Fortress - Section Five

[glasslogic]

Chapter Fifteen:

The music whispers you in urgency
Hold fast to that languageless connection
A thread of known that was unknown and unseen seen
Dangling from inside the fifth direction
~Everything In It’s Own Time, Indigo Girls

The Blue Lagoon Motel was a dive by any standard, but it had two things going for it: it was the cheapest place for a hundred miles, and it was across the street from an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.

Sam had personally been in the mood for more of a salad affair, but Dean’s face had lit up at the neon sign and it was just so… Dean that Sam’s objections had frozen in his throat.

It really hadn’t been half bad, but by the time they finally made it to their room, Sam was regretting the decision. Stress plus fried food and lack of sleep were not combining to add anything positive to his life.

Having won dibs by virtue of locking himself in the bathroom first, Dean seemed like he was planning on living in the shower. He finally emerged to slouch back in a chair with the laptop, and once Sam had gotten his own chance to clean up, he had no desire but sleep.

He curled into the pillows, exhausted…

…and found himself standing on the sidewalk in a busy downtown area with a driving headache. It was bright, with sunshine glinting off of windows and bleaching concrete, stabbing into his eyes. People bustled by on both sides of the street in shorts and sandals, indecipherable conversation and laughter, the rush of traffic. It was dizzying, and his jeans and flannel were too warm for the weather. He made his way through the people to a small grassy area with ornate, old-fashioned park benches and sank onto one. His last memory was of lying in bed, but the world around him didn’t feel like a dream, or a vision.

He patted his pockets for his wallet or his cell phone, but they were empty.

And something was very off. Everything was too bright, too sharp, even with the pain in his head -- almost like an artist’s rendition of what the world should be.

A loud slurping beside him made him jump.

“Lose something?” asked the man beside him on the bench, who hadn’t been there a moment before. Long, red hair, green eyes, ragged cut-offs, sandals. Coloring vivid and unnatural, like something from a painting or a cartoon. No one Sam recognized. He could smell the bubblegum flavor of the frozen drink sweating in the guy’s grip. His stomach flipped and he rested his head in his hands, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

“Maybe,” Sam said, rubbing his temples. His head was pounding; he just couldn’t think through the waves.

“I find it useful to think back to the last place I had it when I lose something.”

“Thanks,” Sam muttered.

“Like the Blue Lagoon Motel. Maybe you left it there?” the man commented offhandedly.

Sam sucked in a sharp breath at the mention of the motel he remembered falling asleep in.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

“A friend.” The man was still watching the crowd.

“I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

“I didn’t say I was your friend.” Another long slurp. “Dean knows me.”

Sam went cold. The only things Dean was likely to be acquainted with that could do this would be things he met in Hell.

“I’ll tell him you said hi.” Sam stood up. “How do I get out of here?”

The man motioned towards the street in front of them. “There’s the road.”

Sam gritted his teeth and started walking.

“It’s likely to take you quite a while that way, though,” the man called after him thoughtfully. “Would it really be so terrible to be social for a few minutes? I can assure you, your time here would be considerably more... productive.”

Sam stopped walking and turned back.

“Who the hell are you?” People around them looked wary and made an effort to avoid him.

“Come back and sit down. I have no intention of shouting at you, and you’re disturbing the crowd.”

Sam walked back slowly. “This is real?”

The man waited until he had gingerly sat back down. “Real is a variable condition. It means different things in different places.”

“I’m ready to wake up now,” Sam ground out.

The man arched a brow. “Really? For what? Another futile day of wandering aimlessly around the country, trying to decipher a spell that won’t cooperate?”

Sam blinked as the connection made itself -- Dean and his shifty explanations, not wanting to tell Sam about the spell’s origins, his certainty it would work…

“You gave Dean the spell. You’re--” He left the next thought unspoken, unwilling to voice it aloud.

“An angel of Hell? True. And I did help Dean out when he needed a favor, so yes, the spell. He and I have a deal.”

“The spell that no one can read? That’s payment for a debt?”

The man, the angel, watched Sam thoughtfully. “It’s payment for a future debt. This whole mess with Lucifer is very... inconvenient. Lucifer is very inconvenient. Individually, none of the current players is particularly noteworthy; together, they could be an annoyance. That little spell can only have come from a limited number of sources, and I prefer to keep my fingerprints off this entire mess unless I’m convinced you two can actually pull it off.”

“Why would you help us keep Lucifer locked up? Isn’t he your leader?”

It rolled its eyes.

“Leader is a concept completely irrelevant to my existence. And certainly if I had one, he isn’t it. Eons and eons ago, God was doing a little rearranging of the cosmos. The end result was me and a few of my siblings moving to a different locale. I don’t have any great rage to burn out on humanity or my family vibrating on a different plane, nor any desire to see the World wrecked by Lucifer’s frustrated wrath. He can be such a child. We have our own duties and obligations.” It paused to slurp more of its drink. “My ability to see into the World can be very limited. Dean is doing me a favor; in return, I agreed to assist him in the matter of his revenge.” It looked at Sam directly. “Time is running short, Samuel. Ask.”

“How do I decipher the spell?”

“The ritual itself should be simple, even for a practitioner of your knowledge and limited skill; it is the ingredients that are problematic. When you have obtained the first one, I will let you in on the next. And so on, until you have everything, then the directions will be deciphered when you are ready for the casting.” It gave Sam a sharp slash of smile. “It’s nice you have this convenient channel already in place; it will let me give you some help along the way, finding what you need. Sorry it took me so long to find the right way to dial in, but now that I’ve found you, I’m sure we won’t have such trouble in the future.” It looked at its bare wrist as though checking a watch. “Time’s all up.”

Sam blinked into the dark room. Hazy shadows from the lights outside the curtain and the red numbers of a cheap alarm clock greeted his sight.

“Sam, what is it?” Dean asked muzzily from beside him on the bed, rousing from wherever he had sent his consciousness, whatever demons did instead of sleep. “I smell blood,” he said more clearly, sitting up beside Sam and reaching for the light.

“No, don’t,” Sam gasped, grabbing his wrist. “No light.” He cringed in pain, clutched at his head. Dean grabbed his chin and forced his face up. Blood smeared Sam’s face where it dripped from his nose, his expression was one of agony.

“Fuck,” Dean cursed, and hauled Sam out of bed towards the bathroom.

~~~~~~~

“So what happened, Sam?”

Sam was lying on the bed again, the bloody pillow tossed onto the floor, his eyes closed, and a washcloth full of ice covering his forehead and eyes. He didn’t really think it was helping matters, but at least it gave him a counterpoint to the throbbing so he had something else to focus on.

“I think I met a friend of yours.”

“All my friends are in this room,” Dean said thinly.

Sam snorted, and immediately regretted it. “This one is from Hell. Said it gave you the spell, and now that it was tuned in to my channel, it could help us find the ingredients.”

Dean brightened. “It told you how to read the list?”

“No. It told me we would never have been able to read it. It doesn’t trust us, so we have to prove ourselves by getting the stupid things, and then it will unlock one more for each one we get, and maybe give us some direction.”

“Fuck,” Dean growled.

Sam slid the icepack up so he could watch the demon where it paced unhappily in front of the window.

“Maybe you should have hammered out a few more details before you struck whatever deal you did with it.” Sam’s voice had an uncertain note in it.

“What are you getting at?” Dean asked flatly.

“I just want to know what the hell kind of deal you struck with a fallen angel that it’s helping you keep Lucifer locked up over!” Sam cringed as the volume of his own voice set off another wave of pain.

“Like I told you at Bobby’s, Sam, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Why don’t you enlighten me, then? You keep dropping all these hints about Hell, but you won’t actually tell me anything. You say I have no idea what I’m talking about, but what I know about Hell, Dean, is that it sucks, and all the very worst things that have happened in my life have all started there.”

“Not in Hell, Sam, they started in the Rendering.”

“I don’t know what the fuck that means, Dean.” Sam sounded defeated. “You want me to trust you, and help you, and be a hundred percent on board with this plan of yours, but I always feel like I don’t even have half of the story. You went to Hell for me, died for me, and now you’re a demon, and… I don’t even know how to feel about it. You act like it’s no big deal!”

Silence from the shadows for a few minutes.

“It said it’s going to be contacting you more?”

“Dean--”

“Just answer the question, Sam.”

“It didn’t say that, it implied that.”

“We should find out if blood will heal this too, then, I suppose.”

“Wait a sec--”

“It was going to be tonight or tomorrow anyways, Sam. Can we not fight about this again, please?”

“Fine,” Sam muttered, after long pause. “But I still want you to talk to me.”

“You want to know the truth about Hell, Sam?”

“Yes.”

Dean nodded. “Okay then; you don’t give me any crap about tonight, and if you still want to know in the morning, I’ll tell you all about it.”

Sam closed his eyes as he heard Dean rummage through one of the bags, then sat up and dropped the ice pack on the dresser when the bed sank under his brother’s weight and Dean began almost clinically helping him get undressed.

“Promise?” Sam asked quietly.

Warm lips pressed against his forehead in a soft kiss, then firm hands drew his head down towards the hollow of the demon’s throat, encouraging him to nurse at a deep cut seeping darkness in the dim room.

“I promise. Now drink and let’s get on with the evening.” Sam heard the amusement in his brother’s voice, but any desire he might have had to snap at him was swallowed by the rush of blood.

~~~~~~~

Sam was drowsy but still awake when Dean slid out of the bed almost an hour later to grab the laptop. He climbed back into bed with it, sheet pulled to his waist and computer settled firmly on his lap. The tattoo on Dean’s hip made Sam’s skin tingle where it brushed against him; Sam’s flesh reacted like that whenever he touched it, regardless of what body it was on. The effect wasn’t necessarily unpleasant so much as distracting, and Sam squirmed back to put some space between them. But it wasn’t the tattoo, or his brother’s apparent intention to do research all night barely two feet from where Sam was supposed to be sleeping, that focused Sam’s attention.

“What is that?”

“What’s what?” Dean asked, distracted by something on the screen.

“That,” Sam tugged at the sheet slightly, “on the inside of your leg.”

“You been admiring my fine physique, Sammy?”

Sam was mellow enough to let that pass without comment. “It looked like a tattoo; you didn’t have one before.”

“You didn’t actually live in my back pocket for our entire lives, Sam. It only felt like it, you know. And then there was the years you were sulking at Stanford; how the hell would you know what I did or didn’t have on the inside of my thigh?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, Dean. Maybe it was the three years after Stanford we spent sharing motel rooms and sewing each other up. Or possibly when I had to wash your body after you were butchered by Hellhounds. I suppose I might have noticed then, you know?”

The demon eyed him thoughtfully for a moment, then shrugged and turned his attention back to the computer. “It’s a lock.”

“A what?”

“A lock, for demons. You do remember Meg, don’t you? That little incident where she put you on like a cheap suit and went on a killing spree? Bobby, hot pokers -- ringing any bells?”

Sam grimaced at the memory and subconsciously rubbed at the smooth patch on his arm where quick thinking by Bobby had burned through the demon sigil that prevented Meg from being exorcized.

“Why do you need a lock? I can’t believe anyone is going to fight you for that body.”

“Locks aren’t just for contested possession, they help resist exorcism from any flesh. And what are you talking about?” Dean sounded offended. “This body is prime real estate! You’re right, though; I hadn’t really thought about doing it until your charming buddy tried to exorcize me in an alley.”

“Jace?”

“The idiot,” Dean snorted. “But it’s possible the next one will be more competent, and I’m attached to this skin; it would irritate the hell out of me to have to find a new one.”

Sam’s eyelids felt too heavy to hold open, and his attention was drifting, but he managed to get out one more question. “Why don’t more demons use them if all you have to do is ink it on?”

“Why don’t more hunters wear anti-possession wards? It’s a matter of knowing, and knowing is a matter of finding out. Most demons are vicious, nasty things, but they’re pretty much frozen where they were when they transformed. They pick up a few tricks they have to have, and never bother looking any further. What ambition they have is limited to causing pain and destruction, and they can do that with brute strength and their natural talents. It’s a rare and dangerous one that pushes for more.”

“Mmmmmmm…”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I can’t believe you fought it this long. See you in the morning, Sam.”

~~~~~~~

The next morning, Sam was slouched in the faded red vinyl booth of a roadside diner when he brought it back up again. “All right, Dean.”

“All right, what?” Dean was distracted from his perusal of the greasy menu. As if they didn’t have exactly the same things every other roadside diner they had ever visited had.

“All right, it’s time to tell me, you know...” Sam lowered his voice. “What you promised you would tell me.” Dean snorted at that. Sam frowned at him. “What?”

“You can’t even say it?”

“I can say it fine. I just don’t want to draw attention to us.”

Dean looked around and made a gesture inviting Sam to take in the entirety of the nearly empty diner.

“If you want to avoid this conversation so much,” Sam accused, “why do you keep getting involved whenever it comes up? You could just not speak up, and I wouldn’t even know there was a conversation to be had.”

“You keep going on about Hell like you have some idea what you’re talking about, and I have trouble biting my tongue.”

“Feel free to clear my misconceptions up for me.” Sam’s voice held an edge of annoyance.

“You need to stop thinking about it in terms like ‘good’ and ‘evil’. That isn’t what it’s about.”

“That’s great, Dean. But you know, I really wasn’t thinking about it in terms of ‘good’ at all.”

Dean ignored that. “Hell gets a bum rap because of all the shit Lucifer and his fucked up followers have pulled. That’s only the Rendering, the very thin crust that bumps right up against the material plane. Like... I dunno, soap bubbles on top of water.”

“So... you’re trying to say Hell is what, a paradise?” Sam asked incredulously.

Dean shrugged. “As much as the place you call Heaven is. There isn’t much to choose from between them once you cut past the crap.”

“I hate to have to point this out to you, Dean, but the demons are running around creating all sorts of problems and generally making life suck for a lot of people right now. I don’t recall any stories about whatever you would call their counterparts in Heaven doing that.”

“That’s because the Angels of Creation are doing their jobs, mostly, and the souls going to Heaven aren’t having to battle their way through thousands of years of corrupt monsters to move on. In Hell, the inmates are running the asylum, and they strain all the souls passing through so they get all tied up in fear and pain and trapped, which just feeds back into the cycle. The Rendering is everything Hell is claimed to be, and the souls are all convinced that it only gets worse the deeper you go, so they don’t. They just sit there and rot until they are as twisted and fucked up as the ones that trapped them, and then they really are screwed. If they would suck it up and let go, their pain would be over.”

“Over how?”

“Some of them would just fade into... let’s not call it ‘Hell’, let’s call it ‘Entropy.’ That’s what Heaven and Hell really are, polar opposite planes of Creation and Entropy. I mean, it’s like... you turn the lights on, or you turn the lights off, both states have their uses and their problems, but you wouldn’t really say one is better, would you?” Dean took in Sam’s baffled expression and waved him silent when it looked like he was about to speak. “Anyway, the souls with strong enough Entropic traits who want to hang onto themselves can transform themselves into Entropic Demons if they have the will to keep it together as they go deeper. But that’s almost unheard of, not just because the Rendering is the happening place, but because, well... almost no one manages it.”

“So... Entropic Demons are more powerful? Like Azazel, or Lilith?” Sam asked slowly, still trying to work his mind around this new frame of thought so he could ask the important questions.

Dean snorted again. “Hardly. Lilith, Azazel... they are all products of the Rendering, and nasty creatures even for that. It would be really hard not to notice an Entropic Demon, Sam. Reality would warp around it and start causing massive rifts in the World. This Plane is the place where Creation and Entropy mix it up, they both give to it, so the things here represent both polarities. Creatures of either extremity can’t tolerate it. It would take a massive amount of power and spellwork to allow an Entropic Demon to walk here, and really -- why would they want to? They have no interest in anything here; it’s like poison to them.”

Sam just kind of blinked at him.

“What about the Apocalypse?” he finally asked.

“What about it? That has nothing to do with the true Hell, that’s just the last act of Lucifer’s little rebellion against law and order. Honestly, if the Angels of Entropy hadn’t been so easy to play, they might not have gotten locked up, and the Rendering might not exist at all.”

“Angels of Entropy -- what the hell are you talking about, Dean?!”

“Exactly. Hell. Did you think only Heaven had angels? They aren’t creatures of goodness and light, Sam. They are just another type of being. Hell has angels just like Heaven does, and serving the same function. They carry out God’s will in their respective Planes, and part of that job is making sure that spirits crossing out of this plane get ushered on their way. The problem was that Lucifer, an Angel of Creation, was jealous of the... well, it’s hard to say what he was jealous of. My contact was a little short on details, but considering the general insanity about this whole mess, it could be anything from cocktail Thursday to the color of grass.”

Dean shrugged.

“Anyways, whatever it was, he bucked the order and enticed a couple of mortal souls into hanging out near the margin of where the Material Plane meets the Entropic one, and gave them enough power and knowledge to trap other souls coming in and generate more power out of their pain. He managed this under the noses of the Angels of Entropy, who, let’s face it, are kinda disorganized and distractible by nature, and then once his demonic followers had pulled enough power out of their victims, he used it to lock the Entropic Angels down into a level of the Pit where they could no longer act at the surface or touch the Material World at all. This created the Rendering and gave his followers a free hand. The trapped angels managed to drag some of the more powerful of his followers deep enough that they were forced to turn all of their attention to maintaining their identities against the natural Entropic pull, and neutralized them that way. But a little late; the damage was done.”

“Why didn’t God just free them when he had Michael cast Lucifer out? I mean, if that’s accurate?

“Far as I know.” Dean signaled the bored-looking waitress, who had been wiping at the same three feet of counter with a worn dishrag since they walked in.

“Then why not free the Entropic Angels, if they could have freed all the souls trapped in the Rendering and headed off all the current mess?” Sam asked, sounding both fascinated and skeptical.

“God isn’t just the God of Heaven, Sam. He’s the God of everything. Heaven and Hell are meaningless distinctions once you get out of all the religious decorations humans have given that -- at least as far as the souls that return to them are concerned. The Angels of Entropy screwed up big time and got themselves trapped; my understanding is that God told them to get themselves untrapped and not whine at him until it was done.”

“But what about the human souls? It’s not their fault this happened; why do they have to suffer?”

“They don’t have to suffer, Sam. All they have to do is let go of their fears and they will sink into Entropy on their own. They hold themselves in the Rendering. All human souls have aspects of both polarities, so you can make a bargain to bind yourself to one plane or the other, Heaven or Hell, but there is no force, no deal, that can keep you from sinking into that power once you are there, if that’s what you want to do.”

“That--” Sam cut himself off abruptly as the waitress approached them with her pad out.

“What’ll you have?”

Dean ordered for both of them without bothering to ask Sam what he wanted, and shook his head as soon as she was gone at Sam’s lack of objection to his food.

“You need to work on being less predictable, Sam.”

“Me! When was the last time you didn’t get a burger of some sort?”

“Yeah, but I’m a creature of chaos.” He smirked and leaned back. “I’m unpredictable by nature, patterns are where I have trouble. I have to work at consistency, so hamburgers are like homework. You’re so predictable I could almost set a clock by you. Don’t think your enemies don’t know it either.”

Sam glared. “According to what you just said, we’re all creatures of chaos.”

“Yeah, but you’re a denizen of the mixed plane and I’m something… different.”

Sam frowned and opened his mouth, but Dean cut him off before he could speak. “It’s kind of funny, really, when you think about before, when I was the good, obedient son and you were bitchy and rebellious and stirred everything into a mess every time you came or went. Seven years in a box tamed you, Sammy.”

“You’ve certainly paid me back,” Sam muttered. “And stop calling me that. And stop trying to distract me!” Sam went back to the previous topic. “So, instead of good and evil, and good people going to Heaven and evil people going to Hell, you are saying it’s about... Creation or Entropy instead?” Dean nodded. “So creative people go to Heaven, and... what? People who like to break things go to Hell?”

“Nope. On that simple logic, creative people go to Hell. Try thinking of it as the Plan of Order, and the Plane of Chaos. If you do things that promote order and growth, you are more likely to go to Heaven, but if you promote things that are chaotic and destructive, you are more likely to go to Hell. Working to implement a new idea is orderly and all, but the sheer invention of that new idea is a disruption of whatever status quo existed, and that’s chaotic, a destruction of order. See? It’s not always that easy to determine what goes where.”

Sam was staring at him again, Dean frowned.

“What? It’s not like this changed anything about the current problems. We still have to stop Lucifer from walking free, and we still have to get all the spell ingredients to do it. Just because the larger issue is a little different than you thought it was, that doesn’t change anything.”

“When the angel came to me in that motel room and told me that he couldn’t find you, that you had descended, he made it sound like a really bad thing. But all he really said was that if you had descended, there was nothing they could do.” Sam swallowed. “You made that deal for me, and I have to know... what was it like, Dean?”

Dean looked away through the glass to the passing cars on the road outside. “Don’t do this, Sam. I made that deal of my own free will.”

“Don’t do ‘this’? Torture myself imagining what you were going through in Hell?” Sam laughed without humor. “I’ve been doing ‘this’ to myself for the last seven years.”

His brother sighed and leaned back a little in the booth. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you. The Rendering? It’s exactly as advertised. Every filth and pain and degradation thousands of years of human evil can come up with. All live and bleeding at your fingertips.”

“You broke the first Seal.”

Dean nodded, looking past Sam at the greasy, fake-wood paneling that probably hadn’t been cleaned since the dingy place opened. “In the Rendering. I was there… for a long time, Sam. There aren’t words to tell you what it’s like there. And I might be able to show you with our link, but you’ve never done anything to deserve that kind of pain, so don’t even bother asking. I didn’t know about the Seal then. But I fought them as long as I could. And when I couldn’t fight anymore…” Dean shrugged and stole Sam’s water to down half.

Sam lowered his voice. “When you couldn’t fight anymore… then what, Dean?”

“C’mon, Sam! We have more important things to dwell on right now. It’s in the past.”

“What happened, Dean?” Sam repeated.

“When I couldn’t face one more second of the knife myself, Sam? You wanna know what happened then?”

Sam nodded, expression determined.

Dean smiled, and it was the coldest smile Sam had seen since the night he thought Jace was murdered. “I climbed down off the rack, and started putting other souls on. I took the blade from my torturer’s hand and used his lessons to share my pain with others. And with that first cut, the Seal broke. Satisfied?”

His brother looked ill, but not like he was ready to drop the subject yet. “And then what?”

“What do you mean, ‘and then what’?”

Sam glared. “You said that was in the Rendering, Dean, but the angel said you had descended. And you must have met the angel who gave you the spell somehow. And, I mean, to be a demon yourself, you must have spent thousands of years in Hell… I was told that was only possible deeper in the Pit.” Sam’s eyes grew wide as something occurred to him. “How can you be a Rendering Demon if you were deeper? You said deeper created Entropic Demons.”

Dean snorted. “Don’t get all uptight, Sam! I also told you Entropic Demons have no use for the Material Plane, and it’s almost unheard of for a soul to make that transformation. I wasn’t much use to anyone in the Rendering after I broke the Seal, so they ignored me for the most part, since they figured I was as trapped as they were. But I have some extra-special qualities because of the whole ‘should have been an angel puppet’ destiny thing I dodged, and someone Below the Rendering did have a use for me. It called me; I followed the voice, and met an Entropic Angel. It needed a favor, and in return, it offered to help me with this. It certainly doesn’t have any reason to be all buddy-buddy with Lucifer, and it only gets what it wants after I get what I want. That’s how I know it’s honest.”

“So, you spent how long Below then?”

“A really freaking long time, Sam.”

“With the angel.”

It wasn’t a question, so Dean didn’t have to lie.

“You act so much like… my brother, though, most of the time now,” Sam continued. “How can you have experienced so much torture, and then thousands of years of time and still be my brother, almost like I remember you being? Is this just an act?” Sam’s voice was a bit thick, but on his face there was no hint of his internal misery, misery Dean could feel clearly through the recently renewed link.

“I’ll always be your brother, Sammy,” Dean answered quietly. “The Rendering sucked, no bones about that, but Below… that wasn’t really torture. I mean, sure, it was thousands of years, but it’s not like I consciously lived them. ‘Time’ as a concept we use here doesn’t really mean anything there. And the angel helped me; that was a part of our deal. I would help it, and in return, it would help me stay me, and get my revenge. So, yeah, there are some things I’m still remembering, and I’ve got some instincts and skills I didn’t have before. But this -- with you? This isn’t an act, Sam. I promise. Maybe some with other people, but not with you.”

Sam nodded and stared down at the Formica table in silence for a few awkward minutes before just nodding again and going back to a previous point. “What does it want?”

“The angel?” Dean looked relieved to be moving out of more emotional waters. “What do you think it wants?” When Sam’s only reply was to narrow his eyes, Dean filled in for him. “It wants what everyone else does: to be free.”

“And you can give it that?” Sam asked skeptically.

“The key is in the World somewhere. Other than that, it’s a little unclear. But I’m not doing squat until after the current mess is cleaned up, so don’t worry about it. I’m not.”

“You sure it’s the right thing to do? I mean, we’re going to destroy Lilith’s plans and make sure Lucifer stays locked up… and in return, we are going to set loose a bunch of Angels of Hell?”

“I told you, they aren’t any more evil than Angels of Heaven are. And I think they will be plenty busy with cleaning up the Rendering and won’t be causing much trouble anywhere else for awhile.”

“How long is that really going to take them?”

“I dunno, but they’ve been slacking on the clock since… well, forever, almost, as far as humans are concerned. So, take every soul that has lived for thousands of years, divide by two--”

“I get it,” Sam cut him off. “Fine. So what next?”

Dean shrugged, pleased to have the conversation over.

Sam let the silence sit for a minute. “I feel better today.”

“Than last night? I would hope so.”

“No, I mean -- better than usual. Stronger.”

“That’s a pretty expectant look you’re giving me, Sam.”

“Something’s changed. What did you do?”

“Why is it always me?”

“Dean.”

“I didn’t limit the transfer.” Dean gave in. “Before, I didn’t exactly want you at you best, for the obvious reasons. And now that you’re on board with everything, it doesn’t make any sense to keep you handicapped.”

“How much control do you have over that?”

“Looking for more trade secrets?” When Sam just gave him an irritated look, Dean flicked a straw wrapper at him and continued. “It’s my power, Sam. I don’t have to give it up unless I want to. You naturally try to draw a certain amount out at a certain rate, and I can either fight that or let it go. It’s not a complicated science.”

“With Ruby... Ruby said I was working towards something. Getting stronger, able to take more. If you aren’t holding back on me... is that still going to happen?”

“I’m not going to suddenly start trying to swamp you, if that’s what you mean. I figure your body knows what it’s doing and unless problems start cropping up, we can just let it go at that.”

“What if--” Sam looked around warily, as if suddenly remembering they were in a public place. He lowered his voice. “What if I need more of your type of power to do the spell?”

“You needed to beef up on my type because you had to kill that bitch Lilith with it, and nothing does a demon in like good ol’ home cooking. But the spell isn’t demonic; I don’t think it would matter where the power comes from, as long as it’s yours.”

The conversation lapsed while the waitress carried their orders over and plunked them down. Sam muttered a thanks and she wandered back to her counter, casting sidelong looks at the clock.

“Wow. Nice to know the job satisfaction is so high around here.”

“Did you need something from her?” Sam asked pointedly.

“Nope, not a thing. As for our next step--” Dean reached into the laptop bag he had carried in with them and slid out the yellow notebook paper the spell was written on. Sam had insisted it be preserved in a rigid, clear paper-protector he had gotten from Bobby. Dean had grumbled that it would be harder to carry around that way, which had sent Sam off into outraged near-incoherency about the value of a spell that was accidentally sent through the wash, not to mention just the wear and tear from being carried crammed into a jean pocket.

He laid it on the somewhat sticky table between them, ignoring Sam’s irritated look at his casual treatment of it. “I suppose our next step is to stare blindly at this for awhile and hope for inspiration. You sure my ‘contact’ didn’t give you any useful information.”

“I told you everything it said, Dean.”

Dean snorted and lifted his burger. “Fat lot of good your vision was, then.”

“Look! I had nothing to do with--” Sam’s voice cut off with a clatter of his dropped fork and he shoved his chicken salad aside so hard the plate hit condiments against the wall with a racket and spilled half its contents onto the table.

“Sam, what the--” Dean began.

“I can read it.”

“What?”

Sam pried the spell from the table and stared intently at the paper. “This, I can read it!”

Dean’s eyes widened. “All of it?”

Sam frowned a bit. “No, well, I can read this line.” He held it so that Dean could see it too and pointed at the first line of incomprehensible jargon that made the ingredient list beneath the casting directions. “I can read the same thing up in this section too,” he added, shifting his finger to the casting directions and one of the tangle of symbols there. “The rest of it is still scrambled, though.”

“Shit. Well, it said it would give them to us as we picked them up, right?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s it say then?”

“Uh, ‘blood, by blood betrayed to death’.”

“Are you serious?” Dean asked incredulously.

“I swear to God, Dean.”

“You probably shouldn’t do that, you never know when he might decide to listen,” Dean suggested darkly, taking the spell from Sam and glaring at it as though that would make it more helpful.

Dean cursed and handed the spell back to Sam; he slid out of the booth and tossed a few bills on the table. “Let’s go.”

Sam frowned. “You’re not going to eat?”

“Not when I’m this annoyed, and half your food is scattered on a table that probably hasn’t been cleaned this month, and if I have to listen to that woman wipe that rag in that same circle over that same foot of counter for another minute, I will not be responsible for my actions, Sam; I swear I won’t.”

“Right, it’s fine, just, uh-- calm down, Dean.” He slid out of the booth himself as Dean stomped to the door. Sam flashed the waitress, who was eyeing them suspiciously, an apologetic smile and followed his brother into the parking lot.

“What the hell was that all about?” Sam demanded, once they were alone in the cool, late Fall air.

Dean raked his finger through his hair. “Nothing, just... annoyed, and the noise didn’t help.”

“She wasn’t making any noise, Dean.”

“She was to me,” Dean snapped, unlocking the door. He waited until they were both in the car. “What the hell does that even mean?”

“The ingredient?”

“Ingredient? ‘Salt’ is an ingredient, Sam, ‘chalk dust,’ ‘wormwood,’ ‘eye of newt,’ ‘tongue of toad’: those are ingredients. That is a cryptic load of bull.”

Sam sighed. “I don’t know, Dean. Let me think about it on the road for awhile.”

“On the road to where?” Dean demanded. “We don’t have any place to go! Just more freaking circles.”

Sam counseled himself to patience; it would only get worse if they were both irritable. “There’s a motel not even thirty miles from here we can crash at and think this out a little more. You said the angel wanted something from you, so it’s not going to just give you crap. We just... need to think about it.”

Dean just nodded like he didn’t trust himself to speak and peeled out of the parking lot.

~~~~~~~

Dean dropped Sam off at the motel to get a room and went to pick up some pizza and beer. He made a note to hit an ATM on their way out of town and drain some more out of one of Sam’s bank accounts. Sam had never said anything about Dean’s periodic looting of them, which made Dean happy because it saved him from explaining he had gotten the codes and information out of his brother when he was so wracked by the curse he would have promised Dean his last dollar or his first child just to be touched. He didn’t give a flip about Sam selling their dad’s stuff to get the money. He felt like maybe he should, but... it just wasn’t there.

When he walked back into the room an hour or so later, still fuming about the spell but much calmer than earlier, Sam was sprawled on his stomach, hair still damp from a shower, intent on something he was reading on the laptop.

“Find anything good?” Dean asked by way of greeting.

“Not on here yet. I think the ingredient itself is pretty self-explanatory, literally blood from someone who died because they were betrayed by a relative.”

“So pretty much the same place we were in the restaurant. That’s fucking awesome. Any person betrayed to death by a relative? Can I go give some deadbeat fifty bucks to cap a sibling and use that?”

“Hey, it’s your contact, and your spell. And also, no.”

“My contact is in your head. Next time you see it, why don’t you deck it for me? My own personal thank you for being a bastard.”

“Yeah, Dean. I’ll make sure and try that while it’s controlling my brain,” Sam agreed sarcastically.

Dean slumped on one of the beds and blew out a deep breath. “Let’s just eat and see what’s on the tube.”

“You mind if I call Bobby and get his take on this?”

“I don’t care if you call the Psychic Friends Network, as long as we get some answers.”

~~~~~~~

Sam grimaced at the sickly smell of bubblegum and sunscreen. He wrinkled his nose and turned his head away, but the smell persisted. He snapped his eyes open in annoyance, and immediately closed them again against the glare of the noonday sun.

Once he could stand to look around, he found himself in a familiarly strange park; its vibrant, unreal colors and the chattering crowd exactly as he remembered. He turned his head to face the redhead watching him solemnly and working on what appeared to be the same drink as the previous night.

“I don’t think Dean is very happy with you,” Sam offered, to break the silence.

“I’m sure in some time or place that would concern me.”

“How specific are these ingredients?”

“Very. Some more so than others.”

“And this one? The blood?”

“You might be able to find some substitutions for this one.”

Sam nodded and looked around again. “Why are we meeting here again?”

It raised one shockingly red eyebrow. “You have someplace you prefer more?”

“No, I mean-- why are we meeting at all. You gave us the ingredient; we don’t have it yet, so...”

It smiled, a sudden flash of teeth. “I could feel Dean’s irritation all the way into the Pit. I thought you might need some shoring up.”

“Is that all we’re going to get? One cryptic line?”

It eyed him, considering. “This is a very... important spell. It weighs heavily in the World.”

“Yes, so?” Sam asked impatiently.

“You are a naturally gifted psychic who, for reasons of both theoretical destiny and the interference of demons in your life, has a talent that is specifically sensitized to matters of the demonic and the Apocalyptical.”

“Yeah, I get all the good prizes, so what?”

“Have you had any visions lately?”

“Other than you?”

It waved a hand dismissively. “These don’t count. I’m imposing these from outside, exploiting both your gift and an existing channel. I mean other visions, visions that are purely yours.”

“I...” Sam hesitated. “I don’t know if I’ve ever had one like that. I mean, the only visions I’ve had, I had about other psychic kids, and they stopped when Dean shot Azazel with the Colt.”

“You’re lucky he didn’t share everything with Lilith. If she knew just how vulnerable you are, you would have found your skull a very crowded place quite some time ago. Azazel was clever when he carved himself this niche; it’s well hidden.”

“What does that have to do with visions now?”

“These are your gifts. He gave you nothing that was not yours first. The spell and its ingredients are deeply powerful in the aura of the World. They have impact that leaves traces wherever their possibility occurs.”

Sam frowned. “Was that supposed to make sense to me?”

It rolled its eyes. “I think I would know you and Dean were brothers from this conversation alone. He was always unreasonably resistant to the obvious. Let me be plainer for you.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Sam ground out.

“You’re a natural psychic. The World shaped the spell and its demands; I just wrote it down. If you want information about the specificity of ingredients, or where you might find them, that’s what you should ask.”

“Ask the World?!”

It shrugged gracefully and took another long sip of the syrupy drink. “It’s like a muscle you’ve never used. You have the capability, but no idea how to use it. It needs exercise and practice to be wielded with intent.”

“Ruby made sure I had lots of ‘practice’ and ‘exercise’.”

“Only using demonic power, and only doing things that were of direct benefit to their grand plan. This is from you. You have to learn how to open yourself to what the World can show you. But not too open,” it added with a sly smile. “You wouldn’t want just anything to come stumbling in.”

A cloud passed over the sun and an icy wind blew over Sam’s skin. Around them, the holiday air hadn’t changed. People laughed, and skated, and chatted, and walked, but most of the color suddenly seemed drained out and the light was dimmer. Sam looked sharply to the angel to see that all levity had fallen from its face like a discarded mask.

“Time to go, Sam.”

“Wait! How do I do this?”

“You have the question, now find the answer.”

Sam reached out instinctively to grab it before it could vanish...

…and fell out of bed, banging his elbow sharply on the nightstand. A barely-noticed pain against the flare of agony in his head.

“Shit, Sam.” Powerful hands grabbed him, slipped on his sweat-drenched skin, then took firmer hold and pulled him up. He let the demon take most of his weight as it dragged him to the bathroom. He could taste copper in his mouth from his bloody nose, and exciting-looking lights were flaring and exploding behind his eyes.

“Dean, please,” he croaked, grabbing onto his brother’s arm with as much force as he could muster from where he had been left seated on the toilet lid. The lights were still off and it was nearly pitch black in the small bathroom, but even the hiss of the shower was another source of pain to his overly-sensitized ears.

“Shit,” Dean muttered again, and then Sam was being hauled bodily into the shower with his clothes still on. The cool spray felt good against his overheated skin, but only distantly.

“Please,” he gasped again, clinging to his brother, who was taking almost all of his weight.

The reply was warm lips crushed against his. They tasted like copper and salvation, so he eagerly opened his own and invited the demon in.

~~~~~~~

Sam opened his eyes to shards of light. He squinted them shut again and rolled over with a grimace. A moment later, he heard a rustle of drapes.

“Sorry about that. Head still hurt?”

“Yeah.” Sam cautiously tried one eye, and found the gloom of the room seemed okay this time. “Nothing like last night, though. I honestly thought I was dying.”

“I could feel it.”

“When we did this the other night, I felt fine in the morning. What’s going on?”

“The other night was a night we were going to be dealing with the curse anyways, pretty much; I gave you as much as normal and you were fine. Last night, you only got a taste in comparison. It seemed to work out; things progressed in their usual manner-- and I think it’s cute that you still blush after all these months, by the way.” Sam glared at him. “And then you passed out. Is it okay now?”

“It’s not fun, but it’s no worse than it was coming down off the visions I was having back with Yellow Eyes. Now anyways.”

“I was gonna say I don’t remember your visions ever being quite this incapacitating. I take it you were visiting angels again?”

“Just the one,” Sam said sourly, “and I think it’s because before, even though Azazel was influencing the, uh, flavor of my visions, it was still just my whatever doing what it wanted, versus now the angel is actually forcing visions on me. I hope it doesn’t want to chat again anytime soon,” he added, rubbing his eyes.

“Did it at least tell you something useful this time?”

“Come sit over here where I don’t have to move to see you and I’ll tell you everything I know,” Sam yawned.



Next Section

Masterpost
.