25. Chapter 25

Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Erik Kripke, Warner Brothers and quite possibly others who are not mentioned here. No money will be made from this fan fiction.

Summary: When Dean goes to sell his soul at the crossroads to bring Sam back, someone else steps in to negotiate the deal. Cas did get a sign and it sent him off into the past to change things. AU from The Man Who Would be King and All Hell Breaks Loose.

It's All in the Details

By Colleen

Chapter 25

Sam and Dean stood on the porch of a semi rundown house in Canaan, Vermont. Sam glanced at the sign next to the door that said 'No Solicitors. This Means You. No Asking For Donations. No Selling Anything.' He tossed a raised eyebrow look to his brother, who shrugged and rang the bell.

"What?"

Both of them directed their eyes towards the voice, which was coming from the camera mounted above their heads.

"Uh, hey. I'm Dean Winchester, this is my brother Sam." Both of them half smiled, half grimaced at the camera.

"So?" The voice asked, sounding annoyed.

"We're friends of Bobby Singer." Sam said.

"So.?"

Dean pulled the cardboard encased bottle of Scotch out of a duffle bag he had slung over his shoulder. "He asked us to drop this off to you."

Silence stretched on for a few seconds, before the sound of a lock opening broke it.

Rufus Turner, tall, black and slightly grizzled, reached out and took the bottle from Dean. "'Bout time Bobby made good on that."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, well, me and my brother, we were kind of curious as to what that stuff was like."

Rufus hugged his bottle possessively and narrowed his eyes.

Dean smiled and dug a second bottle out of the duffle bag. "So you know if you'd be able to lend us the use of some glasses, we'd be happy to share."

The smile Rufus gave them was almost beautiful.

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"Nectar of the Gods." Rufus said as he started to sip at his second glass of Scotch.

Dean raised his glass in agreement. "Makes a nice change. Most of the whiskey we drink seems to come in plastic jugs."

Rufus snorted. "Sounds like you hang out with Bobby a bit too much. Man always did have lousy taste when it came to his booze."

Sam, who'd figured one of them needed to stay sober enough to drive, was still carefully sipping at his first drink. Frowning slightly, he set his glass down.

Ever aware of his brother, Dean gave Sam a look. "What?"

"Huh?" Sam shook his head. "I suddenly remembered Bobby mentioning Rufus here before. I just can't remember when that was."

Dean took a long swallow of Scotch. Now that Sam mentioned it, there was a sense memory of him and Sam and Bobby, standing together and looking down at something…

He finished the last of the liquor in his glass as he remembered what it had been.

"You were there when Bobby's wife…"

Rufus looked surprised. "Yeah, I didn't think he'd ever talk about that with someone. He couldn't even bring himself to discuss it with me, and I was there."

Dean shrugged. "Doubt he would have normally. It just came up during a really weird job."

Rufus gave a short bark of laughter. "How weird would that have to be?"

Dean thought back to dream walking through Bobby's head. "Twilight Zone ramped up to eleven."

Rufus pulled the cork out of the bottle of Scotch and poured himself a little more of the amber liquid. "Guess it would have to be. See, I think it's pretty odd that you're sitting here when I know that your deadline came up weeks ago. So I suspect that what you think of as strange would probably rock my world, if I weren't as old and cynical as I am."

"How'd you know about that?" Sam asked him, beating Dean out by a half second.

"Because I know things." Rufus frowned as he looked into his glass. "But even so, I don't know how you pulled that one off, cause I heard that the Hellhounds actually came for you. And no, Bobby didn't tell me about it."

"How badly do you want to know? " Dean asked. Oddly enough, Dean found he was willing to tell the man the truth, or at least some of it, despite the danger to them. Maybe it was because the guy had obviously stepped in and helped Bobby during one of the most painful moments of the older man's life. Or perhaps it was because Dean felt that Bobby was right and Rufus was the kind of contact they would want to cultivate. Either way…

Rufus shook his head. "I don't give up my sources."

Dean smiled, even more sure now. "Not what I'm asking. If we tell you what happened, then it doesn't leave this house. So, are you willing to hold knowledge that you can never tell?"

Rufus snorted. "Already covers about half of what I know. So lay it on me."

The two brothers looked at each other. Sam's forehead creased up in a question. Dean answered it with a 'what the hell' shrug.

"Loop hole." Sam knocked back the rest of his drink and put the glass down. "The contract holder did a rush job on the agreement so there was a way out." He looked at his brother and the alcohol almost came back up as he remembered Dean, lying on the floor, his chest cut to ribbons. He cleared his throat before continuing. "The only problem was that Dean had to be dead before it could be activated."

"Hence my time as a Hellhound's chew toy."

Rufus gave both of them a good, hard look and then nodded. "Good to know, but why keep it a secret?"

"'Cause there are some players that wanted me in Hell, and if they find out I never got there, they'll be pissed. Pissed enough to find a way to send me there, deal or no deal."

"Okay then." Rufus uncorked the bottle and poured a couple more ounces into his glass. "So, you heading up to Maine for that salt and burn? 'Cause let me tell you, there's more going on up there than just a ghost."

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"Crowley."

A certain King of the Crossroads had to fight the inclination to smash his fist into the wide smile of the woman in front of him.

"Meg. It's been awhile. How have you been?"

She raised an eyebrow at the ridiculousness of the question. "Busy. We've been trying to fix what was supposed to be the perfect plan."

Crowley's smile was brittle. The last thing he wanted was anyone breathing life back into that project. "Yes, well, it's not like anyone could have predicted that the Winchesters would kill Lilith before the first seal was broken…and then of course it wasn't, broken I mean."

Meg frowned. "It's true then? One of the halo brigade pulled him out before he shed blood in Hell?"

Crowley nodded. "He's already topside, with an angel parked on his ass keeping him safe."

She gave him one of those wide lazy smiles the face she was borrowing seemed made for. "You already made a try for him?"

He half laughed. "Found him by accident. Didn't get the chance to celebrate. Now I can't even find the little bugger again."

Meg's lips twitched as if she were trying not to smirk. "They've got a friend you know. Name's Singer. Wouldn't take much to use him to find them."

"That was how I found him the first time." He shook his head. "Now, he's off radar as well and his place is empty. Looks like he went on a hunt right after the Winchesters left, but we've got no idea where."

Now Crowley was fighting the smirk that was trying to crawl over his lips. Meg looked like she wanted to eviscerate a few some ones, and probably would once she left here. The female demon took a deep breath and let it out.

"That's inconvenient, but then, we don't need them right away. It would be best to wait until the last seal is remade anyway."

"Last seal?" Crowley's question was mild, even though his mind was racing.

Meg's lips stretched across her face in another one of those wide smiles. "It's reforming. Heaven's doing, as far as we can tell." She shook her head. "Dumb idiots. If they'd left it alone we'd never be able to free our father."

Crowley's mind stuttered for a moment, as what Meg said became the last piece in a puzzle he hadn't even known he'd been working on. The angels, or at least some of them, were trying just as hard as Meg and her group to set off the apocalypse.

The demon stood there, blinking rapidly as he tried to get his mind around the sheer stupidity of it.

"Crowley?"

He jerked back to reality. "Sorry luv, just thinking."

She snorted. "Well, if you can think up a plan to stick Dean's ass back in Hell, then let me know."

He nodded. "You'll be the first I tell."

After she left, he sat down behind his desk and poured himself a very large Scotch. He'd always figured on killing Dean, but now if he did and the hunter went to Hell, then there was the danger of the first seal being broken. If he went to Heaven, then the dicks up there would probably just resurrect him, or send him to Hell themselves. So, that left three options. Killing the pain in the ass in such a way that his soul was completely destroyed, killing him so that he wandered the Earth as a ghost, or killing him and having him go somewhere other than Heaven or Hell, which left…

Purgatory.

Crowley leaned back into his chair and nodded. That was doable. Given the things the Winchesters hunted, getting Dean turned should be relatively easy. As for killing him, hell, he'd probably do it himself. And once he was unreachable in Purgatory, the plan would be screwed. For a while at least.

Now, who could he use for such a delicate job? And would he have to find a way to keep the angel from interfering?

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It was only millennium of experience that kept Castiel from fidgeting as he waited for Zachariah to speak with him. He'd sought revelation earlier, expecting to receive his usual daily instruction. Instead, he had been bid to appear before his commanding officer. Something he would rather have put off for an epoch or two.

"Ah, Castiel. Sorry to call you in, but your next assignment is rather specialized."

Cas barely kept himself from frowning. There was something familiar about this meeting.

"Now as you know, Dean's brother Sam…"

"Is an abomination." While the angel had enough sense not to say that in front of Sam in this time line, it was what he would have said in a similar conversation with Zachariah in the original one. Only that conversation had happened later and the mission he'd gone on was no longer necessary.

"Exactly, a human tainted with demon blood." The cherubim's face twisted up into an expression of distaste. "The dangers involved in his brother's condition are something that the Righteous Man will need to know about and understand. To that end, Dean Winchester will have to travel back in time to hear the truth from the demon's own lips. He will need to witness the deal that was struck between Azazel and Mary Campbell."

"That will not be necessary." Castiel said, the words escaping his mouth before he could stop his knee-jerk tendency towards telling the truth.

Zachariah froze for a moment, and then looked at Castiel with an annoyed, yet questioning expression. "How so?"

In for a penny… "I have spoken with Dean and Sam Winchester. The fact that the younger brother has demon blood came up in our conversation and Sam has told Dean what he knows about it. Sam Winchester has also decided against developing any of the powers that the blood could provide him."

Cas kept his expression bland, even though the sight of Zachariah grinding his teeth in frustration was amusing enough to merit a chuckle.

"Yes well, knowing something and seeing it first hand are two different things. You will transport Dean Winchester to April 30th 1973, so that he may witness these things."

Now Cas wanted to grind his teeth, though he refrained from doing so and answered his boss.

"Of course. I shall attend to this matter immediately."

"Good… Oh, by the way, did you ever find out what blocks them and anything near them from our senses?"

Sadly, lying would probably not work completely in this instant. "Dean believes that the being that held his contract was responsible for hiding him from us, at least for a time. When I found Dean, he was unrestrained and wandering aimlessly through a sea of bodies on the outer edges of the Pit (well, mosh pit). Now that he is back, they are using hex bags. Sam mentioned that he learned to make them from the demon, Ruby." And that was completely true, in the other time line. "They are effective, but there appears to be a flaw in them that allows me to see through them, even though I am unable to explain how it is possible. I have looked one of the bags over. Its protection is flawed, I can sense that, but I cannot explain how I am able to use the defect."

And neither would any other angel. Even if they got their hands on one of the bags and dissected it, it would tell them nothing.

"You could get rid of them."

Cas nodded at Zachariah's suggestion. "Yes, but they would notice, and they would just make new ones. And those ones might not be flawed."

"Ah…" His boss seemed to think it over for a few moments. "Very well, leave them for now, but be prepared to disappear them should the need arise."

"Of course." Long familiar with his superior's ways, Castiel recognized when a meeting was over. He gave the other angel a quick bow and headed off to fulfill his duty.

Which he would do, mostly because if he didn't they would just send another to make it happen. That didn't mean he wouldn't try to figure out what part this time travel was supposed to play. Because he was beginning to think that it had never been about warning Dean of Sam's powers.

Half asleep, Sam sat down on his bed and looked over at his brother who had conked out fully dressed on the queen-sized bed closest to the door of their motel room. Rufus had been right about this not being an average salt and burn. There'd been a ghost, well ghosts. The women whose deaths they were investigating had all come back as angry spirits. And all of them had been focused on killing the man who had killed them. Of course, it couldn't be that straight forward, as he turned out to be a hired killer. Once the ghosts had taken him down, they went after the man who'd hired him.

Turned out the guy had hired the hit man to kill his wife. The problem was that the bastard hadn't wanted to risk coming under serious suspicion so he'd also hired him to kill a few other women who were similar in looks to his wife. From what he'd said at the end, he'd hoped that the police would believe that there was a serial killer at work.

In Sam's opinion, he never wanted to see what two dead women could do to a man again, even if he did think the hired killer had it coming. Surprisingly, it had been the still very much alive wife who had put an end to her husband.

The salt and burn that had followed the mess had exhausted the both of them. Sam was fully intending to join his brother in dreamland when the sound of wings flapping made him pry his eyes open.

"Castiel?"

The angel sat on the side of Dean's bed, looking down at the man. Sam frowned at the scene as he realized that he was being ignored. He would have said something, but Dean chose that moment to snap awake.

"Cas?" Dean shifted into a half sitting position and shoved the jacket he'd been using as a blanket down to his waist. He glanced over at his brother who shrugged.

"Hello Dean."

The hunter rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "Hey. What's up?"

The angel grimaced slightly and glanced over at Sam for a brief moment before focusing completely on Dean. "Listen to me, you have to stop it."

Dean's forehead creased up in confusion. "Stop what?"

Instead of answering, the angel reached out and touched two fingers to Dean's forehead.

Any tiredness that Sam was feeling was suddenly ripped away as his brother and the angel winked out of existence.

"Hey!"

Sam was off the bed and standing in a flash, adrenaline running through his body. The only problem was he didn't know what to do with his sudden hyper alertness. Dean and Cas could be anywhere right now, and he had no way to follow.

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Meg stood in the parking lot outside the motel room Sam was currently pacing in. Finding the Winchesters wasn't as hard as everyone made out. All you really needed to do was to check on the biggest, messiest hunts you could find. Eventually you'd luck out and find the one they were working on. Of course, she'd almost not checked up on this one, because it had already been resolved. In the end, she had anyway, and a search of the local motels found Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley staying at the Willow Tree Motel. It had to be them, since she doubted that the two founding members of KISS were pinching pennies by staying in crap places like this.

She would dearly love to walk right in and have a little fun with the boys, but she needed them alive, or at least, she needed Sam alive. Dean she needed back in Hell. Getting him there, that would be the problem. And once he was back on the rack, she'd have to work on getting Sam to train his powers. Since taking over Lilith's job, she'd inherited the former demon's plans for the younger Winchester brother. He was the final key in the lock to daddy's cage and he would play his part, even if he had to be made to do it.

There was probably a way to play one of them off the other to get them both where she wanted them to be. She'd have to think about it.

For now though, she'd put a couple of demons on their tail. Keep them in sight while she came up with plans for both of them and the angel bodyguard they had picked up since Dean came back from Hell.

The first thing she should probably do was pick someone who could cozy up to Sam and get him training his powers. She'd have to choose carefully, because she suspected that further attempts to seduce him into using his powers would just get her a lot more dead demons.

So, who was either good at what they did, or expendable?