|"It's not worth less, either."|

A/N: REALLY quick take a look at the cover pic I used... I did the Manip on myself... That is Sam as a burn victim..

A/N: SPOILERS for Season 9 Finale… But a special TAG for Season 9 Episode 11 "First Born.".. When Sam told Castiel that his life isn't "worth more than anyone else's"… The title is something I think that Sam needs to hear from BOTH Dean and Castiel at some point… Well, someone WILL say that to him and MEAN IT in THIS story… But there is going to be a long, dark and dangerous road that has to be traveled to get to that point and when it does get there, the words might be 'too little, too late' to help Sam down from the ledge he's been teetering on since he was a child…

A/N: WARNINGS: oh boy… BIG laundry list of WARNINGS here… There will be mentions of Sam becoming Catatonic (Like BAD kind of Catatonic, no talking, no interacting, no making any noise except the noise of his breathing, it'll be like he's in a Coma, except he'll be conscious and just not reacting to ANYTHING AT ALL… not anything he 'sees', 'hears', 'smells' or 'FEELS', not even physical pain (Well… there will be ONE moment where Sam will try to communicate 'something')… But Sam becoming Catatonic won't be till WAY later, Sam will also end up with third degree burns on over half of his body and will also be paralyzed (kind of part of the reason he becomes COMPLETELY Catatonic and again, the winding up burned and paralyzed thing will come WAY later)… Mentions of Sam being sexually assaulted more than once when he was still a minor and molested when he was a very small child (BAD 'babysitter' and Clowns at Plucky's) as well as mentions of Sam being raped by Lucifer in The Cage and how Sam considered his ill-gotten consent being misused by Gadreel the way it was as well as Crowley's and Gadreel's joint possession of him as multiple different forms of rape... A lot of the things that will be revealed about Sam's childhood and feelings will come in as a trip through Sam's 'fears', like Dean had to do with Charlie in Season 8 Episode 20 "Pac-Man Fever." except Sam's fears is Dean finding out about not only what Sam now remembers of his past (like he didn't remember SOME things until after certain other things due to all the times his memory's been wiped and messed with or repressed out of 'survival' and/or 'coping' mechanisms) but what Sam's idea of Heaven REALLY is as well as what Sam's 'greatest hits' really are (not that they're "bad"… But Sam doesn't have a lot of 'good' things left in his memories and he's afraid of those things being taken away so he subconsciously locked them up along with his TRUE idea of Heaven and threw away the key to keep EVERYONE who might break into his head space out of the things he doesn't want to lose, which also means Dean and whoever else might be with Dean when Dean does find a way into that part of Sam's mind (Which is the BIGGEST reason Sam ends up going completely Catatonic..) and all of Sam's memory's will basically be a play by play of what I already have as Young Sam's memories in "Because it hurts." except tweaked just a bit (hopefully it'll make sense when I get there)… mentions of Sam being suicidal and institutionalized, between Seasons 7 and 8, mentions of Season 10 Time Frame Sam being tortured and raped, LOTS of mentions of 'HalLucifer' and 'Hellucinations' and lots of Sam being put through the grinder before the end… Neither a happy nor an overtly sad ending is planned for this… No PERMANENT Main Character Deaths (well… except for Maybe Crowley or other 'Main' "bad guys"… although I doubt Crowley is gonna die anytime soon… but other 'Main' "bad guys" aren't entirely off the hit-list)… Possible SPOILERS for Season 10 in the first few Chapters before I travel into Head Canon (that may or may not eventually be proven to be real Canon at some point).. Also mentions of Demon!Dean being 'cured' (hmm… BUT… Will he STAY cured?) and it will be depressing because it won't be Sam to do the curing (because Sam is DOOMED to NEVER be the one to 'save' Dean…) (Except he will end up actually being THE ONE to REALLY "SAVE" Dean… interpret THAT however you will… and DEAN will FINALLY actually 'SAVE' Sam (again… Up to interpretation)… but again.. neither overtly happy or sad ending… BITTERSWEET would probably be the BEST word for the ending I have planned..)… scenes with Cass being a main caretaker… Mentions of Cass becoming human (again), lots of domesticated Cass, lots of domesticated Dean (eventually)…

BLANKET WARNING: For anything and everything else that may offend and/or trigger anyone that I didn't include in the list of WARNINGS above…

AND…

EXTREME TISSUE WARNING: This is being written specifically to induce massive amounts of weeping..

Please read, enjoy and review..

Reviews equal carrots and my super cute and fluffy baby plot bunnies really need the carrots so, please review!

Now..

Onto the story…

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|"It's not worth less, either."|

~0~

Sam paced back and forth, his frustration amplified by his impatience… He had summoned Crowley over fifteen minutes ago and still Crowley had not shown up… Fifteen minutes that he spent drowning in desperation because he still couldn't come to grasps that Dean was gone, his body was cold and lifeless and unless Crowley showed up, there might not be a way to get Dean back… Because he knew that Castiel's grace had already been fading rapidly when he went with Gadreel to Heaven to break The Angel Tablet, so it was unlikely that Castiel's grace would have the strength to bring someone back from the dead, and he wouldn't trust Gadreel with something as important as Dean's life… Of course that's if, Cass and Gadreel were even still alive, as far as he knows, both Cass and Gadreel might be dead by now… And he doubts that any of the other angels would offer him or Dean any kind of aid as they had made their opinions of Dean clear when they went to Metatron's side and even if one did offer to help, he wouldn't trust them as far as he could throw them…

Fickle children that they were, constantly trading sides, he honestly didn't trust any of them, not even Cass, not really, but he had spared more attempts at trusting Cass because he wanted to believe that Cass was different…. But Cass wasn't answering his prayers, so Cass was either dead or couldn't come or had maybe even turned traitor again… he honestly didn't know and couldn't come to care… Not with his brother's body lying cold and lifeless in a room just down the hall.

Bringing Crowley in. FORCING Crowley to help, really did seem like his only option right now… No. He didn't trust the stout little bastard at all, but the sad fact of the matter was, was that for a bad guy, Crowley had come in handy more times than he can count and it was looking more and more like he really needed him right now if he was going to have any kind of real chance at saving Dean…

Time crawled by.. Thirty minutes passed and still, no Crowley. His heart wanted to rip itself from his chest out of sheer desperation. It was just like when Dean and Cass had just disappeared in an explosion of black goo after killing Dick Roman. He had been alone, there hadn't been anyone. No angels who would answer his pleading prayers for help and guidance, no demons who would deal with him, no hunters he could trust to help him with something like that. The only comfort he had, had, had been the knowledge that Dean's soul didn't go to Hell, and the assumption that Purgatory could only contain the 'souls' of supernatural creatures, which had left him with the bittersweet relief of thinking that Dean's soul had to have gone to Heaven….

Except, right now, he didn't have the illusion of getting to logically believe that Dean's soul would have gone to Heaven to comfort him this time as The Mark of Cain had been doing something to Dean… Had been changing Dean… And he knows that The Mark came with a great burden that Dean hadn't even cared to ask about before taking it and all he can do right now is ASSUME that the burden of The Mark had come with was the worst sort of price, that the ways it had been changing Dean had been in all of the worst sorts of ways. That The Mark of Cain could have very well come at the cost of Dean's soul being damned straight into Hell… And he cannot, will not, let Dean suffer like that again, he won't allow Dean's soul to stay stuck in Hell for long.

He doesn't care what he has to do. Even if he has to hunt down DEATH himself and barter a way into Purgatory so he can go through the backdoor of Hell to get Dean's soul out the same way he did Bobby's.

It's been an hour, since he summoned Crowley and he still hasn't gotten a response. He knows this means he has to take matters into his own hands, that he has no choice but to do this on his own no matter how impossible it seems, no matter what it might cost him, he has to get Dean's soul out of Hell and back into his body, everything else can be figured out later.

But first, he needs to find a way to preserve Dean's body as best as possible as he has no clue how long it will take him to figure out a way to get Dean's soul back into his body.

He opens the door to Dean's room and sees that the bed where he had lain his brother's body is empty..

The devastation at such findings hit him right in the chest like a speeding freight train. Dean's body is gone… Dean is gone.

And he doesn't know who has taken him, or what has been done to and/or with his body… And worst of all…. Once again, he has no clue how to get Dean back….

TBC….

A/N: My next Chapter to "Because it Hurts." Will be up soon, I had been hopped up on expresso and had been ready and excited to finally be edging towards 'Present Day' Sam's memories, but then all the caffeine in all those expressos I drank nearly put me into a caffeine induced coma, I was like super, super hyper, then the crash hit me sudden and hard and put me down for the count as far as coherent and cohesive thought that is required when trying to write.. then as I finally amped up to tackle my next Chapter to "Because it hurts.", again, I could not stop thinking about all of the possibilities for Season 10 and I thought about how I'd really love to see the sort of memories that are revealed in "Because it hurts." Put into something that's set in Season 10… And then I was like.. Well, what if Sam got touched by one of those bastard offshoots of a Jin?... and then this story began to manifest… It's a combination of ideas for the memories revealed in "Because it hurts.", the ideas behind "There's only so much a person can have taken from them." as well as ideas plucked from a few other stories…