The second time Dean descended to Hell, nobody had been able to do anything about it. Castiel's grace had been ripped out, and even when he eventually "borrowed" his brother's grace in a desperate attempt to gain enough energy to go get Dean, his lack of wings still left him unable to rip through the dimensions to Hell and once more pull Dean through the resultant void.

Demons and reapers were uncooperative- the last reaper to help the Winchesters had been unceremoniously stabbed to death, and none wished to repeat the process. And the demons, if they were inclined to help the Winchesters at all for any price, were caught up in a civil war- Hell was a battleground, and none were going to risk their necks against the warring factions just to bring back Dean Winchester.

By the time Crowley finally retook Hell and deigned to bring Dean Winchester back to his brother and angel, a whole year had passed- and a year was over a century in Hell.

Crowley appeared first, his eyes dark with an emotion none of them could place, his ever-present bespoke suit ripped in places. Sam and Castiel stood up rapidly, Castiel with his angel blade in hand, Sam pointing his gun with reflexes honed by years of practice.

Crowley sighed, half-raised his hands in surrender.

"I'm here to bring back Squirrel, but I can just as easily leave him there if the weapons stay in the room."

The blade and gun were rapidly dropped.

He looked up at them both, eyes flicking guiltily between Castiel and Sam before finally, heavily, resting on Sam.

"You know how long a year is in Hell?"

Castiel spoke, his voice thick with fear of what he knew and what it meant for Dean.

"One hundred and twenty years."

Sam couldn't exactly remember his own one hundred and twenty years (and more), but he knew he didn't want to remember them.

Crowley dragged a hand through his hair, looking more emotionally affected than either of them realised Crowley could be affected.

"Ordinarily, that wouldn't be enough to convert a human soul to a demon. It takes a long time-" Crowley briefly looked a lot older than he usually did. "-A very, very long time. But Dean- Dean apprenticed for fourty years under Alastair, and that was before he went under this time around, and he was a lot more broken this time around and with a lot more demons happy to torture-"

Castiel cut in, voice shaking and embued with celestial power he hadn't called upon in over a year. "What. Is. Your. Point."

Crowley looked honestly afraid.

"He's- you could call it partially demonic. Still with a fair range of human emotions, but a lot of demonic anger too. He's essentially got all of the demonic powers, but none of the conscious control over them."

"He's part-demon." Sam managed, looking pale and more than a little terrified.

Crowley nodded silently.

"Just so you know what you're getting into here. Dean's not who he was anymore."

Castiel looked shaky.

"We can cure him."

Crowley shook his head swiftly.

"Not now. Not yet. Curing a demon's been done twice, and only successfully once-" Crowley made a gesture to himself to point out the unsuccessful attempt. "-And Squirrel's only partly demonic, the damn demon curing thing nearly killed me, and I'm the King of Hell, and you didn't even finish the process. I'm not enamoured of Dean, but you could damn well kill him trying to save him."

Castiel looked suspicious of Crowley being willing to help, but Sam had been at ground zero of Crowley's half-curing, and he was more willing to believe the King of Hell.

"So- so what? We just leave him demon?" Sam said incredulously.

"For now. We research and find a way to cure him."

Castiel frowned. "We?"

Crowley gave him a look. "I know Squirrel. The last thing I want is a homicidally angry demonic Dean Winchester in my Hell."

There was no reason to refute that. Sam gave a helpless shrug.

"So what now?"

"I'm giving him over to you to prevent any further soul corruption- I'm sure Castiel and I can rig up a barrier between his memories of Hell and him."

"He won't know he's part-demon?"

"Exactly."

And so it happened. Sam had been partly relieved and partly terrified when he first saw Dean again- asleep, a barrier placed between his memories of Hell and his own mind (and wasn't that reminiscent of his own experiences with Hell?). And when Dean had woken up, rather than attacking or stabbing Sam as he had been afraid of, his older brother merely embraced him with a vigorous fervour. Sam just told him Castiel had pulled him from Hell. Castiel didn't interject- he was too busy staring at Dean with a mix of fear and relief.

Days went by, weeks- Sam insisted that Dean couldn't go out hunting, not yet, not while he was still recovering from Hell. Dean had gotten steadily more irate with this assessment, even with both Castiel and Sam telling him he couldn't leave- an obsession with wanting to hunt had rooted in Dean with far more fervour than Dean had ever had before, and it all came to a head in an argument less than a fortnight after his lifting from Hell.

And when, in a particularly angry monologue from Dean that he was "just as strong" as he had been before Hell (which Sam could hardly refute), his older brother's eyes had flashed black and returned to green again, it was all Sam could do not to go for his gun.

Sam had, unable to function fully after seeing a full demonstration of just how different his brother was out of Hell, backed down, and agreed to go with Dean on a small hunt- just a suspected ghost, nothing more.

It hadn't just been a ghost.

The demon that had in fact been causing the deaths of a family in Wisconsin had no idea the Winchesters had been hunting him. He never did know- they never managed to finish the hunt.

Dean looked up from across the room as he put the finishing touches on a devil's trap. Sam, on the opposite side of the room, was chalking up one on the ceiling.

"You sure this is gonna be enough?"

Sam shrugged vaguely, teetering on a spindly chair as he drew on the painted ceiling. "Probably; I mean, if this guy's dumb enough to get on some hunters' radar, he's probably dumb enough to get caught in a devil's trap on the ceiling while he looks at the one on the floor."

Dean snorted. "These bastards are thousands of years old and they're still too dumb to figure out a basic double-bluff trap."

And, as Dean walked over to inspect Sam's work more closely, he crossed over the devil's trap he had just chalked on the floor.

Sam heard a muted banging as Dean walked into the invisible barrier of the devil's trap, but only registered just how bad this was when he heard the shocked yelps of Dean a second later.

He spun, almost falling off the chair, as he suddenly realised what had happened.

Dean had no idea what was happening.

"What the fuckin'-" He banged an arm on the barrier, looked down at the devil's trap, looked up at Sam.

"Sam, something's wrong, I can't-"

He banged an arm on the barrier again. Then, as if on the fringe of realisation, he became panicked and angry, eyes flashing black involuntarily as he began slamming again and again against the barrier of the devil's trap.

Sam, at a loss of what else to do, unable to console his brother in a way that was both truthful and calm, pulled out Ruby's knife, knelt, and scratched out a line of the devil's trap.

Dean suddenly found no resistance at an invisible barrier, and fell through, crashing to the ground.

There was silence then, punctuated only by Dean's heavy, panicked breathing.

He slowly got to his knees. Stood. His eyes still black, fading slowly to green, training on Sam. Sam stood too, unable to maintain a calm expression.

Dean quietly looked at the devil's trap. Still staring at it, he held a hand out to Sam.

"Give me the knife."

Sam clenched his hand ever-so-slightly more tightly around Ruby's knife.

"Wha-"

"Sammy." Dean's voice broke slightly. He looked up at Sam then, eyes wide, still flickering between green and black. "Give me the knife."

Sam shook his head jerkily. "No."

Dean was suddenly speed and fury, lashing out, a hand towards the knife as Sam moved to block him.

Only a second later, Sam had backed away in shock. The knife clattered to the ground from their warring hands.

Dean stared in horror at the cut on the back of his wrist, bleeding orange light.

Silence reigned for a few seconds more.

And then, slowly, eyes flashing between black and hazel green, Dean sank to his knees, tears forming at the corner of his vision as he stared at the cut on his wrist.

It was all Sam could do not to cry as well.

God damn I need to stop reading tumblr posts and writing fics based on them. Especially as those fics are incredibly bad quality. But all credit for the idea goes to salt-and-pepper-panda on tumblr. I'm just a terrible writer who writes people's ideas.

I actually like this piece! For now, that is. In a couple of hours I'll likely despise it and wish I had never uploaded it. But for now, I'm pretty hyped about it. Look at all that quality usage of brotherly conflict! A cameo from everyone's favourite angel and everyone's favourite demon(who I need to start writing again goddamn I'm only halfway through the next chapter of that)! How there is literally no plot! Beautiful!

As ever, reviews and concrit would be wonderful.

Have a great day!