"The Devil Doesn't Get an Advocate."

Mystic25

Summary: My answer to the challenge about Dean defending Sam against people who over hear him talking to his hallucinations about Hell.

Rating: T for violence, language and imagery.

A/N:Exact wording of the challenge: Sam's method of grounding himself and keeping reality straight is pain. Problem is, his hand has healed. So he's got to get creative. I don't necessarily mean serious self-harm, just little things. But then other people (hotel clerks, waitresses, etc) start noticing the creepy tall guy who zones out, occasionally talks to air, and randomly pinches or slaps himself. I don't imagine Dean would take to kindly to people using words like 'freak' or 'psycho' behind Sam's back. Bonus points if one day he snaps and tell them exactly the kind of monumental sacrifice Sam made for the world that left him this way, even if it means they think Dean is crazy too.

A/N #2: I wrote this before the latest episode aired.

Disclaimer: Sarah Gamble is a damn lucky woman, these toys are hers. I will give them back, only because I must.

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"The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing."

~Herodotus

"How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened."

~Benjamin Franklin

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You aren't crazy if you talk to yourself; only if you answer yourself. Sam was talking to himself; but, lately, who he was answering…

He shuddered.

He pretended to attribute it to his "runner's high" his feet beating out a rhythm to the Three Days Grace song playing through his ear buds. Dean had given him hell about liking the band; saying that they tried too hard to be hard, and that made them dooshbags. But, Dean had his rock music, and Sam had his.

A strip mall along a single lane highway, and patches of trees and grass that had survived the developmental construction all blurred past Sam as he ran, feet pumping one, two, three on the black asphalt.

His shadow was almost gone in the late afternoon sun, warm on his neck, leaking sweat into his shirt gray shirt and black hoodie. The jacket was making him a little too warm, but the air outside was too cold to take it off. The end result of that stalemate left Sam with it on, and besides it had a pocket where he could stash his iPod and run without it crashing and breaking on his sneakers.

Dean had a field day about Sam's sudden stint into a marathon runner's circuit training. But, running was a way to blow off excess steam for Sam, to clear his head, because after seven years of what he had been through, he had a lot to clear. Running had become Sam's vice, the way alcohol in a flask, had sadly become Dean's. Sam had even tried to cajole his brother into coming with him early on; but all Dean did was shoot him a look like Sam had just solicited him for sex, and plant himself down on his bed, the remote firmly grasped in his hand, that stupid little silver flask close by his side.

But after that day, the one that had his pulse pounding in his brain, not being able to look at Dean, or talk to him, after hearing about Amy, about what he did, after being lied to- Sam wanted nothing to do with his brother. He had told him in the cold look, in the remarks to be left standing on the dock, watching about to Dean drive off, because something inside him had broken and was rattling around inside of him, and watching it's cause made it rattle more, made it scream.

But, Fate had a way with dicking with all things Winchester. Those shape shifting Leviathans hadn't left town 'as near as well as we thought' Bobby had put it in his phone call, and both boys were supposed to leave together to be safe. And, Sam had fumed, had burned almost as hot as hellfire, wanting to scream, and maybe punch Dean as hard as Dean had punched him, right before he had fucking lied to his DAMN FACE, OVER AND OVER, when they were supposed to be on the same goddamn side- But in the end, Sam's Survival Hunter Mode had kicked in, and with a last look at the dock, half ready to pitch himself into it and swim away from his brother, Sam turned and slammed into their "new car" with a silence so loud it echoed.

They drove for hours in that boulder crushing silence, in that damn car with the crappy radio that played music that Dean would've lip synched had he not tried to avoid looking at Sam, because he could sense all the heaviness Sam was shooting at him. They may have been traveling back to their old hunting grounds, but it wasn't a time traveling warp, where Sam had run off and hitchhiked, and had gone to save Dean in the aftermath of their separation. Sam wasn't that kid, anymore. He was a man now with wounds so deep they never scared over, just hardened, until a jar or shift threw them open, bleeding again. A bad joke from Dean couldn't fix this.

They checked in, John and Peter Smith, to a random hotel, by a dingy town. Dean didn't speak, Sam didn't either, he grabbed his running gear, changed in the bathroom and was out the peeling painted door before Dean could say anything.

And, Sam knew that Dean was about to talk, even when he had been enraged at Sam for setting Lucifer free, they talked, even with all that led up to the release of the Devil they talked.

But, not tonight, Sam couldn't talk.

He ran.

The air was cold, not cold enough for Sam too see his breath, but cold enough to feel it icing his exposed skin. The fumes of businesses combined into the air, wafting a singular "cheese and old hotel" smell.

His breathing, and "Never Too Late" leaking like water up into his ears, his mind running as fast as his feet, getting out frustration the fact that he couldn't run for real, he was a freakin' hamster in a wheel.

God. Damnit. DEAN.

God. Damn. LIAR.

The lyrics to song from Three Days Grace were his company, until…

"You know, I never, get why sad, depressing things supposed to make people feel better." the voice broke through the music, as a figure that made no noise when he ran, and cast no shadow, kept pace with Sam.

To say Sam 'skidded to a stop' would've been the only way to describe what happened next. Both right and left legs jerked to catch his sudden rush to get his weight to a standstill, the obscenities he had been calling Dean in his head backing into each other like dominos.

If the Devil had a different visage, Sam would never remember it. The face of Nick, the poor bastard who had agreed to house Lucifer – there was that idiom, "the devil you know" And, this was the Devil to Sam.

Sam's three mile run was ringing in his ears as, Lucifer - dressed in a solid black warm ups, with his name monogrammed in red - reached out and removed the left ear bud from Sam's ear, listening to the lyrics coming out in a tinny tin sound though the single earpiece.

"I mean; a good death and disembowelment always gets me sky high, but people?" Lucifer made a face of sarcasm. "You all prefer reaching for clouds, and praying to a god you never really believe in until your calf deep in blood." The Devil's head bobbed, like he was finding amusement in the lyrics. "Gotta admit the song's catchy though."

"You're not real," Sam shot back, saying this almost with a trace of anger- almost, but, not quite.

Lucifer shrugged, "Doesn't matter." He said this like that fact was a minor annoyance, like a nuisance of flies that had flown too close to his face. "Great little break up song you got there Sammy. Got all that angst."

"Stay the hell away from me," Sam snarled into the air that had formed into the Devil. The air was still cold, but it was growing warmer, and not just from his sweating.

"You have every right to be mad at Dean. He lied to you Sam, " Lucifer pouted a sad face, that was so simple it would've been amusing had he been anyone else, instead it was terrifying. "Over and over again; and killed that sweet little lamb of a girl, all because he thought she was a freak," the pout turned into a smile, so slow it looked painful. "And he didn't even have the balls to tell you to your face, about what he really thought of Amy, of how he really thinks about you. He had to let a bunch of sub rate protozoa spill the beans. Well, I'm going to one up the former love of your life Sam, and give it to you straight-"

The song on Sam's iPod suddenly changed from Three Days Grace to "Super Freak" in the middle of the song.

Sam didn't have Superfreak in his tracks.

Lucifer listened to the music, his eyes closing like he was enjoying the lyrics. "The truth hurts sometimes kid."

Sam's breathing hitched, having nothing to do with his recent run. He ripped the ear bud away from Lucifer, and when the shape of the Devil still remained solid with that eerily simple smile, Sam turned and ran in the other direction, back towards the hotel.

He was a good five hundred yards out from the sight of the "Starlight and Moonbeam Lounge and Motor Lodge" before he started to slow his pace down from supersonic speed. His breath was up in his eyes, and his heart was exploding like fireworks against his ribs when he finally halted all movement. He leaned up against the movable basketball hoop that had been erected in front of the hotel. It wasn't even part of a real basketball court, it was a 50 dollar roll away hoop at one end of the parking lot pock marked with pot holes from age.

But, still a handful of young guys were playing H.O.R.S.E around it, while a group of girls hung around a collection of sports cars and one really dirty Frontier pickup truck on hydraulic tires. The girls were all young, and were obviously trying to impress the men on the court because they all had opted to unzip their velour jackets to half mast.

The sound of clinking beer bottles echoed in asphalt, buffering against the drowning sounds of air in Sam's ears.

His hands were on his knees, as he panted to regain his breath.

"Hey man, you're blocking the shot!" one of the guys playing ball blew past Sam, going for a bank shot, but missed because Sam was standing directly in front of the net, sending the ball zinging off the backboard and rolling off in a diagonal down the parking lot.

"Sorry," Sam said out of breath, he pushed himself up, and unzipped his jacket, because cold, or not, it was starting to suffocate him after having run flat out for the last mile, after literally being chased by the devil.

He moved to stand by where Dean had parked the rust coated tan Toyota, two spaces down from the dirty truck. His gray t-shirt was damp with sweat and clung to his chest. There was some movement from the girls by the cluster of cars as they roamed their eyes appreciatively over what Sam's sweat dampened shirt was revealing to them about his chest.

Sam wiped a hand to the back of his neck, turning to look over his shoulder at the strip of road he had just ran down, A white Fiat moved at 35 mph down the road, a red Honda Civic cut it off, horns blared, but nothing else happened. He slung the jacket onto the hood of the car.

The girls were all still watching him, their eyes still doing things to him, that if they got him lying down, would be considered S&M. Sam turned back and watched one of them sip on a brown beer bottle.

He approached the troop comprised of three girls: two brunettes, and one blonde with a pony tail that only seemed to lengthen her hair.

"Can I bum one of those?" Sam pointed to the beer in the blonde girl's hand.

"Sure thing." The first of the two brunettes, smiled with lips completely back, and pulled a beer bottle from the slushy ice inside a blue opened cooler.

"Thanks," Sam took the bottle when she offered it to him, and twisted off the lid, taking two swallowfuls in one single gulp. His body was screaming for water; but Sam wasn't ready to be inside yet where his stash of bottled water was. Out here, even in a dirty parking lot of a hotel that looked like a condemned shopping mall, it was still open, the ending of it not discernable, plenty of space.

Inside, there was just two beds, a plastic table, one TV with antenna and Dean, it was too closed off, not enough room to avoid both-

"You got a name baby?" It was the blonde, she had pulled her beer bottle from her rose painted lips, and watched him with eyes so deeply brown they were almost black.

"Sorry," Sam said this politely, like they were meeting during the intermission of a play, than outside where they were. "It's Sam," he took another hit from his beer bottle, and that politeness faded into where they were.

The blonde's eyebrows rose, and she cast a look to her friends who were laughing low and coy and impressed at Sam's beer drinking ability.

"Sam, huh?" The blonde circled the rim of her beer bottle neck with her finger, her smile matching her finger's slowness. "I could get into that."

"Sammy's found himself a lady," Lucifer was in-between the blonde and Sam, eyeing the woman's cleavage blatantly showing out of her low cut pink tank top and matching jacket. "Well, sort of. Granted she's no Kitsuni, but she's probably up for a roll in your hay. "

"You're not real," Sam said to Lucifer, his voice low, trying not to let it carry any further than his hand. Because, it sounded like only what it was – crazy.

But the blonde still picked up on it. "What?" her voice was confused, like she had misheard.

"Don't be such a buzz kill Sammy," Lucifer insisted. "The Devil is in the details after all," Lucifer laid a hand on the blonde's shoulder. "But seriously Sam, you might want to stay away from this one." His noise inhaled right off of her neck, then turning back to Sam, one hand idly tracing the girl's white skin at the dip where in her neck where her carotid and jugular met; the blonde didn't even move. "The Whore of Babylon had less STD's."

"I told you to stay the hell away from me!" Sam's voice was a sharp edged whisper, one that turned the blonde and her friend's faces to him with a look that wondered if this was a guy that they should've avoided.

As much as Sam was 'handling it' seeing the Devil less than a foot in front of him, taunting him, always brought him back to square one. It was battle he fought every day since his Wall had fallen. It was why he had to run, from Dean as soon as he could. It was supposed to be, after all that shit, him and Dean against them. But, their life was cyclical, recycled, they always found themselves standing at opposite corners, somehow.

It was painful, but it was true.

And it hurt.

"Now that wasn't very nice Sam," Lucifer said. "That's my home you're talking about."

"Shut. Up!" Sam hissed through clenched teeth.

The blonde girl took a step back, "Excuse me?" Sam's eyes were on her and not on her when he talked, darting back and forth looking at a spot in the air.

The blonde took another step back, eyeing her friends, wishing that she hadn't left her MACE back at her house.

Lucifer pouted, looking like a hellhound, pretending to be a tame puppy."You remember our slumber party don't you, Sammy?" Lucifer's hand reached out to swipe a sweat sodden chunk of hair out of Sam's eyes. "How much fun we had together."

"Don't touch me!" Sam jerked away from a touch that was only in his mind, but in name only.

He was handling it, but his scar had dried up weeks ago, leaving nothing to ground him in pain. Which is why he had taken to running. To feel his lungs on fire, his muscles scream, it rooted him to the world. But that high had worn off when Lucifer had decided to become his jogging buddy.

Lucifer took a step towards Sam. "I bet I spooned way better than Amy, Sam," another step. "Waay better than Dean-"

Sam jerked backwards and it caused him to bump into the blonde, not hard; but, it sent both their beer bottles to the asphalt in a splitting crash. Her eyes became suddenly wide and fearful. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Dude, you're crazy!" The second brunette backed away from Sam like he was some feral animal that had escaped into a populated city. "Get away from her!"

The brunette's outburst had attracted the attention of the guys playing basketball. Two of them jogged over to the girls.

"What the hell's going on here?" The guy was tall, in a Pistons's Jersey, and track shorts, the basketball tucked under his arm. He stepped over to the blonde, suddenly seeing Sam standing there like he was a night ghast that had materialized out of the air. "Who are you?" he didn't put any 'colorful descriptors' before the 'you', but his voice was jagged, glaring at Sam.

"Some psycho freak!" The blonde insisted, being more adamant about her use of adjectives now that she had the audience of her boyfriend. "All we did was give him a beer, and he starts screaming shit at us, and he pushed me! He's insane!"

The girl's words were all the explanation the guy needed, his eyes turned to ice on Sam, if he had a weapon, he would've cocked it. "You need to get out of here pal!"

"Such big words from such a little pimple," Lucifer's arms were crossed over his warm up jacket, looking at the man like he was an very talkative insect he was about to kill. "He wouldn't survived as long as you did in Hell Sammy. Probably would've crapped out before I got to my best moves."

"Stop it," Sam whisper was raspy, it sounded insane, and he wasn't the only one who noticed. His anger at Dean was thrown against his skull, because Satan had invited himself into a ringside seat inside his mind.

"I'm not going to tell you again!" the guy's breath was blowing beer and aftertaste of some kind of burger in Sam's face.

"You remember those right? How I burned all the names of everyone you ever helped kill into your chest, where I ripped your flesh off, and stuck in other places, places you eventually lost your voice to scream about when they went in there." Lucifer's smile was sickening, amused, standing along the side of Sam and the other guy, like a referee at a boxing match. "I may not be real Sammy, but those are real memories."

"I said STOP!-"

Something connected hard, and fast with his jaw, sending him reeling backwards, and onto the pavement, because he wasn't expecting the blow. The ground rushed up to meet him like the hard, unyielding thing that it was.

Blood was in his mouth from the force of the punch.

"You're a fuckin' crazy psycho!"

A foot kicked Sam hard in the ribs, winding his gasp back into his lungs, rolling him up his back. Another kick followed like a shot blast.

"He's right," Lucifer was standing over him, his face blocking out the dying light of the sun. "You went crazy on Day One down with me." His voice sounded mockingly disappointed. "I can read you as fast as a trashy romance novel, Sam. You're all pissy and fuming, and enraged, but you still care about what big brother thinks, it's rooted in you so deep down it's like bone Sammy. So, how would Dean react if he knew how much you screamed, how you went all limp just that first day of torture? How much more of a freak would you be to him then?"

You aren't crazy if you talk to yourself; only if you answer yourself.

Sam was talking to himself; but, he was answering a nightmare. Real or not real, it didn't matter, it felt real to him. Even the pain of being thrown to the ground wasn't removing the taunting figure from his eyes. Because, it was all playing into it. Reality needs details to come to fruition. Seeing Satan, knowing the clothes he was wearing, the way he smelled sickeningly like blood and death, and an aftershave that Nick had probably died in – when there was no high, or pain to dig into, it was real, because nothing told him otherwise.

"Don't you come near girl again, you understand you freak!"

Sam blocked the next kick aimed at his ribs with his hands, sending the guy sprawling on his back. He struggled to get back to his feet, before the next onslaught, but he only managed to roll over, choking on air and coughing heavily. Satan may have been as real to him as the blood leaking in steady trickles into his mouth, and maybe that meant he may be going crazy, but he still wasn't stupid. He knew that the guy's other two friends weren't going to just sit there and watch. Get a group of guys together, and fight one of them, and the others tended to form a pack for back up. Sam had been in enough fights to know that.

"Is this the real you wanted Sammy?" Lucifer was crouching in front of him, hand resting on his knees, the skin of his vessel smelling like both dried and new blood. It wasn't real, it wasn't real, but Sam's mind was at the vulnerable state between one thought process and another, the gap where seduction and doubt work their way in. His mind was filling it the gaps, remembering when it was real, drawing Lucifer from illusion into solidity.

Sam slid himself up on his hands with a grunt, watching as the man's two friends approached him slowly, one of them grasping something heavy and solid, a rusted tire iron.

"Stay the hell away from me!" Sam's words were to Lucifer who gave him such a pitying tsking look it was its own form of torture; and to the two guys. He had seen those looks they wore like Halloween masks in their eyes. They weren't just going to 'work him over' They were going to rip him apart bare handed, because the 'outsider' had touched one of 'their women' – it was primal.

"All these billions of pathetic, weak meatbags – you came down to play with me for all of them, and this is how they repay you?" Lucifer's hand swiped at a trickle of blood that had leaked down Sam's hairline, tasting it like it was a lick of chocolate with a 'mmm' look. "Doesn't seem very fair does it?"

Sam stopped the heavy swing of the tire iron with his bare hand, feeling a bone rattling shudder tear all the way up his arm. But, he grabbed it to keep it from being drawn back again. He pulled, and the other guy pushed. Sam's upper body strength was heavy, he could keep his grip on the tire iron.

"David, STOP IT!" The blonde girl was screaming at the guy crushing the tire iron against Sam's chest. She made one move forward, then stepped back like a polarized magnet. As much as what Sam did scared her; she didn't want any of what those guys wanted to do.

But, these two men had pure, raw feral adrenaline on their side, it had already been triggered. They had become a fearful mob, attacking the monster in their midst, and there was no going back – they would find their in.

"I guess that's gratitude for you," Lucifer said as casual as a Sunday afternoon, as the second man picked up a piece of broken concrete.

"Sorry champ," Lucifer shot out as the man raised the block up to impale it against Sam's skull. "This is gonna hurt like a bitch."

Something heavy slammed into the man's neck and yanked him back so hard that he lost his grip on the concrete and it broke away in chunks to the ground, cracking it's splitting noise by Sam's left ear.

A heavy hand punched the guy in the face, once, twice.

Sam's hands were occupied, those weren't his punches.

It was Dean's fist. On the third punch, Sam heard something crack, and the man fell with a cry.

Lucifer cursed, displeased at the way the fight was now turning. "Check out your Knight in dirty armor, Sammy."

Dean's blows to the second man, distracted David enough to loosen his grip on the tire iron, and Sam used the distraction to kick a fierce blow to the man's abdomen, making him double over and drop the tire iron with a clatter on the asphalt.

"Fine," Lucifer pouted like a child, standing back up from his kneeling position, looking at Dean like he had ruined his Christmas present. "Guess I'll catch the next bloody ringside. See you soon Sam, stay freaky." he flickered like bad cable.

"Dean" Sam coughed out his brother's name. Dean's hands were on his shoulders pulling him up fully. Sam's ribs screamed in a fiery pain. He had forgotten that he wasn't taking to Dean. Dean had killed Amy.

Dean had fucking killed Amy.

But, he -

Sam coughed again, and spat a puddle of blood and saliva onto the pavement.

"Sammy?" Dean eyed the puddle, then his brother, his eyes going from concern to a hot tempered rage.

Dean had forgotten too, to not talk, the fact that Sam was basically walking out not five hours ago, and Dean was going to let him, because it was too complicated to not.

All he saw was Sam, spitting out a stream of blood, beaten on the ground.

Dean picked up the fallen tire iron, and turned to the downed man, David, who was still lying winded from where Sam had kicked him.

The man saw Dean approaching, and started backing up on his hands, because his look on Sam had been feral, Dean's look was terrifying. "Hey man-"

"You son-of-a-bitch!" Dean's advancement was predator fast. Sam was a 29-year-old man, with more muscle packed on him then Dean, with fighting stamina to match. He could load and break down a .38 in 8 seconds flat, he could fire it in half that time, he had fought of monsters as big as houses, and witches and demons as old as creation.

But, none of that mattered, because Sam was on the pavement, bloody. Someone had touched Dean's little brother and thought they could get away with it.

"Dean," Sam scrambled to his feet, grunting on the pain of bruises that were starting to form, but he stood back up anyway and moved quickly to catch up to his brother.

Yes Dean had killed Amy,

But Sam wasn't about to let his idiot brother take a beating, he didn't think he ever could.

"Dean!" Sam grabbed Dean's entire arm when it raised the iron, despite Sam calling his name. "Dean, STOP!" Sam's hand jerked Dean's arm, hard, to get his brother to face him, his breath heaving in his throat. "I saw him man. He was here." Sam saw Dean get what he said in an instant, his eyes clouding into that spot that had become like a rundown, broken home whenever Sam mentioned his visions of Lucifer. "I kinda lost it-he-ah" Sam hissed as his bruised ribs stung sharply. "I scared his girl over there," Sam watched Dean track his eyes over to where the blonde girl and her friends stood transfixed like scared birds on the edges of the parking lot, their chests heaving on fear induced adrenaline at the fighting had just happened. "He didn't know-AH!" Sam doubled over to his waist.

Dean gripped his shoulder fiercely. "Sam?" He saw his brother begin to wobble on his feet."Whoa, hey!" Dean gripped Sam's shirt in his hand to keep him at a descent and not a full on 'pavement planting' crash.

Sam was back on the ground, curled forward, head bent so low that it was almost touching his knees.

"Sammy!" Dean gripped his brother's neck like to pull him forward. "Hey!" He heard Sam alternating between whimpering, groaning and cursing, his face was white and damp with sweat.

"He attacked me!" The blonde had finally dared to cross the invisible barrier she had erected around the parking lot, her ponytail had fallen halfway from the hair tie and her blonde hair fell in loose chunks around her face. Her eyes were wide, staring right into Dean with her confession.

The look on Dean's face cocked in her direction. He stood back up to his full height. "Define attack," He approached her, but still standing directly in a straight path in front of Sam. "Because it sure as hell better include that he set your clothes on fire and beat you black and blue to even begin to justify this!" Dean's words were as quiet as night.

The blonde's eyes were wide on Dean, afraid, she hadn't felt wrath this great, in -ever. And, it was wrath, there was no other way to describe it.

"Dean!" Sam was panting on his pain, cursing himself for not being able to move yet. He struggled back up anyway, cursing each time he failed, because he knew where a look like that on Dean's face would lead, and it wasn't Disneyland.

"He was babbling like some freak!" the first brunette blurted out, before she realized that 'freak' might not be the best word choice to use. "He kept talking to himself! And he shoved Melinda! David was just protecting her!"

Dean digested the words freak and defending like he would digest acid, and rusty nails, and jagged glass. The irony of Melinda's friend claiming how her guy protected her from Sam, when his pathetic waste of space ass was part of the collective of six billion that Sam had protected by throwing himself into Lucifer's Cage, which made him like this – no, it wasn't irony, it was insanity.

"Dean!" Sam had made it back on his feet, a wincing limping mess; but he was standing, grabbing Dean's arm again, pulling him off.

Dean wasn't having it. "You've never been to hell before have you sweetheart?" He spun around to face all the outsiders surrounding him and his brother in the parking lot, addressing the strangers as a whole. "Anyone here ever been to Hell before? Anyone?"

Sam yanked Dean back, and spun him around to face him. "Dude, what the hell are you doing?" Blood still ran like a tiny river from the cut in his mouth, and tasted coppery and warm, but all Sam did was spit it out, and continue not backing down from his question, because his brother was talking like this to civilians, and it would only get them screwed, or locked up, or both.

Dean ignored Sam's protests, and continued talking. "See my brother here-" Dean pointed a finger in Sam's direction –"has." Dean didn't let his voice echo, he wasn't stupid to broadcast that Sam and Dean Winchester were standing here in an hotel parking lot, just waiting for monsters to get them. But, his voice was still strong. "He threw himself down there inside the Devil's locked box to save humanity, and spent 180 years being worked over by Lucifer himself – and I'm not talkin' about the cartoon with pitchforks – I mean the thing that had to have a cage built for him to keep him away from the rest of us. All that sacrifice so that he can be jumped in some shit ass parking lot, because he came back a little messed up from something like that!"

The attackers weren't attacking anymore, the girls weren't talking anymore. They were looking at Dean like he was crazy, and looking at Sam like he was equally crazy.

But, Dean didn't care. Sam had sacrificed himself for this - crazy shitfaced, stupid THIS, and he was damn well going to tell them about it, even if they didn't believe him. He owed it to Sam, that look on his brother's face, right before he uttered his single 'don't' Dean never wanted to see again.

Not because of the anger, but because of the hurt in them, the betrayal.

Sam's ribs were burning, and his hands were throbbing from road rash, and the blood in his mouth never tasted like anything else except dirty and disgusting. And his older brother was standing there, in the middle parking lot of the "Starlight and Moonbeam Lounge and Motor Lodge" telling complete strangers how he had been to Hell.

It made his head hurt.

It made him want beer, Vicodin, and a hole, in that order.

But, it also made him want to forget about Amy, even though he couldn't, to hug Dean, like he was drunk, even though he wouldn't. Because his brother was defending his crazy to these strangers who would never thing that any of this was true.

"David" looked over at Sam, eyeing him like he was ready for a padded cell, and that he would be the one to call for it. "You're boys right, you are one damn messed up freak!"

Dean took two steps forward, Sam grabbed his arm and pulled him those two steps back. "Look, I'm sorry. I get it, I'm messed up. I won't bother you guys again." Sam saw Dean eye him like 'Dude WHAT?' "But the same better be true for you." Sam had a piercing eye look of his own to deliver to those guys, and it wasn't any less intense, even after everything he'd just been through. "Because I may be a freak," Sam's eyes shifted over to Dean's for a brief moment when he said those words. "But that doesn't mean I'm deaf." The tire iron was lying on the pavement beside his left sneaker, Sam kicked it over to David's friend. "Think you dropped that."

David's friend picked up the tire iron slowly enough for it to make a scraping noise across the asphalt. He palmed the large flat piece of metal, eyes on Sam the entire time. but didn't move it more than that.

"Let's go Dean," Sam gripped his brother's shoulder.

David eyed Sam like something from the sewer. In a perfect world, or an After School Special, David would've seen the 'error of his ways' and the parties of men would've dropped their attitudes, and smiled that smile when 'all is forgiven, I recognize and respect your differences' and Dean and Sam would share a 'brotherly hug' and maybe a tear or two, there would've been apologies, and slaps on the back and promises of 'We are the World' Sing-A-Longs.

But that wasn't this world.

"You come back here again freak and we're going to finish this."

Sam's jaw clenched, his fists tightened but he kept both silent, backing away with his steps, only turning when he had to in order to begin walking in the other direction.

"Hey psycho!" David shot out at Sam's retreating back. "Playing with Satan in a Cage must get awfully kinky!" He laughed a low leer.

Dean was backing away with his steps like his brother, but when the dregs of that laugh reached his ears he stopped, and stopped Sam with a hand on his shoulder.

Dean turned back around slowly, "You might want to watch your mouth when it comes to my brother," his hand was off Sam's shoulder and pulling out the Pearl Handled colt he had tucked into the waistband of his jeans, cocking with a noise that echoed. "Cause what I got ain't no tire iron."

"No!" Melinda grabbed David's shoulder when he started to move. If this kept up, then it would never stop. "David, baby, let's go get a beer, okay, let's go!" She was a little thin thing, with more curves than muscle, pushing her boyfriend back.

"Yeah, walk away psycho freak!" David's voice echoed as Melinda managed to shove him off the asphalt, and to their car, as Dean and Sam walked in the other direction, towards their hotel room, Dean's hand back on Sam's shoulder, and Sam let it remain.

xxxxxXxxxx

Two hours Later

"Dude what is that?"

Dean eyed the thing on the wall that Sam was, something large and taxidermy stuffed with glass eyes to replace the ones that the animal had in life.

"I don't know, Caribou?" Dean ventured. He was walking back from the tiny kitchenette of the Most Awesome Western Motel and Travel Lodge. After what had happened to Sam with those idiots Dean had thought it best that they find new digs for the night. Sam was in pain and didn't exactly complain when Dean grabbed their duffels and helped him into the car.

"It's staring at me, it's kinda creepy." Sam was sitting up against the pillows on one of the two queen beds in the room, with a comforter covered with pictures of Palm Trees and flamingos with sunglasses, which disturbed Sam as much as the moose hanging from the wall that tried to go with the bedspread's decor.

The cut above his hairline had just been finished being stitched up, only two stitches, and Dean had washed up from the 'minor medical trauma' in the kitchen.

"Okay," Dean stood in front of Sam's bed, eyeing him. "Concussion check- who am I?"

Sam eyed him up and down, "You really want me to answer that?"

"Acceptable," Dean said, and made a number three with his hand and placed it in front of Sam. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Dude-"

"How many fingers, Sam?"

"Three," Sam said with a grunt of annoyance. "Which will be two less then I'm about to hold up."

Dean didn't respond to that retort, he just took it with a look and said: "Shirt up."

"You have cash? Cause I don't take credit cards," Sam countered, pulling the hem of the black t-shirt he had changed into after his shower with a wince. David's friend had good aim, Sam's entire lower abs were already blue and gray from bruising.

Dean lowered the ice pack he had made up on that massive bruise, making Sam hiss and rear up from the pillow. "Take it easy you big girl, you're fine." Dean pushed him back down with one hand on his shoulder.

"Thanks," Sam said, holding the icepack to his stomach when Dean pushed it in his hand.

"Yeah I know," Dean said sitting on the edge of bed, on the small space that Sam didn't occupy. "So I guess the Triathlon training is out?"

"Dean I'm still going to run," Sam got out in a clipped hiss.

"Really, Sam, cause most people would take nearly being bludgeoned to death by crazy locals as a deterrent to the activity that got them there in the first place-"

"I told you Dean, it wasn't them, it was me seeing Lucifer-"

"Oh I'm sorry, you just saw Satan on your run, well, I can relax now."

"Dean," Sam sat up more, making him curse, but this time he ignored Dean's hand on his shoulder. "Not now okay, I feel like crap."

Dean held up his hand in surrender. "Fair enough." He leaned back against the air like it had a backing like a chair. "So, you still running out on the relationship?"

It was the cheapest of cheap shots.

And they both knew it.

"Don't act like that bullshit's gonna work," Sam returned, in a voice that started out low, but then steeped upwards like the rising incline of a mountain.

"Who says I'm acting?" Dean threw back in a quiet seriousness.

"The only reason I'm sitting here Dean is because I can't freakin' move!" Sam shifted in the bed with a wince, and the ice pack slid further down his bruised abdomen. "And, you think that cracking jokes is going to make this better?"

"I never said that, Sam. " Dean said in a voice of anger, that bordered on tiredness. He watched Sam's heave a fuming breath, staring at him like he wanted to jump him if he had the energy to do so.

"Then what are you saying Dean? " Sam's eyes weren't everywhere this time, they were only on Dean, and they demanded an answer.

"I was protecting you."

"Don't feed me that sanctimonious bull Dean! We may be tracking our old hunting grounds from the beginning, but that doesn't mean I'm that kid brother you dragged out of Stanford, who followed you around blindly!-"

"Sam you haven't followed me blindly since you were five-"

" Amy's freaking dead Dean, you killed her, and you fucking LIED about to me, it for weeks!" Sam was screaming, even though it made his lungs ached. He had nowhere to run except with his voice.

It was finally said, the elephant in the room, crushed by the dinosaur that had just screamed.

Dean said nothing for the longest time, but in that nothing was month's worth of processing, of silence that he had held, remembering the day he did it. Remembering the day he had silenced Amy Pond with a single knife wound, how quietly she had gone out. Remembering why he had done it.

"I was protecting you-"

"Don't-" Sam's clipped statement tore like a jagged knife wound, he glared at Dean with so much anger filled hurt that it was like a third person in the room. "You weren't protecting me, Dean, you were protecting yourself!"

"I was protecting you!" Dean's shouting wasn't sanctimonious, it was stripped to the bones raw, with a harsh volume to match. "I was!" Dean had stood off the bed, his anger propelling him upwards like a bullet aimed at the ceiling. "Amy would've killed again-"

"Amy was innocent Dean!" Sam's ribs were burning like Rome had burned in 1066, but he was trapped from leaving, not by his physical injuries, but because of that part of his brother that he could never run from, that part that had to understand, even if he didn't want to, because they shared that part, like it or not. And no amount of bloodshed, death, or even lies would let Sam simply walk from that. "She had a kid, who you made orphan because she was different-"

"She wasn't different Sam!" Dean shouted back. "She was-"

"What? A freak?" Sam's words were the clippings of clipped, his anger red as flame, the 'like me' hovering on the edge of his lips

"I never said that!" Dean's retort shattered like glass, digging into Sam's brain, pulling out the silent question.

"That doesn't mean you haven't thought it Dean!" Sam's chest heaved like his running steps, one, two, three. "After everything we've been through, you still think of me as two steps back behind you, something you have to hide from the world-"

"You're my brother Sam!-" Dean snapped back

"Then act like it!" Sam wasn't using physical pain as a deterrent this time to stop himself from slipping. Stop protecting me and act like my freakin' brother!"

"Oh so when you say 'freak' it's okay?"

"Dean!-"

"I get it Sam, okay! I lied about Amy – what you think I was proud to do it? That I enjoyed it? I had too, she went off the rails, there was no going back for her! She was a monster, Sam-"

"Like me?" Sam finally said the words that Dean 'never said' but, was always skirting around, ever since Sam's Wall had broken like so much crumbled rock.

Dean and Sam stared at each other in that deafening silence. Each of them played a game to see who would betray that heat and breathe or blink first.

"Look, you're pissed, and you have every right to be. Be pissed at me, Hate me, but don't you dare tell me to stop protecting you-I can't stop protecting you Sam, I don't know how-" Dean's eyes lost that anger that had burned a moment ago, the one that had actually been more of a ghost then an actual reality. Because, the person Dean was mad at wasn't Sam. That 'alright' was filled with every painful moment that Dean could never say out loud; all the things that filled a line already to the brim. But, if it were to be stripped down to its bare parts, it would equal one single thing:

Dean didn't want Sam to hate him, he never had. Hate meant that he had failed, the one thing that he could never think about failing because it would end him. But, he could live with it, choke it down like overly cured whiskey.

But, protecting his brother, was like his arm, always there, always in motion.

They looked at each other, the cheap motel clock ticked, '7:01'

Sam didn't blink, his jaw firm.

Dean blinked once, like a sigh escaping his lids.

He left the too small space to take a shower.

xxxxxXxxxxx

Dean's shower last three hours – not the shower part itself, but the part that drove him to give his brother some space. He had showered in a bathroom with a taxidermy stuffed squirrel above the vanity mirror, beady eyes staring down at him, as if asking 'Hey, buddy? Got an acorn?' It left Dean wanting to shoot it.

He had then holed up in the smallest part of the hotel – the brown off colored dinette set with peeling plastic chairs- and read, of all things Danielle Steele's Zoya. that he found by the nightstand on his bed. And by 'reading' Dean skimmed through the pages of lovelorn and lost, and pretended it was a welcome and novel distraction, and not a thing to be thrown into a fire as kindling.

Leaving wasn't an option, he had told Sam the truth – he didn't know how to not protect him. It had started off as duty and obligation. But over the seven years of this kind of life, it had grown like a into this tangled up bramble of a thing that he could never really describe, but could always feel. It couldn't even be traced down to love, it ran too deeply for simple love – it ran a river bed deep, leaving him standing at the bottom with nothing but the burning feeing that was its result.

So Dean stayed, reading shit he wouldn't even wish upon the most horrific of female vengeful spirits.

Eventually it was 10:00, which seemed to have come on as slow as a year, and as heavy as boulder.

While Dean pretended to read, Sam pretended to sleep, eyes closed, faced away from his brother. The window by the bed was partway open, making the thin white sheer curtain blow in the cooling breeze of the night. A Cicada braved the cold air to sing it's heavy screeching song, ending it an echo of clicks.

The air smelled like truck exhaust, and cheap cigarettes and grass. It wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't uncomfortable either. Sam had smelt it all his life, sleeping in various motels, not all of them even up to health code standards. So he kept leaning towards sleep, waiting until his body stopped trying to remind him it was only 10:00 in the freaking evening and there were things it still wanted to do. Like roll off of its side, because there were sore muscles being lain upon, and it hurt like a damn mother….

"Still fighting?"

Sam's eyes were half closed, he was almost to the point where he could drift off just from being in a still position for a long enough time – but then came that pinprick feeling that creeps up your whole being when something is just wrong.

The track suit seemed to glow in the lamp light. The figure perched on the end of the bed, hands crossed over one knee, eyes drawn down to him like a mother watching a child sleep.

Lucifer tilted his head, the bones and sinews in his neck popped. "Really Sammy?" Lucifer shook his head like he couldn't believe that it was true. "Dean just shouted out like a televangelist about how you went to hell, all to an audience of walking cases of gonorrhea, and all you're thinking about is 'Dean killed Amy' Dean killed my friend' Get a new record kid, that one's a bit worn." The Devil hunched forward leaning over the bed-

"Don't touch me," Sam whispered, teeth clenched, trying not to speak any louder, to keep his voice from traveling further than him and the nothing that tortured him.

Lucifer pulled back throwing his hands up, with a with a lazy, 'I am the devil and that's why I don't care' smile, "You need to remember the Classics Sam, The ones you sang down in Hell: 'The Dean Collection. Dean, I can't do this. Dean make him stop hurting me." And my personal favorite" his smile pulled into something that was amused at pain: 'Dean help me, help me, help me." with each 'succession of 'help me' Lucifer leaned closer to Sam until he was mere inches from Sam's face, his skin smelling like rotting flesh and radiating heat like a furnace.

"You're right Sammy-" Lucifer reached out to rake a hand through Sam's hair, and Sam could feel it, cold peeling flesh, filthy brittle nails scraping through his scalp. "You're not a freak, you're pathetic" The scraping dug deeper, and tore out a chunk of his flesh and hair, bleeding blood down into his eyes.

Sam bolted up on the bed with a scream before his brain had even time to process the 'not real not real' he had kept as a mantra in his brain.

"Sam!" the cheap worn paperback hit the carpet with the loudest thud the weight of its 500 weathered pages could make, the chair's legs scraped across the peel and stick tile of the kitchenette.

"I'm sorry Sammy," Lucifer swung the torn chunk of hair attached to a bleeding stump of flesh in his hand like a dead mouse by the tail, "You want this back?"

"Sammy?" Dean's body blocked out the sight of Lucifer waving a severed chunk of Sam's scalp in front of his eyes, his brother's hands were on his shoulders, and he was kneeling down.

Sam's scream was choked on the pain of his ribs burning from the bruised muscle being forced to move, making him meet Dean's eyes with a pain filled gasp that rattled his chest.

"Sam, hey," Dean's hand was on his face, jerking it towards him when Sam started to recoil. "Hey, look at me!"

Sam's entire body was shaking from the painful force of his choking pants. He furiously began swiping at his face, near his scalp, feeling for the warmth of blood, the pain was there hot and razor sharp, he pawed and pawed trying to find a source not just in his mind.

Dean grabbed his hand away, yanking his wrist down. He pulled up his free hand and touched the spot that Sam had been clawing at, brushing finger tips against his brother's flesh, feeling nothing, no injury, nothing but intact flesh.

"Sam?" the words were a wisp of a question, a smoking of confusion that had escaped the gaps of a bordered up thing, that Dean had been trying to hide from his brother for months. Because Sam had been on the high dive over a pit of shards of glass, if Dean had given into that feeling, that pain, then what would stop Sam from falling?

There was a heavy, echoing tortured noise, it sounded like a baying wolf dying from a fatal wound.

Dean's felt a shockwave race up him like a tremor as Sam turned his face up to him, and broke into a hitched keening, messing lulling sound.

It was Sam, that noise was Sam, and he wasn't screaming or yelling, or even sobbing.

Sam was crying.

And that was nothing but painful, because Sam had been five when he had last done something so basic, because he didn't know what the hell else to do.

"Sam?" Dean tried one more time, this time the question rattled like the broken thing that it was.

Sam pitched forward to throw his head against Dean's shoulder, and the sadness followed him, with a weight that echoed.

Dean heard the horrible noises his brother was making, there was nothing neat about Sam's crying, not even when he couldn't even label it as sobbing. There was nothing neat about a damn thing in their life.

And Dean couldn't even say anything about Amy, about hell, about Sam's visions of Lucifer.

Because Dean couldn't talk.

And that hurt.

His arms went around his brother, sliding up his back, as he felt Sam lower himself to lean onto the crook of his elbow, pressing his face into the crease, scalding hot wet things sliding down his arm.

Six on the second hand
Two new years' resolutions
and there's just no question
what this man should do

Behind Sam in that empty void, Lucifer, swinging his torn chunk of his own scalp began to flicker like before in the warehouse as Sam had torn into his palm, and felt a blinding pain, the sharp clarity of an anchor from the real world.

Sam's ribs were on fire, his body felt locked, like he wouldn't be able to move if he tried, but this physical pain wasn't what was flickering the Devil in and out like an impending power outage. It wasn't physical pain that was warping Lucifer out of his existence, wasn't Sam having to do anything to hurt.

He was hurting all by himself, holding to the brother he hated, but not really, never really.

Take all the time lost

All the days that I cost

Take what I took and

Give it back to you

Lucifer watched the exchange with the same amused disgust a unfeeling zookeeper might use to an animal pressing itself into the only fragment of its cage that didn't reek of refuse, where perhaps a fragment of sunlight might warm it, even for a moment.

"Pathetic Sammy; you're so broken I can hear you rattle, kid." Even as Lucifer flickered, he still kept his taunting up, his mocking. He pulled the illusion of scalp and hair up to his nose, smelling it like was a newly fermented perfume. "Sammy, Sammy, Sammy, you can't hide from me dear heart, You're mine sweetness-"

Sam's ribs were now screaming so loud he could hear them. His body was locked, he felt it, even trying to move back a centimeter sent gallons of agony crashing on him.

"Dean-" Sam gasped something that hurt more than agony. "Dean, I can't move-"

He felt his brother pull him back, sliding his hands to his arms, trying to remove them.

"No, ah - Dean, stop-" Dean was trying to move his arms, and it hurt so much it made him want to throw up, "stop-god stop!" Everything hurt, it made more tears stream down it face, it hurt so much.

"Sorry, God's on extended vacation Sammy," Lucifer taunted from his position right next to Sam, hovering on the fragment of mattress that the brothers occupying. "But, I'm here, and personally I'm a little offended that you'd forget that, after all we went through, you go back and cheat on me with a bitch-"

Lucifer raked a hand through Sam's hair, or tried to. His hands were being blocked by Dean. "Sam, it's okay, you're okay, alright?" Dean began rubbing Sam's arms, trying to loosen up the stiff muscles, trying to make it less painful.

I don't know what day it is

I had to check the paper.

I don't know the city

But it isn't home

Sam felt himself being lowered back down on the bed, which wasn't his doing because it hurt to do anything. He couldn't remember being mad, he couldn't remember Amy. Hell he couldn't remember anything except that this hurt, in all the ways a human being could possibly hurt.

Something was back rubbing his arms, it was hard and fierce, but it didn't burn like Lucifer's touch. Sam thought it could be Dean, he couldn't tell, he wasn't opening his eyes to look.

"I gotcha Sammy," Dean's hands were all over his brother, it didn't even look vaguely dirty, it just looked real. Dean Winchester trying to unlock Sam's muscles because he was attacked by people for having flashbacks of hell – it was the Sam and Dean Winchester way to do real – no, it wasn't dirty, it was raw. "I gotcha buddy," God, when was the last time he had called Sam buddy? And why did remembering when that was hurt so much?

But you say I'm lucky

To love something that loves me

But I'm torn as I could be

Wherever I roam

Dean's hand was on Sam's sternum, rubbing like Doctors in the ER would rub a 'sternal friction rub' to try and revive an unresponsive patient, he didn't care that it was a chick flick thing, because who the fuck would be watching them? Those dumb shits that tried to beat his brother because they couldn't understand him?

He laid down beside his brother, right next to him on the smallest version of the queen sized bed the hotel had Again, who the fuck would watch; and why would he care? Were they hurting like this? No.

Did they kill their brother's friend because they had to, did they hate lying to him, was it so painful it felt like bleeding? No. No. No.

So Dean could damn fucking well lie down where he wanted.

Sam finally opened his eyes when he felt the weight of the bed shift to take his brother's weight. They had shared beds as kids, out of necessity, and sometimes out of fear on Sam's part, because monsters wasn't something he was told 'weren't under the bed' They grew out of it eventually, especially when women came around.

But it still happened, this sleeping arrangement, twice to their memory.

The night before Sam had chosen to say 'yes' to the Devil. Dean and Sam had talked about nothing for hours, on one bed, about hunts, and girls, and how starts looked better when you were drinking beer, about cheap Christmas, about music, until they fell asleep next to each other, before waking up knowing what that day was about.

And now.

And Lucifer looked like he was weighing that memory with this one, like he had peeked into the before and seen them.

"You're a whore Sam," Lucifer chucked, and ended it into a broken smile. "Pathetic broken, little whore."

Sam's muscles were so painful it felt like they were bleeding, had they not, he would have been flipping off Lucifer, if anything to show him he wasn't afraid of his shit, even though he really was-

But Stone Number One was already built, he had to add Stone Number Two.

But right now all he had energy to do was turn his head towards Dean, watch his brother's eyes. While talking to him with the: 'I don't know how to either man'

Dean answered that look, resting a scratched, and calloused hand on his brother's forehead, and then removing it so fast it was like it wasn't even there at all. But, the feeling remained.

All this time

We were waiting for each other

All this time I was waiting for you

It was Sam's hand that found his brother's, he didn't look at him, as he slid it up Dean's until they held hands. And, it wasn't awkward, or sappy, or girly, or insinuating. It was a touch, it was what it was – labeless.

Sam didn't noticed the moment Lucifer flickered out. But like before, he was crazy not stupid, he knew that he'd be back. Just like how he knew that that awkward, rough swiping across his face was his brother wiping off the still wet tracks of crying from his face, not even pretending he was embarrassed by sharing a girlie moment with his brother.

Which gave Sam the leeway to not be embarrassed when he kept adding more, because he didn't know how to stop.

We got all this love

Can't waste them on another

So I'm straight in a straight line

Running back to you.

xxxxXxxxx

This took me quite a while to write, I kept thinking of things to weave into it, and add onto it with each subsequent episode after "The Girl Next Door" It kinda morphed from that challenge I took about Dean defending Sam from people who saw him talking to himself.

If you think the ending was a bit sappy, then sorry, I tried a million ways to end this, but they never got past my thoughts. This way stuck with me as the right way.

The lyrics are from "All This Time" by: OneRepublic.

R/R please,

Mystic.