I'd like to thank DarkestRevelation, who gave me the idea for this story.

Warnings: violence, swearing, references to torture, character death, demon blood, and general creepiness. This is not a happy story.

"Dean," Sam said, a hint of a whine creeping into his voice. "Come on, it's been your turn for the past five minutes, just make a move already."

He and Dean were lying on the floor of their motel room with a chessboard between them. Sam had apparently learned how to play in his sixth grade class last week, and now that they'd moved to a new town and left all of Sam's nerdy little playmates behind, he had pretty much dragged Dean to the store to buy the game. And then he'd sat around sulking until Dean had finally agreed to play with him. The kid was so excited about it that Dean was honestly torn between wanting to let him win and wanting to kick his ass as hard as he could.

"Dean," Sam said again, shaking his head. "Do you need me to explain the rules again?"

"Shut up, Sammy," Dean hissed. Sam opened his mouth, about ready to protest, but Dean covered his mouth before he could. "Seriously, look at that." He pointed up at the light directly above their heads. It was flickering.

"So?" Sam asked, and now the sulk that he'd lost when Dean had agreed to play with him was back, even more pronounced than before. "This isn't the first time that Dad's taken us to stay at a dump."

For once, Dean didn't bother arguing about what Sam had said about Dad. He was too busy jumping to his feet, yanking Sam up by the elbow, ignoring his brother's squawk of protest. "Most of the motels don't do that," he said, pointing to the digital clock on the bedside table, which was blinking on and off. "Or that." They'd left the TV on, since Dean had been keeping one eye on a game that'd been playing. Now, though, the screen showed nothing but static.

Sam froze, fear appearing on his face for the first time. "What is it?" he asked.

"Demons," Dean said grimly. He didn't say anything else. He definitely didn't say what he was thinking – that Dad might not have told him everything about the demon who had killed their mom, but he'd definitely told Dean about what signs they should keep an eye out for in case it ever came back.

These were the signs.

Dean grabbed a sharpie off a table and yanked Sam toward the bathroom, figuring that that would be the easiest place to defend. There was a small closet over to the side, filled with towels and cleaning supplies and shit like that. "Get in there," he said, giving Sam a shove toward it.

Sam stumbled but managed to regain his balance, and crawled inside without protesting. He curled his knees against his chest, and even then, he barely fit. But he'd be safe there. "Good," Dean said, and started drawing sigils on the inside of the door. "Keep this closed, okay? The demons won't be able to get into it."

Sam nodded, though he was already shaking so hard that it made his head knock against the side of the closet. "What are you going to do?"

"Exorcise these bastards," Dean said, and he was scared enough that he didn't even notice that he'd just sworn in front of his little brother, which Dad had told him that he wasn't allowed to do. But Dad wasn't here now. He wasn't even in the same city. He was off working a job on the other side of the state, and even if Dean managed to call him, there was no way that he'd get here on time. Which meant that it was up to Dean to keep Sammy safe.

"Don't worry," Dean said. He managed a smile, and despite everything, Sam gave him a shaky smile back. "Nothing's going to touch you, Sammy."

Then he slammed the door and ran back to the main room, locking the bathroom behind him for good measure.

The lights were flickering harder than before, to the point where Dean could barely see the letters of Dad's journal, even when he held it up to his face. He grabbed a flashlight from the emergency pack they always kept under the bed, and this light was steady. Dean turned to the exorcism at the front of the journal and laid it on the bed, pointing the flashlight beam at it so that he could still read it, and then grabbed the gun that was also in the emergency pack. This one was filled with salt rounds.

Okay. Dean was ready.

Which was a good thing, because at that moment, the door flew off the hinges, and in came the demons. Three of them, a man and two teenagers.

The man had yellow eyes. Dean had never seen that before. He'd thought that all demon eyes were black.

Dean didn't think about it, though. He took aim and shot one round after another, reading off as fast as he could, "Regna terrae, cantate Deo, psallite Domino-"

He didn't make it any farther than that before he was thrown back against the wall and held there by some unseen force. The gun fell from his hand.

"That was a nice try, I will admit," the Yellow-Eyed demon said, sounding more amused than anything. The other two demons headed toward the bathroom door. "Of course, it wasn't nearly enough," he said after a moment. "But it was still better than what I was expecting."

Dean couldn't turn his head, or even move at all, but he heard it when the demons broke down the bathroom door.

Which was when Dean discovered that his mouth still worked, at least, because he screamed, "Stay away from my brother, you creepyass bastards!"

The demon just smirked.

"Seriously," Dean said, his voice getting lower and more intense. "Go ahead and hurt me, do whatever you want. But don't bring my brother into this. He's twelve, for crying out loud. He's not even a threat, I'll bet you anything that he's going to be a completely shitty hunter, you don't have to worry about him."

The demon shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't promise that," he said, looking almost sad, though Dean knew that it was only an act. "Hurting you, though, has always been part of the plan."

Dean began sliding up the wall, slowly, an inch at a time. Long enough that he knew what was about to happen. Dad might not have told him everything about how their mom had died, but Dean knew enough.

"SAM!" he screamed, desperately hoping that his brother would be able to hear him. "STAY WHERE YOU ARE! DON'T COME OUT!" That was the only good thing about any of this, the fact that Dean had gotten those sigils on the door, so Sammy would be safe. And after those gunshots that Dean had let off, he was sure that someone had called the police. Which wouldn't help anything, since the police would just get slaughtered, but this had to make the paper tomorrow. Dad would see it and come back. If Sam could just stay locked up and safe until Dad got here, then Dean could die and it would still be okay. As long as Sammy was safe.

Dean was pinned to the ceiling now, his limbs spread, nothing he could do to fight back. "I MEAN IT, SAMMY!" he screamed. "STAY THERE, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS!"

Then the ceiling behind him burst into flames.

Dean screamed, he knew that much. And that was about all that he remembered. At some point, he must have passed out, because the next time he opened his eyes, he was lying in a hospital bed with Dad sitting beside him, hiding his face in his hands.

"Dad," Dean slurred, with a lot of struggle. His entire body felt heavy, like he could barely keep his eyes open. And there was a fog in his head that made forming words almost unbelievably hard, even though the fog wasn't enough to completely cover up the pain. It felt like his entire torso was still burning.

Dad looked up, the slightest bit of hope appearing on his face, but it was obvious that he'd been crying.

No. That didn't make sense. Dad was strong, he didn't cry.

"Why am I alive?" Dean asked. He had to concentrate hard to make the words come out right, but he had to ask this now. It couldn't wait.

"I don't know," Dad said, then cleared his throat. "The doctors said that there are second- and third-degree burns covering most of your back and some of your arms and chest. You've got a long road ahead of you, Dean."

Dean just nodded, barely comprehending any of that. Or, he knew what Dad was saying, but he had a hard time thinking that it was important. "Where's Sammy?" Probably down getting something to eat. Or maybe at Bobby's, Dad wouldn't want him in the hospital until Dean was doing better.

Dad was shaking his head, though.

"He's gone," Dad said, and for a second, Dean thought that his dad was going to start crying again.

For a long minute, Dean just stared at his dad, not understanding. It was like Dean heard the words, but his mind couldn't put them together in a way that made sense, because there was no way that Sam could be gone.

Then Dean got it.

"They broke down the closet door," Dean said, talking more to himself than to Dad. "Or they burned him out, made him leave the bathroom." Dean should have thought about that. He should've realized that the sigils wouldn't hold them out forever. He should've-

"No," Dad said softly. "The bathroom wasn't even touched."

Dean froze. "But I drew the sigils," he whispered. "They couldn't have gotten to Sammy unless the sigils were destroyed first."

Unless-

He didn't want to finish that thought. But when he looked at his dad, and saw the judgment in his eyes, Dean realized that Dad was thinking the exact same thing that Dean was.

The sigils hadn't worked. Dean had drawn them wrong.

All of that time learning how to draw them, and the one time that it mattered, Dean had fucking done it wrong.

Dean couldn't blame his dad for crying now. Because Dean was crying, too.

Sam wasn't stupid. Dean and Dad might not tell him much, but Sam still knew a lot. Some of it came from listening to them when they talked about hunts – even though they didn't know that he was listening, and would've been mad if they ever found out that he was spying on them. Other things came from reading Dad's journal at night, after Dean was already passed out in bed. Dean thought that he should be protected from all this dark stuff until he was older, but Sam had wanted to know about what kinds of things were out there and ready to kill him.

Which was how Sam knew that he was in Hell.

The demons hadn't killed him. They hadn't even hurt him at all, except for their nails digging into his skin when they gripped him too tightly. Sam had thought that you could only go to Hell if you were dead, but apparently he had been wrong, because he didn't have a doubt that that was where he was.

They passed rows of cells, hundreds of people screaming for help, trying to reach for him through the bars. The Yellow-Eyed demon kept his hands on Sam's shoulders, pushing him forward, not letting him stop. Not that Sam wanted to. He stared straight in front of him, because if he looked at all of these people, then he was going to start crying harder than he already was.

Finally, they left the torture behind. One second, they'd been passing a woman being stretched on a rack, and the next, they were in front of a palace, as though they had transported between one step and the next.

The room that the demon brought him to was brightly lit, and cozier than Sam had been expecting. He hadn't thought that anything in Hell could be described like that, or could be this nice, and that kind of scared him more than the torture had. At least with the torture stuff, he'd known to expect it.

"Sit," the demon said, and steered him into a chair that was more comfortable than half the furniture in the motels that he was used to. Sam sat stiffly, his hands clenched around his knees, trying to keep himself from shaking. He had to be brave, like Dean had been.

Dean hadn't given up even when the demons had been hurting him. Sam had heard Dean scream, and had also heard him scream at Sam that it was okay, even as he'd been burned. Now, Sam didn't even know if his brother was still alive. The demons had said that he was, but they could lie.

Sam wasn't going to think about that, though. Dean was alive because he had to be, because the demons had promised that he was, and Sam was going to get through this by acting like his brother would have. And that meant that he couldn't be afraid.

Sam used the back of one hand to wipe the tears and snot from his face, then looked up at the demon, trying to glare at him. "What do you want with me?"

The demon smiled, looking pleased with the question. "Everything, Sam," he said. "You're the one."

Sam frowned. "I'm the what?"

"The one," the demon repeated, moving a step closer to Sam. And Sam couldn't help it, he shrank back in his seat. Even pretending to be Dean wasn't enough to keep him from shying away from the demon, desperate to keep the demon as far away from him as possible.

The demon just looked even more amused as he took another step closer toward Sam, and this time, there wasn't anywhere for Sam to go, or any way that he could get away. "We planned on having a competition, to see who would be the strongest. But that was before we knew who you were. Now, we don't need anyone else. We've already decided. You're the one."

"What does that mean?" And Sam's voice sounded small and scared, damn it. Dean would be spitting at the demon and making rude comments, Sam just knew it. But Sam didn't think that he was strong enough to be like Dean, after all. "What am I?"

The demon's smile almost seemed to soften as he knelt in front of Sam. And that was another thing that was way worse than the creepy grins of earlier. Demons weren't supposed to look at anybody like that, like they were almost happy or proud or loving. And that especially wasn't how they were supposed to look at Sam. The demons should hate him for being a hunter.

Sam was crying again. He'd only managed to stop for a couple of minutes, and already he was starting back up again.

"Lucifer's true vessel," the demon whispered, with something that sounded almost like awe in his voice. "The best of all my special children. There is no doubt in my mind that you will be the one that we need."

He drew a knife, and Sam flinched away, expecting the torture to start now, because that was what happened when you were brought to Hell, even if Sam was special somehow. But the demon didn't hurt Sam. Instead, he used the knife to slice open his own hand, and held it out toward Sam's face.

Sam realized what was about to happen, and shoved the hand away. His stomach clenched at the thought, until he was sure that he was going to be sick.

"You can try to fight it, Sam, but it's going to happen, anyway," the demon said, his voice low and almost soothing. "This is who you will become. And it will be so much easier if you just give in and accept that there is no escape."

Sam still tried to fight, even tried to jump to his feet so that he could run away, but he didn't even manage to get out of his chair before the demon was standing over him. The demon's bloody hand was still in front of Sam's mouth, and now his other hand was tangled in Sam's hair, forcing his head back. Sam shook his head and closed his mouth tight, still trying to protect himself. But the demon was stronger than he was. In just a second, he got Sam's mouth open, and there was nothing that Sam could do to keep the blood from dripping down his throat.

After it was over, Sam just sat there, shaking. He dry heaved, and for a second, he thought that he was actually going to be sick, and he hoped that he would, that he could get the blood out of his body that way. Even though the demon would probably just make him drink more.

"There, there, that's a good boy," the demon said. His hand was still in Sam's hair, but the touch was softer now, as he stroked Sam's head and gently pushed his bangs out of his eyes. "My little demon child," he whispered.

And Sam shuddered, because the demon was right. That was what Sam was now, with this blood inside of him. He swore that he could feel it inside him, already pumping through his veins, changing him. Making him twisted. Disgusting.

Demonic.