"What do you mean, 'Sam wants to deal?'" Dean rasped, feeling a first spark of fear flare to life deep in his gut. He sat up on the foul pallet that had passed for his bed these past weeks and shoved his hands beneath his thighs to hide the quaking.

But Billie only smiled. She leaned against the wall of the dank cell that had become his own personal hell on Earth, and she smiled.

And deep down, Dean seethed. He hated this … woman … so much it was nearly palpable. She'd been gunning for them both for years - ever since that crap had gone down with The Darkness - and Dean was well and truly through with her. His eyes narrowed.

"You're not reaping Sam."

She smirked. "What makes you think I haven't already?" she tossed out, all mysterious. And Dean thought he'd never wanted to maim a bitch so badly in his life.

But then he thought about his brother and about the sharp, intuitive mind that bounced around inside that gargantuan head, and it was his turn to smirk. Sam would never go willingly like this - not without getting some kind of word to Dean.

The younger man knew what that kind of news would do to his brother. What it HAD done. In The Past. And on more than one occasion.

He relaxed. "You're lying."

Billie's smirk dissipated, relegated to parts unknown, and her eyes flashed fire. "Think so?" She baited him. "Why else would I be here?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe to play another one of your craptastic games?" He shot back. "You know, for two people you claim to hate, you sure spend an awful lot of time courtin' me and Sam. He leaned comfortably back against the wall. "Do I at least get dinner this time, sweetheart?"

She stared at him, silent, but Dean could see fury barely concealed beneath her seemingly calm exterior, and damned if it wasn't a thing of beauty.

"You can't trick me." He informed her. "Not when it comes to my brother."

She tilted her head, encouraging him to overplay his hand. "No? I know all about the sad, sick little relationship that exists between the Winchester boys." She gloated. "Sam falls, and you beg, borrow and deal to get him back. You pick him up, dust him off a little. Buy him a beer. But if YOU fall; Sam slips right into suicide mode." she delighted in the way Dean's eyes suddenly narrowed. "What makes you think he hasn't ditched you again, Dean? Have you forgotten Flagstaff? Stanford? … The Cage?"

"Screw you." Dean snarled, refusing to elaborate and furious that, in one sentence, she'd just summed up every fear he'd ever had about his brother.

Sam did have that unfortunate history of sacrificing himself when shit went down.

But not like this. Never like this. Sam wouldn't volunteer himself to The Empty just to free Dean from this hell that smelled like tombstones and his own stale, panicked sweat.

Sam wouldn't do that. He wouldn't deal - not without talking things over with Dean first.

Would he?

"Take me to him." Dean barked. "Now!"

But Billie just laughed, her head tossed back, body shaking with mirth. "Oh, Dean." She winked. "Always with the scissors."

And then she was gone.

She was gone, and Dean was safe and sound back in the bunker, with nothing but the lilt of her cruel laughter echoing down the hall.

-THE END-