries not to let his own anger bleed through his words...it doesn’t exactly work. “Fuck you. I don’t care how close we are to the next ice cold lead. Stop the damn car, Dean.”

Pulling the side abruptly, the Impala jerks to a halt and Dean’s neck snaps to his right, fixing an icy glare on Sam.

“What?” he practically spits, eyes darkening as his eyebrows slant in anger. Sam sucks in a deep breath and meets his brother’s eyes. The absence of engine noise leaves the interior of the Impala empty and cold despite the July heat outside, and Sam tries again not to shiver.

“Dean.” Sam’s voice is calmer now, but still holds the determination fueled by his brother’s outrage. “We need to find a hotel. And you need to sleep.”

Dean’s eyes are the color of a raging hurricane, forest green and stormy, and they bore into Sam’s own like knives. “We’ll be up to the next crossroads in half an hour. We question it- like the others. Then we find Castiel.” Sam starts to open his mouth, but Dean vehemently cuts him off. “It’s simple, Sam. If it doesn’t talk we make it talk. Eventually one of them has to know where he is- it’s been three weeks already, Sam! And we haven’t fucking found him yet! If we don’t find him soon I’m gonna-” Dean cuts himself off there before his voice can start to crack, and he steels his expression again. But not before Sam’s green eyes glitter with compassion.

Dean tries to ignore that goddamn puppy-eyed look his younger brother was giving him and slides his angry mask back on. But his rage cools to a degree as the anger shifts targets- from Sam to himself. “I haven’t found him yet, Sammy. But I have to. And I will. If it’s the last thing I do.”

Sam sighs. “Please. Dean- you need sleep. We’re not gonna find Cas any faster with you so exhausted.”

“Do I look exhausted?” Dean growls. There are dark circles under his eyes and the skin under his cheekbones is slightly gaunt, accentuated by his poor pallor. But his face is stern and his jaw is sternly set. Not to mention that fire burning in his eyes.

Sam just raises an eyebrow and continues. “It doesn’t matter what you look like, Dean. It’s been three weeks. Three weeks since you’ve gotten more than an hour of sleep every, what, three days? Not to mention food. Jesus Christ, Dean, when’s the last time you ate?”

Dean purses his lips, nostrils flaring. But as he speaks his expression steadily grows more agonized. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about sleeping right now- not when Cas is out there, probably being tortured by some psychotic demon bastard and every second we waste talking about this is another second he has to fucking wait-”

“Dean!” Sam can’t keep his voice from a shout this time. It’s killing him, hearing those words, knowing they were true, seeing that pain on his brother’s face. It’s almost too much to stomach. “At least- at least one night. One night of sleep. The crossroad will still be there. The demon will too.” He feels like a selfish dick, asking it of his brother, let alone asking it of the angel who has to wait longer for them.

“And so will Cas,” Dean whispers, his voice so low it became a rumble, cracking like dry earth.

Sam feels his throat choke up in guilt, but he stares at his brother until he gives a watery groan of what he hopes is assent. His eyes slide out the window as the last few weeks sweep through his mind.

The search for Cas has been, if possible, even more obsessed than the hunt for Dick Roman- because it was both Winchesters this time, throwing themselves back into their old life without a second thought. Both Sam and Dean, frantically working together against time to bring back their only friend, the only family they had left. And in one piece, alive and breathing.

And Castiel has to be alive. They- whoever the hell they were- wouldn’t have taken him, tortured and kidnapped him, just to kill him. No, whoever took him needs Castiel alive. And despite how grave that is, it’s what Sam and Dean rely on the most.

Dean’s turned off all of his emotions besides determination and anger. He won’t let himself despair, won’t let himself grow distraught or curl into a lost, sobbing ball like the smallest part of him wants to. Not when Cas is still out there, in the grasp of psychotic bastards who are most likely torturing him at this very moment. A couple minutes ago was the most choked up he had gotten since that fucking night in June.

The way Dean rushes forward, pouring through clues and data and lore with no sleep and little food is almost scary to Sam. Not almost, it is. Frankly, Dean’s behavior is terrifying Sam. He’s remained strong for his brother’s sake, shoved aside his own worry for the angel so he could be there for his brother in case he fell apart, but now it seems that Dean doesn't need anyone or anything to find Castiel. Just air to breathe and gas in the Impala.

It’s even worse than when Dad or Bobby died.

That night, after hastily packing up their gear and clothes, they had sped out in the Impala to the closest crossroads they could find to demand of the demon where the hell their angel was. It had to have been demons, of course. There were no scorched wings in their home from the bodies left there, and the house had reeked of sulfur with particles of the yellow substance scattered over the crime scene that used to be their living room. They had pondered summoning Crowley but last time they saw him he’d been practically human and had been evidently whisked back to Hell- the King of Hell had left no trace of himself and he hadn’t been heard of since. It was more likely a powerful demon who wanted revenge on the Winchesters for a possible myriad of reasons-- God knows how many creatures they have pissed off in their day.

He remembers the reaction the crossroads demon had had when seeing the infamous Sam and Dean Winchester, the greatest and most hated hunters of the century standing there with weapons drawn and fierce determination in their eyes. The look on her face-- which had been naturally pretty in the way crossroads demons’ tended to be-- would’ve been almost funny if Sam and particularly Dean hadn’t been so enraged. Dean had been seconds from strapping her down right there and then and torturing her the way the demon Alastair had taught him-- to Sam’s absolute horror-- but he also knew she didn’t know a thing. He could just tell, tell by the way she had balked and cowered under them, artless terror in her red eyes. He stopped his brother from doing the deed, terrified of what further damage would be done to him if he did, and because he knew it would have been futile.

Dean killed her the second he realized she was useless.

It was the look on his brother’s face when he killed that had deeply disturbed him-- almost more than his threat of torture. That senseless, haunting rage that twisted his features to something akin to an animal. Every good thing about him vanished during that second, leaving Sam cold and worried about what this would really do to Dean. He imagined it would be just the same if someone had taken him instead of Cas-- realistically, he knew he’d be fueled by the same insane drive to get Dean back. Plus Cas was...Dean’s. But even so...

He's told himself, half to ease his own vexations about the disintegration of Dean’s conscience, that the second they find Cas he would be back to same old Dean with same old moral qualms and light in his eyes. The Dean who could laugh, make corny pop culture references, and sing to hard rock like an idiot.

At the thought of music, Sam’s eyes flicker to the dormant stereo in the Impala, taking care not to let Dean catch him looking at it.

Dean won’t listen to music anymore.

That seems so insignificant, as it would’ve been if it was someone else. But it isn’t someone else. This is his big brother.

Dean loved music. It was his own pastime, his way to get lost in thoughts and lift his spirits. But he hasn’t played a single tape since Cas left. Refuses to listen to the radio. Occasionally he’ll listen to news radio in case there’s any kind of demon activity, but that’s it. It’s further proof that what’s happening to Dean isn’t just shredding his conscience, but stripping off the good parts of him that make him Dean. This realization makes Sam feel even worse.

The thirty minutes pass faster than he expects, and soon they’re parked on the side of the road. Dean opens the door and slams his boot on the ground, a expression of fierce determination on his face, with the pinch of anger that was almost a given with him now. Nostrils flared and eyebrows slammed down, his face is as intimidating as it could be, and when Sam clambers out of the car into the evening heat, he feels the familiar wave of worry.

That worry gets stronger and stronger every fucking day.

The evening is sweltering, but calm. The lush violet of the sky is streaked with vivid orange and pink smears near the horizon, and the sun has disappeared beneath the blurred green edge of forest hills miles away to the west. They‘re in a town so deserted there isn’t a name for it, just a random gas station two miles away in rugged East Kentucky, on all sides confronted by hilly mounds of green. The crossroads are barren and gravelly as most country roads are, and the stillness of the night fills the younger Winchester with a telltale sense of dread. This isn’t going to go well, it tells him. It’s an instinct he knows is all too correct.

So far none of this has went well.

He lingers near the car door, and watches silently as Dean yanks a handful of anti-demon weaponry and the necessary ingredients for a summoning out of the trunk. Clomping over to Sam, he shoves a gun and a pair of demon cuffs into his arms without a word, then steps into the intersection of the crossroads. There he stoops, kneeling abruptly onto the dirty ground and then digging into the dry earth with a small garden shovel.

A wild urge to speak, to shout or to scream something-- anything at all because he just needs Dean to see-- pries open Sam’s mouth without his permission.

“Dean,” he says quietly. He realizes he has absolutely nothing to say, and regains control of himself. He clamps his mouth shut, unable to express the wordless, tumultuous emotions that knots in his chest like barbed wire. To his slightly saddened relief, Dean doesn’t give him any notion that he heard him-- whether he had or not is unfathomable, since all Sam has to guess from was the quick, driven movements his brother is making. Dean straightens, swiftly burying all the dirt with a boot and stamping it back down.

Then he backs up two steps. And waits.

For a moment, it seems like nothing is going to happen. Like maybe the demons finally got smart and decided not to show up that day-- having discovered exactly who was knocking on their door, and what they planned to do. Sam isn’t surprised-- it has been on the demon radio for weeks now that Sam and Dean Winchester were tearing up the country, slaying demons left and right in their search for the angel Castiel. It wasn’t the first time the demon had decided not to show. Basically, they spooked every them all until they eventually stopped coming.

But then they got smarter.

It was Sam who had suggested the idea-- placing someone else’s photos and belongings inside the crossroad deal box. He honestly didn’t think it would work-- tricking a demon isn’t exactly easy to do. Especially with something so unoriginal and, quite frankly, simple. If Dean had been his normal self, he might have said something like “It’s so simple it’s stupid”. But he wasn’t his normal self, and anything that would let him get his hands on another demon was something he was willing to try.

But Sam still couldn’t believe his luck. Or the demon’s vulnerability. He’d originally thought that, certainly, the urge to answer a deal-- so long as it wasn’t with someone on Hell’s Most Wanted list (which Sam and Dean most definitely were)-- was a choice. They wouldn’t be so stupid as to show up at the deal-makin’ spot without the slightest notion of who was there and what they wanted-- demons were way too suspicious for that. Sure it was their job, but demons valued their own lives as much if not more than humans did, and they weren’t stupid-- at least, not the crossroad ones.

It was basically a ‘what the hell, let’s just fucking do it’ plan-- that had worked out surprisingly in their favor. Sam hypothesized all they saw was the identity of the person in the photo and boom- “Hello, doll, what can I do for you today?”

Man, demons are stupid.

All of them realize their mistake the second they see the angry mug of Dean Winchester bearing down on them, as wrathful as any warrior of God. All it takes it a devil’s trap bullet or a cuffed arm and before they can say “Oh, shit” they’re on their knees and they’re Dean Winchester’s little bitches.

This time it seemed they’d finally figured it out. Sam would be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved, a little bit at least.

A throaty gasp broke through Sam’s thoughts and suddenly a beautiful, red-eyed brunette was in front of them, horror etched on her face. Her scarlet eyes darted around wildly, from Dean to Sam and her lips twisted from a seductive smile to a surprised, defensive snarl. She was literally one second from getting the hell out of Dodge when-

Bam.

The sound of the gunshot nearly made Sam jump as Dean pulled the trigger on his weapon, firing the devil’s trap bullet straight in between the demon’s eyes. She gasps again and sways, but her feet are held firmly in place and she opens her mouth slightly, ready to flee her vessel, when to her utmost horror she realizes she can’t. Her eyes grow even wider and terror forces a choked moan from her throat.

“What...what is this?” she cries, her voice wavering and pathetic with fear. With confidence her voice could have been sultry and smoky, but not it was cracked with terror.

Dean walks forward slowly and purposefully while Sam hangs behind. He’s seen this before, and Dean’s the one running the show. He wants no part in what Dean has planned, despite his own hatred for the creatures. There are lines he won't let himself cross anymore, not since he recovered from soullessness. As for Dean...Sam tries.

But no one makes Dean Winchester do anything.

Sam doesn’t need to see his brother’s face to know that it’s colder than ice and darkened in smoldering fury. That mask he always wears when he set about his form of interrogation. Sam is terrified Dean was one day going to wake up with that mask permanent on his face, and that the Dean Sam used to know, his big brother and closest friend, will be lost forever. And it'll kill him. It really will.

Focus. The younger Winchester forces his brain out of his concerns and into the situation he’s in, right now. He slides his knife into his pocket and holds his gun tightly in his hand, so tightly his knuckles turn white. Dean is inches from the demon, and while she tries to hold her ground like the bad little demon she is, her body cringes anyway.

“I don’t know where he is-” she yelps, skipping all the ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ bullshit and heading straight to the pleading. Dean’s arm jerks forward and snatches her by the chin roughly, halting her words as he cuts off her airway.

“Castiel.” Dean says the name with such definity and such magnitude Sam nearly trembles. The demon most certainly does, her red eyes flickering to a dark brown. It makes the fear in her eyes all the more real and the unease in Sam’s gut grows stronger. They aren’t humans, they don't deserve his sympathy, but he can't help but think of the people inside, the people Dean is hurting in order to get their angel back.

“I don’t know where he is,” she gurgles, voice strangled but insistent. Her tone, despite its garbled nature, is obviously laced with fright.

“I don’t believe you,” Dean says simply. Simple and cold, that’s how he usually keeps it, even when he’s covered in blood that’s not his own and screams are penetrating the nights. Sometimes he loses control, lets out his frustration on whatever’s in front of him, but he thinks himself weak when he does that. He knows it makes the demons think he’s weak too. So he reigns himself in, shoves any scrap of conscience he has down deep inside, and soon finds himself slicing, cutting, burning.

All it does is damage. Damage everyone.

Sam’s throat seems clamped together, and the pit in his stomach grows larger and larger. His gun shakes in his hand and he tries to goad himself into toughening up, tells himself he’s being a pussy and that this is the real world and that it’s the only way they’re gonna get Cas back.

He doesn’t believe himself for a second, but still he doesn’t move. God knows what Dean will do if he does.

The older Winchester still has the demon’s chin gripped tight, his short nails digging into her soft pale skin, and his breath huffed from his flared nostrils short and angry. But that was all the anger he was going to show tonight, if he could help it. With a free hand, Dean draws the demon cuffs up and dangles them around on a finger. The demon follows each quick swing with her eyes and gulps.

“I don’t know where he is.” Her voice has dropped to a whisper. Dean’s expression doesn’t change. “But...”

Sam nearly starts at that ‘but’. A lead a break a clue oh god have we got one finally?!

Dean’s expression still doesn’t change, but something shifts in the wall behind his eyes.

“Tell me.”

His voice transcends an order or demand, it’s a fucking command. It holds all the warning that if she lies she’ll regret it. Regret it until she draws her last godforsaken breath.

She opens her mouth with some difficulty considering Dean is still clutching her chin. He interrupts her once before she can drag a word out.

“If you lie to me, I won’t kill you.” She pauses, brought up short in confusion.

“I won’t kill you,” he repeats, cold and blunt like a knife, but slow like he’s speaking to a child. So it can sink in. But the words are all too cruel for a child, too cruel to be said by a good man’s mouth. But right now Dean is not a good man. Everyone knows it, knows that Dean isn’t bluffing either.

And when her eyes widen in realization Sam knows they finally have something.

Because that threat meant Dean would keep her alive.

Alive and screaming.

Sam doubts anyone in the world would hold up against that threat.