AN: for Dangermouse00! I hope you like it girl

Spoilers: up to The Great Pumpkin

Thanks to Morgan for betaing and Sky for brain storming. You both rock so hard!

"Now Hell and Heaven grapple at our backs, and all our old pretense is ripped away…We are only what we always were, but naked now. Aye naked! And the wind, God's icy wind, will blow." Proctor, Arthur Miller's the Crucible.

Sam was running out of similes to describe the pain. There wasn't an "it hurts like…" in the world that really covered it. He drilled his fingers against his brow, lightening the pressure marginally. There was a time when he had been used to the headaches, but with Ruby's training they started to fade.

But he hadn't been training lately and Samhain wasn't exactly a back-alley demon.

The headaches hadn't been as bad when he first started. He nearly passed out a few times with the Max Miller visions, but they weren't as crippling as the Andy ones. Still, neither held anything on the headaches he got when Ruby first started training him.

Or maybe it wasn't that they were worse but that he went through them alone.

Ruby had been there for the training, but she hadn't stuck around for the after show. Not that he had wanted her to. She didn't know the changes of timbre in his voice that were so telling when he was in pain. She didn't know the exact spot on his neck to rub to ease the tension; she wouldn't even know to see the tension building there in the first place. If she had known, it wouldn't have mattered.

She wasn't Dean. Plain and simple.

He leaned stiffly against the pillow, his muscles cording more with every movement.

"I'm ready." Sam stepped forth out of the darkness. It would not be completely accurate to say the shadows danced. It was more like the shadows braced, as if shifting into a more protected posture.

The younger hunter opened his eyes and squinted at the white washed wall. The dream had been short, but left an unsettling feeling in his gut. He clamped his eyes shut and tried to turn his pained mind outward, focusing on the subtle sounds around him.

Wind pelted the thin walls mercilessly, but not enough to block on the sound of the TV in the neighboring room. He heard the sound of the door squeaking. Dean was back. He felt a surprising amount of strain release from him with that thought.

"You've come so far Sammy," the cold voice hissed.

"Don't call me Sammy."

"There is only one person allowed to call you that…isn't there Sam?"

"Shut up."

"He's dead…and he's never coming back. Not this time."

"Shut up!"

"You should consider yourself lucky, most people don't get the chance to strike out three times in this game."

"I said shut up!" Sam screamed.

"Was I chewing too loudly?"

The younger Winchester peeled his eyes open, seeing Dean standing at the foot of his bed. Though his words were teasing his eyes held only concern.

"It was just a dream," Sam tried to assure though his voice was a little too unsteady to hold any confidence.

"What was it about?"

"I don't know," he replied truthfully. But a part of him felt like he should know.

"How's the head?" Dean asked, perching on the other bed.

"Still attached."

"Seriously dude, you ok?"

Sam met his brother's eyes, feeling the tension easing slowly. It was strange. It felt like he had just returned from Stanford again. In a hunt they were perfectly in tune with each other, never missing a beat. Their banter was easy and so welcome after those four months alone, but it was this part—the every day part—that still felt out of sync. Like they had to ease back into each other again.

Sam didn't care because Dean was back, and just like after Stanford he knew it was only a matter of time.

"Torture?"

The younger Winchester blinked against the sudden words.

"You really are coming around to my way of thinking."

"Sam?'

Agonized screams filled the narrow room, as he fell to his knees. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. Bright red tainted blood.

"I know it hurts," a voice cooed, a finger traced the outline of his chin. "But once you give yourself over the pain will stop."

"Sammy?" Dean was in front of him, hands carefully bracing his shoulders.

"De…"

The pain slowly faded, but the voice did not.

"Onwards and upwards Sam, we have work to do."

"Is it a vision?"

Sam shook his head desperately, trying to focus on Dean. Trying to force words past his lips. It couldn't be a vision. Dear God, please let it not be a vision.

They were never shadows, those things around the corners of his perception. He realized it now.

He was standing in a room full of demons.

They didn't attack. They just stood swaying, hissing and waiting expectantly. Something was coming. Something they had been waiting for a long time. Sam could feel it.

"Brethren," the voice beside him hissed. "You've waited millennia for this day. Brethren, I compel you. Wait no longer."

Sam twisted Dean's shirt in his white knuckled grip. Reality and dream were interlacing in a sickening dance. No…no…this couldn't be happening.

Ruby walked forward out of the crowd, her wavy black hair falling over her shoulder. She looked up at him with a gentle smile so out of place. She clutched to her chest a wooden box. It looked ordinary save the pentagram on its lid. A star of Solomon, keeping the demons out.

"What is it?" Sam questioned, her grin widened unnervingly.

"Pandora," she said, placing it in his hands. "Your dominion." He gripped the box in his cold hands. It smelled like cedar and blood. He felt Ruby's delicate hand on his arm, and turned to her. She stared up at him, brown eyes expectant.

"Ruby," he hissed, "You've served me well." She leaned toward him, her lips nearly brushing his. Ruby sucked in a breath and pulled away, eyes widening as she stared at her gut. Sam's fist was locked in her middle, new strength tearing it clean through her skin. She gasped in pain and shock.

"Master?"

"You've served me long enough," he cooed into her ear, his breath tussling her hair. She fell to the ground, her eyes unseeing.

Hot tears fell from Sam's eyes as he tried to cling to Dean. He could feel his brother's frantic movements, hear the desperate words, before he started to sink again.

Sam looked up at the crowd. Each demon watched carefully. Though the expressions varied he could feel a collective impatience. They had been waiting for so long.

He looked at the box again. Only he could open it. That was why they needed him. He was still human…despite what Bobby may think. He peeled back the lid.

It was like a scream more pained and shrill than anything he had ever heard. The power that rushed around him in that instant made him lightheaded. One of the demons at his side feel to the ground limp. Sam had the vaguest notion that it had just fainted. It was beyond description, overloading his neurotransmitters with the intensity of stimulation. One of the demons behind him screamed.

And Sam started to laugh. The kind of laugh one is used to hearing if they work in a psych ward.

The laugh of a mad man.

Sam screamed and jerked against the arms holding him. The clarity of the dream began to fade into a confused and hopeless jumble.

Fear…blood…pain…darkness…screaming.

Bobby his friend, his father, the only family he had left, looking at him with terrified eyes.

Scarlet staining his pale hands.

A glimpse, brief, of a reflection. Sam stared at himself and his pale yellow eyes.

"Noooooooooo!" he wailed, lashing at the binds around him.

"Shhh…Sammy, calm down, I got you." Dean sounded desperate and scared. He had a right to be scared… "Shhh, it's just a dream. It's just a dream."

"A dream?" the younger begged.

"Yeah Sammy, a dream."

It was a moment before Sam's senses returned to him. Warmth was the first to break through the fog. He opened his eyes hesitantly and saw the stubble on Dean's chin.

"Dean?" he murmured, stilling his fight.

"Yeah?" Still worried, the older shifted. Shifted the arm that was around him. So that was why he was warm.

"You're real?"

"Yeah Sam, I'm real."

It was a dream. Only a dream. That's all he would let it be, but Sam slowly lifted his hand up in front of him. No crimson, only dirt. He sunk further into his brother's arms.

"What happened?" the younger finally asked.

"I came in and you were pretty out of it," Dean replied slowly. "You were talking a bit, then…then you started screaming." Dean was scared, but not of him. For him. The way he always had been.

There was a flutter over by the window. Sam jerked his eyes open—unsure when they had closed again. The dark shape was familiar enough to recognize even with his blurred vision.

Uriel.

The angel turned to him, eyes narrowed into slits.

"That's what will happen Sam," the being hissed, "If you continue down that path." Sam shuddered against a sudden cold.

"Sam…Sam?" His eyes darted back to Dean. "You with me?"

"Don't you see…?" the younger turned his eyes back toward the window. There was nothing there but the lingering chill.

He leaned into Dean's arms and cried.