Archive of Our Own

Dean began to wish that he could feel something.

Oh sure, he could feel the physical sensations. The familiar weight of the leather dog collar around his neck. The cold press of the metal cage bars against his naked skin when she decided that he hadn’t earned a blanket for the night. The sharp pain of her blows and the dull ache of the claw marks she left on his back and his face. The hands of her demons as they gripped his hips when they raped him. Those Dean felt just fine.

It was the emotional resonance he started to miss, and wasn’t that fucking ironic? All the times he’d disparaged his feelings and those so-called “chick flick moments” with Sam, and now he craved them. He should feel something about his situation. About what she’d done to him, what she continued to make him do. Anger, shame, horror, grief, something, anything. He should feel them, but he didn’t. There was a wall around his brain and his heart that wouldn’t fall. He’d started building it automatically, as soon as he’d realized what she was going to do to him, however long ago that was. Dean wasn’t sure how much time had passed since then. He told himself it didn’t really matter.

Nothing really mattered to him anymore. 

_____

Abaddon took him from the contaminated city street in Oregon and teleported him to some upscale apartment suite in what he was pretty sure was New York City, if his limited view of the skyline out the picture windows was anything to go by. One second he was on his knees, shoulder wrenched out of its socket by the redheaded horror, trying to stay strong in the face of her threats, her taunts, her uncomfortable innuendoes. Then he was here. Still on his knees. His clothes didn’t make the trip with him and Abaddon ogled his vulnerability with vicious hunger.

“Much better,” she purred over the jackhammer beat of his heart against his ribcage. She wasn’t touching him anymore but he couldn’t move. He looked from the bright, open dwelling space, with its minimalist decor and black leather couches, to his captor. She was holding his knife in her right hand and one of his boots swung by the undone laces in her left. Her smile was a red-rimmed gash of white teeth in Josie Sand’s gorgeous face, a dangerous smile full of spiteful glee. Dean was acutely aware of the unyielding discomfort of the hardwood floor pressing into his bare kneecaps. He was aware of the throbbing pain in his dislocated shoulder. He was aware of how naked and small he was in the presence of this ancient, evil creature.

“Hey now, at least buy a guy dinner first,” he mocked the self-proclaimed Queen of Hell and was proud that his voice did not shake. “They’ll start calling you easy.”

Abaddon’s smile grew wider at his bravado. Her eyes gleamed.

“Oh no, baby. You’re the only easy one here. There’s a price you gotta pay to be with me, and you’re about to find that I’m very hard to get.”

“Ah, that’s okay, Abbie. No offense, but I don’t usually go for older chicks.”

She crouched down on her haunches in front of him, so close, and he struggled unsuccessfully against her psychic hold.

“It’s adorable,” she whispered in his ear, darting her tongue in and out so quickly he was almost unsure if it had happened. “That you’re pretending you have a choice in the matter.”

Her tongue snaked its way into his ear again, slower this time, and Dean was glad he couldn’t move because at least he couldn’t flinch or shudder for her amusement.

“I’ve decided to keep you, Dean Winchester. Like I said, you give a girl all sorts of nasty ideas.”

Abaddon’s left hand released the laces of his boot and it thudded to the floor as she brought her fingers up to his face. Her nails scratched softly against his skin, rasping against the bristly hair on his cheek. They trailed down his neck, collarbone, and found his tattoo. She traced it lightly, her temporary gentleness a clear threat of the pain to come at any moment. Dean’s thoughts raced as he focused on keeping his breathing under control. Were Sam, Irv, and Tracy okay back in Eugene? Would his brother- or Ezekiel- or Cas or Kevin be able to find him here? What would be left of him to find?

“So you gonna possess me after all? Your funeral, bitch.”

“Ooh, ‘bitch’ hmm?” She clucked her tongue in mock reproach. “Dean, Dean, Dean. You have such a problem with powerful women, don’t you? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you grew up without a good, strong mother figure in your life.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“No,” she said, leaning away from him and sending him sprawling on his back with a wave of her hand. “No, it’s me who’s going to fuck you. Bitch.”   

She rose slowly, long legs straightening until she towered over him brandishing his knife. Dean steeled himself for what she was going to inflict on him. For the skin peeling off his chest as she broke the circle of protective ink. For the rush of black smoke down his throat until it filled him completely with her and overrode his will.

“Oh, I’m not going to use you as a vessel, lover. No, I’m going to use you as a toy. I’m going to break you, take you, ride you hard and put you away wet. I’m going to do it until I get bored with you.”

She gesticulated with her left forefinger and his legs spread wide apart. His arms were trapped at his sides and all he could move was his head. He hated how afraid he was.

“Can’t get a man any other way, huh? Can’t say I’m surprised, but that’s kinda pathetic, don’t you think?”

Abaddon didn’t respond. She sat crossed-legged between his legs and set his knife down, balancing it high across his right thigh, the tip unsettlingly close to his genitals. She picked up his boot, deft fingers working the cord out of the eyelets, tossing the shoe away when the length was freed in her hand. Dean had no idea what she was going to do with it. Her silence was unnerving.

“Answer me, you bitch!”

Dean’s neck strained as he lifted his head up to look directly at her. She ignored him, picking the knife back up instead, and his panic swelled. His heart felt like it was in his throat, like it would choke him.

“You think this is the first time I’ve been raped by some whackjob? Hate to burst your bubble sweetheart, but that ship sailed a long time ago. And that was before I even went to Hell. You think you can break me? It took Alastair thirty years, and he was the best. You ain’t gonna break me. You don’t have the balls.”

That got him a laugh. High, sweet, and full of malice. As dangerous as her smile.

“Funny you should mention that. See, sugar, it’s surprisingly simple to break a man up here on the physical plane. You just have to know where to cut.”

Abaddon waved his knife.

“So you can play the tough guy all you want. Or you can scream, cry, bargain, and beg. Makes no difference to me. ‘Cause I may not have the balls, as you say, but neither will you in a few minutes.”

The shock of her words was like a bucket of ice water thrown over him. His mind screamed in horrified disbelief and he bit his lip so hard he tasted blood to keep the reaction inside. He couldn’t keep his eyes from widening or his face from draining of color, however, and he was starkly conscious of the weight of his balls between his legs. That familiar reality, taken for granted, about to be ripped away from him. All the scenarios he had mentally prepared himself for had not included this contingency. Maybe that was foolish, woefully naïve considering what he knew of demons, but it wasn’t something he’d ever wanted to think about. This mutilation, this fundamental loss, this utter disregard for who he was. He couldn’t even think too hard on it now, when it was about to happen. Dean’s brain entered survival mode; it laid the foundations of the wall and tried to numb him from what she was going to do to him.

Abaddon placed the knife on her own thigh this time as she reached between his legs and grabbed him by the balls, yanking down roughly. He grimaced and grunted.

“You really are gorgeous, Dean. Smooth skin, full lips, and those big green eyes? There was a time when they’d have cut a pretty little thing like you before you even hit puberty. Such a shame they don’t do that anymore. If you’re gonna fuck a human, eunuchs are the only way to go.”

Abaddon squeezed and twisted viciously, grinding his balls together. Dean couldn’t prevent the groans that escaped his lips or the way his eyes watered with the agony.

“You know, my men have probably killed your baby brother already. I told them to make it a nice, painful death for Sam Winchester. Payback for setting me on fire.”

Dean started a breathing technique to deal with the pain she was inflicting. His mind focused on Sam, on how Abaddon didn’t know about Ezekiel and how Sam was fine. He was fine and those demons were already dead and Sam would find him and Zeke would be powerful enough to smite this bitch and- and-

“It occurs to me that I’ll be the one to thank for ending your family line,” Abaddon mused. “After I’m done, you won’t be equipped to carry on the family name. Your daddy’s long dead, I gutted Henry with my bare hands, and Sam’s being flayed alive as we speak. No more Winchesters. I think I’m doing the world a favor, really.”

The hand that wasn’t torturing his balls, the one that held the bootlaces, came up to join its mate, which thankfully stopped its assault. His question about what she’d wanted with the cord was answered when Abaddon wrapped it around the top of his scrotum, tighter and tighter until it was pinching off the blood supply. Dean groaned and gasped for breath. He felt like he had just been punched in the gut, except the pain didn’t ebb. It lingered, swelling, and he felt it everywhere, in his thighs, his balls, and his stomach. The nausea rose and he thought he might vomit, but he didn’t. Abaddon was tying off the ends of the cord.

“Your brother’s dead, Dean, and you’re about to lose your manhood. I’m going to cut it out from between your legs with your own knife, and then I’m going to make my new eunuch consort pleasure me. After that, I’ll let my men have their way with you while I track down Crowley and deal with him. And I’ll be the undisputed Queen.”

She didn’t know about the angel inside Sam, he reminded himself. She didn’t know. She could do whatever she wanted to him, but she couldn’t hurt Sam. The thought comforted him. Abaddon saw it on his face. She gave his bound balls a hard flick with her forefinger and it made him yell.

“That’s better. Get your mind in the moment, baby.”

And Dean realized he didn’t want to think about Sam in this moment. He didn’t want to associate his little brother, the person he loved more than anything in this godforsaken world, with this hopelessness and horror. He could take comfort from Sam, but he wouldn’t. Sam didn’t deserve that. Sam, who he’d tricked into possession and forced back into the aforementioned godforsaken world he’d wanted to leave. Maybe this was his punishment, Dean reflected. Maybe this was exactly what he deserved. Dean pushed the memories of his brother behind the wall he was constructing and covered them with bricks and mortar.

Abaddon pushed his soft cock to the side and raised his knife. Even with the preparation, the pain and her gloating, Dean still couldn’t believe this was happening to him. He was about to be castrated like an animal. He was about to be neutered, unmanned, made into something weak and unthreatening, a plaything- his mind balked and blanked.

“I love it when they’re stoic,” Abaddon sneered as she began to saw the blade through the thin skin below the tight cord. His knife was sharp and it cut easily, even with the slow, deliberate way she was drawing it out. It hurt unbelievably, like he was being kicked in the balls and disemboweled at the same time. Two bright points of excruciating agony wormed their way up from his groin and settled in his abdomen as his scrotum and testicles were torn away from him with a small spray of blood. Dean couldn’t help the muffled cries that burst from his throat or the tears that leaked from his eyes and ran down his cheeks.

“Mmm, yes,” Abaddon’s voice darkened with lust as she discarded the knife and held up the remains of what he had once been so proud and protective of. “Not so tough now, are you pretty boy?” 

Dean could only stare at his severed testicles in her hand. Pain coursed through his body as it reacted to its loss and shock settled in. He had stopped fighting the invisible restraints she’d placed on him. His head stilled, his tears dried, and his tortured moans ceased. Abaddon separated his balls from their sack and he thought how wrong it was seeing the whitish-grey lumps, veiny and tinged with pink, resting in her palm. They looked so insignificant for how all-important they had been to him. He felt a piece of himself shrivel and die, and he told himself he didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Nothing about him mattered anymore.

Abaddon stretched catlike over him, sending misery spiking through him when she purposely rubbed her denim-clad thigh into his mutilated groin. Dean felt her fingers on his lips, tasted his own blood in his mouth as she pushed them inside and parted his teeth. He should bite her, he thought in a daze, but dismissed the notion. What was the point? It wasn’t actually her body. She’d only heal herself anyway.

When she’d stretched his mouth open wide Abaddon removed her fingers and replaced them with one of his own testicles. It was slimy and still warm, and he gagged.

“Chew,” she commanded sweetly. Like a mother compelling her stubborn child to eat his broccoli. And Dean obeyed because it didn’t matter. His flesh was tough and gamy. He chewed so hard his jaw began to ache, but it was a welcome distraction from the pain between his legs.

“Swallow,” she ordered when he’d ground his testicle to paste with his teeth. He did. She forced his mouth open again and made him repeat the process with his last ball. It still didn’t matter to him and Dean felt nothing inside when he swallowed the last remnants of his manhood.

“This way your balls will be a part of you a little while longer,” Abaddon smirked. “At least until you shit them out in a day or so.”

She rolled lithely off him and stood to strip off her clothes. Dean knew what was coming next and he observed her with clinical detachment. The pain continued to course through him, but it was an afterthought. The dull roar of the ocean in the background of a beach town. The hardwood floor bit into his shoulder blades and he felt a sudden, lingering chill. Abaddon undressed quickly and calmly, watching him with an aura of disdain and a faint smile ghosting on her lips. She undid her boots and kicked them off. He followed their trajectory with his eyes until they left his periphery; when he looked back to the Queen she had already shed her jeans and panties. Her leather jacket was flung over the back of a leather sofa, camouflaged except for the gleaming silver hardware. He flinched at the sound of velcro ripping as she removed the Kevlar vest, dented from the bullets of Tracy’s gun.

When she was finally as naked as he was Abaddon straddled his face. She was already dripping with the arousal she’d gleaned from his undoing and it smeared over his lips and chin as she rubbed herself against him. The reek of her sex triggered memories- pleasant memories of lust and laughter and mutual satisfaction- and Dean became keenly aware of the blood drying on his thighs. Of his shriveled cock, and of the empty space underneath it. His abdomen throbbed and he wanted to curl into himself and die.

“You know what to do, pet,” Abaddon murmured roughly. “If the rumors of your prowess with the ladies are even half true.”

He did know what to do and he did it. His lips parted and his tongue moved up inside her. He thought again about biting her, but the effort of defiance was daunting. He stared up at the triumphant tyrant. She didn’t giggle, shriek, or moan like most of the women he’d done this for. Not that he’d expected her to, but the fierce expression on what he could see of her face revealed far less pleasure now than when she’d been castrating him, and he was struck again by how utterly meaningless his existence was to her. This was simply the culmination of the power trip. He was finding it difficult to breathe as Abaddon rode his face with determination. In her methodical cruelty she made sure not to let him suffocate. She squeezed his head between her thighs as she moved up and down, grinding her swollen clit against his nose harder and harder until she came with several deep, panting breaths. A flood of her climax filled his mouth and he nearly retched, but she commanded him to swallow once more. Once more, he complied. It didn’t matter.

“Good boy, that was- adequate.” She ruffled his hair and dismounted. “You’ll have to work on your technique, though. It’s about all you’ll be good for, now.”

She dressed herself while Dean stared up at the high, white ceiling and thought of nothing but the pain and the cold. When she’d reclothed Abaddon left the room for a moment, returning with a bottle of Grey Goose that she splashed over his wound as makeshift disinfectant. The awful burn made him hiss and groan. Before he’d recovered, she grabbed him by the hair and dragged him across the smooth wooden floor, leaving a smeared trail of blood in his wake. He grabbed at both her wrists to relieve the pull on his scalp but otherwise made no resistance. She brought him into a windowless bedroom furnished only with a large metal dog crate, threw him inside, and locked the cage door behind him. He automatically curled into a fetal position, the cage barely big enough to contain him.

“Places to be, lover. People to kill. But don’t worry, I’ll be back. Maybe I’ll bring you your brother’s head as a little gift.”

She closed the bedroom door, leaving him alone in the dark with the ache of his emptiness.

*

Abaddon returned a little while later in a foul mood. She brought neither her soldiers nor Sam’s head. Dean was still curled on his side, head pillowed on his forearm, the hair of his short beard like tiny thorns in his flesh. His legs were clenched tightly together and suffering pulsated from between them, but it was better than feeling the space there when he had them spread. He heard the door slam open and saw the light spilling through the open doorway behind him. He hadn’t yet come to fear that light, but he would eventually. He would come to find that he was only safe in the darkness. The light meant she was there.

“An angel?” Abaddon snarled. “You had an angel with you?” 

“Wh-what’s the matter?” Dean’s voice cracked as he answered her with an automatic riposte. He didn’t look at her. “All your soldier-boys dead? Didn’t bring me that gift you promised?”

She laughed spitefully.

“You’ve still got some spunk left in you, I like that. Wonder how long it’ll last?”

“It’s who I am, baby.”

He didn’t believe that, not anymore, if that’s who he’d ever really been. That mask. But, even if it wasn’t him, even if it didn’t matter, it was the only way he knew how to be.

She pulled him bodily from the cage; demanded that he kneel and pleasure her again. He almost refused, the ghost of a rebellion flickering in his brain, but she knew just what to say to salt-and-burn that ghost and get him back on his knees.

“Now, eunuch, or I will bring a sampling of children in here and make you watch while I do things to them that would make even Alastair recoil. As the light leaves their eyes and their souls depart for Hell, I will turn their faces to you and let them know that you are responsible for their torment. Sound like fun?”

There was no cushioning for his kneecaps on the uncarpeted floor, and they began to hurt immediately. A secondary pain to the throbbing soreness below his waist. Dean didn’t bother to adjust for his comfort. Words like pride and dignity- selfhood- had no meaning to him anymore, he had to remember that. No one else would suffer for him, he had no right to even consider putting himself before the parade of dismembered, faceless children she’d threatened him with. Abaddon made him use his fingers this time, still on his knees while she towered overhead with her fly down and her head thrown back. After she’d made him lick his hands clean she fastened a thick dog collar around his neck. It had large silver spikes protruding from the black leather band and she pulled it uncomfortably tight. It chafed him at first, maybe for a week, maybe more he wasn’t sure, but in time he grew accustomed to it. It never came off, even when she periodically hosed his body down with freezing water while he cowered in his crate, and the leather soon began to stink. A vague, fetid stench that followed him everywhere. 

Despite her attempt to sterilize his wound with the vodka, it became infected. Abaddon had checked it thoroughly every day to make sure it was healing properly. Dean hadn’t looked at it, refused to look. Feeling the pain and emptiness there was bad enough, he didn’t need to see it. Abaddon removed the bootlace after a few days, running a vermilion nail over the jagged scar. Dean swallowed hard and restrained himself from wincing as she caressed his tender flesh. The fever set in soon after. Dean lay in his cage, sweating and shivering, and lost all track of time. There was only the heat, the pain, and the small hope that each time he closed his eyes it would be for the last time. But Abaddon attended to him with surprising dedication. She cleaned him, rubbed ointments between his legs, pushed ibuprofen between his lips, and forced him to eat spoonfuls of warm chicken broth.

“Stick around, Dean Winchester,” she crooned, massaging his throat and pinching his nose to make him swallow. “You don’t get to check out early. Not until I’m done with you.”

When the fever broke Abaddon celebrated by bringing two of her minions, both wearing the bodies of strapping young Marines, in to play with him while she watched from the doorway. He was too weak to put up much of a fight, even if he’d felt like it. Even if he’d felt like he deserved to fight. They mocked him and his lack of balls as they manhandled him onto hands and knees. It had been years since he’d had a dick in his ass and thankfully she allowed them to use lube, but no other preparation before he felt himself being split open on the first demon’s cock. The second forced their way inside his mouth and fucked his face brutally while their compatriot plowed him from behind. They both left immediately after they finished raping him and Abaddon made him eat her out once they were alone, the bitter aftertaste of her grunt’s semen still filling his mouth and leaking from his swollen hole. Dean would eventually come to find that he preferred being abused by her soldiers than by her. When the other demons fucked him he could zone out, clear his mind and leave the building until they’d finished with him. With Abaddon it was different. She made him focus, made him an active participant. He could almost feel shame when the Queen had him on his knees pleasuring her.

Dean’s strength never fully returned after he recovered from the fever. He supposed that was to be expected after what she’d done to him. It didn’t help that she starved him, fed him only bread and water. “Why mess with the classics?” she’d laughed. He periodically received half a loaf of bland white bread and a large bottle of water. He soon learned how best to ration it, after several times initially where he wolfed down the bread as soon as he received it and then had to wait through torturous hunger pangs for his next meal allowance. He wasted away; his muscles shrank and his skin stretched taut over his ribs. His cheeks felt sunken when he touched them, underneath his rough, ever-growing scruff. He’d thought he couldn’t grow facial hair anymore after being castrated, but he’d been wrong. His beard grew longer and longer and Abaddon didn’t seem to notice or care.

Neither did she care that he lived most of his time crouched or curled in a pool of his own piss and shit. The biological functions of humanity were probably beneath the concerns of the Queen of Hell. It was all washed away whenever she used the hose on him. The bedroom must have been outfitted with a drain somewhere in the floor. At least, with the starved and dehydrated state he was perpetually kept in, he didn’t have to go to the bathroom very often.

His existence was a haze of pain and humiliation, and still he didn’t care. Sometimes Abaddon would give him updates on what was going on outside the walls of his dark room, news of people he should feel something for, but he never did.

“Your little bro killed Crowley for me,” she remarked one day as she unlocked the cage door, stepped back to the open doorway and its cursed window of light.  She waited, hands on hips, for him to crawl shakily to her feet. “Maybe I’ll give him a quick death as a thank you, whataya think?”

The name Sam flashed in his head, trying to kick down a portion of his wall and let out memories and feelings that he had no business partaking in. Sam was trying to break through, and with it came other names- Cas, Kevin, Charlie, Jody- more, and their respective memories and associated feelings. He felt like his head was going to explode and he let out a garbled moan, clutching at his temples and whimpering. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken actual words.

“Quiet, pet. Mommy’s talking. Get over here, I don’t have all day. I’m officially the Queen now, after all.”

As he made his way out of the crate on hands and knees, Dean thought about her endgame of Hell on Earth. He had no doubt she could do it. She’d already brought it to him. He was at her feet now.

“Lick my boots.”

He did. First the tops, then the mud and other detritus whose origins he didn’t care to guess at off the bottoms. That was all she had him do that day before she locked him back up and shoved his allotment of food and water in through the bars. He was too sick to eat for a while. The combination of his pounding headache and the roiling nausea from whatever he’d licked off her boots made even the sight of the bread repulsive to him. He napped instead. The dreamless abyss of sleep was the only respite he had from her Hell. The only thing she hadn’t managed to take from him.

*

“Your brother is becoming quite the thorn in my side.”

Abaddon had him standing before her, newly washed and shivering from the cold. He knew he was taller than Josie’s body, even slouched as he was, but he felt smaller. Her words poured over him, sliding away from his comprehension. Sam! His mind screamed at him. But who was Sam?

“The rumors are spreading, baby. Sam Winchester, back on the demon blood. Scourge of the underworld, with his hunter and his prophet and his broken angel. But is he going to save the world from the big, bad wolf? Or is he going to try and take her place?”

Sam. Sam is your brother.

How could he have forgotten that?

Abaddon circled him, prowling. She ran her hands over his face, combing her fingers through his matted hair and beard, trailed her fingers down his emaciated frame. Down, down to what remained between his legs. She played with his soft cock, jacking it slowly, laughter tinkling like bells when it didn’t respond. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hard. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt lust or passion. Her fingers pinched at the mottled scar tissue underneath his cock and his breathing grew ragged. If he’d had the capacity, the energy, he might have cried. But it didn’t matter, he reminded himself. He was nothing and it didn’t matter.

“Maybe your brother’s coming for you. Maybe he’s coming to steal my toy away.”

She leaned in and kissed him, biting his lips and drawing blood. He didn’t respond, just stood there and let her do what she wanted. Her tongue invaded his mouth and curled around his own tongue, as lifeless as his cock. Her hands gripped the back of his head, pulling at his long hair. She made a noise like a purring cat and ended her assault.

“You’re still so gorgeous, you know that? Even now. So fucking pretty. I miss your backtalk, though. I miss your spirit. But I just can’t bring myself to get rid of you yet.”

She made him sit on top of the cage and she rode his thigh fully clothed while whispering embarrassing endearments in his ear that he didn’t apprehend. She came almost immediately. He went back into the cage as soon as she hopped off. Abaddon sighed almost wistfully as she locked the door.

“I really do miss your spirit. Maybe I should get your brother an adjacent cage, hmm? Spice things up a bit?”

If she was looking to get a rise out of him, she was disappointed. Abaddon went away after that, taking the light from the door with her. Dean sighed in relief and went to sleep.

*

Abaddon didn’t bother locking the cage door anymore.

*

The day Sam came, Abaddon was almost giddy with excitement. She went to tell Dean before confronting her challenger.

“He’s here,” she informed her pet, clicking her nails against the bars of the cage. “He just blew down my front door. Now it’s a party. Back in a few shakes, sugar.”

She left, but she didn’t close the door behind her. The light shone oppressively into his eyes and she wasn’t there with it. He felt unsettled.

The sounds of smashing furniture and breaking glass, punctuated by screams of rage and pain in fluctuating tonalities, made their way into Dean’s ears. He clasped his hands over his head to try and block them out, but it barely did anything. He didn’t remove his hands until lingering silence abruptly settled over the apartment. Footsteps approached the door with its hateful stream of light. Heavy footsteps. They didn’t sound like hers. The silhouette in the door was too large to be hers.

“Dean?”

The voice was deep. Filled with hope and heartbreak. He knew that voice.

“Oh my god, Dean!”

The towering silhouette rushed over to the cage, opened the door. There were hands on him and he tried to shudder away from them. He was filthy, empty, disgusting, nothing. Couldn’t the silhouette see that? Couldn’t Sam fucking see that? He tried to shrink into himself and disappear. He was too weak.

“Dean, are you- ? Dean, please, talk to me!”

The broad hands pulled him from the crate. They were running over his body while supporting him, so different from Abaddon’s touch. Concern and love as opposed to dominance and possession. The hands were unfastening the collar from around his neck and he hissed when the band was removed and flung away. Now he was truly and completely naked. He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t speak. It had been too long. He was pulled into a crushing hug.

“Dean,” Sam whispered brokenly and Dean felt tears falling on his face. Not his own, his brother’s. “Dean.”

“S-ssam.” 

It hurt to speak. It hurt everywhere, in his throat and in his mind as the wall came crashing down. Dean felt everything, because Sam was here. Sam saw him and suddenly it mattered.

It mattered so fucking much he couldn’t stand it.

Sam held him for an unbearably long time, crying softly into Dean’s hair and ignoring the sharp angles of Dean’s body that had to be jabbing into him. Ignoring his nakedness and the stink of him. Ignoring the deficiency between his thighs. Dean was overwhelmed by bitter shame, and he berated himself for wanting to feel this. Now all he wanted to do was turn it off, but of course he couldn’t.

“S-sam, don’t- don’t-”

Words like don’t and no hadn’t been a part of his vocabulary for such a long time. Dean didn’t really know what he was asking Sam not to do. Don’t touch, don’t look, don’t be here? Because if Sam was here, it was real. What she’d done to him was real. The fear surged through him then, at the thought of her, burning like whiskey in his veins.

“Is she- is she dead?”

“No,” Sam’s rage was the low rumble of monsoon thunder. “No, I- I couldn’t kill her. I don’t think she can die. But I sent her far away, Dean. She’s not coming back. I cast her into the Lake of Fire.”

If Sam had intended for Dean to take comfort from this information, he’d failed. Somehow it made the fear grow stronger. She wasn’t dead, she was still out there. A hornet that you couldn’t see trapped in the room with you. Worse for knowing it was there, but not knowing where. Dean tried to imagine Abaddon in the literal Lake of Fire. It sounded like her idea of a good time. He could almost hear her laughing as her hair caught flame and Josie’s flesh melted from her bones. He had no doubt she’d find her way back. Claw her way out of the Pit to sting him when he least expected.

Sam relaxed his hold on Dean and took a small step back, one hand still supporting Dean’s shoulder. The younger Winchester never took his eyes off his brother’s face. He barely blinked as he stared resolutely, tears drying. It was as if he feared Dean would evaporate if he looked away. Dean noticed there was blood drying around his mouth and a dull throb of horror pounded in his head. He suddenly felt the overpowering need to hide himself from Sam’s gaze.

He raised one trembling arm to cover his face, leaving only his sunken eyes uncovered to watch his brother like a frightened animal. His other hand lowered to hide his mutilation. Sam made a soft noise in the back of his throat, halfway between anger and anguish. The hand at his side clenched into a tight fist before he shed his jacket and his plaid overshirt. He helped Dean tie the shirt around his waist and draped the oversized jacket over the husk of Dean’s shoulders. Dean swam in the clothes, a child playing dress-up in his parent’s closet. Sam had always been so much larger than Dean, after he’d finished puberty. Dean had been compensating ever since. A constant, stupid, macho pissing contest with his baby brother. And now he had so much more to compensate for. Too much. It wasn’t worth trying anymore.

Sam pulled a cell phone from the pocket of his jeans, punched a few buttons, and brought the device to his ear.

“Tracy? Yeah, bring the car around. Abaddon’s dealt with, and I got him. Oh, and can you call Kevin and let him know? Thanks.”

Sam ended the call as Dean struggled to match a face with the name Tracy. He found it eventually. The face of a young, pretty, brown-skinned girl in bright plaid. So earnest, and so angry. The last person he’d seen before Abaddon had taken him.

“How- how long- ?”

“Eleven months,” the rage was back in Sam’s voice. “Oh god, Dean, I missed you.”

Dean had mentally started converting those eleven months into Hell years before he realized his confusion. He chuckled mirthlessly. It came out as a hollow squeak from his dry throat. Sam gave him an appraising look, then offered a hand and helped him walk to the door. Dean tottered like an old man on his spindly legs, one thin arm thrown over Sam’s strong shoulders. The oversized clothes felt strange on his body, so used to being bare. They felt like a shield between him and the world he hadn’t seen for almost a year. That gave him a modicum of comfort, enough to help him walk out into the light he feared so much.

Dean was only vaguely aware of the destruction around him as he and Sam made their way to the penthouse’s private elevator. The couches were slashed and upturned, the hardwood floor scuffed and cracked. He shut his eyes then, away from the light and more of the evidence that Sam had recontaminated himself for Dean’s sake. He leaned his head on Sam’s shoulder, relying on his brother to lead him through the wreckage. He didn’t realize they’d entered the elevator until he heard the sharp ding of the bell. It startled him and he gave a small yelp of surprise. Sam’s grip on him tightened protectively as they began their descent and Dean wished he’d let go. He didn’t want to be touched like that. Like he mattered.

The ride down was fast and smooth. Dean opened his eyes as another ding signified their arrival on the ground floor and the doors slid open onto a once extravagant lobby, now as decimated as Abaddon’s apartment had been. Chandeliers were smashed on the gleaming tile floor, glittering shards of crystal soaked in rust-colored pools of coagulating blood, and the front desk was upended. Twisted bodies were strewn haphazardly amongst the wreckage, more bodies than he cared to count. Dean wondered briefly how many demons had been living here with their Queen.

Outside, the Impala was idling in the dark street lit by streetlights, neon signs, and the headlights of other cars as they passed by. It was either early morning or late evening, Dean couldn’t tell. It had been so long since he’d been outside, seen the sky. The fresh, cold air filled his lungs and he felt a flicker of life swell through his body. Tracy Bell sat in the driver’s seat, wearing a large military-green jacket, her dark hair falling in waves down her back. She regarded the Winchesters with wide brown eyes for a moment before turning her gaze to the moderately busy street in front of the windshield. Dean interpreted it as her attempt to give the brothers a small amount of privacy. Smart, but got a mouth on her, he remembered the words Irv had spoken all those months ago in the abandoned diner.

“Tracy,” he said simply, to let Sam know that he remembered. He felt Sam’s nod. “Irv?”

“Dead,” Sam’s voice took on a hard tone. “He betrayed us to Abaddon.”

Dean felt nothing about the revelation of Irv’s betrayal, or his death, and he didn’t want to ask whether or not Sam was responsible for the hunter’s demise. It terrified him that he even had to consider the idea. The memories of Tracy and Irv, of that day in Eugene all those months ago when he had been whole and felt human, brought more memories. More questions. More debilitating emotions.

“Sam- ?”

The floodgates opened.

What’s happened? How much of that poison is inside you? What are you going to do with it? Where’s Cas? Do you know about Ezekiel? Do you know what I helped him do to you? And what did you see back there? What do you think of me? What am I now?

Who am I now?

But there were too many questions, and he choked on them. Sam saved him from the effort.

“Later. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Sam opened the rear door and helped Dean lie down in the backseat. Dean curled on his side in the fetal position he’d grown so accustomed to over the last eleven months, making sure that Sam’s shirt covered his shame.

“Do you want me to sit back here with you?”

A choice. An acknowledgment of his wants, his needs, his personhood. It had been such a foreign concept to him for so long that he floundered for a moment before stuttering out his desire to have Sam sit up front. He wanted to be alone right now, or at least as alone as one could get in a midsize sedan with two other people. He closed his eyes from the faint light of the rising sun. Morning then, not evening. He felt the Impala shudder as Sam shut the rear door, he heard his brother get into the passenger seat up front, and the car pulled away into the street. Dean could feel air blowing from the vents, cool now, but once they picked up speed the heat would start working. He could hear the rattle of those Lego blocks he’d shoved in there as a boy, for no other reason than because he could. He took momentary comfort from the sound, from the rumble of his baby in the ear he had pressed into the seat.

Until he remembered the jokes he’d been hearing all his life about his relationship with the Impala. Phallus on wheels, you must be compensating for something. His nostalgic warmth became a chill of self-loathing. Dean felt nauseous with humiliation and had a pang of hatred for the car he’d once overexaggerated his devotion for. He'd cared about it, sure, but he’d pretended to love it more than he actually did. He no longer had the desire to pretend.

He became aware of Sam and Tracy's voices, arguing softly in the front seat.

“We should take him to a hospital, Sam,” Tracy was insistent.

“No.”

It burst out of him, and Dean's voice cracked embarrassingly with his vehemence. The word felt wrong rolling from his lips. It felt wrong that it would be heard, respected.

“He doesn’t want to go,” Sam was firm. Dean was grateful. “I can take care of him for now.”

“Okay, whatever you say,” Tracy was obviously skeptical, but she let it drop. Silence descended over the car. Dean let it lull him to sleep. Let it take him away from the world he didn’t want seeing him. For the first time in eleven months, he dreamed. He dreamed of her.

In his dream she was the light and the light was blinding. He wanted to look away, wanted to flee from her, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t move. Abaddon raised two fingers toward him, brought them together to mime scissors snipping. She laughed when he flinched. 

You’ll never escape me, pet. Even if you never see me again, I’ll always be with you.

He woke in the backseat of the Impala. It took him a moment to remember where he was, his heart thumping in his ears in the aftermath of his dream. He must have been asleep all day. The darkness outside was the darkness of night, the dashboard clock confirmed the time as 11:43 pm, and he took comfort from the obscuring gloom. Sam was driving now, Tracy asleep beside him in the passenger seat. She snored quietly, almost imperceptible above the faint music drifting from the radio. Dean sat up laboriously, his body stiff, and he groaned. He pulled unnecessarily at his borrowed clothes, making sure he was covered up.

“Hey, you okay?”

Sam’s face was illuminated by the headlights from a passing car. Dean watched the gleam of his brother’s teeth smiling in the rearview mirror. They were still stained with crimson. He shivered and grunted out a noncommittal assurance of well-being for Sam’s benefit. Even if he knew that Sam was too smart to believe him.

“You need to stop for anything? Food, water, a bathroom break?”

Dean remembered again that he was back in the world. The world where he could eat and drink as much as he wanted, whatever he wanted. The world where he’d use an actual toilet to relieve himself, not his own living space. It made him afraid again and he hated it.

“No.”

At least the word was getting a little easier to say.

“Well, I could use a pit stop myself,” Sam shrugged, yawning and stretching his long arms as far as he could in the small cab. He accidentally jostled Tracy’s shoulder and she startled awake.

“Wha- ?”

“Sorry,” Sam grinned sheepishly at her. “Need a rest stop?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

Sam took the next exit for a visitor’s center whose cheery sign proclaimed them to be in Illinois. He pulled into a space in the deserted parking lot and shut off the engine.

“You sure you guys don’t need anything?”

“We’re fine,” Tracy’s tone was halfway between annoyance and affection. “Get your overgrown self into the little boy’s room and take your piss already. We’ve been making such good time, don’t blow it with your pea-sized bladder.”

“Says the girl who made us stop twice after dinner,” Sam teased. Tracy swatted him lightly on the arm.

“You’re the one who chose Taco Bell! I told you a million fucking times, me and refried beans don’t get along.”

They had obviously grown close in the preceding eleven months. When he’d met her in Oregon Tracy’s animosity toward Sam had been deep-seated and explosive. Now they had the rapport of close friends, siblings even. A jumble of emotions warred inside him. He was jealous, he realized, but also glad that Sam hadn’t been alone. And he was so grateful to Tracy. Grateful that she’d put aside her anger and been there for his brother. That she could be there for him like this now when Dean couldn’t, maybe never could be again. Dean’s lips quirked up into the first real smile he’d made since his ordeal began. It felt strange and he stopped when he saw Sam looking at him.

“Dean?”

“I’m- I’m fine. You heard the lady. Get- get your ass in there.”

Sam laughed, clearly relieved that Dean was sounding more like himself, and threw his hands up in mock surrender before he opened the door.

“Hey, wait. You got a little something-” Tracy wiped at her own mouth to show Sam where the blood on his face was. Sam tensed and hastily scrubbed a hand across his lips. It was as if he was attacking his own face to get the hateful substance off, rubbing the skin raw until Tracy was satisfied he was clean. Sam disappeared inside the visitor’s center.

“It’s hard for him, when he’s on that blood crap,” Tracy broke the silence without looking at Dean. “He likes to try and keep things light, but it’s hard. He’s a good man, your brother. A great man. And he loves you so fucking much it’s scary.”

All traces of joviality were gone from her speech. She sounded as weary as he was. On edge. Dean remembered then that he was alone in a car with someone he barely knew. He despised himself for being so afraid. Not afraid physically, although in his weakened state she could easily overpower him, but afraid of what she might know about him. About what she could discover. Tracy turned to look at him and he cringed reflexively.

“Sorry,” she said sincerely. “You’ve been through some shit. I don’t know what, and I don’t wanna know, it’s none of my business. But I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for leaving you alone with that demon a year ago. I’m sorry I let you get taken.”

“Don’t,” Dean croaked. “Not your fault. Don’t think it was your fault.”

“Maybe not, but I’m still sorry. It’s why I teamed up with Sam to find you, you know. I had to make it right, even if it meant teaming up with someone I hated. But I’m glad I did. I was wrong about Sam.”

The conversation was exhausting him. Dean lay back down on his side, still looking up at Tracy. She was lost in her reverie, staring out the back window.

“He’s a great man, like I said. But part of that is how single-minded he is. How driven. How willing he is to do anything for you.”

She looked down at Dean. 

“That blood- that blood does things to him. It turns him into someone else. It makes him so angry.” 

A nagging panic rose inside Dean. If Sam had done anything to Tracy- to any innocent- in his search for Dean, it would essentially be his fault.

“Did- did he hurt you-?”

“No, nothing like that. I was on his side, almost as dedicated to finding you as he was. But now we found you, so he doesn’t need it anymore. Right?”

She was worried that Sam wouldn’t give up the blood. Just like he was. His worry was compounded by guilt as he once again thought about the angel he’d let inside Sam. Was he still there? Could he be, if Sam was back on demon blood? It was draining, and Dean wished that he felt nothing again. It had been so much easier that way, and he was so tired. For one brief, horrible moment he wished he was back in that dark room, in that cage, with no thought of anything but Abaddon and her will. God, he was weak. Pathetic. Disgusting. Just like she’d wanted him. His dream version of her had been right. He would never really get away. She’d castrated, raped, isolated, and starved away everything he’d been. He could feel her in every part of him. In his frailty. In that awful space between his legs he couldn’t ignore. In the fear and shame that wouldn’t stop pounding in his heart and his brain. She’d even managed to take Sam away from him.

Because now he wasn’t strong enough to take care of Sam. If Sam didn’t want to stop, no one on Earth could make him.

Dean rubbed at his forehead, trying to wipe away the flood of emotion emanating from his mind like Sam had wiped the blood from his face. He was less successful.

“Dean?”

Tracy was looking at him with concern and he had opened his mouth to assuage her when Sam returned from his pit stop. Both Dean and Tracy jumped as the car door squeaked on its hinges. Sam grimaced apologetically and slid into the driver’s seat, securing a paper cup of steaming coffee into the cup holder. He also had three bottles of water under his arm.

“You guys okay?”

“Yeah,” Dean answered for the both of them. Tracy simply nodded. Sam handed her one of the plastic bottles. He twisted the cap off a second before handing it back to Dean, who sat up to take it with shaking hands. He was torn between appreciation that Sam had realized he would be too weak to open the bottle himself and irritation that he needed that much help. The anger won. He was angry with Sam for helping him. He was angry at Tracy for seeing him like this.

Above all, he was angry at himself.

“Drink. Please.”

He didn’t even stop to think about Sam’s request. He’d been given an order, no matter how politely, so he obeyed. He’d been doing it all his life, if in a more degradingly intense manner for the last eleven months, so he was well-practiced. It didn’t matter anyway.

No, that was wrong. It did matter. It mattered and he hated himself.

Sam was watching him drink. When Dean had swallowed about a quarter of the water Sam seemed satisfied. He turned and twisted the key in the ignition. The engine rumbled to life.

“About eight more hours,” Sam announced to his passengers.

“Lemme know if you want me to take a turn driving,” Tracy told him before closing her eyes and settling back into her sleeping position.

“Will do.”

Sam pulled back onto the I-72 and tuned the station between snatches of static, preachers, and pop before he settled on a station playing Tom Petty. Dean sat in the backseat, awkwardly holding the open water bottle. He didn’t want to ask for Sam’s help to recap a goddamn water bottle like he was a toddler, but he didn’t want to drink it either. So he just stared at it, watching the vibrations from the road ripple through the liquid, and tried to feel nothing. He wanted to be as empty on the inside as he was on the outside. But just like everything else in his life, he failed at that, too.

_____

They arrived at the bunker a little after nine in the morning. Tracy was driving again, guiding the Impala down the ramp to the garage. Dean was curled in the backseat once more. Sam had capped his water bottle at another rest stop a few hours after handing it to Dean when he realized Dean wasn’t going to drink any more. He’d tried to get Dean to eat then, but Dean had refused. Even the smell of Sam and Tracy’s greasy burgers and fries had made him queasy. It was still daunting to him, the prospect of choosing and eating his own food.

After they’d parked Sam opened the back door and helped him out of the Impala for the first time in twenty-three hours. Dean’s legs gave out from under him, but Sam held him up easily until he found what little strength he had left to stand.

“Do- do you want me to-?” Sam’s voice faltered and Dean was horrified when he thought Sam might be asking if he wanted to be carried.

“No!”

It burst out, his heart racing into overdrive, and he shook with his vehemence. He felt Sam tense and he remembered that his brother’s patience was not to be trifled with at the moment. He felt monstrous, to be afraid of his own brother like that, almost as afraid as he was of the Queen of Hell, but Sam quickly relaxed.

“Uh, so you don’t want me to go find you a wheelchair from the infirmary or something like that?”

Sam’s tone was light and Dean’s fear passed into numbed chagrin. He wasn’t sure if his initial interpretation of Sam’s question had been correct and Sam was expertly covering, or if Sam had truly been asking about getting him a wheelchair all along. A flush of embarrassment heated his face.

“N-no, that’s okay. I’m good.”

Tracy had already disappeared with the meager duffel bags from the trunk. Sam and Dean limped along after her.

There was so much space inside the bunker. High-ceilinged and brightly lit, it offered no shelter and Dean hesitated when they entered the library.

“C’mon, Dean,” Sam was kind but firm. “We gotta get you cleaned up.”

Right, he was filthy. He was so accustomed to the smell and feel of his own excrement he hadn’t even thought to notice or feel ashamed about it in Sam and Tracy’s presence. They hadn’t made an issue of it, had ignored the odor in the enclosed space of the car for an entire day, and he felt wholly unworthy of that kind of charity. He deserved mockery, revulsion, punishment. Why didn’t they give it to him? What was wrong with them?

He hesitated again when they crossed the threshold of his room and Sam flipped the light switch on. He faintly remembered the joy he’d taken in arranging and decorating the space back when they’d first discovered the Men of Letters. It was just as he’d left it, except for the fine layer of dust covering everything. He remembered abstractly that dusting had always been one of Sam’s least favorite chores. His weapons on the wall, wicked Purgatory blade prominent, were dulled with grime. It veiled the glass of the framed photographs on his bedside table so much he couldn’t make out the faces. He didn’t mind, it made it feel less like the eyes of his friends and family were on him, watching. It felt less like the eyes of his old self, from childhood to adulthood, were judging what he’d become. It appeared that the only attention that had been given the room in his absence was to his bed. It was freshly made, faded blankets pulled tight and plump white pillow carefully centered at the headrest.

“I asked Kevin to make sure you had fresh bedding and a clean bathroom,” Sam explained a bit sheepishly when he saw what Dean was focused on. “But I guess I should have been cleaning a little better in here, huh?”

“Don’t care.”

He’d meant it to reassure his brother that he truly didn’t mind, but Sam tensed again before guiding Dean into the en suite bathroom. It gleamed, spotless in comparison to his bedroom. The white tile felt strange on his bare feet, accustomed to the rough, uncarpeted floor of the dark room. Sam led him to the large bathtub, helped him sit on the edge, and straightened. He scratched the back of his head uncomfortably, but his eyes never left Dean’s face.

“Okay, so, this is gonna be awkward no matter what.”

Dean had known this was coming, had pushed it to the backburner of things he had to deal with, but now it was here. He couldn’t even walk by himself, there was no way he could undress or wash himself. It was still mortifying, and his face flamed, but he knew he had to accept it. That was okay. He was good at laying back and taking things.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, relieved that Dean wasn’t going to fight him about it. “So, um, you wanna shower or a bath?”

Dean glanced up at the showerhead and thought about cringing in the dog crate while cold water rained down on him.

“Bath.”

Sam filled the tub with steaming water while Dean stared at what he could see in the mirror above the sink. It was just the top of his head because of how low he was sitting, but he hadn’t seen his reflection in so long. Even the tiny glimpse of his tangled hair was more than he wanted to see, yet he couldn’t look away. The unfamiliar image taunted him, dared him to raise his head and see the full monstrosity of what he’d become. He didn’t know if he could survive that.

“I’m gonna help you get in, okay?”

Sam kept his tone neutral. He shut off the silver taps. Dean nodded, raised his arms, and closed his eyes. He felt Sam’s jacket slide off his torso. He felt Sam’s hands untie the shirt draped around his waist. Dean focused on his breathing, in and out. It wasn’t like Sam didn’t know, hadn’t already seen. The porcelain tub was cold against his bare skin contrasted with the heat rising from the water behind him. He felt a hand on his upper back, steadying him. 

“I’m gonna swing you around and put your feet in the water, okay?”

“Okay.”

Sam lifted Dean’s legs, still keeping his hand on Dean’s back, and turned him so he was facing the tub. Dean hissed when his feet hit the warm water, the sensation strange and overwhelming.

“Too hot?”

“ ‘s fine.”

He adjusted to the temperature quickly. It felt good, better than he remembered. Sam helped him slide into the water until he was fully sitting in the tub. Sam scrubbed him down gently with a pale bar of unscented soap and a dark grey washcloth. He spoke with clinical descriptions ending as questions, letting Dean know what was about to happen, giving him the opportunity to refuse. Dean never did. There was so much Dean wanted to say. Flimsy quips to break the tension. Exasperated assertions that he was not a china doll or a delicate flower and Sam could use a little more pressure for Christ’s sake. He couldn’t work up the motivation, however; it was easier to say nothing.

Sam ran the washcloth everywhere, top to bottom, and Dean let him, steeling himself when Sam’s hands moved between his legs to clean his shame. He closed his eyes, trembling slightly, when he felt the rough fabric caress his limp cock and what remained beneath it. He bit his lip, anger and humiliation prickling hot in his cheeks and chest, when Sam wiped his ass like he was a child.

“Done,” Sam announced when he’d finished with Dean’s legs and feet. He pulled out the drain and Dean opened his eyes at the gurgling roar. He watched the dirty brown water recede around him.

“Should probably rinse you off one more time.”

Dean gulped and nodded. When the tub was empty, a ring of filth circling the white porcelain, Sam turned the hot water on again. He grabbed a new washcloth from the cabinet and soaked it, squeezing the water out over Dean’s head, letting it run down over his body. He repeated the process until he was satisfied.

“Good?”

Dean was about to agree automatically when he became aware of the mess of hair on his head and face. In that moment it became unbearably heavy and he raised his hands to claw at it roughly. Tufts of hair and beard fell around him. He found himself unable to speak, to communicate his needs to his brother, all he knew was that he wanted it gone. He felt Sam’s large hands encircling his wrists, stopping him.

“Shave and a haircut?”

Dean nodded.

“Okay, hang on a second.”

Sam pulled an enormous towel from the rack, dark grey like the washcloths with the Men of Letter’s Aquarian Star embroidered in dark purple in its center. He helped Dean to rise and wrapped his older brother in the soft material. Sam led Dean to the mirror and left to get scissors and a razor.

“Be right back, okay?”

Dean stared at his reflection as he waited for Sam’s return. Looking at himself wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be. The haggard face with its sunken eyes and cheeks covered in bronze hair down to its chest was a complete stranger to him. This was not Dean Winchester, hunched shoulders and skeletal body dwarfed by the towel draped around him. This pathetic creature was utterly unrecognizable. He found the disconnect strangely comforting.

Sam came back quickly with the items he needed. He took the scissors to Dean’s beard with the finesse of Jason Voorhees. Clumps of hair rained down until Sam was satisfied he could use the electric razor.

“Hold still, okay?”

Dean held as still as he could, watching as more and more of his face was unmasked by the buzzing contraption in Sam’s hand. Even so, Sam nicked him a few times and by the time he was finished Dean’s gaunt cheeks sported a number of red-soaked pieces of toilet paper. Sam apologized profusely for every one. Dean waved him off.

“I’m terrible at this,” Sam huffed out a breath of good-humored regret as he took a plastic razor to the remaining stubble, resulting in more tiny cuts. Dean tried to give him a reassuring chuckle, but it came out as more of a gasp. Sam seemed to understand regardless.

“You sure you want me cuttin’ your hair?” Sam laughed, brushing hair from Dean’s shoulders.

“Yeah. Please.”

Sam was better with the haircut. When he was convinced everything was symmetrical, he took a step back.

“Whataya think?” 

Dean looked at himself without the veil of hair. He felt better, lighter. The hair on his head was still longer than he had worn it before, but not by much. Although, now he could almost recognize himself and he didn’t want that. He looked hastily away, at Sam.

“ ‘s good. Thanks.”

“Anytime,” Sam smiled fondly. He still had blood between his teeth. Dean tried not to shudder.

Sam helped him back into the bedroom and dressed him. Everything was far too big for him. The pair of supportive boxer briefs- completely unnecessary now, Dean sneered at himself- and black sweatpants hung low on his hips. His old Led Zeppelin sweatshirt ballooned around him. When Sam had finished, Dean sat on the end of his bed and wondered what he was supposed to do with himself.

“You need to eat something, Dean,” Sam stood a few feet in front of him, back in his polite authoritarian role.

“Not hungry.”

It was true. It shouldn’t be true, he hadn’t eaten in over two days, but it was. Something told him that Sam wasn’t going to let it slide this time.

“Maybe not,” Sam proved him right. “But you still need to eat something.”

This was it. What was he going to do? Give in, or exercise his newly reacquired ability to choose? Fight Sam on this, as afraid of him as he was?

“Don’t want to.”

He sounded like a petulant child. He didn’t care. He had to be taken care of like a child, he might as well act like a child.

“Dean- ” Sam’s voice lowered in warning. Dean stared defiantly at him. His anger swelled and adrenaline surged through him, powering him. He hadn’t had emotions in so long, he hadn’t had the need to filter them and he was out of practice. Not that he’d ever been great at it to begin with. He’d been choking down the rage and shame since Sam had pulled him from that cage back in New York. It all burst out of him.

“Fuck you, Sam, I said ‘no’!”

Sam was taken aback by Dean’s sudden tenacity. He blinked and made a face. 

“Dean, what- ?”

“Stop. Stop pretending everything’s okay, like we’ll get through this and everything will be the same. I didn’t break my arm or something, Sam. She cut off my balls!”

Sam blanched, his hand unconsciously twitching toward his groin protectively, and Dean was consumed with bitterness.

“Dean, that- that doesn’t- ”

“Don’t you fucking dare tell me ‘that doesn’t matter’ or whatever bullshit was about to come outta your mouth. You saw what she did to me. She did other things, too. Wanna know how many cocks I’ve had stuffed up both ends? Well, you and me both, ‘cause I kinda lost count.”

“Okay,” Sam took a deep breath, eyes wide and hands curled into loose fists at his sides. “Okay, you’re right, I’m sorry. How do you want to go about this?”

Dean wanted to scream at how calm Sam was being. Wasn’t he supposed to be hopped up on demon blood? Wasn’t that supposed to make him belligerent to the point of violence? But no, he was still treating Dean with patient kindness. Too much kindness. Dean hated it, hated Sam for it. He wanted Sam to hate him back, the way he knew Sam should.

“You know about Ezekiel, Sam?”

The blank look on Sam’s face filled him with horrible hope for one brief moment. Maybe Zeke was still in there. Maybe he could heal him, even though he knew he didn’t deserve it. He half expected Sam’s hazel eyes to glow with the holy light that signified Ezekiel’s rise to the surface of his consciousness. They didn’t, however, and after a moment recognition dawned in Sam’s eyes.

“Oh, you mean the angel that possessed me? His name was Gadreel, actually. He’s gone. Dead.”

That hardness had seeped back into Sam’s voice. Dean processed the information. Of course Ezekiel- Gadreel, whatever- was dead and gone. Of course. He started laughing. A humorless, barking laughter. Sam watched him with narrowed eyes.

“When I tracked him down he said you’d helped him trick me. I thought he was lying. I guess he wasn’t, huh?”

“Nope,” Dean chuckled. Despise me, he silently pleaded with his brother. “How’d you figure out he was in you?”

“A couple things,” Sam said flatly. “I thought it was weird how fast I got over the trials. Then, back in Eugene, I took out three demons on my own with no memory of doing it, and Tracy told me she saw a bright light inside the diner. I kept having blackouts after that. Then Cas showed up and helped me put the pieces together.”

“Ain’t you a regular Sherlock Holmes. So then what? You kicked old Zeke out, tracked him down, and torched his ass with holy fire?”

Despise me, please.

“Yes,” Sam was dispassionate. “That was right before I tortured Crowley to death.”

Dean realized his brother was trying to intimidate him. Sam must not realize how shamefully afraid Dean already was. How that wasn’t going to stop him, was in fact encouraging him. 

“Yeah, I heard about that. Kinda cold, don’t you think, even if it was Crowley? He did help us out.”

Sam stared at him with calculated fury.

“Cold, really? I have a few words that should change your mind about that. Sarah Blake. Channing Ngo. Tommy Collins. Jenny Klein. Not to mention what he did to Sheriff Mills and Mrs. Tran.” 

Dean had nothing to say to that. Sam was right.

“Yeah, turns out Mrs. Tran was still alive. I managed to get that out of him before he died. We got her, she’s here with Kevin. Traumatized but okay, considering.”

Dean was relieved that Linda was alive, but he wondered just how many people were living in the bunker now. How many people he’d have to hide from. He felt horribly guilty for thinking about it like that; making it all about him. He noticed how badly he was shaking, his effort catching up with his malnourished body. His vision swam and his anger drained away. Unfortunately, Sam didn’t notice. Dean had succeeded in riling up his little brother.

“So, yeah. That’s what you missed back at the ranch. Quite the party.”

Abaddon had been fond of that expression. Dean shook harder. Sam still didn’t seem to notice.

“Why, Dean? Why’d you let Gadreel- violate me like that?”

“Couldn’t- couldn’t let you die.”

“I was ready to die! It was finally right, as natural a death as I could hope for, and I wasn’t ever going to come back! And you knew that, didn’t you? He said you knew, as he burned.”

The threat hung palpably in the air between them.

“What- whatcha gonna do Sammy? You gonna kill me?”

“Of course not,” the wrath began to recede from Sam’s eyes. “How could you think that?”

“Aw, c’mon,” Dean got his breathing under control. He was exhausted from the emotional upheaval. He felt that he could welcome the death that had evaded him for the previous eleven months. He had no reason to live now that Sam hated him, by Dean’s own design. “You killed the angel, why not me? I took away your free will, too. Finish the job.”

“Dean, stop it.”

“Be a man and do it, Sammy,” Dean taunted, unable to stop even if he’d wanted to. “You know, you’re the man of the family now, and- ”

Sam moved with preternatural speed. He was in Dean’s space before he could finish his spiteful sentence, one hand wrapping around his emaciated brother’s neck and cutting off his air supply. He raised Dean into the air effortlessly. Dean’s bare feet hung inches from the floor and he made no attempt to struggle. It was better this way. 

“Don’t- don’t you ever- I don’t ever want to hear anything like that from you again,” Sam snarled, giving Dean a shake. “Do you understand?”

Dean’s eyes widened as he realized that what had set Sam off was Dean’s self-cruelty. He still wanted to die, just wanted it to be over, but he knew that if Sam was the one who killed him it would destroy his little brother. Sam, the one thing his worthless life had been good for. He would have laughed if he could breathe. Only he could fuck up his own death like this. One more failure for the road. He choked around Sam’s hand and the haze of Sam’s fury began to clear. He blinked, looked at what he was doing with horror and disgust, and let go of Dean.

“Oh- oh my god, Dean! No, no, no- ”

Dean lay on the bed where he’d fallen, gasping. He couldn’t move. He didn’t want to. Sam rushed toward him, then recoiled when he saw the red marks from his fingers around his brother’s neck. He stood up, placing both hands on the back of his head, fingers carding through his long hair and bent elbows pointed to the ceiling. 

“I’m sorry! Oh, Jesus, I’m so sorry.” 

Dean couldn’t speak. Couldn’t tell Sam that he thought he had nothing to apologize for when it was Dean’s fault, of course it was Dean’s fault. Sam should be able to see that, why couldn’t Sam fucking see that? What was wrong with him?

“I can’t- it’s the blood- I have to- ” Sam’s face twisted in anguish. “I have to go- I gotta lock myself in the basement until it’s all gone. I can’t be around people- can’t be around you like this. I’ll have Kevin bring you some food, okay?”

Dean rubbed at the welts around his neck, trying to shake his head that, no, it wasn’t okay. He didn’t want Kevin to see him right now. He didn’t want anyone seeing him, but that wasn’t in the cards. Kevin, though- Dean loved the kid like a surrogate little brother and he knew Kevin was both sensitive and intelligent. He would be disturbed by Dean’s appearance. Disturbed and curious. He’d probably figure out what had happened, if he hadn’t already been told. But Dean was pretty sure Sam hadn’t told anyone, he hadn’t told Tracy after all. Maybe Tracy could see him again, but he really didn’t know her at all. The answer was obvious.

“Cas- ” Dean sputtered. “Can- can Cas bring it?”

Sam had already started for the door, but he paused with his back to Dean.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. Cas is, uh, Cas is different now.” 

Fear snaked its way up Dean’s spine. He’d been so relieved to hear that Cas was alive and at the bunker, he hadn’t thought to ask about the details.

“The- the hell’s that mean?”

“He died, Dean,” Sam still didn’t look at him and his broad shoulders hunched defensively. “I didn’t find him in time. I saw his face in an obituary from a newspaper in Detroit, victim of a fatal stabbing. He was listed as a John Doe, so I went and identified the body. I watched them cremate him. And two weeks later, he knocked on the bunker’s door.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. He’s still human- I did the rigmarole of tests. Holy water, silver, nothing affected him. He said Metatron sent him back. Said he wasn’t done suffering yet.”

Sam looked over his shoulder at Dean, who struggled up to a sitting position.

“He- something happened to him Dean. Something bad. It’s like when he took the hallucinations from me. Maybe not as bad, but he won’t go outside because he says the Reapers’ll find him, and he won’t talk to me about it. I think he’s scared of the blood.”

Sam smiled ruefully and Dean’s heart sank. Right, of course Cas wasn’t okay. He’d let his best friend down, too. He couldn’t bring himself to be surprised by the news.

“I’ll ask Kevin or Tracy to check if Cas is up to seeing you,” Sam continued. “But if he’s not, I’ll ask Kevin to do it, okay? Now, I really have to go. I’ll see you when I’m clean.”

Sam left, closing the door behind him, before Dean could ask him to shut the lights off. He tried to muster the energy to stand and shuffle his way to the light switch, but he couldn’t. He tried to curl on the bed and sleep the pain away, but it was too soft. His body sank into the memory foam and it was wrong how comfortable it was. He sat up again, staring around his dusty room. It didn’t feel like his anymore, whoever he was now. His eyes fixed on the wooden box on his desk; his not-so-secret porn stash. He’d have no use for that again. He remembered vaguely how much he’d loved sex. That one, good thing he thought he’d always have. The pleasure and intensity of it. The shared intimacy with a willing partner.

It hit him fully then, the enormity of what she’d stolen from him. Not just the feeling, the ability, the desire, but his control over it. She’d mutilated him and made him engage in sex against his will. He’d never associate sex purely with enjoyment and consent again, even if he regained the lust he’d lost. He knew that was possible, with hormones and prosthesis he could probably function normally again, but why would he want to? He’d know what he was, all the mocking names the demons had spat while they raped him. Sex for him now meant pain. It meant humiliation.

Hot shame prickled behind his eyes. The soft cotton boxers he wore rubbed against his diminished, useless cock. Against his emptiness. He froze, trying to stay as still as possible so as not to feel it, but it was pointless. There should be something there, he should feel his balls brushing his thighs and resting against the bed, but there was nothing. He felt a tear slip down his cheek and he looked up at the weapons on his wall, trying to recall if any of the guns were loaded. As selfish and hypocritical as that would be, he’d never wanted to die more than he did in that moment. If only he had the energy to do something about it.

It should be easy, Dean mused, trying to make his legs cooperate with his brain. A final exertion from his broken body to propel himself across the room, grab his dad’s old Colt .45 off the wall, and put it in his mouth. Surely he had enough strength in his right index finger, frail as it was, to squeeze the trigger one last time. He imagined the dusty room painted in a blast of his blood and brains. He imagined the rush of oblivion.

He imagined the look on Sam’s face when he saw what Dean had done.

Something in him rebelled against the macabre fantasy. Something that had kept him alive for the past year in spite of the Hell she’d subjected him to. Death was one thing. If someone or something else killed him, well, that was acceptable. But Dean Winchester, or whatever little remained of him, did not punch his own ticket. He just didn’t.

He could have, he realized then. He could have smashed his head against the bars of his cage, over and over, until he stopped breathing. He could have stopped eating the scant rations she’d provided him with. But the thought hadn’t occurred to him. He had been so busy not thinking and not feeling he’d had no time to focus on anything beyond what was happening in the moment. No plans for the future, no hope for escape or rescue. It had been worse than when he’d been in actual Hell. He’d had a purpose for being there; he’d been there for Sam. He’d taken strength from that for thirty years. Even when he’d started torturing, started on the path to demonhood and unknowingly cracked open that first seal, he’d had purpose. Abaddon had no purpose for him other than her own mild amusement. He meant nothing to her. His utter destruction meant nothing.

It hurt. It shouldn’t- how could he apply standards of humanity and decency to something that was the antithesis of both? It shouldn’t hurt, but it did. He hadn’t bothered to ask why of her, because it was as useless as no or don’t. Now he did. Why, why, why? The word knocked around his head, foreign and distressing. There was still no answer. He felt stupid and pathetic for his inability to shut it off.

And there was the problem. He felt. He felt everything and it was awful. He missed the numbness. He missed the nothingness. He missed the cage. He missed the dark, but he also missed that stream of light from the open door.

He missed her.

Dean felt a stab of resentment for Sam. Fine, Sam didn’t want Dean to save his life after the Trials? Well, Sam had released Dean from his captivity, torn Dean away from the comfort of nothingness, without bothering to ask if, maybe, Dean didn’t want to be saved either. Dean was consumed with self-disgust as soon as the idea crossed his mind. Who thought like that? What was wrong with him?

Why?

Why?

He was still staring at the wall, immobilized by despair, when he heard a knock on the door. It was short and assertive, two quick, unmistakable taps against the wood. He jumped reflexively, but he welcomed the distraction.

“Y-yeah, uh, come in,” Dean called.

He wasn’t sure who would be standing on the other side of the door when it opened. His heart raced into overdrive.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel said. The way he’d always said it. Solemnity and fondness mingled in the greeting. He gave Dean a warm smile and Dean’s heart slowed a little.

“Hi, Cas,” Dean tried to inject the same measure of warmth into his greeting, even if he couldn’t find it in himself to smile back.

The former angel entered the room and Dean got a good look at him. He tried to ignore how unsettled he felt seeing Cas without his familiar trench coat. The handful of times he’d seen Cas without it before had always felt wrong, and this time was no exception. Whenever he thought Cas, the angel- man- whatever-he-was-at-the-time- always wore that coat in his mind’s eye. This Cas wore baggy blue jeans, frayed and worn through the knees, and a long sleeve maroon henley. His feet were bare like Dean’s. He looked a little thinner than before; his hair was shaggier and his face was scruffier with more lines than Dean remembered, but overall he looked good. Better than Dean had been expecting after Sam’s warning.

Cas held a wooden tray bearing a bowl of steaming soup, a plate with four pieces of toast, a spoon, and a large glass of water. His left hand also held a feather duster. The old Dean would have made some sort of joke about housewives or French maids, if only to see Cas’s squinty-eyed head tilt of confusion. This Dean considered it, in a detached sort of way, but ultimately said nothing. He waited for Cas to break the silence.

Which was not the best plan, Dean recalled after a lengthy pause, as they both continued to stare at each other. He hadn’t seen Cas in almost a year, he supposed he could be forgiven for failing to remember Cas’s unconventionality. Cas’s eyes were scanning his face, just his face, with such focus. It was unnerving. Dean’s discomfort must have shown, because Cas finally blinked and shook his head. The tray wobbled and hot liquid came dangerously close to spilling from the bowl, but Cas steadied his hands just in time.

“Uh, right, I have your dinner. Do you want it on the table or the bed or- ?”

He trailed off, unsure.

“Bed’s fine.”

Dean patted the bed, leaned back against the headboard, and sat cross-legged. He hoped that he’d hidden the strain it put on him. Cas carefully placed the tray in front of his shins. The former angel stood to the side of the bed and stared at Dean’s face some more.

“C-can you stop staring, dude? You’re weirdin’ me out.”

He was trying so hard to keep it together. To make everything seem normal again in this world he had to live in. He’d blown it with Sam, but Sam knew him better than anyone. And Sam had seen him brought so low, had been the one to find him and clean him up. This was different. He could try to make everything seem alright for Cas’s sake.

Cas blinked at him like he was coming out of a trance.

“I’m sorry, Dean, of course. I just- I was informed by Kevin that Sam told him to tell me to, quote, ‘Make sure he actually eats it.’ Unquote. Or is it ‘endquote’? I always forget.”

The prospect of picking up the spoon, dipping it in the bowl, and raising it to his lips made him tired just thinking about it. Of course it would be soup and bread. The only foods Abaddon had fed him during his captivity. Sure, this soup looked tastier; he could see noodles as well as chunks of white meat he assumed was chicken, and honest-to-god vegetables. He never thought he’d miss vegetables so much. The bread did not appeal in the slightest, but at least it was toasted.

“You should probably eat quickly,” Cas continued in his gravelly voice. “Before the screaming starts. I find it always kills my appetite.” 

Dean looked up from the food.

“Screaming?”

“Sam. When he detoxes. It echoes through the whole place. I thought at first it was just me that could hear it- my senses are still sharper than yours- but Tracy assured me that everyone else could hear it, too.”

Dean’s heart skipped and his gut clenched. Like hell he could eat anything after that.

“How- how many times has he, uh, detoxed?”

“Since I’ve been here? Um- ” Cas paused to tuck the feather duster under his arm and started counting on his fingers, muttering under his breath. The number of fingers was discouraging.

“Seven, eight times maybe,” Cas concluded. Dean’s mouth dropped open in horror.

“He- he got off it and then, what? Just- just got right back on?”

“Yeah.”

“What the hell, Sam?” Dean roared, with more force than he knew he had in him. He panted from the exertion. That was it for his energy reserves for at least a couple minutes.

“That was my reaction, too,” Cas said neutrally, as if Dean hadn’t just shouted inches from his face. “Well, I wasn’t quite as loud. And I don’t think I swore.” 

“B-but- why?”

“Because I don’t swear all that often, Dean. I spent millions of years as an angel, I can hardly be expected to- ”

“No,” Dean cut him off impatiently, brain too fogged and concern for Sam too pressing to deal with Cas’s tangents. “Not- not that. Why did he start drinking the blood in the first place? I thought we’d been there, done that with this shit.” 

There was that head tilt. Like Cas was so thoroughly baffled by the situation he just had to look at it from a different angle. Literally. Dean hadn’t realized how much he’d missed Cas’s quirks. He was still worried about his brother- more than worried- but there was nothing he could do for Sam at the moment. But, there was a reason to regain his strength. So he could kick his brother’s ass for this.

“Why?” Cas repeated slowly. “For you. To save you.”

“But- but I’m not worth that.” 

It slipped out before he could stop himself. He believed it wholeheartedly, he’d never been worth it. Not now- especially not now- and not ever. Cas was the wrong person to say this to, however. He should know that. The former angel’s face became mournful.

“Oh, Dean,” he said simply. “You are so very wrong.”

Heat rushed to Dean’s face and he had trouble looking his friend in the eyes. He focused on the wall just over Cas’s shoulder.

“You- you don’t know, Cas,” Dean muttered. “You don’t know.”

“I know more than you think. Maybe I came back wrong- I died you know, again- but I’m not a child and I’m not broken. I’m not stupid either. I am older than your brain can even conceive of, and even though I’m mostly powerless now I am still far from human.”

Angel showboating. Terrific. Cas was right, though. Dean had always ribbed him about his inexperience with humanity, about his otherness. He had been so intimidated by the angel, by all the angels when he’d first discovered their existence, he’d hidden his awe behind that mask of devil-may-care overconfidence he’d worn so well. All the names he’d called them. Dicks-with-wings. Flying ass-monkeys. Oh, and junkless- and wasn’t that fucking ironic? He cringed at the memory. Those were just the ones he remembered off the top of his head. Unlike his angelic brethren, Cas had actually stuck around, cared what Dean thought. Dean didn’t deserve him.

“You’re worth everything, Dean. I tried to talk Sam out of drinking the blood, over and over, because I was scared for him. But I was wrong. I’m always wrong when I underestimate your love for each other.”

“G-gettin’ weird again, man.”

Sam and now Cas? Clearly he was surrounded by idiots who inexplicably thought that he deserved their admiration. Goddammit, he was choking up. He was simultaneously grateful and resentful of Cas’s adoration. He could almost feel the conflict between the disparate emotions creeping over his flesh like a physical sensation and those unshed tears were prickling behind his eyes again. Awesome, now he was going to cry about it. So much for keeping up the charade.

“You know,” Cas kept talking as if Dean hadn’t interjected. “I think I was jealous of what you and your brother have. I wanted that kind of devotion from my own family. I think that’s why I was so quick to believe Metatron.”

Cas sighed.

“But I paid for my hubris. This is my penance.”

He made a sweeping gesture around himself with both hands. The feather duster’s dark plumage quivered with the movement.

“Wh-what the hell’s that mean?” Dean didn’t like the self-loathing in Cas’s voice. Cas looked surprised by the question.

“I’m trapped in this- in Jimmy’s body. I stole it from him, got him killed for it, and now all I want is to leave it. Metatron- he deceived me. No, that’s not right. I let myself be deceived into relinquishing my grace. He cut it out of me and I don’t- I don’t need it to live, but it’s a fundamental part of who I am- or was. He unmade me. No, that’s not right either- why can’t I find the right words?”

To Dean’s alarm, Cas smacked himself in the forehead with significant force.

“Cas, what- ? Stop it!”

Dean jolted forward slightly, an attempt to stop him even though it would be futile in his condition. He jostled the long-forgotten tray in the process. Golden liquid spilled over the wood and seeped into the blankets. Dean froze, stabilizing his unwanted meal. He managed to save over half the soup, but he’d still have to ask for new bedding- What was he talking about? He’d slept in way worse than a little chicken soup-

“Oh!” Cas’s eyes widened and Dean could almost see the cartoon lightbulb flickering on above his head. “Not ‘unmade.’ Remade. He remade me. Twice.”

He smiled an empty smile and laughed a hollow laugh that reminded Dean horribly of the shell of the former angel in a false future he’d visited so many years ago.

“I finally discovered sex,” Cas said with forced levity, unexpectedly changing the flow of his soliloquy. Dean was hit with a cold shiver. This was one of the last things he wanted to talk about. One of the last things he’d expect from Cas. He suddenly wanted to be somewhere far away. 

“Yes, at first it was really nice. Until it turned out she was possessed by a Reaper. I don’t know if I ever even met the real her. The Reaper- they used me. They made me a- a rapist. Then they tortured and killed me and Metatron sent me back because I hadn’t, uh, ‘suffered enough.’ Remade, again.”

Cas was shaking, still with that fake smile plastered on his weary face, and Dean saw that his friend was barely holding it together. Just like him. He’d been damaged just like him. Cas was staring straight into his eyes, as if he could see what remained of Dean’s soul.

“It hurts, Dean. It hurts to be remade.”

“I know, Cas” Dean said hoarsely, swallowing the lump rising in his throat. “I know.”

“I know,” Cas repeated back sincerely, face serious. “I know you know.”

Because of course Cas knew what had happened to him. Dean should have realized that Cas would know. Whether it was some remnant of angel mojo, or the way Dean had shouted his secrets at Sam in that fit of rage, or it was just that Dean couldn’t hide anything from the celestial-turned-mortal who had chosen him over and over again. In spite of everything Dean was and had done. Even when Dean didn’t choose him back.

Idiots. He was surrounded by idiots. Only an idiot could love him.

“Oh, uh, it seems I failed in my directive,” Cas’s eyes trailed down from Dean’s face to the tray in front of him. “The food’s gone cold and you still have to eat it. I can’t leave ‘til you eat it. And I was gonna dust.”

He brandished the feather duster. His smile was genuine now.

“You- you don’t have to.”

“I want to. Now, Dean. Eat. Please.”

Dean reached slowly down to the tray, grasped the spoon. It felt ridiculously heavy in his trembling hand. The portion of soup he raised to his lips contained a piece of chicken and a single green pea. It was unpleasantly lukewarm when he put it in his mouth, but he chewed and swallowed with only minor difficulty. He remembered the last time he’d had meat in his mouth. What he’d chewed and swallowed on request. His stomach heaved and he dropped the spoon.

“Dean?”

Cas was still watching carefully. Dean twisted his body away from his gaze, pressing himself as far as he could into the headboard.

“I can’t. I can’t.”

“You can.”

After a moment, Dean believed him. Cas knew, he understood. The former angel picked up the spoon and held it out to the former hunter. Dean took it. Under Cas’s watchful eye, with several pauses and panics, he ate the rest of the soup, two-and-a-half pieces of toast, and drank the glass of water. He felt lightheaded and slightly nauseous afterward, but also more energized. It felt good to feel full after so long. He sat in a sated daze while Cas ran the feather duster over the items in his room. Dean was grateful for the gesture, but when Cas was done he had nowhere to hide. The eyes of his photos regarded him with unblinking perception; Mary, John, Sam, Bobby, Cas in black-and-white miniature, Charlie. Worst of all, himself. They saw him. They knew him.

“Kevin, Tracy, or I will check in on you later. I can’t promise which one of us it’ll be, sorry. And Sam should be out in a day or two. Three at the most. Need anything before I go?”

“N-nah, ‘m good. Oh, um, actually can you turn the lights off?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks, Cas.”

Cas collected the tray and stood in the doorway.

“I’m glad you’re back, Dean. I missed you.”

Dean grunted noncommittally. Cas gave him a sad little smile, shut the lights off, and closed the door. Dean sat in the dark, the brain fugue lifting from his meal even as his stomach complained. He still didn’t know what to do, but it felt better without the light. He had no idea what time it was; he hadn’t looked at the analogue clock before the lights went off. He decided he’d try to sleep. It was familiar.

After a long time spent tossing and turning on the excessively comfortable bed that now smelled of chicken soup, he curled up on the carpeted floor. That felt better, out of sight of those eyes he knew were staring at him in the darkness, and he soon drifted off.

He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep when he was awakened by his brother’s screams. Sam was yelling unintelligible words. Bellowing roars full of pleading anger and deep pain. Dean tried to block them out, pressing his hands into his ears as hard as his meager strength would allow, but it did nothing to mute his little brother’s torment. For him, because of him. Because he was stupid enough to think Dean was worth this.

The tears he hadn’t cried in eleven months, that he had been desperately trying to contain for the past few hours, finally streamed down his face and soaked the carpet where he lay until he lost consciousness again.

His dreams were invaded by memories. Abaddon sitting naked on top of his cage, legs tucked girlishly to one side, hip thrust upward, breasts pushed out, and hands tangled up in her hair in some perverse mockery of a pin-up girl. She was light and heat and Dean quailed in her aura, but couldn’t take his eyes off her. She preened and posed for him while the warm, wet mouth of one her demons suckled at his limp cock. It wouldn’t harden, no matter what they did. 

Having trouble rising to the occasion, hmm? Don’t worry baby, it happens to everyone.

At the time he’d felt nothing, it hadn’t meant anything, but now shame curled in his chest and crawled up his throat like bitter acid. Shame purred to him with her voice as she ordered the demon between his legs to move their way up his body. She was all around him, inside him. Her demon pressed the round fullness of their host’s testicles against his face, rolled them over his mouth and nose, wiry hairs catching in his tangled beard and hard cock leaking on his forehead. He could smell the musky power he no longer possessed while Abaddon laughed and laughed and laughed-

He woke again in the dark, damp and uncomfortable, and realized he had cried himself to sleep. He couldn’t hear Sam anymore. He didn’t know whether that was a good sign or not.

He struggled to sit up and realized that he was damp all over, not just his face. He groped at his clothes to find a wet spot soaking the front of his sweatpants and extending to the hem of his grey sweatshirt. The familiar smell of urine wafted up to him and he chuckled dryly. He’d pissed himself. Of course. He’d had no need to control his bladder for almost a year, why would his body react any differently now?

He tried to stand, grabbing at the mattress to support himself, but found that he was still too weak. He desperately wanted to get to the bathroom, get his soiled clothing off, and clean himself up. He didn’t want anyone finding him like this. He crawled shakily on hands and knees toward the bathroom door that Sam had thankfully left ajar. He felt like some pathetic animal as he nudged it open with his head.

The sink was a better crutch then the bed had been and Dean managed to heave himself to his feet to switch the light on. He flinched at the sudden brightness, falling back onto his ass hard enough that he knew it would bruise. Groaning, he leaned back against the bathtub and pulled off his pants and boxers, not focusing on the flesh underneath. He struggled out of his sweatshirt, tossing it aside when he finally emerged, panting, from inside. Fuck, he was already exhausted and he’d barely begun, but he could do this. He had to. He didn’t want anyone’s help, not even Sam’s, even if Sam had been in any state to help him at the moment. Dean should be able to take care of himself, goddamnit.

The tub was still dirty from his previous bath. The brown ring marring the ivory glared accusingly at him. Proof of the contamination that would always linger over him no matter how much he washed. He took a deep breath and slid his body over the side. The hard porcelain hurt his chest and stomach as he pressed against the tub’s rim before his body sprawled in a heap inside. His cheek was crushed against the floor, muffling his chuckle. Good thing dignity wasn’t something he had to worry about anymore.

Dean took a deep breath and managed to clamber into a sitting position, banging himself up even more as his gangly limbs hit the sides of the tub. His ass was already sore from his earlier fall. He’d be a patchwork of bruises by the time this was over. He took another deep breath and focused on the taps in front of him.

He was going to have use his hands to clean himself. The used washcloths were in the sink and the cabinet of fresh ones was on the far side of the bathroom. Both were unreachable to him. In his condition they might as well be on the moon. At least Sam had left what remained of the bar of soap in the holder. All he had to do was twist on the taps, rub himself down with the soap, and splash himself down with the water. One thing at a time. It was okay, he told himself as his heart pounded. It was okay, he could do this.

Except as he replayed the steps in his head he realized that there were unavoidable steps that came afterwards. Turning off the taps, getting out of the tub, managing to find a towel, getting back into the other room, finding new clothes in the dark bedroom- And what about the mess he’d left on the carpet? He’d have to clean that up. Were there supplies here in the bathroom or would he have to find them somewhere in the bunker?

There was no way, he thought angrily. He’d never manage to do all of that. He still couldn’t walk for fuck’s sake. He was stuck, he’d have to ask someone for help. Let them know Dean Winchester had pissed himself in his sleep. Terrific.

Deep breaths. First things first, he could at least turn on the taps. He leaned forward slowly, right hand closing over the silver knob marked with a cursive H. It hurt his fingers to clench around it. It hurt more to turn it. He did though, shaking from both the effort and enraged self-loathing, he managed to turn the water on. He didn’t put the drain down, just in case he couldn’t turn it off before the tub overflowed. One less thing for him to do. The water was almost unbearably hot, his skin glowed pink immediately, but he didn’t want to expend the energy to turn the other knob to balance out the temperature. This was nothing, he could deal with a little discomfort.

He scraped dry white flakes off the soap and scratched at his stomach and torso. Pause, deep breaths, refocus energy, on to the next step. He scraped more flakes from the bar and cleaned his groin. He hadn’t touched himself here since- just since- and he looked down at his altered state. His cock was small in his thinning pubic hair. It hung awkwardly without his balls underneath to prop it up. He found himself grimly fascinated. Touching his dick was like touching his finger or his nose. There was feeling, but it wasn’t like before. He didn’t know if he ever wanted it to be like that again, even if he were capable. He traced the spiderweb of ragged scars underneath and was relieved that he felt nothing about it. Numb, he chanted to himself. Be numb.

After he’d doused himself with handfuls of scalding water until he felt reasonably clean, he managed to turn off the tap. The few inches of water that had built up at the bottom of the tub gurgled down the drain as he recovered his faculties for the next step. Getting out.

He almost made it, exiting the tub the same way he’d entered. Slithering out on his belly like a grotesque serpent. Except then his arms gave out and he crashed headfirst on the tiled floor. He felt a burst of bright pain behind his eyes and his last thought before the darkness consumed him was the sick, familiar hope that this time he wouldn’t wake up.

*

“Dean?”

His head pounded and Dean could feel someone’s arms around his chest, hooked under his armpits as they half-dragged him along. His vision blurred when he opened his eyes and it made him dizzy so he shut them again. He was awake. Alive. At least there had been no dreams during his blackout, he thought hazily. A groan escaped his throat.

“Oh, thank god.”

The relieved voice was familiar. Not Sam, not Cas- Kevin.

“Kev- Kevin?”

“Yeah.”

Dean felt himself being laid face-up on the bed, head propped up on a pillow, and a towel draped over his hips. He opened his eyes, blinking away the shock of the light, to find Kevin standing by his head, watching carefully, brown eyes wide with concern. 

“Gotta check if you have a concussion. So, uh, what’s your name?”

Kevin Tran looked different from how Dean remembered him. He looked good. Tired, but good. Better than Dean, Sam, and Cas combined, at any rate. Kevin’s dark hair was significantly shorter, almost a buzzcut. The kid had filled out, too, his broad chest and large biceps conspicuous under the layered shirts he was wearing, and a day’s worth of stubble decorated his jawline. Dean unconsciously brought his hand to his face to check his own stubble growth and found his cheeks smooth. He was suddenly afraid that he’d never feel hair there again, that by letting Sam shave him he’d gotten rid of the last beard he’d ever grow-

“Dean? Can you hear me? I need you to talk to me.”

“I’m fine, Kevin.”

“Okay, then tell me your name.”

“You just said it. Dean.”

“And your last name?”

“Winchester.”

“Who’s president?”

“I don’t- it’s still Obama, I think. Right?”

“Yeah. What month is it?”

“I don’t know, but that ain’t ‘cause I bumped my head.”

Kevin looked incredulous. Dean forced a carefree smile and struggled to sit up against the headboard, keeping the grey towel carefully in place over his lap. Kevin’s jaw clenched, but he made no move to stop him.

“Hey, y’know, I’ve been outta the loop for a while. Good to see you though.”

Kevin’s expression faltered slightly.

“C’mon, Kevin,” Dean entreated. “I’m okay.”

“Okay,” Kevin smiled slowly, relaxing. “Good to see you, too, Dean. What the hell were you doing in the bathroom?”

The fog receded from his brain. He remembered falling out of the tub, hitting his head. Kevin must have found him there on the bathroom floor. Which meant, of course, that if Kevin hadn’t known his secret shame before he sure as hell knew it now. Which meant that everyone knew. Terrific. But hell, maybe it was better that way. Easier. The heat still rushed to his face, though, and he glanced down at the towel protecting his modesty before looking back up to answer.

“I was- uh- taking a bath? Y’know, in the bathroom.” 

“You know what I mean, Dean.”

There was a confidence born in the crucible of the past year evident in Kevin’s voice. Dean wondered if he’d had to take care of his mother like this.

“No,” Dean still had to test the kid. “I don’t know what you mean, Kevin.”

“Fine, you wanna play it that way? What were you doing in the bathroom by yourself, Dean? You’re clearly too weak to be exerting that much energy. You need to wait for me or Cas to help you next time. Okay?”

More color filled Dean’s cheeks. He tried to dodge.

“What about Sam?”

“When Sam’s done detoxing he can help you, too,” Kevin amended firmly, tone and posture brooking no argument. Dean didn’t give him any more.

“Okay, fine,” he muttered.

“Good,” Kevin smiled again. Dean couldn’t smile back. He desperately wanted out of this conversation.

“Wow, I lose my balls and you finally grow a pair. Good for you.”

He was trying to push Kevin’s buttons. Get some sort of the wide-eyed, panicked reaction he remembered from the Kevin he’d known eleven months prior. But the old Kevin was as gone as the old Dean. His eyes narrowed.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to respond to that, Dean. So I’m not going to.”

Dean’s meager insolence abandoned him. He was filled with respect for the man Kevin had become.

“Seriously, though. Good for you, Kev.”

“Good for me,” Kevin’s eyes took on a steely, glazed look. His voice was hard. “Yeah, it’s been great for me, Dean. My mom- my mom’s still not doing so well. She has these nightmares- and I still don’t know what exactly happened to her because she won’t talk about it- and you’d think that my memories of watching your brother make Crowley explode would be, I don’t know, satisfying somehow considering everything he did to her and to Channing, but all I can remember is the way it smelled and the way he screamed and how your brother’s eyes turned black and there was just- just nothing on his face when he did it- ”

Kevin took a shuddering breath and dammed his verbal onslaught.

“But y’know, now I’m tough enough to win your approval or whatever. So, yay." 

“I’m sorry,” Dean said. Because he was. Sorry he’d dragged Kevin into this life. Made Kevin like himself.

“It’s fine. I know you meant it as a compliment,” another shuddering breath. “I shouldn’t have put all that on you.”

“It’s- ” Dean began reassuringly, but Kevin cut him off.

“I’ll get some stuff to clean that up.”

He gestured to the dark spot on the carpet where Dean had been sleeping. Dean flushed again and opened his mouth- to say what he wasn’t sure. Kevin saved him from floundering.

“Don’t worry about it, Dean. Between mom, Cas, and your brother, I’ve cleaned up way worse.”

Good for you, he’d said. Dean cringed internally. But the mention of Cas and Sam reminded him- 

“Is Sam okay? And Cas?”

Kevin had gone to Dean’s drawer to get some clean clothes. He handed them to Dean, waiting until Dean started slowly pulling on the white cotton T-shirt before answering.

“Sam’s gonna be fine, as far as I know. He’ll need another day or two in isolation, but he’s stopped yelling so that’s a good sign. Cas- uh, Cas’ll be fine, too, he’s just having one of his bad days.”

“What’s that mean?” Dean asked, both relieved about Sam and alarmed about Cas, once his face had emerged from the shirt’s rounded neck hole.

“Uh, well,” Kevin’s struggle to mince words was short-lived. He sighed. “He’s face-down on his bed with the pillow over his head lamenting how he’s failed you and Sam and Heaven and everyone and how he just wants to die. It’s best to just let him be when he gets like this, it always passes and trying to talk to him tends to make it even worse.” 

“Goddammit,” Dean growled as he removed the towel and carefully pulled on the boxers Kevin had given him before fumbling with the too-large blue jeans. It really was easier that Kevin knew about his shame, he reflected. He didn’t even have to make a show of embarrassment, and he was grateful that Kevin wasn’t offering to help. “Why does he have to be so hard on himself all the fucking time?”

“There’s a ‘pot, kettle’ statement if I ever heard one,” Kevin threw up his hands and backed towards the door. “And I’m not touching it with a ten-foot pole. Or with an any-length pole, really. I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Okay,” Dean fastened the button of his fly with shaking fingers. “Thanks- ”

But Kevin was already gone and Dean’s gratitude was cut off by the door banging closed.

_____

As the days passed, Dean began to readjust to life away from Abaddon’s vicious whimsy. He started to keep a better track of time, even confined to his bed as he was. He grew reaccustomed to the people who had been in his life before. Talking became easier. So did using the bathroom, mortifying as it was to have Kevin and Cas’s help to wobble his way to the toilet and sit down. The vestiges of the man he’d been flickered in and out of his mind. Some days he was utterly humiliated to be sitting to pee or straining to take a shit in full view of others. Other days he couldn’t bring himself to care. It was better than having an accident, having them clean up after him like a dog. He’d only had three accidents, Kevin cleaning up twice and Cas once, before he retrained himself. He took a strange pride from that.

Eating became easier, too. At first it was simply a matter of regaining his strength; the more he ate the more energy he had. The more energy he had, the more he could do for himself. But then his appetite returned on his third day back and he devoured everything Cas brought him on that wooden tray. He remembered how much he’d missed real food. Cas, unfortunately, would only bring soup, bread, and crackers in small amounts. He tried to get Cas to bring him more food, preferably junk food, but Cas went on about balancing phosphates and heart complications and bursting stomachs and something called refeeding syndrome until Dean interrupted him with assurances that, alright fine, he’d wait a while longer for a more complex meal.

The third night he started sleeping on the bed, still with the slight reek of chicken broth that he didn’t want anyone else to have to deal with, but only because of the way Cas had looked at Dean when he brought him breakfast that morning and found him curled up on the floor. Sorrow filled the lines on the former angel’s face. Sympathy, or pity, or maybe both, welled up in his eyes. Dean didn’t want any of it. He wanted to grab Cas by the shoulders, weak as he was, and shake the look off his face. To deflect, or maybe even as reprisal, he almost questioned Cas about his own breakdown the day before, but decided against it when he remembered Kevin’s admonition about making it worse. Instead, he clambered to a sitting position on the floor with his back against the bed to eat his food. The expression on Cas’s face softened and they made meaningless small talk until Cas took the tray away, but Dean decided that if sleeping on the bed meant Cas never looked at him like that again, so be it.

She would never have looked at him like that. 

On the fifth afternoon, Sam knocked on his door. All the simmering concern and anger for his little brother rose to a crescendo in Dean’s mind when Sam walked inside the room. He simultaneously wanted to pull his brother into a bone-breaking embrace and deck him in the jaw, but he had the strength for neither. He opened his mouth to speak, but the rush of his words bottlenecked in his throat. Sam’s face broke into a weary, but genuine, smile

“Dean, hey. Sorry it took so long, I wanted to make sure- ” Sam shook his head. “Nevermind. How’re you doing?”

All the little details Dean had been in no state to observe before cascaded over his senses in the harsh light of his bedroom. How tired Sam looked, how lean. How haggard his eyes were. He had that same overstressed, underfed aura that Cas exuded. Angry words exploded through the bottleneck.

“You fucking moron!”

Sam’s eyes narrowed in a show of confusion, but Dean could tell that he knew why Dean was angry. That he’d been expecting this scenario, probably rehearsed his various responses to Dean’s reactions as he walked through the Bunker’s hallways on his way to Dean’s room.

“Uh, it’s good to see you, too?”

“Eight times? Eight times, Sam?”

Sam sighed, shoulders hunching defensively, eyes scanning the floor by his feet.

“It was only seven,” he muttered.

“Oh, only seven, that makes it so much better.”

“I had to- to keep going off and on. The longer I stayed on it, the worse it got. The worse I got.”

“Goddamnit, Sam- ”

“Dean,” Sam interrupted him, looking up from the floor with newfound resolution. Dean tried not to quail from the intensity of his gaze. “I don’t want to talk about this. It’s over. I got you back. And I would do it again.” 

“Sam- ” 

“No. It was my choice. You may not like it, but it was my choice.”

The underlying meaning of Sam’s statement hung in the air and Dean struggled internally with Sam’s words. Sam was right, and no, he didn’t like it, but that didn’t mean Sam wasn’t right. The old Dean might have ignored that fact, plowed on with his self-righteous anger and his desire to save Sam from himself, but this Dean let it drop. Sam must have seen Dean’s surrender, because his defensive posture softened. He sat carefully on the side of the bed by Dean’s feet, continuing to look at his brother.

“So, you need anything?” 

It was strange, having Sam take care of him like this. Not that it hadn’t happened before in the three decades they’d been together, but it always felt wrong. In Dean’s mind, taking care of Sam was his job, not the other way around.

“Nah, I’m okay. Cas brought me lunch a couple hours ago.”

“How’s he doing?”

“He seems okay, too, mostly. I guess. Cas ain’t always the easiest guy to figure out, you know.”

“Yeah,” Sam chuckled fondly. “I know.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, basking in each other’s presence for the first time in what felt to Dean like an eternity. Sam’s eyes eventually left Dean’s. They roamed over the recently cleaned decorations of Dean’s room. Dean’s eyes remained fixed on Sam, soaking up the details he’d forgotten. That awful shirt of his, the orange-and-brown striped one with the diamond-shaped buttons. And his brother needed a haircut, but hey, didn’t he always?

“What?” Sam turned back to Dean when he heard his brother’s quiet laugh.

“Nothin’,” Dean face cracked into a real smile. It felt unfamiliar to the muscles of his face, but it also felt freeing.

“What?” Sam’s voice wheedled him, even as his own lips quirked up into a reciprocal smile.

“Nothin’,” Dean insisted once more, smile growing bigger. “Just- I missed you, Sammy.”

Sam reached out and gave Dean’s denim-clad ankle a gentle squeeze.

“Yeah, me too.”

The walls between them, constructed over a lifetime of shared pain and trauma, fortified by the events of the past few years, were breaking down. Dean was too tired, too weak, to maintain them. He hated how much that terrified him.

*

Two weeks after his return to the Bunker Dean managed to leave his room by himself.

He’d felt he had the energy and strength a few days before, but uncertainty had kept him immobilized in the now-familiar space of the bedroom. His new cage, he realized in a moment of devastating clarity. On the morning he finally took the plunge, after Cas had brought him a breakfast of egg whites and toast with strawberry jam, he’d made a trip to the bathroom. He’d been able to use the facilities solo for a few days now, thank god, but this time while he was washing his hands he happened to catch a glance of himself in the mirror. He’d avoided studying himself too closely since that first day with Sam, but now he couldn’t look away.

The first thing he noticed was that the fears he’d had about his facial hair had turned out to be unfounded. Sure, he’d felt it growing in the previous days, but seeing it gave him more relief. His stubble was coming back, slower and patchier than before, but still there. He didn’t want to shave it away this time. Not until it became unbearable again.

His eyes traveled down to his neck, peeking out of the ivory collar of the luxurious Men of Letter’s bathrobe. The scar from the tight band of leather with which Abaddon had adorned him stood out in mottled pinks and whites. He wondered if it would ever go away. It probably wouldn’t. Another scar, like the one she’d left between his legs. Both as permanent as the scar she’d left on his soul-

He didn’t want to linger on that train of thought, so he tried to focus on something else. He brought a thin finger to his clavicle, traced it. He was still far too skinny, but the hollows of cheeks and throat were starting to soften. He’d have to be careful now, without his balls, slow down the eating or he’d start to get fat. Fat, weak, worthless-

A lump caught in his throat as tears blurred his vision. He gulped, blinking them away. Disgusting, pathetic little eunuch, crying at the slightest provocation. He wouldn’t be that. He wouldn’t.

He looked himself squarely in the eyes.

“Quit mopin’ around, princess. Get your ass out that door.”

He did. He set his shoulders and marched himself back into his room. He dressed himself in dark blue jeans, maroon T-shirt, and unzipped black hooded sweatshirt. New, better fitting clothes compliments of Kevin. He slipped on a pair of soft, brown suede house shoes, opened the door, and walked through it before he could talk himself out of the endeavor.

The Bunker’s halls were softly lit and as Dean padded through them he tried to project an air of confidence that did not reach his heart. The Bunker had once been home- or as close to a stationary home as Dean had ever had since his mother’s death- and the familiarity quickly returned to him. He knew this place, the rooms, corridors, and crannies. It was his, after all, half his family’s legacy-

No more Winchesters. I think I’m doing the world a favor, really.

But she’d failed. Sam was still here, alive and intact. The last man of the family, even if he didn’t want to hear Dean phrase it that way. She’d failed. Good. His vindictive smile felt like more of a grimace.

You hear that, wherever you are? You failed. So fuck you, bitch.  

The moment he thought it, he flinched and looked wildly around for her. The hallway was empty. Of course it was. His heart rate slowed.

No, you’re the bitch, baby, don’t you remember?

Her fiendishly sweet laughter echoed in his head along with her voice, but he knew it wasn’t her. It was him. It would always be him. He felt the urge to get out of the hallway and hurried through the nearest door. It was the library, which hadn’t been his original destination- he hadn’t had a specific one in mind- but it would do. Sam and Kevin were inside. Sam was at a table typing away on his laptop, and Kevin was curled up in an armchair with his nose in an ancient book, a look of intense concentration furrowing his brow. They both glanced up when he entered.

“Dean, what’s up?” Sam asked, trying to mask his worry with nonchalance.

“Hey, Dean.”

Kevin’s casual tone was unaffected and when Dean said nothing he went back to his reading. Dean reflected that Kevin was the best at making everything seem like it was normal. In the past two weeks he had displayed a refreshing ability not to treat Dean like something weak and broken, allowing him to ask for help at his own pace. Between him, Sam, and Cas, Dean actually preferred Kevin’s help for that very reason. Even if being around the kid too long brought extreme guilt bubbling to the surface of Dean’s conscience. Kevin was good with trauma survivors because he’d been forced into the role. At this point he probably needed someone to attend to his own trauma.

“Dean?” Sam pressed, rising to his feet.

“Everything’s fine, Sam,” Dean said weakly. “Just figured I couldn’t stay shut up in my room forever, you know?” 

“No, that’s- that’s good,” Sam walked over to him, smiling. “It’s, uh, it’s really great to see you up and about.” 

“Yeah, sure, okay,” Dean became aware of Kevin surreptitiously observing them over the top of his book. He felt crowded, exposed. He began to back out of the doorway. “So I’m gonna just, um, keep walking around.”

“Okay,” Sam was trying so hard, Dean couldn’t be too annoyed with him. “If you need anything I’ll be in here for awhile.”

“Great, thanks.”

Dean beat a hasty retreat from Sam’s concern. He continued wandering the corridors from memory, from kitchen to rec room to war room, down to the motor pool. To his relief, he managed to avoid meeting anyone else before he found himself too exhausted to continue and went back to his room.

*

In the next two days Dean went for several walks by himself in the Bunker and leaving his room became easier. One morning after Cas brought him his breakfast, not quite three weeks since his return, he told the former angel that he didn’t have to bring him food anymore. Dean was long-past ready to feed himself again.

“Oh,” Cas looked slightly hurt. Lost almost. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Dean said slowly, reflecting that Cas liked to feel useful, have a mission, as much as Dean himself did. Cas had been doing much better, according to Sam and Kevin. He’d only had a few of his bad days since Dean had come back. “Hey, you wanna show me where all the stuff is in the kitchen? I figure Sam moved it around while I was gone.”

He didn’t think any such thing. Sam would probably have left everything exactly where it was the entire time- the kitchen had always been Dean’s spot- but maybe Kevin, Linda, Tracy, or Cas himself had done some reorganizing in his absence.

Cas gave him a look of squinty-eyed suspicion that had don’t patronize me written all over it. Dean tried to appease him with a cocky smirk that would have been more effective on the old Dean’s face. This Dean was probably too beaten down and emaciated to pull it off, but it worked on Cas regardless.

“Yeah, alright,” Cas’s face softened and he smiled faintly.

They went to the kitchen, which turned out to be more-or-less exactly the way Dean remembered it, and found Tracy and Kevin with their arms around each other, lips pressed together. Which- Dean processed this new information- answered a few questions he’d had about why Tracy had stuck around. He also felt pride for Kevin, glad that there was someone in his life after all. Their kiss was controlled, borderline chaste, but the young man and woman leapt apart, blushing furiously, when Dean and Cas entered the room.

“Hey, don’t stop on our account,” Dean teased gently.

“You ever hear of knocking?” Tracy demanded as she regained her composure.

“On what?” Dean gestured to the doorless entrance.

“On- oh, fine, touché,” Tracy conceded, grinning sheepishly and brushing a stray lock of dark hair behind her ear. “I gotta get going anyway. See ya, Kev.”

She gave him a farewell kiss on the cheek and left the room, shooting Cas a friendly smile as she passed him.

“So, Tracy huh?” Dean prodded, walking to the little wooden table and sitting down on one of the round seats. Cas remained where he was, fidgeting.

“Yeah,” Kevin said with the hushed awe of a young man in love. “She’s- she’s pretty great. She’s been amazing these past few months, helping with my mom and- and everything.”

“Where’s she heading to?”

“A hunt,” Kevin paused slightly. “Uh, since Sam, uh, got rid of both Crowley and Abaddon there’s been a lot of restless, angry demons running amok, and Tracy- well, she’s got a lot of beef with demons in particular. ‘Cause of her parents, you know.”

“Oh,” Dean reflected on Kevin’s revelation.

“Demons need a leader as much as angels do,” Cas offered from the doorway. He seemed to be finding the top button on his blue overshirt particularly fascinating.

“Hmm,” Kevin picked up a neglected bowl of oatmeal garnished with raisins and stuck a spoon in the lumpy concoction. “Well, I gotta get back to the library. You guys okay?” 

“Yeah,” Dean answered for both of them. Kevin left.

“He doesn’t like me very much,” Cas said when the sound of Kevin’s footsteps had receded down the hall. He came to sit across from Dean.

“Aw, c’mon. He likes you fine, why do you say that?”

“He’s more- reserved with me. Not that I don’t deserve it. Ever since I, uh, grabbed him by the collar and threatened him. You were there, it was right before the angels- before I made the angels fall. I told him being a prophet was his duty, that he didn’t have a choice.”

Cas chuckled bitterly and gazed unseeing over Dean’s shoulder.

“I’m such a hypocrite. All about free will, as long as it’s my own. Willing to throw it all away the minute someone else’s choices inconvenience me.”

“Hey, well, you’re in good company there,” Dean tamped down the guilt he felt about just how much he could relate to Cas’s statement. “Or, bad company, I guess.”

“No,” Cas gave him one of his unwavering stares. “You’re always good company, Dean.”

“Jeez, man, you always manage to make things awkward.”

“So I’ve been told,” Cas said sadly.

“I’m only teasing you,” Dean assured him, stomach dropping. He didn’t want Cas to get down on himself, especially on account of Dean’s tactless mouth. “Hey, so- show me around?”

Cas did. Dean pretended that the information was new and exciting, although he was pretty sure Cas could see right through his charade. His suspicions were confirmed when he decided to take a nap and Cas refused to be swayed from walking him back to his room.

“Thanks, Dean,” Cas said as Dean put his hand on room 11’s doorknob.

“For what?”

But Cas didn’t answer, just left him with a fond, knowing smile. Dean’s lips twitched in response before he went through the door and collapsed on his bed.

He dreamed of Abaddon, but couldn’t remember the details. He counted it as progress.

*

A few days later Dean finally washed his bedding.

He probably wouldn’t have if Tracy hadn’t come to his room to bring him fresh towels. He’d been sleeping fitfully, though dreamlessly, that afternoon when he heard a knock on the door and invited whoever it was to enter. He was expecting Sam, Cas, or Kevin, but it was Tracy who opened the door. She hadn’t been to his room yet, and his surprise must have shown because she gave him a compassionate smile, waving the clean linens vaguely in his direction.

“Hey, sorry I woke you up. I just- it was my day for laundry and Sam and Kevin are makin’ a supply run into Lebanon, and uh, I can’t find Cas, so you got me.”

She took the towels into the bathroom while Dean sat up and slipped his legs out from under the blankets, glad he’d decided to keep his shirt and sweatpants on for his nap. 

“What- what do you mean you ‘can’t find Cas’?”

Tracy emerged from the bathroom and went to retrieve an empty water glass from Dean’s bedside table. Her face wrinkled apologetically.

“Oh, no, don’t worry. Sometimes Cas just likes to disappear. You know, be alone, find places to hide in the Bunker for a while. He probably knows this place better’n anyone by now.” 

Tracy paused, nose scrunching and eyes squinting in bewilderment.

“Does it smell like soup to you?”

Dean colored.

“Oh, yeah, I, uh, I spilled some chicken soup on the bed a- a few days ago.”

“Do you want me to wash it for you?” 

“Nah,” Dean tried to sound cavalier even as his face flamed. “I- I got it. I can do it.”

“Okay, cool,” Tracy took the glass and left.

Dean waited a few minutes after her departure, then sighed and began to gather up his bedding. Once he’d got the sheets and blankets stripped, making him breathe more heavily than he felt the simple task had any right to, he inspected the mattress. To his relief it appeared that the soup hadn’t soaked through the fitted sheet, and he couldn’t smell chicken broth when he took a tentative sniff.

He made it to the laundry room on the lower level without incident, dumping the bundle into the industrial-sized washing machine with a haphazard sprinkle of Tide on top and flipping the switch to Warm/Cold. The sound of rushing water filling the machine reminded him horribly of being sprayed down with the hose and he left quickly.

He decided to kill the forty-five minutes until he could put his sheets in the dryer by going to the rec room. Maybe see if there was something he could stomach on TV. He marveled that he hadn’t watched TV in over a year. Another thing Abaddon had taken from him. Such a simple, stupid thing, but it was something he could have back. He wanted it back.

Dean heard the TV murmuring from the hallway and his heart flipped. It enraged him. Who fucking cared if someone else was in there already? He could do this. He wanted this. He took a deep breath and entered the room. Linda Tran was seated on the plush couch that was flush with the wall facing the door. The large flat screen flickered on the opposite wall. A quick glance revealed a middle-aged woman with a shock of white-blond hair tossing vegetables in a skillet; the logo in the bottom right corner declared Food Network. Linda looked at him and smiled hesitantly.

“Hi, Dean.”

Dean had seen Linda around the Bunker a few times, in the hallways and the kitchen, but hadn’t spoken with her. Seeing her made him feel such crushing guilt about how he’d helped to drag both her and her son into this nightmare of a life. And, truth be told, she intimidated him. Her soft greeting reminded him how high her voice was. A deceptively sweet voice that distracted from the determined, deadly woman it belonged to. He tried not to make the comparison to Abaddon, but failed.

“Hey, Linda. Mind if I join you?”

She patted the cushions next to her in response and he moved forward to sit beside her, keeping a respectful distance. His first instinct was to sit curled in on himself, but he caught himself just in time, adopting a more relaxed, wide-legged posture. Linda was watching him out of the corner of her eye.

“What- whatcha watchin’?”

“Secrets of a Restaurant Chef reruns.”

Dean had never heard of the show. He grunted his acknowledgment.

“I never used to watch that much TV,” Linda continued to regard him in her periphery, not focused on the television at all. It was unnerving. “I thought it was a waste of time. Beneath me.”

She turned her full attention on Dean, dark eyes hollow with loss. He found himself wondering what Crowley and his demons had done to her. If it was anything like what Abaddon and hers had done to him. He wondered if she knew the extent of what had happened to him.

“How far the mighty have fallen, huh?” 

He knew she meant both of them.

“Yeah.”

She went back to watching the television and Dean followed suit. He focused on the food, how good it looked. They finished the current episode- something about fish-, watched through an episode about falafel, and half of one about something called chicken roulades before Dean left to check on his laundry. He got the damp linens in the dryer with no issue. When he returned, the show’s host was praising the bold flavors of chorizo sausage and Linda Tran had her face buried in the arm of the couch, shoulders shaking with her quiet sobs.

Dean left. He wasn’t proud of it, but he couldn’t handle someone else’s pain right now. Especially not someone he didn’t know very well. He did, however, go to find Tracy. She was in the gym, doing jump squats with a twenty-pound barbell clutched in each fist. Seeing her, Dean felt a pang of regret for his own lost vitality. For the first time since his ordeal, he seriously entertained the thought of replacement testosterone. He dismissed the notion out of hand. That would bring a slew of issues he didn’t want to deal with. The return of a libido that he wasn’t sure he wanted back. Not to mention doctors. Their questions and their curious pity. He knew they’d talk about him, snicker about his condition with their drinking buddies at wherever douche doctors went to get wasted after their shifts. You’ll never believe the patient I had today, fellas! That’s right, no balls, can you believe that?

“Dean, you need something?”

Tracy’s question shook him from his fanciful downward spiral. She panted with exertion, placing the weights on her mat.

“I, uh, no,” he tripped over his tongue, blushing. “It’s- it’s Linda. She’s real upset, and I can’t-”

He trailed off, even more embarrassed to admit that he couldn’t do something. Tracy nodded swiftly.

“I got it. Where is she?”

“Rec room.” 

Tracy took off, leaving Dean standing awkwardly, uselessly, in her wake. He didn’t know what to do with himself now that the idea of the rec room filled him with shame and dread, so he went down to the laundry room to wait for his bedding to finish drying. The rhythmic whirs and thumps of the machine were oddly comforting and Dean sat facing the tumbling sheets like he was watching TV again. The bare, hard floor bit into his bony ass, but he counted it as penance.

All his life, he’d been strong. He’d been the one to comfort and care for others. He didn’t want to need that for himself. He didn’t want to run away from what had always been his job, who he was.

That’s not who you are anymore.

But who was he now?

You’re my bitch, Abaddon taunted him. You’re my brother, Sam reassured him. You’re my friend, Cas welcomed him. He desperately wanted to trust his brother and their angel, but he knew which of the three he believed.

He still missed her. Even though she’d taken away his identity and made it so much harder, nigh impossible, to pretend and overcompensate and be the man he’d thought Dean Winchester should be. He was floundering without her control.

Pathetic.

When his laundry was done he took it back to his room, taking the long way around to avoid passing close to the rec room. He clumsily made his bed and resumed the nap that had been interrupted earlier.

In his dream, Abaddon yanked on his collar and told him to squeal like a pig. Dean obeyed.

*

“Wait, I just, I still ain’t gettin’ my head around the fact that Oz is a thing.”

Dean, Kevin, and Cas were sitting at one of the library’s tables a month after Dean’s return, Dean and Cas on one side with Kevin sitting across from them. Tracy and Sam had left on another demon hunt that morning, despite Dean’s protests that Sam shouldn’t get anywhere near demons so soon after his detox. Sam had listened, face clouding with unspoken resentment that his brother didn’t believe in his restraint, but he’d reminded Dean that he was capable and gone anyway. Dean was trying not to become frantic with worry. Tracy was with Sam and she seemed able to keep his brother in check. More than that, he should believe in Sam. He should.

Linda had sat with them for a while, but gone to bed a few hours earlier with a stern admonition that the boys not stay up too late. Dean was selfishly glad when she turned in. He was still having trouble looking Linda in the eye after leaving her in the rec room, even if he was pretty sure she hadn’t seen him do it. The three of them did not take her advice to heart, continuing long into the night, shooting the shit and breaking out the whiskey after Linda’s departure. Well, Kevin broke out the whiskey, anyway. Dean’s stomach hadn’t reacted well to the sip he’d attempted earlier. He should have known better, really. He still wasn’t up to drinking coffee, why would he be able to handle the hard stuff? He’d have to stick to his usual water and fruit juice. Cas had also declined a glass because his thoughts were “already muddy waters that needed no outside help.”

Kevin, at Dean’s request, had been regaling Dean and Cas with his account of Charlie Bradbury’s latest appearance in their lives before she’d strolled through a portal into the merry-old-land-of-Oz. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Fuckin’ nuts, right?” Kevin laughed hazily with reminiscence. His language had grown considerably more colorful after his mother had left. “Oh man, you two shoulda been here though. Me, Sam, Tracy, Charlie, and the Dorothy runnin’ around the Bunker trying to shoot the fucking Wicked Witch of the West with- with poppyseed bullets.” 

“Jesus,” Dean snickered. “Sorry I missed that. Good for Charlie, though.”

He missed the sharp-witted redhead, but he was glad she couldn’t see him like this. Oz, apparently, had no correspondence with their world and Kevin said they hadn’t heard from her since Charlie had gone through the portal. Maybe someday she’d be back. Maybe someday he’d be ready to see her again. That day did not seem near. He hadn’t been ready to see Jody Mills when she’d swung by to check up on him and Sam a few days ago. He’d hidden in his room until she’d left. Sam had told him she’d understood and given him her best. Dean had felt like a coward, hating himself for it.

“Yeah, she was so excited about it. Like a kid at Christmas.”

Kevin wiped at his eyes, streaming from his laughter. Dean’s chest filled with warmth. It was good to see Kevin so happy, even if he was inebriated, but Dean was- had been- the last person to judge. The young man took another swig straight from the bottle and set it down on the table with an excessive thud.

“Speakin’ of Christmas, y’know, I haven’t celebrated it since- holy shit, it’s been like three years! We- guys- we should totally have a Christmas party this year!”

Dean laughed indulgently, thinking of his own last Christmas festivities all those years ago with Sam. Before Hell. Before the apocalypse. Before her. That would have been Sam’s last Christmas, too. Unless he’d done something with Amelia while Dean was in Purgatory, but it seemed doubtful. Sam had never been filled with the Christmas spirit, even at the best of times.

“We can string lights up all over the war room,” Kevin continued his enthusiastic fantasy, arms waving wildly. “Get a big-ass tree. Put Cas on top.”

He laughed and reached for the bottle. Cas chuckled hesitantly.

“But- I’m not an angel anymore. It wouldn’t be, uh, technically correct to your human holiday traditions.” 

“Cas,” Kevin stared at him with exaggerated gravity. “Fuck ‘technically correct’. Sounds to me like you’ve lost the True Meaning of Christmas.”

Cas looked confused. Dean gave him a friendly swat on the shoulder and whispered, “He’s messin’ with you, don’t worry about it.” Cas’s face relaxed and the corners of his mouth twitched into a smile.

“It’s gonna be hard to shop for most of you, though,” Kevin pondered. “Or- oh! We should do a Secret Santa gift exchange thing.” 

Dean had a vague recollection of a time last year when Abaddon had invited more demons than usual into his dark room. Merry Christmas the Queen had proclaimed viciously as she dragged him from his cage. The memory now made sense in retrospect; his constant fugue hadn’t allowed him to make the connection at the time. And then he’d been consumed by pain and degradation as the demons took advantage of their ruler’s gift-

He felt a hand on his shoulder and he flinched away from it with a startled cry. He whirled to find Cas reeled back in his chair with his hands held up in cautious appeasement. 

“I’m sorry, Dean. That was foolish, I should know better.”

“No- I- what?”

“You were kinda zoned out, dude,” Kevin informed him in a drunken drawl.

Dean looked between them. They were staring at him with such worry. Even Kevin’s heavy eyelids managed to focus concern on him. He was ashamed to have evoked so much pity, and his shame quickly turned to rage. He glared at them with such vitriol that it made Cas physically recoil. Kevin’s face smoothed to neutrality, but his motor functions were impaired at the moment and Dean could still see traces of that pity.

“Goin’ to bed,” he growled as he stood. He despised himself for not having the strength to slam his chair in the way he wanted to.

“Dean- ” Cas began carefully. Dean’s rage shifted fluidly to malice.

“Fuck off, Cas,” Dean spat. “Like I need the help of some piss-poor excuse for an angel who somehow managed to make himself more useless.”

He wanted to hurt. He succeeded. Cas’s eyes widened with distressed shock. Then, even better in Dean’s mind, those big blue eyes narrowed in steely anger. Dean prepared himself for the verbal punches Cas would throw at him. Maybe even some literal ones, too. He wanted Cas to hurt him back. It was what he deserved.

“Cas,” Kevin said warningly, his crisis management still impeccable despite his blood alcohol content. “Don’t rise to it.”

Cas sucked in a lungful of air and unclenched his fists. He looked resentfully at Dean, but said nothing and stayed in his chair. Dean turned his frustration on Kevin.

“Oh yeah, C-Team Prophet with a drinking problem? You got somethin’ to say?”

“Go to bed, Dean,” Kevin was infuriatingly calm. “I’ve done this with my own mom, okay. There’s nothing you can phase me with.” 

“For Christ’s sake, why won’t you get mad, you little bitch?”

But Kevin didn’t respond. The fucker just gave him a sad little smile before putting the cap back on the whiskey bottle. Dean’s emotions were in overdrive, pounding in his chest and his head, shifting in no discernible pattern. He felt hot all of a sudden. Too hot. To his horror he felt tears well up and spill from his eyes, he heard a choked sob burst from his mouth, and he practically sprinted from the room. He couldn’t keep a fast pace for very long. He stopped in the hallway, breathing heavily with tears streaming down his cheeks, praying that they wouldn’t follow him, but also hoping that they would.

He claimed to care about these people, and yet he wanted to hurt them. Make them feel as bad as he did. What kind of person behaved like that? What the hell was wrong with him?

What the hell isn’t wrong with you?

No one came after him, and he hated how much that grieved him when he knew that he would just attack anyone who tried to show him any attention. His sharpest barbs he would save for anyone who showed him compassion.

He desperately wanted Sam here. He wanted to see if he could make Sam cry as hard as he was crying now.

He was a fucking monster, that’s what he was.

He went to his room, lay on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He didn’t sleep that night. He was too afraid of what he would see if he closed his eyes.

*

Dean stayed in his room until Tracy and Sam returned the next afternoon. His bizarre mood swing had ended long before that, but he was too embarrassed to face Cas or Kevin. One of them must have said something to Sam though, because he knocked on Dean’s door and insisted that he eat something. Dean was too tired to put up much of a fight. Besides, he was ravenously hungry.

Tracy was in the kitchen microwaving something. Both she and Sam looked as exhausted as Dean felt, but he could tell that nothing had gone horribly wrong.

“What’re you in the mood for?” Sam asked him. 

“I, uh, I don’t know. How about a fuckin’ steak?”

He’d finally gotten red meat back in his diet, but he had yet to have anything resembling what he’d consider a good meal. Sam chuckled and rummaged around in the refrigerator. 

“Fresh out of steak. But I could make you a roast beef sandwich?”

“Good enough,” Dean conceded gratefully.

Sam fixed two sandwiches and they sat facing each other at the table, Tracy taking a seat beside Sam after the microwave announced that her Hot Pocket was ready. Dean finished his food before the other two were even halfway done with theirs.

“So, uh, how’d it go?” Dean asked to fill the silence. He’d thought it was an innocuous question, but Sam’s face darkened. He swallowed his mouthful forcefully.

“They were tough bastards, but we got the job done.”

“Huh, how many were there?”

“Four. Possessing military-types, more of Abaddon’s lackeys.”

“Sam,” Tracy warned, glancing quickly at Dean.

“He should know,” Sam said steadily. “He can handle it.”

Dean wanted to hug his brother. He was so grateful for Sam’s faith, and he resolved to do better in returning the favor.

“They’re getting more and more organized,” Sam continued. “Which is a mixed blessing. There are less random demon attacks, but the ones that do happen are deadlier.”

He waited for Dean’s reaction, but Dean had none. He felt nothing about the information.

“We got some good info from the hosts,” Tracy offered. “We managed to save three out of the four, that’s why it took us so long to get back. We had to get ‘em to the hospital.”

She finished her Hot Pocket in two large bites while Dean choked down his question about how exactly they’d managed to save the hosts, good-old-fashioned exorcism or the Sam’s-demon-powers variety? He was trying to believe in his brother he reminded himself, scoffing at how quickly he’d failed.

“I’m gonna go hang out with Kevin,” Tracy stood and took her empty plate to the dishwasher.

“Oh, is that what you kids are callin’ it these days?” Sam teased.

“You got me,” Tracy laughed, hands thrown up in mock surrender as she headed for the door. “‘Hang out’ is actually code for ‘wild sex party.’”

Dean managed not to cringe, but he saw Sam glance at him carefully. He felt his heart race and he tried not to panic. He abso-fucking-lutely did not want a repeat performance of last night.

“Later, guys.”

Tracy left. Silence hung heavily in the kitchen as Sam looked at Dean and Dean looked at the remaining third of Sam’s sandwich.

“Dean- ?” Sam began, and Dean wanted to be anywhere but in that room about to be asked if he was “okay”. He inclined his head at Sam’s plate.

“Are- are you gonna eat that?”

The inane question burst out of him, higher and squeakier than he felt he had any business being. He hadn’t thought about that before, that carefully affected, progressively increasing gruffness that he’d been adding to his already deep voice since he was a sophomore in high school. He’d kept it up out of habit, but why? What did it matter now? I made Dean Winchester sing soprano, he heard her say, and for the life of him he couldn’t tell if it was a memory or his own cruel fabrication. He knew it wasn’t true, it was a misconception about what she’d done to him, but he was still mortified.

“Uh, no? Here.” 

Sam pushed the plate towards Dean with a bemused frown. Dean didn’t really want to take the last of Sam’s food, not with Sam looking as gaunt as he did, but he had no other way to keep up his ruse. The remainders of the sandwich disappeared quickly while Sam watched, leaving Dean nothing to hide behind once it was gone.

“You wanna go outside?” Sam asked unexpectedly. The question caught Dean completely off-guard.

“Wh- why?”

“Dunno,” Sam gave a lopsided shrug. “Fresh air’s good for you. Sun, too. Well, it would be if it wasn’t raining.”

“You wanna go outside in the rain?” 

“It’s more of a light drizzle.”

“You’re more of a light drizzle,” Dean muttered. Sam laughed harder than he should have and warmth began to creep its way into Dean’s heart.

“There’s the Dean I know and love,” he teased gently, trying to make everything normal again. “Or put up with, at any rate. C’mon.”

Sam stood and waited for Dean to follow. Dean remained in his seat, unsure. Did he want to go outside? He was pretty sure the answer was no. He didn’t want to leave the safety of the Bunker. He didn’t want to deal with anybody outside his tight bubble. The glow in his chest was slowly being eclipsed by a chill of fear and he grasped at the good feeling, not wanting to lose it so quickly.

“C’mon,” Sam repeated. “You haven’t been outside in over a month. It’s not good for you. I keep telling Cas that, too, but he won’t listen to reason.”

“But- but I’m basically in my pajamas,” Dean swept a hand at his T-shirt, sweatpants, and house shoes.

“That doesn’t matter, we’re not goin’ anywhere. Just stepping outside for a minute. Please, Dean.” 

And there were those damn puppy eyes. The ones Dean could seldom refuse at the best of times. The warmth swelled in his chest, chasing the darkness away

“Alright, fine, whatever. You weirdo.”

Sam smiled, wide and sincere. A grown-ass man should not have a smile that cute, Dean thought with fierce affection. Especially not a man who had seen the things his little brother had. As tired and lean as Sam was, his dimples still reminded Dean of that innocent little eight-year-old begging his big brother to let him stay up to watch just one more episode of- of whatever that show with the talking bears in airplanes had been called. The show that twelve-year-old Dean had been way too cool to admit he actually liked-

Dean would do anything to preserve that smile.

They abandoned their plates on the table and left the kitchen. Dean began leading the way to the war room, but Sam stopped him.

“Not that way.”

“There’s another way outta this place?”

“Sort of,” Sam said cryptically, heading in the opposite direction. Dean followed him, curious.

His second guess was the motor pool, but Sam steered them away from that, too. They headed in the direction of the laundry room, taking a left instead of the familiar right. Dean had been down this corridor once before. He was pretty sure it ended with a utility closet, and, sure enough, there was the metal door with the cracked paint. Sam pulled it open with a painful squeal of rusty hinges. Dean stared at the shelves lined with cleaning products, extra supplies, and long-forgotten tools. He was pretty sure Sam wasn’t pranking him, but for the life of him he couldn’t think of another explanation when Sam walked inside, clearly expecting Dean to accompany him.

“Uh, Sam?”

Sam was at the back of the closet, pushing his large hands against the grey bricks, searching for something.

“Cas found this,” Sam explained, preoccupied with his search. “Where the hell- ? Aha.”

His fingertips wedged into the grooves of one of the bricks and he pulled it out slightly. A click sounded behind the wall, then a whir as the entire wall swung inward to reveal an ancient-looking freight elevator. Sam glanced over his shoulder to see Dean’s reaction, grinning at his big brother’s awe.

“That is some Batman-level shit.”

“I know, right? Makes sense, though, that the Men of Letters would have a couple secret escape routes.”

Sam pressed a button on the elevator’s control panel. The heavy doors rumbled open. Dean stared at the dimly lit, spartan interior. He could smell the musty air inside. So different from the elevator in Abaddon’s penthouse-

He must have frozen, because Sam turned to him with concern.

“You okay?”

“Can people just stop asking me that?”

Dean set his shoulders and strode into the elevator before he could say anything harsher. He heard Sam step into the elevator behind him. His brother offered no further comment, for which Dean was grateful.

“Where’s this thing go, anyway?”

“Up,” Sam said smoothly, gesturing at the only two buttons the machine offered. “And then down.”

“Okay, smart-ass. I mean- ”

“Just wait and see,” Sam hit the UP arrow and the doors slid shut.

“I feel like some chick you’re takin’ to see some surprise that’s gonna get you laid,” Dean grumbled, leaning against the back of the rickety elevator for support as it began its ascent. Sam chuckled hesitantly.

“Yeah, well, I- I promise to be a perfect gentleman, ‘kay darlin’?”

“Ugh, and now I’m uncomfortable,” Dean made an exaggerated face of disgust. This was fine, he thought with relief. He could still joke about this stuff, as long as it didn’t take him by surprise. As long as he was the one in control of the joke.

After what felt like an excessively long time the doors opened and they stepped out onto a flat rooftop overlooking a river. Two giant, red brick smokestacks towered from the slate surface. The rest of the roof was bare, save for the structure behind them that housed the elevator. The sky was overcast and cool rain misted against the bare skin of his arms, raising goosebumps on his pale flesh despite the warm summer air. After a moment Dean realized they were on top of the power plant the Bunker was built underneath. He looked out over the muddy brown river, fat with rainfall, and the lush greenery that lined its banks. He could see the tiny city of Lebanon in the distance, lights dull but still visible in the gloom. As views went it definitely wasn’t the best, especially not with the canopy of grey clouds that refused to let any sunlight through. Yet Dean found it beautiful. He breathed fresh air into his lungs and felt a momentary contentment that turned to suspicion.

“Did you really just bring me up here for my health or whatever?” 

“Pretty much.”

Dean raised an eyebrow incredulously. 

“And,” Sam amended. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Great. Had someone told Sam about his meltdown last night?

“We couldn’t talk in the kitchen? Or the library? Or my room? Or anywhere that isn’t the fuckin’ roof while it’s raining?”

“Somewhere private. Where no one can overhear or walk in on us.”

Deep breaths.

“Okay. Why? Did- did Cas or Kevin say something?”

“What?” Sam’s confusion seemed genuine, and Dean’s anxiety was mitigated by the fact that his brother had never been the greatest actor. “No, they didn’t say anything, I- I just wanna talk to you. Just- just ‘cause, Dean. I still miss you.”

“Why? I’m right here, Sam. I ain’t goin’ anywhere. Seriously, this is the farthest I’ve gone from my room in, like, a month.”

“Look,” Sam ignored Dean’s deflection. “I know you don’t want me asking if you’re okay, but- but that’s not what I’m asking. I’m just asking you to tell me how you are. Talk to me, please.”

This time, Dean steeled himself against Sam’s kicked-puppy look. His emotions ricocheted, and he could do nothing but follow them along for the ride. They settled firmly in the overworked anger slot of his brain. 

“No, Sam. This ain’t about me at all. This is about you. You wanna share and care all your precious feelings? Fine, whatever, I’ll listen and pretend I give a damn, but don’t you dare act like this has anything to do with me, you selfish bastard.”

He didn’t have any specific expectation for what Sam’s reaction would be, although he’d been hoping for returned hostility. The way Sam looked at him in sad resignation was something he definitely hadn’t anticipated. Guilt curled its fingers around his anger and tugged.

“You’re right,” Sam opened his hands placatingly. “Not completely, but close enough. I don’t really wanna, uh, 'share and care' my bullshit, but you’re right. I want you to talk to me because it will make me feel better. I really do want to know how you’re doing.”

“Why?” Dean muttered, shamefaced. “Why the hell would you wanna know anything about the- the ball-less demon-sex-toy that used to be your brother?” 

“Don’t,” Sam warned. “Look, you can get mad at me all you want, but don’t- please don’t talk about yourself like that. Okay?”

But the floodgates had opened and Dean had neither the strength nor desire to hold back the deluge. His eyes stung.

“Why the hell not, Sam? It’s the truth, whether you like it or not.”

“No, it’s not.” 

“Yeah, it is. How- how can you look up to me anymore when I can’t- I’m not even- ” 

Sam was staunchly refusing to accept how worthless Dean was, and it made Dean irrationally furious. He took Sam’s rejection of his self-assessment as an insult. Which made absolutely no fucking sense, Dean could acknowledge, but it didn’t make him any less angry about it.

“I’ll always look up to you,” Sam told him with unwavering sincerity, making it worse.

“I let- I couldn’t stop her from- she literally unmanned me!” Dean was desperate to make his brother see. “And then she- she made me eat them! I can’t remember the rest of the shit she did to me, it all kinda blurs together, but I was pretty much the demon village bicycle. Those guys you just got back from huntin’? I guarantee you that they got a piece of this.” 

“That doesn’t make you anything less to me,” Sam’s fists were clenched, shaking, but he kept his face neutral. “Why can’t you get that?”

Dean ignored him. He grasped at his plethora of indignities, trying to find something that would make Sam look at him in disgust.

“I gotta sit to piss now, you know. It- it’s so fucking tiny I hose down the front of my fly if I try and stand. And I can’t- I can’t get it up anymore. What’s worse is I don’t even want to. What does that make me, huh?” 

“You’re still my big brother. I still love you.”

No, no, just- no. Dean shifted tactics, brought it around to Sam.

“After what I helped that angel do to you? You know I ain’t sorry, I’d do it again if it meant saving your life.”

“I know. And I’m not sayin’ I’m okay with it, but I know why you did it. And I forgive you.” 

It was a good thing they were standing in the middle of the roof. Dean wasn’t sure who he wanted to fling off the edge more. Not that he had the physical strength to take Sam anymore.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Why won’t you hate me?”

“Dean- ”

“Hate me, you goddamn pussy! Hate me!”

This was different from the last time he’d tried to rile Sam up. There was no death wish here. Merely Dean’s desire to be hated as much as he knew he deserved. He wanted Sam- and Cas and Kevin and everyone, the whole fucking world really- to despise him. He wanted justification for what had happened to him, and for how much he hated himself because of it.

“Never.”

Sam refused to give him that satisfaction, and Dean was suddenly glad for the rain. It hid the tears he couldn’t prevent from running down his face. He swiped violently at his eyes to no avail.

“What is wrong with you?” Dean repeated dully as his rage cooled. He was stunned at the level of his brother’s devotion.

“How long you got?” Sam joked weakly. “I mean, I was possessed by Satan once you know. Not to mention I can’t be near a demon without wanting to rip their veins open and drink their sweet, sweet blood.”

Dean cringed at Sam’s flippancy.

“C’mon, Sam, don’t.”

“Oh, so you’re allowed to beat yourself up for things that ain’t your fault, but I’m not, huh? Hypocrite.”

Sam spoke in jest, but there was truth in his words that Dean refused to dwell on.

“Pretty fuckin’ much.”

“Dean, please,” Sam’s tone indicated that the joke was over. “You always take care of me, of everybody else, too. Why won’t you let me return the favor?”

Because that wasn’t who Dean was. He might not have a good idea of who he was now, but he sure as hell knew who he wasn’t.

“I don’t want you to have to,” he admitted.

“It’s not weakness, you know. It’s normal, it’s good for you. Besides, I want to. Can’t you let me?”

Dean looked up at his brother’s stricken face. His brother wanted this, needed it even. In a roundabout way, letting Sam take care of him would really be him taking care of Sam.

“I can try,” he conceded.

“Okay,” Sam exhaled audibly. “Okay, that- that’ll work. So.”

“So?”

“So- talk to me.”

“Wait, what? I thought that’s what I just did!” Dean groaned.

“No, you deflected and attacked. I’ve known you my whole life, Dean. I know all your tricks.” 

“Yeah, well, I ain’t up to it right now. I’m real tired, Sam,” Dean decided that if Sam wanted brutal honesty, he would give it to him. Be careful what you wish for and all that. “I’m havin’ mood swings like I’m fuckin’ PMSing or something, and it drains the hell outta me.”

He gazed out over the river after the admission so he wouldn’t have to see Sam’s reaction.

“Have- have you ever thought about seeing a doctor about HRT?”

“What?” Dean said sharply, face blushing scarlet and jaw clenching. 

“Uh, HRT. Hormone replacement therapy.”

This is what he got for agreeing to talk about his feelings. It figured. He looked down at his slippers. He was probably wearing out the thin soles on the grey slate.

“Yeah, I mean, no. I mean, I’ve thought about it, sure.”

“Okay, well, if you want help setting that up, let me know.”

“Yeah, sure, will do,” Dean made no effort to disguise the lie. “Moving on.”

He risked a look at Sam, fearing the pity he expected to see. He was relieved not to find it, although Sam’s melancholy expression wasn’t very comforting. He looked away again. It was still raining lightly, but up above the clouds were starting to break. Hints of sunlight were making their presence known.

“I’m going back down,” Dean announced, turning for the elevator.

“Okay,” Sam sighed. “Let’s go.”

“Hey, no, don’t leave your little rooftop paradise on my account,” Dean spoke with maybe a touch too much sarcasm, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel bad about it. “I’m perfectly capable of ridin’ an elevator down by myself.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that you weren’t.”

Sam let Dean lead the way into the elevator. They rode down in silence. Dean was so relieved when Sam didn’t accompany him back to his room that he even agreed to have breakfast with his brother the following morning.

When he’d shut his door behind him and adjusted to that unsettling flood of light after he flicked the switch, Dean was overwhelmed by the stares of his photographs. With a burst of frustrated energy he moved manically around his room overturning the picture frames. He’d been considering it for weeks, but hadn’t gone through with it for fear of the others’ reactions. The way they’d look at him. But fuck that. Fuck them all. They already saw how broken he was. They already looked at him that way, so what did it matter? He didn’t want the pictures’ eyes on him a second longer.

He turned his father’s face down first. How would John have looked at him? Grief? Disappointment? The picture of him, Sam, Cas, and Bobby went next. The old hunter would have been uncomfortably sympathetic, and that was worse than anything. And Cas- his conscience jabbed him with the memory of what he’d said the night before, but he pushed it away with the clack of the frame on the desk.

Next was a picture of him and Charlie dressed in LARPing gear. Charlie would probably be awkward about it, if she knew. He focused on his own face next to hers, laughing, and he knew intimately how that old version of Dean Winchester would have reacted to his new self. The revulsion. The disdain. He’d been a dick. He still was, really, just a less effectual one. He turned both of them over.

One-by-one he hid all those memories of happier times he’d never get back. The last picture he put down was the unframed photograph on his desk, the edges brown and damaged from a combination of fire and age. In it his mother, young and beautiful, hugged a cherubic four-year-old version of himself. Sun glinted off their golden hair and they were both smiling softly.

“Why’re you so happy?” he asked Mary and his younger self. “Don’t you know what’s gonna happen to you?”

He didn’t remember when the picture had been taken. How far away November 2nd, 1983 was for the two unsuspecting faces in the photo. He was selfishly, horribly glad that she couldn’t see him now. He turned her face away.

All the pictures were hidden and a weight lifted from him, only to be replaced immediately when his eyes scanned along his desk to the box of meticulously organized vintage porn. He was overcome with the urge to smash or burn it, but his stamina had abandoned him. Instead, he settled on moving it to his dresser and placing it in the unused bottom drawer. He shut the drawer with excessive force, making the whole thing shake.

The clock told him it was just past four. Too early to go to bed. Besides, he was hungry again. He decided he’d risk a trip to the kitchen in half-an-hour. It would still be early enough that no one else was likely to be in there. He’d find some prepackaged stuff and bring it back to his room. He’d take extra, hoard it so he didn’t have to leave every time he got hungry.

To pass the time, he put on some music, and as he perused his vinyl collection he wondered how he’d forgotten about it for so long. She’d stolen music from him, too? Well, he’d take it back. He chose a Howard McGhee record that he’d inherited from the Men of Letters. The old Electrohome record player was dusty inside when he pried the lid open, but it played smoothly after he’d cleaned it. He lay on his bed staring up at the ceiling as the opening percussion of “Jarm” segued into the high, sweet notes of McGhee’s trumpet. The jazz was beautifully cohesive, melodies and harmonies mingling without becoming uninteresting. It soothed and inspired him.

For the first time in a very long while, even before Abaddon, Dean thought about the future without a sense of gnawing dread. The respite was brief, but he enjoyed the novelty while it lasted.

*

The next morning Dean woke early. Unsurprising, since he’d gone to sleep around seven the evening before, after raiding the pantry and bringing his stash back to his room. He’d scored four packages of beef jerky, a dozen or so granola bars- only the peanut butter chocolate chip varieties-, and an unopened, party-size bag of barbecue potato chips. He decided that since it was five twenty in the morning and no one else would be awake to judge him for it, he would be eating potato chips for breakfast. The chips were wonderful, sweet and spicy and greasy, and he couldn’t stuff them in his mouth fast enough. There were russet crumbs all over his desk by the time he was sated.

Forty-five minutes and over half the bag later, Dean regretted his decision. He spent most of the morning on the toilet, vowing never to do this again. Who was he kidding, though? He knew he’d probably do it again, because he was dumb like that. Besides, those chips had been awesome.

Dean ventured outside his room once his stomach rumblings died down. He was thirsty for more than tap water from his bathroom sink. He found Sam waiting for him in the hallway. His brother was sitting across from Dean’s door, halfway through a paperback entitled Blood Secrets: Chronicles of a Crime Scene Reconstructionist. The cover was resplendent with gore. Sam glanced up from the page and smiled at Dean.

“Hey.”

“Uh, hey,” Dean parroted back. “What, uh, what are you doin’ out here?” 

Sam placed a slip of paper in his book to mark his place and rose to his feet, stretching sinuously to rid himself of stiffness.

“Waiting for you. We were gonna have breakfast, remember?”

Dean had completely forgotten.

“Yeah, I figured you forgot,” Sam shrugged good-humoredly. “But you still owe me a talk, so.”

“Oh, I owe you, huh? I never made any promises about that.”

“You said you’d try.”

“And I did,” Dean insisted stubbornly.

“Did you?”

Sam asked with total sincerity, leaving the analysis up to Dean. It gave Dean pause.

“Maybe- maybe not that hard,” he conceded. “But I really ain’t feelin’ it, Sammy. I honestly don’t know if I ever will, but if I do, uh, you’ll be the first to know, okay?”

Sam surprised him by not pushing the issue.

“Okay.”

Dean let out the breath he’d been holding.

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah,” Sam’s smile widened. “You hungry?”

Dean winced, putting a hand on his stomach.

“God, no. I overdid it with some chips this morning.”

“I figured you’d taken those. I promise not to tell Tracy you stole her chips.”

“Oops,” Dean tried to feel bad about it, but he didn’t. The chips had been too damn good.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sam said unnecessarily. “I’ll buy her some more.”

“Thanks, dude. You’re awesome.”

“I know it. Plans for the day?”

“Oh, you know, my day’s just packed. Eat, sleep, maybe watch a little TV. Grueling existence. How ‘bout you? Little feel-good reading?”

Dean gestured at the book in Sam’s hand. Sam glanced at it briefly as if he’d forgotten what it was. He made a face.

“Don’t judge me. This stuff’s interesting.”

“God, I forgot all about you and your true crime, serial killer fascination. I worry about you sometimes, Sam. Do we need to have an intervention?”

“Bite me.”

They looked at each other deadpan for a moment before each brother burst out laughing. It echoed through the hallway. It sounded like home.

“I missed you so much, Dean,” Sam chuckled.

“So you keep tellin’ me. And let me guess, we’re gonna hug next?” 

“Now that you mention it- ”

“Typical,” Dean rolled his eyes for show and eagerly stepped into the embrace. Sam was strong and warm in his arms. He smelled faintly of Old Spice and the must of day old laundry. Home. 

She hadn’t taken Sam from him. She hadn’t.

Dean walked with Sam to the kitchen, but the sight of food made him queasy. He left his brother to his yogurt-kale-blackberry-whatever-the-hell smoothie preparations and went to find Cas and Kevin. His talk with Sam had revitalized him, and he wanted to make things right while he still had the mental and physical fortitude for the task. Other than his brother, friends- family- didn’t last long in his life. He didn’t want to be the one to drive them away. Better to keep them close while he could.

Kevin was easy. Dean found him- surprise, surprise- in the library with the Angel tablet, scribbling away in a notebook. He looked up when Dean slid into the chair across from him.

“Hey, Dean, what’s up?” 

“Um,” Dean scratched awkwardly at the back of his neck. He’d never been very good at this. “I, uh, wanted to, uh, apologize for what I said a couple nights ago.” 

“I appreciate that,” Kevin offered him no exoneration. “But I really didn’t take it personally. Cas is the one you need to apologize to.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Dean muttered. “You know where he is?”

“No clue.”

Kevin went back to his translation. He glanced up a minute later when Dean made no indication of leaving.

“Did you need something else?”

“No, no, I’m good.”

Dean gathered his thoughts outside the library, trying to figure out the best plan of attack for diffusing Cas’s anger. He couldn’t remember apologizing to Cas before, usually the former angel was the one seeking Dean’s forgiveness. Admittedly, most of those apologies had been warranted, but Dean was humbled yet again by the fact that a divine being, former or not, valued his approval. And, in typical Dean-fashion, he’d probably fucked it all up.

He tried Cas’s room but he wasn’t there. The rec room contained Tracy and Linda playing a laid-back game of pool. They were giggling about something Dean rationally knew wasn’t him, but he couldn’t fully convince his paranoid brain of the fact. Neither woman knew where Cas was. He checked the kitchen next, where he did find Cas, sitting across the table from Sam and eating peanut butter straight from the nearly-full jar with a spoon. He side-eyed Dean with wary grumpiness. 

“Hello, Dean,” Cas said stiffly through a mouthful of peanut butter. Sam looked between them curiously.

“Hey, Dean. Hungry after all?”

“Nah,” Dean swept a hand through his hair, tamping down his nausea at the thought of food. “Uh, do you think I could talk to Cas alone?”

“Yeah, sure,” Sam stood, still looking curiously at his brother. He picked up his glass of half-finished smoothie, oddly colored and inappropriately textured in Dean’s opinion, and made to leave. 

“Sam, you can stay,” Cas said cooly. “Anything Dean has to say to me he can say in front of you.”

“Aw, c’mon Cas, don’t be such a b- uh, don’t be like that,” Dean hastily amended.

“Why not? Will it make me any less, uh, piss-poor or useless?”

Dean sighed. He hadn’t expected this to be easy, someone as old as Cas was good at holding grudges, and he knew he deserved it. He’d known all the right buttons to push, had always been good at doing that. With a shiver of fear he remembered Cas from five years ago, still filled with righteous fury and angelic power, nearly beating him to death in a dark alley. You wanted him angry, dumbass. Congratulations, mission accomplished!

But that Cas was long gone. The only thing he had to fear from this Cas was rejection, a revocation of friendship. That scared him more.

“Cas, look, I’m sorry okay? I didn’t mean any of that stuff. You know that, right?”

“Do I?”

Dean hoped Cas was just being difficult, that he didn’t actually think Dean had meant any of his vicious comments. He really wished Sam would leave, but that didn’t seem to be going his way either. Sam continued to stand by the table, drink in hand, fidgeting uncomfortably.

“Castiel,” Dean rarely used Cas’s full name and it caught the former angel’s attention. “What I said had nothing to do with you. It was all my bullshit that I was tryin’ to put on you so you’d feel as bad as I do. It was shitty of me, and I ain’t gonna promise you it won’t happen again, ‘cause I kind of suck, but I’m sorry and I’ll try not to let it happen again.” 

Cas’s face twitched in a failed attempt not to smile. Sam looked impressed. Proud, even. Dean had to admit he was a little proud of himself, too. That was a damn good apology, by Dean Winchester standards. As low as that bar was.

“Thank you,” Cas said amiably. Then he stuck the spoon back in his mouth and an awkward silence ensued.

“You can sit down, if you want,” Cas said, swallowing hard and addressing them both. Dean sat down next to him while Sam slid back into his chair. Cas continued to work on his peanut butter. He had gone through about a third of the jar since Dean had been there.

“Fan of the nutty goodness, huh?” Dean asked, trying to relieve the tension.

“ 's good,” Cas spoke through a thick mouthful. “But peanuts aren’t actually nuts, you know. They’re legumes. Like beans.”

Sam, the big nerd, was nodding in agreement like this was the most obvious thing in the world. Dean forced a weak noise of enlightenment on Cas’s behalf. 

“That so? Tastes better with chocolate than any bean I’ve ever had.”

“I like it with grape jelly, preferably on white bread, but we’re out. Of jelly, I mean, not bread.”

“Sure, can’t mess with classic PB & J. But please tell me you’ve tried a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, at least?”

The blank look on Cas’s face had Dean rounding on Sam.

“He’s been human how long and he ain’t had a freakin’ Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup?”

Sam bitch-faced, but his eyes twinkled with mirth.

“Don’t blame this on me! I didn’t know!”

“You got a grocery list?”

“It’s not Sam’s fault,” Cas chimed in. “I, uh, didn’t have a lot of money for food at first. The opportunity never came up.”

“Thank you, Cas,” said Sam pointedly to Dean.

“No excuses,” said Dean firmly. “Seriously, where’s the grocery list? I’m writin’ this down.”

He was unreasonably adamant and had no desire to examine the reasons behind that. Sam showed him the notepad beside the coffee pot, reading over Dean’s shoulder as he wrote REESE’S PEANUT BUTTER CUPS! in grainy black ink underneath a less urgent reminder to purchase more toothpaste.

“Can you put the jelly on there, too?” Cas asked him. “Make sure it says jelly, not jam. Jam is unpleasant.”

Dean complied, underlining the JELLY in GRAPE JELLY with a flourish. He realized his nausea was gone, abandoned for a bout of ravenous hunger. He thought for a moment, then added BACON DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER/LARGE ONION RINGS/CHOCOLATE MILKSHAKE underneath. He dropped the pen and grinned at Sam’s exasperation. 

“Really, Dean? You’re still suffering from malnutrition, how about some fruit or vegetables?

“Onion rings, Sammy. And there’re lettuce and tomatoes on the burger.”

“The burger’s also made from, like, a hundred different cows.”

“All of them delicious.”

God, he’d missed this. He’d forgotten his brother, forgotten his friends, forgotten himself, for too long. Retroactive yearning for this familiar interaction throbbed in his chest. Affection settled over him like a blanket, and instead of doing his best to shrug it off like he’d used to, he allowed it to comfort him. He felt like a human being, flawed and stunted as he was, and he was happy to be treated as such.

“Burgers sound good,” Cas offered from the table. He’d finally abandoned the peanut butter. Dean smiled at him in solidarity, then smirked triumphantly at Sam.

“Two against one.”

“Okay, fine,” Sam countered. “We can go get takeout from wherever you want for dinner. If you come with me.”

Just like that Dean’s pleasant illusion shattered. It was such a simple request, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t.

“Oh my god, I’m sorry, I didn’t- ” Sam realized that he’d asked too much, too soon. Humiliation caught in Dean’s throat.

“I’ll go.”

Cas saved him. Dean had never been more grateful for a rescue. Sure, it wasn’t as momentous as Cas saving him from Hell, but it was an act borne of affinity rather than duty.

“Cas, you don’t have to. I can go by myself,” Sam was trying to salvage the situation, and Dean remembered that Cas hadn’t been outside in months.

“No, I want to,” Cas insisted.

“O-okay,” Sam knew when he was outmatched. “Is it cool with you if we stop at the grocery store, too?”

“Of course, Sam,” there was a slight tremor in Cas’s voice. “I’ll, uh, look for those Peanut Butter Cups. They’re the candies that come in the bright orange packages, correct? How many should we get, Dean?”

“Yeah, bright orange. And get as many as you can fuckin’ carry.”

Cas straightened in his seat, imbued with purpose. Operation Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup was a go.

Dean clung wildly to the details he could observe about the members of his broken little family. His friend’s willingness to face his fears for Dean’s sake. His brother’s willingness to humor and indulge them both. Sam was looking at Cas like the little brother he’d never had. A little brother who was a million-plus years older than he was and used to have wings and a halo. But hey, when had their lives ever made sense?

“Alright, we’ll bring burgers back for everyone tonight. You wanna leave around five, Cas?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You wanna take Kevin and the girl’s orders for me?”

“Of course,” Cas screwed the lid firmly on his jar of peanut butter. Dean saw that Cas’s name was inscribed on the lid in thick permanent marker.

“Fast food and candy,” Sam sighed theatrically. “Anything else you need, Dean? A box of donuts? Cigarettes?”

“We can’t all be health nuts like you, Sam. Some of us wanna, you know, enjoy life.”

“Jeez, you act like I only eat celery and rice cakes or something! I drink way too much coffee, I eat red meat, I don’t watch my sodium intake. I’ve just accepted that I’m not a teenager anymore when it comes to junk food.”

It sounded like Sam had been keeping that rant bottled up for quite some time. That made Dean want to mess with him even more.

“Sounds like quitter talk to me.”

“Fine, but when you’re forty and need a new liver, don’t come bitchin’ to me about it.”

“I don’t know, Dean,” Cas sounded genuinely worried. “Sam has a point.”

“Oh, not you too, Cas. Thought you had my back here.”

“I do,” Cas’s eyes widened. “I’ll always have your back. I just, uh, want it to be a healthy back.”

“Thanks, Cas,” Dean said, confounded as always by Cas’s earnest loyalty. Sam made an “Awww” noise. Dean mouthed at him to shut up, then was overcome with a fit of laughter when Cas turned his concern to Sam’s excessive consumption of salt and wouldn’t be deterred until Sam promised to pay more attention to that in the future.

After Sam gulped down the remains of his smoothie, he headed to the gym with Cas. Dean surprised everyone, himself included, when he took up Sam’s offer to join them. He didn’t want to lose this newfound camaraderie so soon.

In the gym, Sam and Cas took turns spotting for each other on the weight bench. Cas was still surprisingly strong, even without his mojo, and Sam was as ridiculously fit as ever. Dean idled in the corner self-consciously, until Sam offered to show him some stretches while Cas was on the stationary bike.

“This ain’t yoga is it?” Dean asked suspiciously when he was seated on the mat.

“Pilates,” Sam said, sitting across from Dean.

“Right, ‘cause that’s so much better,” Dean grumbled, but he had to admit he felt better after they’d finished. Sam helped him work out with a medicine ball, simply tossing it back and forth, and Dean tried to focus on how good it felt to be moving as opposed to how the tiny, two-fucking-pound ball was giving him trouble.

“We can make this a regular thing if you want,” Sam offered when they all went their separate ways to wash up.

“Um, yeah, sure,” Dean truly did want that, but it made him feel awkward and inadequate. Incapable of doing anything by himself. It was humbling. But then Sam smiled at him and he knew he could do it.

Back in his room, Dean stripped off his clothes in preparation for his customary bath. He was reaching for the taps when he decided he wanted a shower. It had been long enough. He twisted the central knob to change the water flow to the showerhead, startling when the water rushed down overhead. He made sure the plastic curtain was tucked inside the tub and stepped into the stream.

It felt wonderful. The temperature was perfect, maybe even a little bit too hot, and it was a relief not to feel like he was soaking in his own filth as the falling water washed his sweat and grime down the drain. He stayed in his bubble of warmth and renewal a decadently long time and swore he would never take another bath again.

*

Sam and Cas got back a little after seven that evening and everyone ate dinner together. They sat at the long tables in the library, Sam to his right, Cas to his left, Kevin, Tracy, and Linda across from them. They ate and talked and laughed, and Dean wasn’t going to let anything ruin this. Not even himself. He watched them all for a moment before digging in. Sam with a grilled chicken sandwich and small fries; Cas with his two cheeseburgers; Kevin with a veggie burger and large fries; Tracy with her spicy fish sandwich and chicken fries; Linda with the humongous chicken caesar salad that she was eyeing suspiciously. Condiments, silverware, napkins, and paper drink cups littered the table between them. 

Sam had filled Dean’s order perfectly. Dean closed his eyes as he savored the first bite of burger, moaning a little in ecstasy. The bacon was crisp and flavorful, the exquisitely warm cheese cascaded over his tongue, and the meat had the ideal consistency as he chewed and swallowed. The onion rings were a little disappointing, but still good, nothing the ketchup couldn’t make up for. The milkshake was sweet and cold, and Dean slurped it down to the dregs. He chafed a bit under Sam’s caring scrutiny, his brother’s half-eaten sandwich seemingly forgotten as Sam watched him eat with a faint smile. Dean swallowed his pride along with his meal, putting up with it for the sake of harmony. 

Cas had devoured his cheeseburgers and was opening his first package of Reese’s. He’d taken Dean’s instruction to get as many as he could carry very literally. There were three plastic grocery bags stuffed with every variation imaginable. Classic two-cup, the four-cup king size, small bags of the miniature versions, Reese’s Pieces, and a box of Reese’s Puffs cereal.

“You shoulda seen the looks we got,” Sam said quietly to Dean. “He would’ve got more, but I said that was probably enough.”

“How’d he do? You know, goin’ outside?” Dean whispered back.

“A little jumpy, stared down a couple old ladies and kids, but pretty good.”

“I can hear you both quite clearly, there’s no need to whisper,” Cas said mildly, examining the Peanut Butter Cup he’d just finished unwrapping. Dean looked at him apologetically. 

“Uh, well, good job on the Reese’s haul, Cas.”

Dean gave Cas a slap on the shoulder and reached for a king size package. Cas swelled with the praise. Then he took a tentative bite of candy, Dean watching intently, his own mouth full of the confection. Cas’s eyes opened in blissful surprise and he popped the rest of the cup into his mouth while Dean laughed affectionately.

“What’d I tell ya, huh?”

“You- you were right,” Cas conceded readily, reaching for the second cup. Sam huffed out a laugh.

“Thank god. We’re not stuck with three bags of candy he doesn’t like.”

“Don’t worry, we woulda helped you take care of it,” Tracy reached eagerly for a bag of minis, tossing a pack of Reese’s Pieces to Kevin, who caught it deftly. He opened it, offering some to his mother, who declined with a shake of her head and a purse of her lips.

“Cas, have you seriously never had one of these before?” Tracy asked in disbelief. 

“No,” Cas confirmed with mock dismay. “And I’m regretting the fact immensely right now.”

“Hey, let’s make up for lost time,” Dean slid another package over to the former angel.

They ate themselves sick, except for Sam, Kevin, and Linda.

“The smart ones,” Dean groaned, clutching his stomach. 

“Don’t you forget it,” Linda teased him. She finally treated herself to one Peanut Butter Cup, unwrapping it carefully and eating it like it was some sort of delicacy.

This was easy, this was good. Dean chanted it to himself to distract from the stomach pain. He could do this. Rebuild. Be a person. Have this little family, cobbled together from tragedy. He hadn’t thought about her in hours, he realized, ruining his streak but taking comfort from the fact regardless. He watched Kevin rubbing lazy circles on Tracy’s back, Linda laughing at something Sam had said, and Cas arranging leftover Reese’s Pieces by color in front of him. Family. Home.

All things considered, it had been a good day.

I’ll tear it all down, baby, Abaddon sneered in his head. You don’t get to be happy.

He was afraid she was right, but he didn’t let it show. 

*

While Dean slept that night, Abaddon made his family do unspeakable things to each other and to him before she murdered them all brutally. She saved Sam for last, unwinding his brother’s intestines slowly from a gaping stomach wound while Sam’s screams turned into ragged groans that sounded like recordings from Dean’s time in Hell. It went on and on and on.

When Dean woke, it was in a state of numbness at first. The dream had been horrible, yes, but in a hackneyed sort of way. She could do much better than that. But fear quickly pierced his stupor, and he found sleep impossible. He sat in the dark for a while, waiting for the feeling to pass. When it didn’t, got worse in fact, he rose. He wrapped his bathrobe around himself, slipped into his house shoes, and left his room to find Sam. He grabbed his Purgatory blade off the wall on his way out, clutching the handle like a security blanket. He knew it was stupid, the weapon wouldn’t do much damage to the unkillable Queen he imagined ready to leap at him out of the shadows, but it still gave him confidence as he walked through the deserted hallways. 

He could feel the divide in his brain. The rational part that told him it wasn’t real, that everyone was fine, that he shouldn’t wake anyone this late. The emotional part that told him to get a good look at everyone in the Bunker, Sam especially, just to make sure. And the seething, self-loathing part that had fractured from the emotional into its own malevolent entity that mocked his weakness, his running to his little brother like a child to their mother after a bad dream. They warred like snarling wolves while his heart pounded in his ears until he found himself knocking on Sam’s door.

There were a few muffled noises from behind the door before it opened to reveal a harried Sam in boxers and a tank top, sweeping hair from his eyes with a broad hand. He relaxed infinitesimally when he saw Dean.

“Dean? Wh-what’s going on?” his eyes registered Dean’s weapon. “Is everything okay?”

Dean had no idea what he was going to say. He was embarrassed to tell Sam the truth.

‘Wah, I had a nightmare. Hold me, Sammy.’ Pitiful.

“How did you get rid of her?” he burst out. He could hardly believe it had taken him this long to ask.

Sam’s eyes narrowed in confusion.

“How did I get- ? What, who- ?” Sam got it then, eyes widening. “Oh, um, I- ”

He trailed off, glancing around the hallway over Dean’s shoulder.

“You, uh, wanna come in?”

Dean barrelled inside before he could change his mind. He wanted to know. He had to know.

“You said you- you cast her into the Lake of Fire or something,” Dean reminded Sam when he heard the door click shut behind him. “But what the hell’s that mean?”

He turned to face Sam. His little brother was fumbling for the light switch. Dean twitched when illumination came.

“You wanna sit down?” Sam was clearly still getting his bearings after his abrupt awakening. He gestured at his bed.

“No,” Dean rocked agitatedly in place, hands wringing the blade’s handle. “No, I just wanna know what you did to her.”

Sam took his own invitation and sat on the end of his bed. He looked up at Dean warily.

“I sent her away. I used a spell from the Angel tablet, augmented it with my- my powers, and bound her to the Lake in the deepest part of Hell.”

“So she can’t get out?”

“No. She can’t.”

Sam was so certain, he made Dean believe. Dean calmed slightly, pondering Sam’s words.

“Wait- Angel tablet?”

“Yeah, turns out Abaddon was a fallen angel. Most of the Knights were, though not all. They were the angels that joined up with Lucifer originally. Azazel was one of them, too.”

“Whoa.”

“Insightful, Keanu,” Sam teased gently.

Dean perched on the edge of the bed, a few inches from Sam, processing the new information.

“So, she’s an angel? She- she takes dick to a whole new level.”

“No, she’s a demon. She was an angel. After Lucifer figured out how to make demons- after he made Lilith- he made his first lieutenants rip out their grace unvesseled and be reborn as humans. Like Anna did. Then he found them as children, reawakened their memories, and groomed them for Hell until they died.”

“Gross.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty fucked up.”

“And this was all in the tablets?” 

“Some of it. Some of it was hiding in the lore. Kevin has a real knack for information gathering, puts me to shame. He put all the pieces together and deciphered the spell for banishing the First Fallen.”

“She’s gone,” Dean reassured himself. He didn’t realize he’d said it out loud until Sam responded.

“Yeah, she’s gone,” Sam’s quiet anger was frightening to behold. “Burning forever.”

“Sam?” Dean was worried by the vindictive pleasure in Sam’s voice.

“I wish she would come back,” Sam continued impetuously. “So I could find a way to kill her. Slowly.”

Dean shivered. He knew that, were their situations reversed, he would be as vengeful as Sam. As it was, he didn’t want revenge. All he wanted was to know she was gone. 

“After what she did to you- ” Sam looked at Dean, pleading with him to understand, but stopped when he saw the look on Dean’s face. “I’m just- I’m so worried about you, Dean. I’m in over my head here. I need- you need to see a doctor.”

“Sammy,” Dean growled warningly.

“Not just about what we’ve already discussed,” Sam plowed on. “But about- about getting you tested for HIV, STDs, all of that. You need physical therapy, a dietitian. You should see a psychiatrist, too. I didn’t want to- to put all that on you at once, but you need to, Dean. I need you to.”

Dean looked at Sam’s anguished face and wondered why he’d never thought about all of that before. It had clearly been weighing heavily on Sam’s mind ever since he found Dean in that penthouse. All the steps, though, all those doctors- just thinking about it made Dean want to lock himself in his room and never come out. It was too much effort. He wasn’t worth that much effort.

“No, Sam.” 

“Please.”

Dean shut his eyes.

“I can’t.”

“No, you won’t,” Sam spat angrily.

“Fine. You’re goddamn right I won’t.”

“Why?”

Dean couldn’t answer. The words wouldn’t come. He sat on the end of Sam’s bed, crude weapon in hand, and eyes clenched tightly as if that would block out Sam’s concern. A long silence followed.

“I’m going back to sleep,” Sam said eventually, dripping with dejection. “I don’t care what you do.”

But that was a lie, and they both knew it. That was the problem, Dean thought. Sam cared.

Dean heard his brother get up, turn off the lights, and get back under the blankets. After a while, Sam’s measured breathing filled the room. Dean opened his eyes, saw Sam sprawled across the bed that was just a little too small for him. He didn’t want to leave, so he curled up on the floor at the foot of the bed, his blade pressed to his chest like he’d once slept in Purgatory. He slept better on the floor, near Sam. He’d grown up sleeping the space of a motel bed away from his little brother. It was comforting, hearing Sam breathing in the darkness, and if he dreamed the rest of that night, he had no memory of it.

He woke the next morning to the sound of the shower running in Sam’s adjoining bathroom. A blanket was draped over him and his blade was on top of Sam's dresser. He didn’t want to stay, to be found by Sam and have to explain himself, but he didn’t want to leave either. He lay there, frozen, debating with himself, until he heard the water shut off. He could still leave, he told himself, while Sam dried and dressed, but then he heard the door opening and knew it was too late. Sam walked into the room, long hair damp behind his ears and sweatpants and T-shirt clinging to him with moisture. He regarded Dean on the floor. Dean scrambled to his feet, tossing the blanket on Sam’s bed.

“Do you wanna get breakfast?” Sam asked neutrally.

“Uh, sure.” 

Sam slipped on some tennis shoes and they walked to the empty kitchen in silence. Dean let his brother make him one of those kale-berry smoothies and an egg white omelette. Maybe that would make Sam drop the doctor issue. Or the dietitian at least.

“About last night,” Sam began when they were seated across from each other at the table. Dean tensed. “You caught me by surprise. I didn’t mean to dump all that stuff about doctors on you at once, I was working up to it slowly.”

“Mm-hmm. It was so important it took you a whole fucking month to bring it up, huh?” 

Sam looked taken aback. Like he’d been thinking that, too. Dean didn’t really blame him for not bringing it up before, he’d probably have done the same thing if he didn’t know what to say or how to say it. Avoidance was the Winchester way. Still, he was pleased he’d struck a nerve. Maybe it would distract Sam from Dean’s issues.

“But it’s out,” Sam took a deep breath. “And it’s true. What are you going to do about it?”

No luck on the avoidance front. Dean shoveled egg whites in his mouth. They were bland and chewy. Sam seemed to be taking Cas’s salt lecture to heart.

“I told you,” Dean said after he’d swallowed. He decided to take the direct approach. Nip this in the bud. “I ain’t goin’. You can’t make me.”

“That’s true, I can’t,” Sam admitted. He hadn’t touched his food yet. “But I think you’re being incredibly selfish.” 

“Oh, I’m being selfish?”

“Yeah, Dean. You matter to me, to Cas, to everyone here. What do you think it does to us to see you not taking care of yourself?”

“That- that- it ain’t on me to make everyone else feel good about my sad existence!”

It had been Sam’s turn to hit a nerve 

“Dean, please don’t- ” Sam began tiredly.

“Just stop. Stop pretending I’m worth your fucking time or pity. I’m a lost cause. Why don’t you work on Cas or Linda or someone else you have a chance with?”

“Dean,” Sam said through gritted teeth. He took a deep breath and regained his composure before continuing. “First of all, do you really want to have this conversation here? The reason I brought you up to the roof was so we could talk without being overheard. Cas’s hearing is still, uh, superhumanly sharp.”

“I don’t give a fuck who hears it,” Dean said recklessly. Who would Cas tell, anyway? 

“Okay, fair enough. My second point- and I was thinking about this for awhile, how to get through to you when you start saying that shit about yourself. So, here goes. Dean, would you let anyone else talk about you like that?”

“Sure,” Dean said easily, anger and shame stinging his eyes and hardening his heart. “I know what I am. I just want other people to be straight with me. I want you all to stop lying to me about it.”

“We’re not!” Sam exploded. He took another deep breath. “We’re not, Dean.”

“Bullshit.” 

Sam wasn’t the only one who’d been reflecting on his conversations with his brother. Dean had been brooding about the way most of their exchanges inevitably devolved into a shitstorm of his raging emotions. He thought he’d figured it out. He desperately wanted Sam to admit his worthlessness. That he wasn’t a man anymore, that he was nothing. That he deserved what had happened to him. If he could just get Sam to say that, he could give up with no qualms. Stop trying, lock himself in his room, and waste away. Sam’s refusal to give in- Sam’s love, his devotion- was in the way of that, and it made Dean temporarily hate him. The nonsensical disdain agitated him further.

“Okay, fine, you’d let other people talk about you that way,” Sam acknowledged sadly. “Would you let me talk about myself like that?”

“I have, though.”

“What?” Sam scoffed.

“Come on, you- you don’t remember? Pre-apocalypse? Lilith?” Dean still had the presence of mind not to say Ruby’s name. “You called yourself a freak, and a monster. Evil. And I let you. I called you those things, too. I was scared of you.” 

Sometimes I still am, curled snakelike on the edge of his tongue.

“You were scared for me,” Sam asserted with so much conviction it made Dean doubt his assessment of his own motivations. “You wanted me to stop before I killed myself, and you would’ve said anything. You even had the chance to kill me a couple times and you didn’t. Even when you probably should have.”

“I almost let you die in that panic room. I told Bobby- I said I’d let you die before I gave you any more of that blood.” 

“You were right.”

“No, I wasn’t! How can you say- ?” Dean’s tirade was ended by Sam’s laughter. There was little humor in the sound.

“Gotcha,” Sam grinned, pain in his eyes.

“But- no, you- ” Dean was furious at how easily he’d been tricked. He swiped a hand through his hair. “Son of a bitch.”

“Yeah, so, think I how I feel every time you start in on yourself,” Sam said triumphantly. “Empathy, Dean.”

“Ha, ha,” Dean poked viciously at his long-neglected eggs. No, egg whites, not eggs. They didn’t deserve to be called eggs, not with the best part taken out-

Just like you

-and they’d probably be worse cold. He noticed Sam still hadn’t touched his.

“Hey, you gonna eat or what?”

“You’re doing it again. Stop trying to take care of me and take care of yourself.”

“Well, you obviously need it. I mean- all that stuff we just talked about- and you still went back on that poison.”

“I already told you why, and I’m not justifying myself to you. I did it to save you, and- before you start arguing with me- it was different from what you did with Gadreel because I did it to myself, not to you without your permission. I didn’t lie to you about it. And I didn’t lie to myself about it like I did the first time. I went in with open eyes.”

Sam gulped his egg whites down in two bites while Dean struggled and failed to come up with a response. As soon as he swallowed, Sam changed the topic.

“So it seems like, if I’m gonna get you to talk, there’s gonna have to be a, um, tit for tat arrangement. Rhetorically speaking.”

“Quid pro quo, Clarice?” Dean hissed in his best Anthony Hopkins impression.

“Creepy way to put it,” Sam made a face. “But, yeah. If you’re cool with that.”

Sam chugged his smoothie. Dean grimaced as he contemplated both his drink and Sam’s words.

“Yeah, okay,” Dean said slowly. He could hardly believe he was agreeing to this, and yet-

Some of the wounds they’d just lanced had been festering for years, and it felt good to clear the air. He wanted more, even with the vestiges of his former self dragging his feet. Screaming about chick flick moments and telling him what “real men” did and didn’t do. Fuck that, he told himself.

“Great,” Sam smiled with relief. “So- you gonna eat that, or what?”

He mimicked Dean’s earlier question with a smirk, indicating the remnants of Dean’s egg whites and his full glass. Dean sighed, closed his eyes, and sipped at the smoothie. It was better than he’d expected, but that wasn’t a high bar. He’d expected it to taste like ass. In reality, it tasted like ass-plus. Armpit, maybe.

“Needs sugar,” he informed Sam, setting the cup down and finishing his cold, slimy egg whites.

“That’s kinda the point of making it yourself. No added sugar.”

“Thought I raised you right. Where did I go wrong?” Dean lamented dramatically.

“That’s it, though,” Sam had decided to take the question seriously. “Growin’ up, all we ate was junk food. Prepackaged crap. I- I like eating this way.”

“Prepackaged crap, huh?” Dean tried not to let the comment sting. “It was better’n goin’ hungry. I gave up- and I ain’t sayin’ this was your fault- but I made sure you got enough to eat before I- well, let’s just say, I appreciate bein’ able to eat whatever I want, when I want it.”

Or I did, anyway.

“I forget sometimes, what you- how you- ”

“Nah, don’t. You’re right, the food was crap.”

“Thank you,” Sam said quietly, looking Dean in the eye.

Dean flushed. He was torn between desire for Sam’s praise and gratitude for his role in the childhood he knew wasn’t healthy and feeling like a selfish dick for wanting it. 

“It was no big deal. I didn’t want you to- what kinda big brother would I have been if I didn’t look out for you first? Not that I didn’t fuck that up a buncha times.”

“You were a child- ” Sam began fiercely.

Dean didn’t want him talking about this. It would inevitably lead to criticism of their father, and Dean didn’t want to think about John right now. He loudly inhaled the rest of the smoothie. Sam lost his train of thought, mouth closing and brow furrowing quizzically at his brother’s bizarre behavior. Dean congratulated himself on a successful distraction as he struggled not to gag.

“Breathe, Dean,” Sam recommended sardonically.

“There,” Dean gasped for air. “I drank it. Now you can’t accuse me of not tryin’ your, uh, culinary efforts.”

“But,” Sam pretended to be hurt. “I thought you liked my cooking.”

“Throwin’ crap in a blender ain’t cooking.” 

“Whatever you say, Master Chef.”

Dean ate the rest of his egg whites, trying not to think of other slimy white substances he’d been forced to swallow in the past. While Sam took their plates and cups to the dishwasher, Dean poured himself a bowl of Reese’s Puffs from the already half-empty box. Dean smiled to himself as he poured the milk. He was glad he’d introduced Cas to the joys of peanut butter and chocolate.

“Did you wanna go do some stretches with me?” Sam asked while Dean crunched on his cereal.

“Yeah, sure.” 

They went to the gym and did some poses that reminded Dean of living with Lisa all those years ago. Watching TV after Ben had gone to bed; Him on the couch, her on the living room carpet giving him an excellent view of her toned, lithe body-

And then he'd repaid her and her son with an unasked-for memory wipe. Strong-armed Cas into helping him pull it off. He could hear Cas's words in his head. All about free will, as long as it's my own-

“You sure this ain’t yoga?”

“Does it really matter if it is?” Sam asked in mild exasperation.

“No,” Dean said slowly, letting his aversion go as he exhaled. “Guess not.”

They tossed the same medicine ball back and forth for a few minutes until Dean wanted to try it with the five-pounder. That proved less successful, so they rolled it to each other instead.

“So, Dean,” Sam sent the ball spinning toward Dean’s lap. “About those doctors.”

Fuck.

Dean stopped the ball’s journey so violently he felt like he’d jammed his wrist. He refused to let Sam see that, though.

“Like a dog with a bone, Sam,” he muttered, refusing to send the ball back to his brother.

“Sure, call me Lassie, whatever. You still need to see- ”

“Nah, you ain’t Lassie,” Dean loudly cut him off. “You’re more like Scooby-Doo. No, wait, what was that big-ass red dog from that kid’s book? Clifford? You’re that dog.”

“One. Just- just pick one doctor to see,” Sam’s tone was authoritative, but there was an undercurrent of pleading desperation he couldn’t hide from Dean.

Dean rolled the ball with what he considered excessive force, despairing when it lazily meandered its way into Sam’s hands.

“Why? What’s the point? Ain’t gonna change a damn thing that happened.”

“It can. It can make things better.”

“The fuck do you know, anyway?”

“You’re right, I don’t know exactly. I know enough. I never told you what- what Lucifer did to me in the Cage. And maybe that makes me a hypocrite, expecting you to talk about things I wouldn’t, but, uh, quid pro quo. Lucifer raped me. Sometimes he used my own- my own body to do it. Sometimes he used an image of dad. Sometimes he used you.”

Sam sent the ball slowly back to Dean, staring at his shaking hands once they were empty. Dean had suspected something like that had happened to Sam, but to hear it confirmed- he felt that rush of vindictive anger at Lucifer he knew Sam had for Abaddon.

“Hell’s like that,” Dean said flatly. He sank his fingertips into the ball’s unyielding surface, thinking of Alastair. 

“And,” Sam blew out a deep breath and looked back up at Dean. “When I got my memories of all that back, I went and saw a couple people. Therapists. It helped, even the ones I couldn’t really tell everything to.”

Dean struggled with what Sam had told him. He didn't know whether to offer comfort or commiseration, so he did neither. He realized that something was off about Sam’s explanation, and fixated on that. It took him a few moments to figure out what didn't sit well. He held onto the ball all the while.

“Wait, no you didn’t. You were with me for that whole year after Cas- when that wall came down in your head. When did you see a shrink?”

“Okay, not- not right after,” Sam amended. “But when you were in, uh, Purgatory and I didn’t know- when I was with Amelia. She convinced me to see someone, said it would help. She was right.”

“Oh, so you didn’t want to either, huh?” Dean said vindictively. He rolled the ball back to Sam.

“No,” Sam stopped the ball forcefully. Dean could tell he was getting annoyed. He tried not to glean satisfaction from the fact. “I didn’t. And I was wrong. Stupid. I’m trying to make sure you don’t make the same mistake I did.”

“Well ain’t that noble of you,” Dean said snapped. “So, you think I should see a shrink first?”

“I’m just trying to give you suggestions. I think you should pick for yourself.”

Dean absolutely did not want to talk to anyone about any of this, especially a complete stranger, but he also didn’t want to strip off his clothes in a more traditional doctor’s office. He really couldn’t decide which idea he found more abhorrent.

“None of ‘em, but I know you ain’t gonna leave me alone until I pick one.”

“You’re right about that,” Sam sent the ball spinning back. Dean caught it, imagining himself telling a faceless man about being castrated and raped while the man wrote notes down on a pad of paper. He shuddered. Then he thought about sitting ass-naked on a vinyl exam table, covered only with a backless paper gown, being told by a different faceless doctor to hike it up and let me see-

“I don’t want to,” Dean was horrified to hear an imploring whine in his tone. His hands trembled around the ball

“There’s a guy that both me and Kevin see. Tracy knew him. Ex-hunter. He’s good, and he knows other doctors on the hunter network. You could find someone who’d understand.”

Dean bit back a retort that went something like how could anyone possibly understand?, because he was thirty-fucking-five, not thirteen.

“What- what about those, uh, tests? Would I, um, how do they do those?”

Truth be told, the fear of STDs had been growing since Sam had reminded him of the possibility. If he had to go see just one doctor-

“The clinic in Kansas City does blood and urine tests. No one would touch you. Well, except to stick a needle in your arm. It’s about a four-hour drive from here.”

Sam, bless him, had figured out what Dean’s reticence was about and he’d already researched. Well, of course he’d fucking researched. Dean almost laughed.

“Fine.”

Sam smiled, relieved.

“I can make the appointment today.”

“Okay. Uh, thanks.”

He wished he could take care of himself, or pretend he didn’t have to, but he was grateful for Sam’s help, as much as he hated to need it. He started mentally preparing himself for leaving the Bunker on a long excursion. Was there any upside? Well, maybe he could drive, but that seemed doubtful-

“Hey, Dean? You gonna hog the ball all morning, or what?”

Dean propelled the ball into Sam’s hands.

“Think I’m done playin’ catch today. Gonna go shower.”

He said shower with a sense of pride as he stood. He left Sam to replace the ball on the rack.

"Sam- " he didn't know whether to say thank you or I'm sorry or what can I do for you? 

"It's okay, Dean," Sam dismissed him kindly but firmly. Dean didn't linger.

This was good, he grudgingly admitted on his way to his room. He still didn’t want to do it, but he knew it was necessary. He also knew his little brother had won. Gotten his gargantuan foot in the door of Dean’s defenses about this. One doctor would turn into two, then three, then as many as would satisfy Sam’s concern. Defeat was inevitable; Dean had barely been able to overcome his brother when he’d been- all there.

Good, you stubborn idiot.

This thought was different. Not her, not his former self, not the pathetic creature he was sure he’d turned into. Someone else.

The rush of water drowned out all the voices. Dean treasured the silence.

*

Sam set everything up with the clinic for two days later. Dean and Sam would leave around six in the morning to make the eleven-thirty appointment. It was far enough away that Dean didn’t feel panicked by the pressing urgency, but close enough that he couldn’t brood about it for too long.

He distracted himself by watching TV with Linda and playing board games with Cas in the rec room. He learned how to make waffles and fried chicken while Cas proved adept at an ancient-looking version of the Game of Life. 

“You sure you don’t have any of your mojo left? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure you’re cheating somehow,” Dean grumbled as he lost his third consecutive game of Life. He’d been sent to something called the “Poor Farm” while Cas and his car-full of pink and blue children were invited to “Millionaire Acres”.

“No one likes a sore loser, Dean.”

“Yeah, well, no one likes a smug-ass winner either, Cas.”

“Again?” Cas cleared the board and started restacking the paper money. 

“I’m gonna beat you,” Dean promised.

They played two more games. Dean lost both. 

_____

The Winchesters walked into the motor pool at 6:07 am on the day of Dean’s appointment, laughing casually to relieve the underlying tension. Dean focused on his breathing. In, out. There was no way he’d be able to drive, but maybe soon. Maybe this was an unavoidable first step. He could do this, make sure he was healthy. He’d thought again about HRT, and it was less repugnant to him. If he could get it through one of Tracy’s doctor connections, not have to explain as much-

In, out.

Sam was leading the way, and he stopped so suddenly that Dean ran into him. He looked around his brother’s broad frame to see what had caused such an extreme reaction. His questions to Sam died on his lips when he saw.

Abaddon was waiting for them, perched on the Impala’s hood like a grotesque cat. He thought at first he was dreaming. He had to be dreaming, this couldn’t be real. Because she was gone. Sam had said-

She looked just as Dean remembered her, power and pain wrapped in the guise of a beautiful redhead. Neither her dark clothing, combat boots, nor Josie Sands’ body bore any damage, but she’d remade herself before, it wasn’t that surprising. Dean wondered if any other creature of possession had ever been so attached to a vessel, then laughed when he realized that Cas was the same way.

Abaddon sprang from the hood, landing heavily on her feet and rising before them like the phoenix she’d proven to be. She grinned wickedly at their shock and gestured with her right forefinger. Sam went flying, crashing into the windshield of a shining red ‘56 Fiat. There was nothing, no one, between Dean and the Queen. She was shorter than he was, always had been, but he couldn’t help feeling like he was looking up at her. Fear locked him in place, but it began to numb him, too. It felt like he’d never left that dark room, that cage. Like Sam had never come for him. 

He hadn't thought of her in almost two days. He couldn't help but think it was his fault she'd returned. As if her voice in his head had been the only thing warding her away. 

“You took something from me, boy,” Abaddon raised her voice to address Sam, looking at Dean all the while with a faint smirk. “I’m here to take it back.”

Dean couldn’t speak, although he wanted to. He wanted to tell her that he’d accompany her without a fight, if it meant she spared his family. Spared Sam. He knew his brother was okay, for now, because he could hear him groaning. Glass clinked and metal whined as Sam tried to disentangle himself from the car’s wreckage.

“Have you forgotten your place, pet?”

She asked Dean softly. Dangerously.

He found himself on his knees and felt the wall being rebuilt in his head. He couldn’t help but welcome it-

“Get the fuck away from him!” 

Sam’s angry shout broke through the haze beginning to cloud Dean’s brain in Abaddon’s presence. He tried to move, to stand, to get to Sam, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know if it was her holding him down, or himself. He was so afraid.

“Here.”

He couldn’t move, but he could speak. He could give himself up.

“You- you want me, I’m right here.”

Abaddon had given Sam an annoyed glance after his outburst, but Dean’s distraction redrew her attention. She looked him over, eyes narrowing shrewdly.

“Yes you are, so what? You gonna bargain with me? Try and trade yourself for your brother and all the other pathetic little souls I know are living here?”

She moved so that he was eye-level with her crotch, grabbed him by the back of the head and pressed him into it. He closed his eyes. Sam was yelling again, but Dean couldn’t decipher the words and Abaddon seemed unphased.

“That’s adorable, baby, but you have no leverage. You’re already mine, I don’t have to negotiate with you.”

The haze was returning. Her sing-song voice swelled in his ears, drowning him. She was right.

“I leave for such a short time, and your training’s already gone to shit. Someone’s been spoiling you.”

It wasn’t fair, he thought dully, the familiar smell of her sex permeating his senses and sending his mind far away. It wasn’t fair that he’d been given a taste of freedom, with all the hardships of forcing himself to live in the world, only to have her take him away again. Why’d he have to leave his cage in the first place?

Abaddon yanked his head away from her thighs. Her right hand stroked the patchy stubble on his cheek, pinching at his flesh.

“You’re getting fat, too.”

His face flamed. He’d known that, felt his softness increasing. Seen the swell of his belly as he stuffed himself with the food she’d denied him for so long. But he was hardly fat, a little chubby maybe-

No excuses, you pig.

“Time to get you back on your diet- ”

Gunshots resounded through the enclosed space. Abaddon reeled from the impacts, an indignant screech on her lips, fabric tearing and blood spraying from chest to groin. She must not have replaced her Kevlar. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven- Dean lost count, but he knew Sam carried the 17-round magazines for his pistol. Abaddon turned to face Sam, who had righted himself from the remains of the Fiat. One arm clutched at his side- Dean worried about broken ribs- the other extended his 9mm toward the Queen of Hell. His face was a mask of frightening rage. Sam fired off a final shot into the meat of her upper thigh before a wave of her hand sent his gun careening across the floor and out of sight. She sent him flying against the wall in the opposite direction, turning toward him as she guided him psychokinetically with hand outstretched. She held Sam against the wall, feet trailing off the floor, hands pressed to the concrete. She turned her back to Dean’s helpless genuflection, because she knew she had nothing to fear from him, and Dean heard himself cry out wordlessly against her assault on Sam. She ignored him.  

“Sam Winchester,” she purred, stalking forward. “I’d think you have something against Josie’s fabulous body, the way you mistreat it so.”

She ran her hands over herself sensually, mending the flesh Sam had damaged while he struggled futilely against her invisible grasp. Only his head moved, his neck flexing, Adam’s apple bobbing wildly.

“I mean, you light me on fire, you banish me to Gehenna.” Abaddon laughed. “Actually, I’m sensing a whole ‘fire’ theme here with you.”

“I’ll kill you, you bitch,” Sam promised viciously, incensed and afraid. “I will kill you.”

“Yeah, that worked out so well for you last time,” Abaddon had reached Sam. She reached out, kneading his chest underneath his flannel and cotton shirts. Sam’s jaw clenched.

“Leave him alone,” Dean whispered ineffectually. He was sure his heart was finally going to give out with all the stress he was putting on it. It was one thing if Abaddon got her hands on him again, but she had Sam. She had Sam.

It doesn’t matter, he chanted to himself. It doesn’t matter- but his heartbeat wouldn’t listen. 

“Wanna know why you failed? Why I’m back?”

Sam didn’t respond, but Dean saw curiosity spark in his eyes.

“You drank from me, you fool,” her hand rested over Sam’s heart, knocked as if on a door. “And because of that, the spell bound me to you. You called me back from Hell. You let me stroll right into this place. All that time I was trying to get in here, finish off the Men of Letters’ work, and you were the final key.”

Sam looked horrified, ashamed, and his eyes flicked to Dean in attrition. Sam’s eyes spoke volumes. I’m sorry, they said, and Run, save yourself. But Dean wouldn’t have left his brother with her, even if he were capable of movement.

“You didn’t need to, did you?” Abaddon continued to taunt him, hand rising to tousle his hair. “You’d already beaten me, but you just couldn’t control yourself. One sweet taste of the Queen before you sent me away forever?”

She yanked on his hair and he gasped. 

“Forever just got a lot shorter.” 

Abaddon let go of Sam’s hair and his head audibly smacked back against the wall. Dean winced.

“You know, I really expected you to beg for your brother. ‘Take me instead of Dean,’ that sort of bullshit. I’m disappointed.”

“Not givin’ you that satisfaction,” Sam snorted.

“Though you do have a habit of surprising me. I expected to claw my way out of the Pit to find you commanding what used to be my armies. But I don’t smell a whiff of demonic power on you anymore. That’s just- sad, really. All your power, all your promise, Lucifer’s chosen, and you throw it all away for what? Morality? Humanity? Family? That?”

She waved a hand at Dean.

“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand,” Sam glared at her with contempt.

“You’re as disappointing as Lucifer himself. Guess that makes sense. Well, I left him to rot, and I can do the same to you.”

“Thought Lucifer was like your god, or something,” Sam scoffed. “So much for loyalty.”

“How about you don’t talk about things you don’t understand?”

“Hit a nerve, did I?” Sam went on recklessly.

Abaddon paced in agitation.

“Lucifer used us, all the First Fallen. Turned us into what he hated most and tried to cast us aside when he got what he wanted. Fuck him. Why do you think I came after the Men of Letters in the first place? It was you, Sam. The potential of you. I came after your grandfather, your legacy. After I’d finished with Henry, I was gonna kill little John and end your bloodline. No more Winchesters. No more perfect vessels for the Lightbringer and our pompous eldest brother.”

She crowded into Sam’s space. Her face only came up to his chest.

“Then you went and locked them away forever. I should thank you for that. For killing that pompous ass Crowley, too.”

“Don’t bother. The monologuing part of your evil plan done yet?”

She laughed. Dean shivered.

“I was just gonna kill you here, Sam, bring your head back to show the hordes of Hell that I’m the Queen again. But I think I have a better idea. I like you, you see. You’ve got spirit, and I want to break it like I broke your brother’s. You, broken and cowering at my feet with your brother, will be just as effective as presenting your lifeless corpse. Perhaps more so.” 

Dean’s brain lagged in processing Abaddon’s threats. There was a disconnect between his mind and his emotions, the way there had been for the past year, interrupted only by the month spent out of her captivity. He knew something bad was about to happen, he knew he should stop it, knew he should save his brother, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel. He couldn’t move. Sam looked at him then, unwavering.

“You’re not broken, Dean,” he said. “Don’t you fuckin’ listen to her.” 

“How sweet. Wrong, but precious.”

Abaddon’s fingers slowly unbuckled Sam’s belt, pulling the worn leather through the loops of his baggy jeans and tossing it away. Her right hand dived down the front of his jeans. There was plenty of room in the waistband, she could probably have fit her whole arm down there. Sam’s head bent forward and his eyes widened when she found what she was looking for.

“Whoo, big boy,” she hummed approvingly. “You’re at least twice as big as your brother was.”

“Oh god- ” Sam breathed in terror. Dean saw the bulge of Abaddon’s fist through the front of the denim as she clenched it, her bicep flexing with the effort. Sam screamed gutturally. 

“I’m gonna crush your big balls into pulp, boy. All those lies I’m sure you told your brother about how it ‘didn’t matter’ and he was ‘still a man’? Wonder how convincing those’ll be when you’re a eunuch, too.”

She squeezed harder, twisted. Sam’s neck spasmed, veins bulging. He choked in agony, his eyes rolled back in his head, and his mouth foamed. He pounded his head into the wall, over and over again. It was all he could do.

Which was more than Dean could do. He gaped in horror, knees smarting through his jeans on the concrete parking lot. He couldn’t let this happen, the final vestiges of himself screamed urgently. He couldn’t let her turn Sam into the same thing he’d become. 

Sam wouldn’t though, he realized, and maybe that was worse. Sam had always been stronger, he wouldn’t break as easily. And she would torture him severely, pit him against Dean in sick competitions for her approval, and Dean would submit because he was weak, always had been- 

It doesn’t matter-

-because he was nothing-

-be numb-

-Sam-

-it doesn’t matter-

-but Sam.

“You’re not as pretty as your brother,” Abaddon teased. “But you’re quite the tall drink of water. What a handsome pair you two will be, neutered and collared like the dogs you are. What’s left of the mighty Winchesters, naked at my feet when I bring Hell to Earth.”

“Stop,” Sam said breathily, gasping, wracked with a pain that Dean half-remembered. “Let go, let go, please let go!”

You’ll learn soon enough that those words ain’t gonna get you far with her. You’ll learn, Sammy.

Abaddon laughed. Cackled, really. Dean was aware that Sam knew she wouldn’t listen. He was just at that threshold of unacceptable pain, his body screaming at him to do or say anything to make it stop. But it wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t stop until Sam was like Dean. The Winchester eunuchs. Brothers in shame and misery.

It doesn’t matter.  

But he wasn’t convincing himself. His brother’s pain wouldn’t let him sink back into his fugue. He couldn’t finish construction on the wall because Sam was right there. He couldn’t forget Sam, feel nothing for him, when he was right there-

“Dean? Sam?” Cas’s voice sounded like salvation in the hallway, just outside the door. “Is everything alright? I thought I heard shouting and gunshots- ?”

Cas trailed off when he entered the motor pool and took in the scene. Dean managed to look over his shoulder at the former angel. Cas was frozen in the doorway, eyes moving from Dean to Sam to Abaddon, a look of shock on his face. Abaddon, thankfully, let go of Sam and withdrew her arm, turning to face the interruption. Sam whimpered softly, sucking in lungfuls of air. 

“And who is this? Surely not what remains of the great Castiel?” Abaddon sneered, taking a menacing step forward. Cas cocked his head to the side.

“Cas, run!”

Dean heard the words come from Sam’s raw throat, and he was glad for Sam’s warning even if he himself was incapable of speech. He needed Cas to leave, warn the rest of the Bunker, get the rest of Dean’s family to safety before Abaddon could get her hands on them. Luckily, Cas didn’t need to be told twice. He turned and fled through the door, bare feet slapping down the hall. Dean was relieved, even if a small, dark, part of himself was hurt by how quickly Cas had abandoned them. Abaddon gave a half-shrug and smirked at Dean before turning back to Sam.

“So much for loyalty,” she mocked. “Now, where were we?”

Sam’s chin jutted defiantly, but Dean could see his lip trembling. He knew Sam would be shaking in fear if he wasn’t psychically restrained. He imagined a scenario where he wasn’t a pathetic mess kneeling helplessly on the floor while his baby brother was damaged beyond repair. Where he was whole and strong, and could carry a knife without being reminded of the knife she’d used to mutilate him. His own knife. She’d used his own knife. Why did that strike him as particularly cruel now?

He had a G19 in a concealed ankle holster, like a security blanket, but that would do fuck-all to hurt her. Piss her off at best, like Sam had. If he had a knife though- If he had a knife he could saw off her head, hack her to pieces like they’d done the first time they’d faced her, bury those pieces under ten feet of dirt and cement. This time, he wouldn’t dig her up and sew her back together. Leave her alone to escape. God, he was so stupid. This was his fault, it was his fault, and he couldn’t stop it-

You’re nothing.

Abaddon was reaching for Sam when a spray of gunfire hit her in the back. She turned with a shout of smothered rage as Dean looked over his shoulder to find Tracy charging into the motor pool, firing off the last rounds of her sawed-off shotgun into Abaddon’s side and tossing the gun to the floor. She smoothly switched to a Beretta Cougar as Kevin and Cas came running through the door behind her. Affection surged in Dean’s chest, pummelling at the wall in his head. Of course Cas hadn’t deserted them, he’d just been smart enough to go get backup.

“What’s a girl gotta do to get some privacy around here?” Abaddon snarled.

Tracy rushed at the demon with an angry cry and Dean followed her path with his head. Abaddon had relaxed her hold on Sam, distracted as she was by Tracy, and his brother was crumpled on the floor, clutching himself, body convulsing with dry heaves. He was still okay, Dean hoped wildy. In unbelievable pain, but still whole. He had to be okay, he had to be- 

Anger sparked inside him, sudden in its appearance and alarming in its ferocity. How dare she? How dare she hurt his brother like that? Molest him and taunt him with reminders of Lucifer? Dean cringed reflexively, trying to shut the emotion out before she caught on.

“You brought a gun to this fight? Sugar, allow me to teach you a few things about demons.”

Abaddon raised her hand and Tracy was halted a few feet from her. The young hunter’s arms were outstretched and her pistol dropped to the ground. Dean watched her shoulders tense as the Queen moved closer.

“Nah, thanks. Already know what I need to. You’re all the same; Overconfident and overrated. Only good demon is a dead one.”

“What a firecracker,” Abaddon laughed. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“You can call me the bait, you stupid shit.”

“Clavem Salomonis! Ligabis!”

Kevin’s incantation echoed through the room, drowned out by a deep rumbling when the ground began to quake. A few of the old motorcycles tumbled on their sides, and Dean saw cracks flowing through the grey concrete floor. Lines and spirals blossomed into a familiar, unbroken Devil’s Trap underneath Abaddon’s feet. It was large, the diameter at least six feet across, the circumference containing Abaddon, Tracy, and Sam where the edge stopped just shy of the wall. Some of the lines disappeared underneath the chassis of the Impala and the ‘66 Mustang parked next to it. Dean was scant centimeters from the perimeter, a deep groove in the concrete. Kevin and Cas came up beside him, flanking him. Kevin, on his left, was holding a massive tome with both hands, while Cas, to his right, had one of Kevin’s translation notebooks open in his left hand, a gleaming angel blade in his right. Abaddon shrieked when she understood what had happened, dropping Tracy and rounding on Kevin. Tracy used the opportunity to crawl outside of the Pentacle. She started her way around it, toward Sam, presumably to help him out of the danger zone.

“Wow, that actually worked,” Kevin chuckled in relief once he saw that Tracy was safe. “Good find, Cas.”

“Yeah, well, it’s easier than carving Devil’s Traps into a bunch of bullets,” Cas said with a hint of pride.

“Kinda big, don’t you think?”

“We’ll work on fine-tuning it,” Cas promised. 

“You little dicks,” Abaddon stomped her foot and the whole motor pool trembled. The few motorcycles that had remained upright toppled over. “I’m not some weak-ass, garden-variety demon! You think this’ll stop me? Do you have any idea how much power I have?”

She was right, Dean thought. She would kill them all, most of the people he loved destroyed right here in front of him, and he couldn’t open his mouth to warn them-

Anger swelled in him again. How dare she threaten his family?

“Virtus tempestate,” Cas began in his gravelly voice, reading from Kevin’s notebook. “Mihi de te, quod ignis- ”

“Oh, not this again,” Abaddon rolled her eyes, but Dean could sense her apprehension. He realized that Cas must be attempting the banishing spell for the First Fallen that Sam had tried.

“Potestatem super te, ego- ” Cas pressed the point of the angel blade to his wrist and made a shallow cut. Blood magic. Abaddon’s earlier comments to Sam made more sense.

“Enough!”

Abaddon shouted, shaking the room again and startling Cas into momentary silence. She motioned with her finger and the notebook started to slip from Cas’s hand. The former angel grabbed violently for it, catching the edge before it fell but closing it in the process. The demon didn’t notice, she was already turning behind her to Tracy and Sam. The latter was up on hands and knees, the former crouched beside him with a hand on his shoulder encouraging him to stand in a hushed whisper.

“That’s mine, girl. Hands off!”

Tracy went flying across the room, crashing into the far wall and landing in a heap. She didn’t get back up. 

“Tracy!”

Kevin had dropped the book and was rushing toward Tracy, panicked. Dean remembered what had happened to the last girl Kevin had been involved with, and how dismissive he’d been of Kevin’s pain at the time. Guilt joined the cavalcade of emotions forming a battering ram against his incomplete wall. Kevin’s path to Tracy was helped along by Abaddon when he smashed headlong into the wall and collapsed a few feet away from his girlfriend. Dean was relieved to see that they were both still breathing. He turned back to find Abaddon physically dragging Sam by the leg farther into the Devil’s Trap with her. He wanted to scream.

“See? I may be trapped, but I’m hardly bound.”

She dropped Sam’s leg and he fell supine before her. She leaned down and grabbed him by the front of his hair, pounding his head twice against the floor, stunning him. She placed her boot over his throat, pressing down threateningly while Sam choked and scrabbled at her foot.

“Now, angel cake, be a dear and slide that spell over here would you? Or I’ll break his neck.”

Dean saw Cas considering his options, face scrunching in concentration. Cas’s face set in determination and Dean knew his friend was about to do something incredibly foolish. Downright Dean-level stupid.

“N-no, Cas, don’t.”

His voice cracked, all but inaudible, but he knew Cas could hear him.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” he said softly. He dropped the notebook in front of Dean, and then he was charging into the Devil’s Trap toward Abaddon.

The Queen was utterly blindsided by Cas’s attack. Her eyes widened as Cas tackled her, slashing at her chest with the angel blade. Dean knew it was too much to hope that the heavenly weapon would be effective against her, and he was right. Blood gushed, fabric ripped, and Abaddon screamed, but remained very much alive. The force of Cas’s assault sent her careening off the invisible barrier at the edge of the Pentacle. The grappling opponents fell heavily, breaking apart. The angel blade skidded underneath the silver blue Mustang.

“Dean! Get Sam!” Cas roared, struggling to his feet.

Cas thought Dean was capable of movement. Of defiance against the Queen. His faith was touching, but tragically misguided. Dean was on his knees. Where he belonged.

Worthless.

Dean focused on Sam, still on his back in the center of the Trap. His brother’s breathing was ragged, punctuated by small groans, incapacitated by the pain in his head, his ribs, in the pit of his stomach, and from between his legs.

Abaddon spat blood on the floor and glared at Cas. She rose fluidly to her full height as Cas scrambled clumsily upright, crouched in a defensive stance a few feet away from her.

“You know what?” she sneered with cruelty. “I have no use for you. Not a good position to be in.”

Abaddon’s clothes were in tatters, her hair was coming loose in vermillion strands over her face, and her makeup was smudged. She looked like something out of a horror movie, somehow even more than when she’d had her head and hands crudely stitched on, outsides finally matching her insides. She twisted her hand savagely and Cas’s neck snapped with a gruesome cracking sound. His body hit the ground with an anticlimactic thud.

“No!”

Sam’s grief exploded from his chest, raw and strained, as he tried to sit up. Dean felt like the air had been sucked from the room. His vision grew fuzzy as he stared unblinking at Cas’s body. He couldn’t mourn, couldn’t feel anything, and it wasn’t because of the wall. It was because he knew, he knew, that Cas would come back. He had to, he always did- 

“Now,” Abaddon addressed Dean and his mind blanked automatically, waiting for her orders. “Be a dear and break this Devil’s Trap for me while I finish up with your brother, and then we’ll blow this popsicle stand.” 

She went after Sam without a second thought, so certain of her power over Dean. His brother was trying to get away from her, scuttling backwards on his elbows, panting with fear. Maybe that was what did it, Dean would never be completely sure. The way she thought he would free her while she maimed his little brother, the person he loved most in the world, despite being too emotionally stunted to ever say that to Sam. The person he’d sworn to protect, a promise made in the grieving heart of a four-year old as he held his baby brother and watched the rest of his world burn. He’d known that was his job, even before his father started drilling it into him.

The wall in his head crumbled to dust. Sam had broken it down once again. Dean was furious. She’d hurt Tracy and Kevin, killed Cas like he was nothing, and was currently stalking predatorily toward his terrified little brother to violate him further, mutilate him-

Not only that. What she’d done to him. Taken away his choice, his identity. Made him into this weak, worthless thing-

No, that new voice, the one he’d only heard once before, came to him. He couldn’t help but compare it to Sam’s voice. No, she made you think you’re a weak, worthless thing. 

Blood pounded in his ears.

How fucking dare she?

Abaddon sent Sam sprawling on his back with a lazy wave of her hand and he cried out. She began to sing teasingly as she slowly crouched in front of him.

“All around the mulberry bush- ”

Dean silently pulled Kevin’s notebook into his hands and flipped through the pages, each tiny rustle making his chest spasm. Abaddon didn’t notice. She had her hands at the top of Sam’s jeans. Sam’s eyes were like saucers. He didn’t see what Dean was doing, he only had eyes for the Queen.

“Don’t,” Sam growled.

“The monkey chased the weasel- ” 

Kevin’s notebook was meticulously organized. Very user-friendly. Dean breathed silent gratitude to the unconscious prophet when he found the spell quickly. It had handy, step-by-step instructions around the margins, as well as a pronunciation guide underneath each word.

“The monkey thought ‘twas all in fun- ” Abaddon’s hand flicked open the button of Sam’s fly.

“Don’t!” Sam commanded desperately.

“Virtus tempestate mihi de te, quod ignis potestatem super te ego.”

Dean intoned the words quickly, clearly, and quietly. The instructions indicated that he was to draw his own blood at this point. Not having any sharp instruments, Dean used his teeth. He bit savagely into his left wrist until he tasted the familiar metallic tang. Abaddon’s head whipped around like she’d smelled the blood. She stopped fishing around in the front of Sam’s boxers. Sam looked at Dean, realization dawning.

“Interitu potestatem super te potestatem super te in lucem dedi.”

Dean’s voice quailed under her gaze, but he told himself it didn’t matter that she was aware of his intentions now. He had to draw her close enough to get his blood on her.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Her voice was so low he found himself leaning forward to hear it, almost overbalancing on his bony kneecaps. He just managed to prevent himself from falling face-first into the Devil’s Trap. He quelled the frenzied panic threatening to overtake him. He could do this.

“Atque ego proiciam vos spiritum immundum.”

She stood menacingly, staring him down, but didn’t move closer. He despaired that she would, she knew what the spell entailed, she would just fling him across the room or snap his neck like Cas’s. Blood dripped from his arm, puddling on the concrete. He plowed on with the incantation, each word a milestone to pass on the way to a triumph of which he wasn’t certain.

“Sancta discessit, aut dissipabuntur in ignem.”

“Did you hear me, eunuch?”

Abaddon raised her voice and hand simultaneously, ready to flick him away like a troublesome insect. This was it. This was it-

Sam sprang at the back of her legs, sending her crashing first to her knees in a mirror of Dean, then facedown on the ground, less than two feet from the barrier where Dean knelt. Neither Dean nor Abaddon had been expecting it, Abaddon with her usual hubris and Dean’s vision eclipsed by her. Sam groaned, wrapping his long arms around her knees and holding her in place.

“Finish it, Dean!”

“Precipio tibi relinquo, relinquere cogunt vos me vade et vinci!”

Dean shook his left arm erratically over Abaddon’s head. Blood rained, flowing through her hair and down her cheeks. She raised her head with a shrill cry, looking up at him while he knelt over her. He was satisfied to see terror in her wide eyes. Every spot where his blood had touched her skin began to sizzle and glow.

“I’ll think of you,” she howled in pain and defeat. “You and your miserable existence will gladden me! What I made of you!”

Her body convulsed, legs kicking sporadically and dislodging Sam’s grip. He rolled off of her, coming to rest by Cas’s prone form. Black smoke combined with the glowing light that emanated from her. Sam shielded his eyes, but Dean stared as intently as he could at Abaddon’s demise. He felt the thrill of victory. He almost felt like himself again. He forced a cocky grin.

“Hey, I’m doin’ great Abbie. Told ya you couldn’t break me, but good effort. Think about that.”

She couldn’t respond. She had no mouth anymore. Josie’s body was dissolving into light and vapor, the parts that were Abaddon sinking down into the marred concrete around her.

“See you in Hell.”

She was gone, a charred stain in the floor all that proved she had ever been there. Dean knew she was gone for good this time. As certain as he was of Cas’s inevitable return. She was gone. 

“Dean?”

Sam sat up, wincing, and looked sadly at Cas’s body for a moment before reaching out and closing the former angel’s eyes. Dean shuffled on his knees to his brother’s side. He sat down heavily, legs complaining when he straightened them, the shock of pain forcing him to lean heavily on Sam. His brother faltered slightly, but recovered quickly, supporting him. Dean was too exhausted to do anything but sit there. He closed his eyes, breathing in the ash-tinged air.

“Oh god, Cas,” Sam said, subdued.

“He’ll be back. Are you okay?”

“What?”

Sam’s tone was sharp. Dean didn’t have the strength to explain himself. How he wasn’t being callous about his best friend’s death, he just knew the way of things. His energy was better expended on cleaning up the mess Abaddon had left in her wake. He wanted the Bunker scrubbed clean of any trace of her by the time Cas came back.

“Sammy, how many times has Cas come back from the dead? Almost as many as you and me?”

“Dean,” Sam said carefully, voice indicating that he was about to attempt reasoning with a delusional person. He didn’t understand what Dean did, but he would. Dean shut Sam down, eyes opening and head turning to look at him.

“Sam, are you okay? Are you- ”

Like me?

Sam grimaced.

“I think so. Gonna need a boatload of ice, though.”

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that. Soon as my legs start workin’, promise.”

“You just- just take all the time you need, okay?”

Sam looked over where Tracy and Kevin had landed. Dean followed suit. Tracy was stirring, rubbing at her head, while the steady rise and fall of Kevin’s chest confirmed that he was still among the living. Dean looked back at Sam and gave him a weary smile. Sam returned it, although his was sadder, confused and pained.

He didn’t know how long they stayed there, propped up against each other, keeping vigil over Cas’s body until Linda found them. She made sure her son was okay, crouched by his side whispering. Dean heard snatches of the same questions Kevin had asked him to check for a concussion. Kevin apparently passed the test. Tracy, too. The three of them helped the Winchesters stand and walk from the motor pool. Sam needed the most help, supported between Kevin and Tracy, silent tears for Cas streaming down Tracy’s determined face. Dean discovered that he could walk just fine once they left the motor pool, disentangling himself from Linda’s surprisingly strong grasp. He followed Sam, Tracy, and Kevin to Sam’s room. He refused to leave when Tracy and Kevin went down to the motor pool to retrieve Cas’s body. Linda brought Sam an ice pack wrapped in a paper towel and he took it with embarrassed gratitude. Then they were alone.

“Go get some rest, Dean.” 

Sam was sitting on his bed with his back against the headboard. He stuck the ice pack down the front of his jeans, making them bulge awkwardly. He hissed from the cold.

“Okay,” Dean stubbornly lay down on Sam’s bed, shoulder against Sam’s leg. Sam sighed and shifted over to make more room. He didn’t make Dean leave, though.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said after a little while.

“For what?”

“I- I coulda done that spell right the first time if I hadn’t- you know.”

“Oh, stop it.” 

“Cas is dead ‘cause of me,” Sam said with utter dejection.

“Don’t, Sam.” 

“It’s true.”

“Well, if I’d let you close Hell last year, none of this woulda happened either. So really, it’s my fault, okay?”

Dean didn’t register Sam’s assurance of his innocence, and he didn’t say what they were both thinking. How he wouldn’t have let Sam complete those trials even if he’d known the future. That the moment the angel Naomi had told him that closing Hell would kill Sam, he would have done and said anything to prevent it. 

You’re a fuckin’ psycho. Got your claws in your brother and you ain’t ever lettin’ go. No matter who it hurts.

He didn’t know which voice that was. He knew which one it wasn’t, though. It wasn’t her.

“What if she can come back again?” Sam brooded. “She said she was bound to me, so- ”

“Then we’ll send her away again. We’ll keep banishing her until you and Kevin find some way to kill her. There’s gotta be something. 

But Dean had seen the horror on her face when he’d completed the spell. She’d known she wasn’t coming back. All her ruthless schemes- for the Winchesters, Hell, the whole world- thwarted forever. She was gone. 

He didn’t know what time he fell asleep, but it was deep and dreamless by his brother’s side.

_____

They gave Cas a hunter’s funeral the next morning. Dean, Kevin, and Tracy built the pyre on the rooftop, Sam and Linda joining them for the actual ceremony. Sam was in one of the infirmary’s old wheelchairs, unable to walk because of swelling issues and hopped up on painkillers. He’d made a doctor’s appointment for the following day, eyeballing Dean pointedly when he’d asked Kevin for a ride. Dean was too worried to glare back or feel inadequate about it.

Flames licked at the linen shrouding Cas’s body, and Tracy sobbed openly while it blackened and burned away. She was squeezing Kevin’s hand, the young man’s face solemn as he watched the smoke rise up to the cloudy sky. Linda looked about a million miles away, hollow sadness in her eyes. Sam cried silently, still blaming himself Dean was sure. None of them understood.

“See you soon, buddy,” Dean whispered into the crackling fire.

*

Cas returned six days later, just when Dean had started to question his faith. Sinking doubt clawed at his heart, and he was terrified that he might actually have to say goodbye to his friend. To grieve.

Kevin, Tracy, and Linda were out and Sam was zonked out in his room when the buzzer outside the war room entrance reverberated insistently through the Bunker. Dean flew to the door, taking the stairs two at a time and winding himself. He pressed his eye to the peephole, saw who’d he’d been hoping for, and flung the door open. There was Cas, looking lost and tired in ratty blue jeans, black T-shirt, and tennis shoes, a clean blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Dean didn’t think before he pulled Cas over the threshold into a bruising hug. Cas didn’t resist, arms limp at his sides at first, but wrapping around Dean’s shoulders before long and hugging back.

“Dude! I mean, I knew you’d be back, but you were startin’ to scare me! Don’t wait so long next time.”

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Cas murmured against Dean’s chest. “Is- is Sam alright? Kevin, Tracy, and Linda?” 

“Yeah,” Dean assured him. Much to Dean’s relief, Sam had come back from the doctor with good news. He had no ruptures or torsion, only a few bruised ribs, and he was mobile again with the help of some excellent painkillers. “Everyone’s good. How’re you?”

“Alive. Again,” Cas said tiredly, pulling away from Dean. “Remade.”

There was the sound of someone clearing their throat behind Cas. Dean hadn’t noticed the second figure in his excitement over seeing Cas. He knew she was an angel, the way she held herself. Like she didn’t quite belong in her body, was breaking it in like a new pair of shoes. Her vessel was an attractive, fine-boned woman with pale skin and blue eyes to rival Cas’s. She was wearing an eclectic outfit. Business casual on top with a collared shirt, sweater, and grey blazer; light wash cuffed jeans and floppy ankle boots on bottom. She stood at the edge of the door, clearly wanting to come in but unable to because of the angel warding Sam had replaced after he’d expelled Zeke. Gadreel, whoever.

“Oh,” Cas hit himself lightly in the forehead with an open palm. “My apologies. Dean, this is my sister Hannah. Hannah, Dean.” 

“Pleasure to meet you,” Hannah said sincerely, even as Dean eyed her suspiciously. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

He was afraid of what she knew. He hated that he’d always be afraid of what people, even perfect strangers, might know or find out.

“Yeah, well, can’t say the same about you,” he growled. “Which kinda angel are you? The kind that wants to torture Cas, or just outright kill him?”

“I admire Castiel greatly,” Hannah said indignantly. “He means the world to me. He insisted that I bring him back to you.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean muttered. “Is he- Cas, are you, uh, full-power again?”

His brain made the connection between the clearly functional angel warding and the obviousness of his question immediately after he’d asked it.

“No,” Cas confirmed. “Still human, or as close as I’ll ever be. Metatron said I was gonna live a long, miserable life if it was the last thing he ever did.”

“Which it was,” Hannah sniffed.

“What?”

“Resurrecting Castiel was the last thing the Scribe ever did. He is contained. The few of us that remain will decide his fate.”

“And you couldn’t, I don’t know, restore his grace?” Dean clapped a hand on Cas’s shoulder.

“Our power is faded,” Hannah spoke softly. Sadly. “Our wings are gone, as is our ability to heal. The Scribe burned us out with his selfish schemes. Castiel’s grace was but the first casualty of his ego.”

Dean had been wondering how to broach that question with the angel he’d antagonized. Now he didn’t have to. She couldn’t heal him, none of the angels could. He let that hope die, and was surprised by how freeing that was. He hadn’t realized how much subconscious dependence he’d had on the idea of divine aid. Now that it wasn’t possible he could accept that this was his life, not a hazy dream. It was real, permanent. He actually did need those doctors Sam had talked about-

He’d have to call the clinic again, he’d completely forgotten about his thwarted appointment in the aftermath of Abaddon’s attack.

“The time of the angels is over,” Hannah continued with determination. “We will work on fixing Heaven, and we will not interfere on Earth again.”

“And Cas can’t help you guys out with that, even without his grace?”

Dean remembered how much Cas had wanted to fix Heaven. How much he’d screwed up, and how much he’d sacrificed in pursuit of that goal. Hannah tilted her head at him. Must be a family thing, Dean thought.

“You misunderstand. Castiel chose to return here.”

“My family is here,” Cas said at Dean’s ear. “If you’ll have me.”

Dean turned to his friend, humbled. Honored.

“You ain’t even gotta ask, Cas.”

Cas smiled at him. A real smile that crinkled his cheeks and lit up his eyes. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw Hannah’s face soften at Cas’s happiness. His heart melted toward her slightly. 

“If you ever need us- ” Hannah told Cas.

“I know.”

She smiled awkwardly.

“I have to leave now. I have to drive to Montana to return my vessel to her home. Goodbye, Castiel.”

“Goodbye, Hannah. Thank you.”

Cas and Dean watched Hannah drive off in the white Volvo parked in front of the Bunker.

“Angels havin’ to drive, huh? Weird.”

“I suppose.”

“I liked her,” Dean decided. “If the rest of the angels are anything like her, Heaven’s gonna be in good hands.”

“Yeah,” Cas agreed.

Dean closed the door and led the way down the stairs. The look on Sam’s face when Dean and Cas came into his bedroom filled Dean with joy. Sam sprang from the bed and gave Cas a hug rivaling Dean’s in its ferocity.

“Sam. Sam, ouch.”

Cas patted Sam on the back, trying to make him ease up. Sam released Cas and grinned at Dean, who smirked.

“Told ya he’d come back.”

“Oh my god, Dean,” Sam pulled a face. “Really not the time.”

“Fine, you can admit I was right whenever you feel like it’s an appropriate time.”

“Where are my pills?” Sam joked in exasperation. “I feel a headache comin’ on.”

“I’m hungry,” Cas announced. 

“Course you are,” Dean said. “C’mon, let’s fix that.” 

It was a good thing there were so many Reese’s left.

*

Cas’s return and Sam’s recovery, so soon after banishing Abaddon, gave Dean a surge of confidence that lasted at least a week. It helped that he wasn’t the only one in higher spirits; everyone in the Bunker exuded a wary optimism. So when those unwanted voices started in on him and he felt ready to sink into listless despondency, he thought about the adrenaline rush he’d experienced as he’d finished the spell and Abaddon had evaporated into smoke and light. About how relieved his little brother had been when Sam’s four days of mandatory bedrest were finally over. About the way Tracy’s face had lit up when she saw Cas alive again and how she’d pulled him into the third bone-crushing hug he’d received in the span of forty-five minutes. The way Linda would sometimes look at Kevin when he wasn’t looking at her and just smile. How, when Kevin turned his head and caught her at it, Kevin would smile back.

Dean rescheduled with the clinic two days after Cas got back, fumbling his way through the phone call with the overly-friendly receptionist and his grating voice. Sam was in no condition to drive him, so Kevin volunteered. The appointment was at three in the afternoon and they headed down to the motor pool at a quarter past ten that morning. Dean faltered slightly before entering, his frantic heart convinced that Abaddon was waiting for him on the other side. Kevin went through the door first and Dean took the lack of screaming as a sign that she wasn’t there. He stepped into the motor pool and saw the enduring black stain amidst the broken concrete. All that remained of his greatest tormentor.

Which reminded him. If he’d done that, he could do this.

Kevin had initially opened the door to his mother’s Ford Focus, but they took the Impala at Dean’s insistence. He knew he’d feel safer in the Impala. It took them less than four quiet, uneventful hours to get to the clinic; Kevin had quite the lead foot. Dean stared out the window at the flat yellow fields and reminded himself that he could do this. He was so anxious and distracted he didn’t even give Kevin grief for the reckless driving of his favorite car.

At the clinic Kevin sat in the waiting room, flipping through months-old issues of Time and Entertainment Weekly. He looked up and gave Dean a reassuring smile when his name was called. Dean was suddenly glad it was Kevin here with him. Sam might have tried to help too much, asked Dean to put Sam’s name on his medical record disclosure list or something. Kevin wouldn’t. Not unless Dean asked. He realized the disconnect as he followed the nurse out of the waiting room. Sam loved him more, and that chafed him. Kevin cared about him, sure, but it was a different kind of relationship. He needed both kinds in his life, and he was content to have them.

They wanted him to pee in a cup first, and he’d been holding it for hours in preparation so he was more than willing to comply. The technician gave him a plastic cup with a blue twist-off lid and his information printed neatly on a label on the side. The clinic bathroom had a motion sensor light, an unsettling antiseptic smell, and two sets of urine sample instructions on the wall over the toilet indicating which was for men and which was for women. He ignored both- he could piss in a damn cup for Christssake- sat on the toilet, and popped open the seal on the cup. He got some urine on his hands, but he filled the cup to the brim and left it on the metal shelf where the young man had indicated. He washed his hands and went to the partitioned room he’d been directed to earlier.

The chair for blood drawing squeaked uncomfortably when he sat in it. The nurse took four vials of blood, one after the other, once she’d rolled up his sleeve, wrapped the plastic tubing around his embarrassingly small right bicep, and found the vein in the crook of his elbow. He was quiet and compliant. The pinch of the needle shocked him but he managed to keep it together in front of the nurse. He observed her as she went about her business. She was young and slender with dark skin and honey-brown eyes. He probably would have hit on her. Before.

The entire thing took less than ten minutes. He’d have the results in three to five days. Stepping through the glass door into the sunlight was like a dropping a millstone from his back. He’d done it.

You’re probably HIV-positive. It woulda been better not to know, dumbass. Wasted away again, forever this time and no one would’ve had to know and deal with your drama.

Did he really believe that?

“Hey, uh, Dean?”

Kevin paused before unlocking the Impala’s doors. He must have seen the million-miles-away look on Dean’s face. Dean shook his head and faked a carefree smile.

“You- you wanna drive back?”

Kevin held the keys out to Dean, who considered. He was feeling okay, a little shaky, but clear and focused. He could do it.

“Yeah,” he decided, reaching over the Impala’s roof to take the keys. “I do.”

“I don’t like driving this car,” Kevin made a face as he came around to the passenger’s side. “I hate the way it handles.”

“Hey, watch your mouth! She can hear you.”

The reaction was reflexive and he slipped into it like an old glove. Kevin rolled his eyes, but grinned. Dean sat behind the wheel of his baby, readjusting to the feeling. Home.

Yeah, your dick doesn’t work but at least you got a sick muscle car, huh loser?

But who gave a flying fuck what people thought about his love for this car? He’d never cared before. He loved this car. He loved that it had been such a constant in his life. He loved that he’d helped his father pick it out- fucking time travel weirdness, but still, thanks for that one Cas. He loved it, and he angrily refused to be ashamed of that. He twisted the key in the ignition and she rumbled to life. 

Kevin had the radio tuned to some alternative rock station, and Dean rectified that immediately. He kept the volume low. He wanted to focus on driving for the first time in over a year. He found that it was still intuitive to him. He’d spent so much time behind this wheel, driving much longer stretches than Kansas City to Lebanon. It felt right.

Kevin mirrored him on the way home, staring silently out the window. Brooding for hours as only an honorary Winchester could.

“What’s up, Kev?” 

“Huh?” 

Kevin startled and shifted to look at Dean.

“You look as constipated as Sam does when he’s got something on his mind.”

“It’s nothin’. I’m fine.”

The old Dean would have dropped it right there. If he’d ever gotten this far. But not the new Dean, who’d apparently turned into Sam.

“I don’t believe you.” 

Kevin’s eyes squinted in confusion.

“What do you care?”

“You think I don’t?”

Dean was hurt, but he had to acknowledge all the shitty things he’d done and said to Kevin to make him believe that.

“No, I mean- ” Kevin sighed. “I mean, you got your own, bigger problems. Relatively, it’s nothing. I can deal.”

“Okay, but you don’t have to.”

“Dean- ”

“You think I don’t care? That I ruined your life and got your last girlfriend killed? Ruined your mom’s life, too, while I was at it. Well, Karma’s a bitch, and I have way worse comin’ for all that.”

“Is that what you think?” Kevin gaped at him. “Seriously? Jesus, no wonder you’re so fucked up. Does Sam think that about himself, too?”

“Probably,” Dean muttered at the blue sky on the other side of the windshield. “Yeah.”

“You guys are ridiculous,” Kevin’s brutal honesty was disconcerting. “First of all, if I blame anyone for ruining my life, it’s God. He made this whole ‘chosen prophet’ bullshit, not you. And, if I was a different person I might’ve said ‘Fuck you’ and walked away, but I’m not and I didn’t. Second, I blame Crowley for Channing, and your brother took care of that. I blame Crowley for mom, too, him and that demon lackey of his, and mom took care of the lackey when we got her out. What exactly am I supposed to blame you for, again?” 

“We coulda tried harder. After the Leviathan were defeated and you disappeared. Sam didn’t look for you. And I was a total dick to you that whole year afterwards, when you were translating the tablet on Garth’s houseboat.”

He still wanted someone to blame him for what he felt he deserved. He’d never get it from Sam, Cas would be hard, too, but goddamnit why was Kevin being so difficult about it?

“Could you guys have tried harder to help me out? Yeah, sure, maybe, and I blamed you at first. But you guys are just people. People fuck up, they act like dicks. We choose who to keep in our lives, and I’m still here. Doesn’t that tell you anything?” 

“We’re supposed to be better. We’re supposed to be heroes.”

“Heroes?” Kevin chuckled cynically. “No such thing. Not really. Just people, doing good things and bad things. Capable of changing, but you can’t- can’t tune them like a cello. I’ve changed on my own in the last few years, and so have you and Sam. I don’t want your apologies. I want you to recognize your growth.”

Maybe no one would blame him because he truly didn’t deserve it. At least not the amount he wanted.

“That was deep, Kev.” 

“Thank you,” Kevin let out a deep breath. “Guess I’d been sittin’ on that one a while.” 

“You think?”

There was silence for a few miles. Dean replayed Kevin’s words in his head.

“Cello, huh?”

“I used to play when I was a kid. Before- all this. I was pretty good.”

“Hmm,” Dean knew almost nothing about the cello. “Yeah, I, uh, there was a girl I knew when I was sixteen. She was real good on the guitar, showed me how to play, but I was shit.”

“Huh.”

The conversation ended abruptly and they drove in silence for the last leg of the trip.

“How’d it go?” Sam asked when Dean sat down heavily at the kitchen table.

“Great,” Dean said sourly. “Best day of my life. Goin’ back tomorrow for some more.”

“Okay, okay,” Sam raised his hands in surrender. “Hungry?" 

“Starvin’.”

Sam microwaved him a frozen burrito. It was still cold in the middle, but Dean said nothing and wolfed it down along with half a package of Chips Ahoy! he found in the cupboard. Hey, he’d given blood, right? He should get cookies.

*

Dean got the call five days later. His tests were negative; he was clean all-around. He celebrated that night with Sam, Cas, Kevin, pizza, and beer. This time it was Sam who couldn’t drink, on account of the oxycodone. Not that Dean did much better, he could only drink about half the bottle of El Sol before he got dizzy and sick, but he managed not to throw up.

Progress.

*

Days passed, and Dean survived them one at a time. Some were good. Some were bad. Others were worse.

On the good days, Dean could look in the mirror and at the pictures in his room that yo-yoed between upright and overturned. His thoughts didn’t belittle him, or if they did he could ignore them. Sometimes he’d even argue with them and feel like he’d won. He ate mindfully and helped out around the Bunker and exercised with Sam and considered- considered- the next doctor to see.

On the bad days, the mirror was the enemy and he chanted Don’t look Don’t look Don’t look as he washed his hands in the bathroom sink. The pictures lay facedown. His thoughts were cruel and mocking, and he believed them. He felt the space between his legs and wished she’d killed him. He ate nothing at all, or else he ate everything. He felt like he was spiralling out of control, and he didn’t want anyone to know.

The worst days started like the bad days, except on the worst days he wanted everyone to know. He left Tracy and Linda alone because he still didn’t know them that well. He’d get in a few jabs at Kevin, but if they stuck the young man never let on. No, on these days Dean focused most on Cas and Sam. The people he knew best. The ones he loved best. The ones he knew he could hurt.

“God, can’t you do anything right?” Dean snarled at his best friend after the former angel burned his toast and set off the smoke detector. The shrill alarm pounded in his skull and set his teeth on edge. “I wish you’d stayed dead!” 

“So do I,” Cas said dejectedly, poking at the smoke detector on the ceiling with a long-handled broom until it stopped screeching. 

Horror and empathy twisted in Dean’s gut, even as that awful, dark part of him crowed in victory. He hated himself so much.

“Oh fuck, Cas. I didn’t mean that, I swear to god, I just- ”

“It’s okay, Dean,” Cas gave him a weary smile and took a resigned, crunching bite out of the blackened bread. “I know.”

Dean fled the kitchen after that. After all, what was the point of literally having no balls if you couldn’t act like it?

You need help, he told himself. Before you drive everybody away.

A worse thought came to him. What if he didn’t drive them away? What if they stayed, out of a love for Dean that was unfathomable to him? What if they stayed, putting up with more and more of his abuse, and he went along with it? What if his spiral of shame turned him into something else, another new version of himself, a cold, spiteful, evil version, who wholeheartedly enjoyed the pain he caused, looked forward to it, planned it? What if-

What if he turned into her? 

*

Another day, a bad day that started as a good day, which made it hurt more. He was with his brother in the library after their gym session, puttering around on Sam’s MacBook while Sam flipped through one of his true crime books with noises of increasing irritation. Sam was in between doses of oxy, which made him pissy, and Dean was just one aggravated sigh away from lashing out-

“Goddammit,” Sam growled softly, shifting to spread his legs wider and sending Dean through the roof.

“Aw, poor baby,” Dean snapped. “Maybe it woulda been better if she’d just ripped ‘em off, huh?”

“Dean,” Sam said rotely, not looking up from his book. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, absolutely nothing’s wrong, Sammy. Why the hell would I care that you’re rubbin’ my face in the fact that you’ve still got the goods and I don’t?”

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Sam asked with labored patience. “We haven’t really talked since you banished Abaddon- ” 

“Fuckin’ stop!” Dean shouted, but not before Sam finished her name. “Just- just take your dumbass ‘quid pro quo’ and shove it up your ass!”

Sam’s head whipped up and Dean didn’t see the anger he’d been expecting. He saw exhaustion. He saw indifference. He saw that his brother was just done with Dean’s bullshit. It scared him.

“Dean,” Sam said flatly, closing the book and standing with a grimace. “I can’t deal with this right now. I just can’t.”

But all Dean heard was that Sam couldn’t deal with him. That he’d succeeded in getting Sam to despise him. Which is what he’d wanted, right?

Right? 

“Sam- ”

Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.

Why the fuck was he incapable of making up his mind? Tears leaked from his eyes, making his stomach roil. Disgusting. Needy. Pathetic.

“Dean,” Sam said in a flat tone as he moved for the door. “I’m serious. I can’t.” 

Sam left. Dean stared at the door for a long while, incapable of movement. His emotions were a turbulent sea, and he went wherever they tossed him. He could barely even think, but one thought did make itself known, over and over again. You need help. He couldn’t fight it.

He must have dozed off, because he lost all awareness until he suddenly found himself sprawled over the open laptop. Sam was shaking him gently.

“Dean. Hey, Dean.”

“ ‘m awake,” Dean slurred, sitting upright.

“You’ve been in here for hours, I was gettin’ worried.”

Sam had changed clothes and carried himself like the painkillers were once again doing their job.

“Why?” Dean asked petulantly, before he could stop himself. Because he just had to try and sabotage the situation, that was who he was. “Thought you couldn’t deal with me.”

“Dean,” Sam sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m not- I’m still lost here.” 

“What the hell’re you apologizing for?”

“Sometimes I think I’m making it worse for you by talking to you. I don’t get through to you, you get angry, I get angry. I really think- ”

“I need help. Professional help,” Dean finished for him. Acknowledgement and surrender. 

“Yeah?” 

Hope sparked in Sam’s eyes even as his body tensed. Dean exhaled deeply and felt lighter.

“Yeah.” 

Sam sagged in relief. He placed a hand on Dean’s left shoulder, squeezing lightly. Dean brought his right hand up and clapped it on top of Sam’s. The display of affection only lasted a few seconds, but it strengthened Dean’s resolve. He’d made a promise. He could do this. For Sam. For himself.

“Uh, so what- what was the name of the guy you and Kevin go to?”

*

It took Dean a couple tries to find a therapist he liked. The one Sam introduced him to was fine, but Dean was unable to get past the idea of unloading on the same guy that his brother did. He found someone eventually. Dr. Medina was in her early fifties, had been a hunter into her thirties until she lost an eye and an ear to a wendigo and decided to retire from hunting to pursue psychiatry. She was smart, professional, and most importantly, able to talk Dean down from one of his emotional maelstroms without treating him like a child or a monster. On one of his early visits, in the phase where he tested each potential therapist with snark and sarcasm, he’d referred to her as “shrink-lady” to see her reaction. She’d just laughed, said she’d been called worse, and he’d known that they would work. They’d met once a week ever since, Dean driving to a suburb of Wichita to see her at one of her satellite offices. It was important to him that he drove himself. That it was his choice to go.

A month went by. Dean saw progress. There were still bad days, but he was equipped to deal with them and prevent them from turning worse. He felt like he was rebuilding himself, piece by piece. Another month, and the good days outnumbered the bad. He hadn’t said anything purposefully hurtful to anyone in weeks. He and Cas bonded over marathons of Dr. Sexy, M.D. Cas became an avid fan, and sometimes Linda would join them, but never for long, because she said she couldn’t handle the ridiculous melodrama for more than an episode or two. Dean wasn’t put off by the sex scenes. He found himself curious, like he was rediscovering something again. He found himself longing for that lust he barely remembered, that connection he’d craved.

He also discovered that he missed hunting. He’d thought that part of himself dead and buried, but when a fully-recovered Sam started hunting with Tracy again Dean realized he wanted that back, too. He was ready.

At his next session with Dr. Medina, Dean asked about her knowledge of testosterone replacement and learned that she had an internist contact, another ex-hunter in Topeka, who could help Dean bypass the medical bureaucracy that terrified him. Even so, Dean held onto the internist’s number for ten days before calling him to set up a consultation. 

He told Sam, Cas, and Kevin the night before the appointment. They were the people that knew, if Tracy and Linda did, too, he was unaware and he would trust Kevin or Sam to tell them if need be. Kevin looked happy for him, and Cas beamed at Dean’s nervous excitement. Sam was even happier, pride and relief evident in his expression.

“I just wanna feel like me again,” Dean told them. “I mean, I ain’t expectin’ it to be that easy, don’t even know how it works really, but- ”

“Whatever you need, Dean,” his brother told him, Cas nodding furiously at Dean behind Sam’s shoulder. “Just- just let us know.”

The next morning Dean woke early after a fitful night’s sleep. Sam was waiting for him in the kitchen with a pot of coffee. 

“Couldn’t sleep,” Sam shrugged when Dean gave him a questioning look. He handed Dean a chipped brown porcelain mug full of hot black coffee. Dean took it and sat at the table.

“What time’s your appointment?”

“Ten,” Dean glanced at the clock. “I should leave in two hours.”

Sam sat across from Dean with another steaming mug. This one was a faded blue with white daisies. The old Dean would have teased Sam about it immediately- but maybe it was time he stopped thinking about himself in those dichotomies. He was Dean Winchester. Always had been. Always would be. For better or worse, no matter what, whether he liked it or not.

“Nice mug, Sammy,” he said mildly.

Sam looked down at the mug he was holding. Then he looked back up at Dean, completely serious.

“Yeah, well, I am the prettiest princess.”

He spoke in the throatiest voice he could muster while batting his eyelashes like some anime heroine. That, coupled with his gravitas, made Dean lose it. He spat coffee across the table, laughing until his sides ached.

“I don’t see what’s so funny, Dean,” Sam struggled and failed not to laugh. “Are you saying I’m not the prettiest princess?”

“Of- of course you are. I’m sorry for doubtin’ you.”

They laughed far longer than the joke warranted. Then they sipped their coffee in silence for a few minutes. Dean found himself looking at the harsh fluorescents overhead. They hurt his eyes with their brightness, but he kept staring. He didn’t know when it had happened, long before this moment he knew, but he was just now realizing that he no longer feared the light.

“I’m real proud of you, Dean.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean began uncomfortably, still staring at the lights. Then he shook his head, grateful for Sam’s words. “Thanks.”

He looked away from the light, blinking away the dark spots in his vision until all he could see was Sam. He forced that cocky grin he used to be so good at. Maybe someday it wouldn’t feel so forced.

“You know, I’m pretty proud of myself, too.”