Note: Okay so it's been a MINUTE. By that I mean two weeks (as expected). Thanks for commenting, voting, and sticking around. It's really uplifting to see how kind all of you are! 

It's 2am AKA posting time, so here's a new chapter.

I'm sorry to have skipped a week, but I think this chapter would not have come out the same way if I'd forced myself to write it last week, so hopefully you all think it was worth the wait. 

This chapter was a request from writingmina, who wanted to see Demon Dean. This very (VERY) loosely follows the first few episodes of season ten, but I didn't even look at the transcripts or rewatch the episodes before writing it, so it's not closely tied to the show at all. A lot of events from the episodes are hinted at, and you can infer what about them is different/the same as in the show. I thought long and hard about the dynamics for this chapter, and I feel like I made the right call on this stuff. But let me know what you think/if things in the chapter go how you would have expected them to.

@Musicpotterhead made another drawing today!!! And it's going with this chapter <3 Go ahead, tell her how awesome she is.

Without further ado, Anna is fifteen.

The Monster Resembling You

She bounced her foot all through first period. Today was the day. The boys were headed out to face Metatron. She'd had to coerce that information out of them and then her million pleas and arguments that she ought to go with them were met with steadfast refusals. Even when she thought she was making a pretty persuasive argument, she just got unimpressed looks and orders to get ready for school.

Knowing they were out there was hard enough. But what really haunted her, what had her bouncing her foot so energetically she nearly hit her knee on the bottom of her desk, what had her eyes flicking frantically and distractedly from the English paper she should be peer reviewing to the white board to the clock to that poster on the wall that said Let's eat Grandma! Let's eat, Grandma! Punctuation saves lives-- What really haunted her, was the way Dean had grabbed her up in a tight hug before they piled into the car this morning, the way he'd told her to be safe and mind Cas while they were gone, the way his eyes had looked when he let her go and placed a hand on the side of her face for a minute before finally patting her once on the head and getting in the car. It had felt so strangely emotional considering they were supposed to be just going to take down Metatron.

They'd told her they had a plan, that things would go according to that plan, that this was a sure thing. It wouldn't be the first time they'd lied to make her feel better. And after that bone-crushing hug, Anna wondered. She worried. What the hell were they risking today while she sat in an English classroom and read a grammar poster again and again and again?

In second period, she texted Kate under the desk for half an hour, relaying her terror over what she referred to as simply a dangerous hunt.

In third period, she felt ready to bang her head off the wall repeatedly. She thought about ditching and finding a way home so she could at least see Cas. Then again, he had a job to do before he would be at the bunker waiting for her. Really, it was a matter of biting her nails in school or at home, and at least at school there were minor distractions. Math problems, Mila's latest drama, and Kate's supportive company.

After lunch, she walked to fourth period with her hands shaking, cold, and clammy. She just knew. She just knew.

In fourth period, she was called to the office. Acid burned up her throat. Her legs wobbled like a newborn calf trying to stand to drink that first meal. But she was walking through her final moments of ignorance. She would know soon. But she already knew, really. The hug had told her.

But when she saw Sam standing there, looking for all the world like a shell of the man he'd been this morning, her face went white. Her fingers, her toes, everything cold. Her eyes welled. "He's not-"

Sam didn't say anything. But he gave the slightest shake of his head, and Anna followed suit, curls flying messy around her head as she shook her head once, twice, three times and kept going, more frantic. It wasn't an answer, but a denial. A resounding one.

She covered her face with her hands because there were just way too many tears she wasn't in control of pouring down over her cheeks and off her chin, and it didn't make sense. It didn't make sense. Maybe other people could be fine one minute and dead the next. But not Dean. Not Dean.

Not Dean.

They spent an indeterminable amount of time in the office, and Sam held onto her even tighter than Dean had this morning. Anna spent the whole time trying to make herself stop bawling like an idiot. But it was hopeless. The pain was just too big to fit inside her.

()()()

When they got back, she walked masochistically to Dean's room.

Sam was right behind her, trying to tell her not to do it to herself. She ignored him.

But she didn't do it to herself either, because when she opened the door, the bed was empty.

Her eyes burning red inside and out, Anna stepped carefully into the room. "I don't-" She turned on Sam with a rage he didn't deserve. "Where is he?" she demanded.

"I don't- He was here," Sam said in quiet confusion. His eyes were similarly red-ringed and bloodshot. They looked more similar than they ever had and it was all for their identical pain.

"Does this mean he's-"

"Anna, don't," he begged. It didn't even seem to be for her this time, asking her not to get her hopes up. He couldn't get his own hopes up.

She looked at Sam, and the years between them didn't seem to be there anymore. They were even, just this once. So she met his eyes and tried to look strong for him. The strength wasn't there, but the effort was.

Sam stepped around her, and she watched as he lifted a small scrap of paper off Dean's bed. "What is it?" she asked urgently and practically dashed the short distance to lean over his arm. The note was simple, and it drilled a hole into each of their heads. "Let me go?" Anna read indignantly. She didn't even let herself think about the fact that the note had been addressed, Sammy, not meant for her. "Let me go? What- Does that mean he's alive? How can he be alive? We have to find him! Sam-!"

With a surprisingly sharp look, Sam put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Anna figured it was the kindest version of shut up he could come up with, but she still had no patience for it. She wanted answers, she wanted a plan, and she wanted action. She wanted Dean.

"We are not doing anything," Sam said imperiously. "I am gonna figure out where he is, and I'm gonna bring him back. The last thing Dean would want is me bringing you into this."

"Are you kidding me?" Anna growled when Sam moved her past her into the hallway. She followed him with determination, her footsteps loud, her arms spread in frustration. "You have no clue what happened. This is all hands on deck." She started jogging when Sam's obnoxiously long legs had the distance between them widening. "He's my brother too!" she shouted when she finally reached his side again.

Sam turned with a tired look on his face, but his voice sounded more gentle than weary. "No one's disputing that, Anna. Trust me. I would never."

"Then let me help," she pleaded.

Sam stared at her for a moment, and she saw pain in his eyes that she hadn't expected. She didn't understand his demeanour now the way she had just a few minutes ago. That note had changed everything for her, but Sam had the same deadened look in his eye. He lacked the hope that she had, and it made no sense to her. Dean was alive. He had to be. Nobody else would write Sammy, let me go, on a note and leave it in his room. Nobody but Dean. He was just scared. He'd been scared for a long time, since shortly after he got the Mark when he first realized that there was a danger to it that he hadn't stopped to consider when he met Cain.

She'd been shielded, she knew, from the worst of what the Mark did to her brother. She knew because when it seemed to her that nothing had changed, the boys would get back from a hunt and Dean would keep his distance. He'd started deflecting her every time she tried to be affectionate, the usual hugs and kisses disappearing rapidly from their relationship. She thought, on some level, that it shouldn't have been weird not to get a kiss on the forehead or a hug when they got back for a hunt or just when she felt like it, but... on the other hand, it was weird. It had always been part of her relationship with Dean, ever since she was a little kid. She hadn't even thought about it until suddenly attempts to hug him were met with subtle efforts to maintain distance between them. Side steps, 180s, and sudden needs to grab things off bookshelves across the room had all stopped taking her by surprise about a week or two ago.

He didn't even drive her to school most days anymore. It was almost always Sam unless they were both going someplace after. She'd figured out pretty quickly that it all had a lot more to do with the Mark than with her, but she couldn't help feeling offended by it.

This-- the note, the leaving, the Sammy, let me go-- was a more extreme version of all that. He was withdrawing completely, taking himself entirely out of their lives so that he stood no chance of harming them. This was Dean, alive. It had to be.

That was cause for hope. What else could it be?

"Sammy, please. I can't sit here. It's gonna drive me crazy. I have to help."

"Anna..." Sam said slowly. He took another moment to think and then braced his hands on her shoulder and leaned down just slightly. "Think about what Dean would want-"

With a sudden flash of anger in her core, Anna scissored Sam's arms away from her and backed away. "Don't talk about him like he's dead!" she demanded. "And don't use him against me. I'm not a little kid anymore, and I'm not gonna sit here or go to school or whatever while you take care of everything."

"Nobody's asking you to do nothing," Sam said reasonably. Anna rolled her eyes and made a disgusted sound, already turning to walk away. She wasn't interested in the placating bullshit he was about to feed her. "You can help me track him," Sam offered, following her down the hallway. "You can be here in case he comes back."

"That's all just a generous way of saying I can sit on my ass-

"Hey."

"Are you joking?" Anna snapped and stopped walking. She turned on her brother with rage burning hot behind her eyes. Thanks to her earlier crying session, they were still badly bloodshot around the green of her hope. "You're gonna tell me I'm talking wrong? You're the one acting like Dean's dead! Who knows what he's about to do?" she shouted. "We don't have time to sit around, and we don't have time to waste resources when he could be doing something really stupid! What if he gets himself killed?" Her voice cracked. "Again!"

"Calm dow-"

She shoved away the hand that was headed for her shoulder again. "Don't tell me to calm down! I'm done calming down! I'm done sitting around and waiting! I'm gonna help!"

"Anna-!"

She ignored him and turned around again. "I'm packing my shit so you can't leave without me," she informed.

"I'm not taking you anywhere," Sam yelled after her. "I'm serious, Anna. I'm not letting you get hurt over this. Dean would never forgive me." Anna stopped walking, her shoulders stiff. "I would never forgive me." Her chin wobbled, but she refused to cry, because there was so much to be hopeful about. "Anna, for me," Sam pleaded so that she could see his watery eyes even with her back turned to him. "For me, stay here."

It took a second, but her shoulders lost their stubborn tension and dropped. She turned around and met Sam's eyes, seeing their torment. It would have been unbearable for her to look into that much pain in her brother if it hadn't been reflected right back in her own eyes. Still, if she could ease that, she would choose to every time. So she swallowed hard, feeling nauseous in an overwrought, sad, cry all day sort of way, and, against every fiber of her being, said, "Fine," in the shakiest voice she'd heard from herself since she was a kid. "But if he- If something-" She stopped talking. But Sam clearly understood because his eyes said he wanted to hug her, but he didn't.

"I'll find him, Anna. I'll bring him back, and we'll fix everything." She heard the next words coming before he said them, and they felt enormously weighted even as they meant nothing at all. "I promise," he said.

()()()

A week later, there was still nothing. She and Sam had both lost weight, lost sleep. Their caffeine consumption far outweighed both their sleep and their ingestion of any actual food. Anna's grades were slipping, and Sam had come home with a busted shoulder after heading out with Cas to chase a lead. Castiel was far from full strength, and it was difficult for him to help in ways that Anna and Sam weren't capable of. He was resting to regain strength and simultaneously trying to help them read up on every possible way Dean could have disappeared off the map and what the Mark could do to a person who died while bearing it.

Sitting slouched over at the foot of her bed, Anna flipped through yet another old tome and prayed Sam would find another lead today, preferably one that he would let her help him chase. She knew better than to think that would really happen, though. Ever since that first conversation, Sam had been telling her no on every lead and Anna had been obedient because she didn't want to make things any harder for him than they already were. But they'd made no progress after a week, which was frustrating, and that was made only worse by the fact that she was spending her days at school, spacing out with her eyes on the whiteboard at the front of the room. She'd never been quite so unhelpful in her life.

When her head snapped up and she realized she'd dozed off again, Anna sighed and set the tome aside. She rubbed her eyes and stood up, trying to decide between getting a cup of coffee or getting some sleep for now and getting up early to do some more work on this before school. She hadn't done her homework, but she catch up on all that when they had Dean back. Until then, school didn't mean anything.

In the kitchen, she stared at the contents of the fridge and was disappointed to recall that she'd finished the pitcher of cold brew coffee usually kept there this morning. She hadn't made more, so she should really do that now. But the thought of doing anything at all was exhausting.

She sat on the floor in front of the open refrigerator and gazed at the nearly barren shelves and drawers. It never used to get like this. They restocked weekly unless something was going on. They hadn't done it last week because the boys had been so busy tracking down Metatron, going harder than they ever had fighting against the Mark. Sam hadn't done it since Dean's disappearance, and that only made sense. It hadn't even occurred to Anna until this moment.

She thought about grocery shopping, something they usually did all together. It was a bit strange in some ways that they still walked into the store, all three of them, just to buy the usual items-- milk, bread, eggs, etc. But it had always been like that back when they lived on the road, and they weren't so far from that time now. It hadn't been even two years since they discovered the bunker. So, each week, usually on Saturday morning, they walked in just like old times and they bantered and grumbled and teased and laughed a little as they went about the routine they'd had for ages. For Anna's whole life.

She so was not crying over that. Over grocery shopping.

In a moment that she knew she would later regret, Anna walked down the hallway, past the library where Sam was still working. In his bedroom, she found Sam's wallet, and in his wallet, a credit card. If she was quiet enough and if Sam was engaged enough in his current reading, she could leave through the garage and her brother would be none the wiser.

It took her almost an hour to walk into town. She wasn't in any rush. It was actually quite soothing to her walking through the cool night, darkness all around her, the stars her guardians. She was passed by only a few cars, and most of the drivers didn't give her a second glance. She was glad for it. The last thing she wanted was to be picked by a well-meaning-- or not-so-well-meaning-- civilian. She felt she could breathe out here, by herself, in a way that she couldn't back home. The bunker felt increasingly suffocating, seemed to swallow her whole some days, in fact.

It didn't feel like home anymore. Instead, it was the place where Dean wasn't.

The 24-hour supermarket was on the far side of town, and she'd had to walk past some of the sketchier areas of Lebanon to get there. But as she stepped inside, she felt good. She felt like the world of hurt she lived in daily now wasn't even real, like it was a bad dream she'd had and now, standing here in the real world, she could put it behind her. The lighting was somewhat dim and slightly blue tinged. Her worn and torn converse scuffed against the stained tiles of aisle after aisle, the basket dangling from the crook of her elbow getting heavier as she went. She didn't really know what to buy since she'd never done this by herself before, but she picked up familiar items as she went.

Milk, cheese, eggs, coffee, Maxwell House latte mix because there was no one there to stop her, Lucky Charms, and two frozen pizzas because maybe if they had food that took almost no effort to prepare, she and Sam would actually eat sometime before Dean got back and got pissed at them for losing so much weight. She felt hopeful as she wandered toward the checkout station but stopped as she passed the aisle with shelves full of alcohol.

The absence of her family stood beside her, tapped her on the shoulder, and breathed into her ear. This was where the boys always argued about how much beer to buy and Dean always won and she was demoted from basket-carrier to tag-along because for some reason all the well-meaning cashiers equated carrying alcohol with drinking it. They were out of beer at home, she knew, because that usually took up a lot of shelf space in the fridge, and it had been completely empty when she looked earlier.

She couldn't buy any beer. She just wouldn't get away with it. She was fifteen, and she looked it. She didn't have a fake ID. She would be caught. It was that simple.

But her feet felt strangely weighted as she walked away.

As she carried three grocery bags outside and caught sight of her reflection in the automatic doors, Anna wondered if she could've gotten away with buying beer after all. The bags under her eyes made her look a number of years older than she was.

()()()

As she re-entered the bunker through the garage, she wondered for the first time since leaving if there was any chance Sam had noticed she was gone. Instead, she entered the library with the groceries in hand because Sam was nowhere to be seen. A note on the table said he'd found a lead and would be back in a few days, hopefully with Dean. Go to school, he insisted at the bottom before signing his name sloppily.

Anna let out an angry breath through her nose. He'd left her behind. Again. Worse, he hadn't even made an effort to tell her in person, or she'd have gotten an angry call while she was gone. He'd just written a hasty note and taken off.

In the kitchen, she put the groceries away with more aggression than necessary. Her body ached and begged for sleep after her hour walking back with three bags of groceries in her hands, but she was too keyed up now to sleep. Deciding to use the rare if furious energy to do something productive, she walked back into the library and was surprised to see Castiel standing in the center of the room.

"Cas?" she asked in total confusion. "Why aren't you with Sam?"

Cas turned and approached her with his usual slightly worried look. "He requested that I stay with you instead."

"Well- I don't care what he requested. You can't let him chase after Dean by himself. We already know Crowley's involved in this, and if Sam gets taken or hurt somehow or- or k-killed somehow. Cas, go find him!"

Castiel frowned and put his hands gently on her shoulders and bent down slightly. It seemed like a less subtle version of the way her brothers often stood to talk to her. It did put them at eye level, though, so it was effective in that respect. "Your brother is self-sufficient."

"You mean he can take care of himself? Because, guess what, Cas," Anna said angrily, hand-narrating in her expanding energy. "I always thought Dean could too. And I sure as hell never thought anything could happen when they were both there watching each other's backs. But something did. And Dean's gone. I don't want to get him back only to lose Sam! And he won't let me help, so either go help him, or I will!"

Cas looked serious as if he wasn't sure whether he should answer her like an authority figure, like a friend, or like an angel. After a moment, he said, "You're right. I shouldn't have let him go alone. I will go help him. But I'm not at full power. I'm still healing and the borrowed grace in my system will not be enough to keep me at full strength if I go to your brother now."

"Well, then, at least he has human help. It's not about you being an angel, Cas. You're our friend. Well, family, actually. Been here half my life," she chuckled, but there were tears in her eyes. "I just don't want him alone, Cas. I..." She looked down at her feet, the scuffed toes of her sneakers with tiny holes worn into the fabric. She looked up at Cas again, and her eyes were so open, so vulnerable. "I'm scared, Cas. Every time I think we're safe, something happens and one of them gets tossed off the ledge and then the other throws himself off after." She sniffled and swiped at a couple tears before they had a chance to fall down her cheeks. "I don't want to keep losing them. I can't do it anymore."

She looked away again, but Cas' hand on her face had her gazing back up at him. His eyes, sharp and blue, were a source of comfort Anna hadn't expected. "Everything will be okay," he promised with a kind, reassuring smile. Anna just managed to return it before he disappeared, the warmth on her face gone in the same moment as the pair of blue eyes vanished from in front of her.

"Everything will be okay," she repeated to herself in a whisper.

()()()

Three days, and neither Sam nor Cas had returned to the bunker. She hadn't gotten a single call, but she'd expected them to go incommunicado. This wasn't like things had been before, back when Sam and Dean would go on hunts and promise to call every night. This was a whole other level of urgency, and she knew they couldn't spare the time to call and give her peace of mind. But, God, how she wished they would.

As she stepped off the ugly yellow school bus, Famous Last Words blared in her ears and her heart beat dully at her feet. There was so much to fear, so much to grieve, and she was walking toward the bunker in her OSIRIS sneakers with My Chemical Romance lulling her into a sad but distant mental state. It felt so wrong, but it was the only thing she could do.

The weekend had been torturous. So torturous, in fact, that she'd taken the time to not only do her homework but to catch up on the assignments she'd been slowly letting slip for the past week and a little more. Her teachers had all been ecstatic until she walked into each of their classrooms looking like a heartbroken somnambulist of a kid. She was still grateful that, at least during school, she had some semblance of distraction. And she had Kate, who had been practically begging for Anna to stay with them until her family got back home, or for Anna to let her stay at the bunker. But the last thing she wanted was for Kate to get involved when things inevitably went south like always.

It took only five minutes to get to the bunker from the bus stop, but Anna dragged her feet and made it take almost ten. Home didn't feel like home anymore, and she was in no hurry to go back. Until she saw the tracks in the wet ground leading into the garage, that was. Then she tore her headphones out and wrapped them haphazardly around her phone as she forced the heavy bunker door open.

It took her nearly fifteen minutes of searching the bunker up and down before she ran into any signs of life. She was checking the garage a third time just so she could be absolutely sure that she hadn't somehow imagined the Impala's presence there, and when she stepped back into the hallway, she heard them. Voices. Downstairs. One was distinctly Sam, the other too low to make out so well. So either Cas or Dean. What if Dean was back?

She cut herself off at that. They were downstairs, and that was strange. The only things down there were the archives, some weird rooms they hadn't really explored yet, and a new collection of hallways to get lost in. Well, and the dungeon. But they hadn't put that to use since Crowley had been their prisoner.

Running down the stairs, Anna heard the voices stop before she was halfway down. And around the corner came Sam, hands held out in front of him as if trying to keep her at bay. Anna stopped just in front of him, but only because he was too big a barrier for her to cross with ease. She still twisted to try to see around him, though. "Is that Dean? Did you find him? Is he okay?"

Sam put his hands on her shoulders and gently nudged her back, farther from the corner that led down the hallway to wherever she suspected Dean would be. "You shouldn't be down here right now, okay?"

"What?" Anna asked indignantly. "Sam. Did you find Dean or not? I can take it, okay? I'm a big girl."

"Anna, just go back upstairs," he requested, sounding so bone weary that she almost gave in.

"I've been waiting here for three days," she told him instead. It was so incredibly unfair to keep her out of this after she'd spent the last several weeks doing everything he asked of her, spending long nights up reading useless lore with him, and just worrying herself sick for both Dean and Sam. "I've been here losing my mind thinking Dean was dead or you or Cas was. For three days. You're finally back, and you're not even gonna tell me if you found him or not?"

Sam bit his lip and looked over his shoulder. "Look, we- we found something, okay? But we're... we don't have Dean."

"So who the hell were you just talking to?"

"Cas. Look, just... just trust me for now, Anna. And stay upstairs. Please."

If his eyes hadn't been so pitiful, Anna might have stomped her foot or thrown a punch just to let him know how infuriating it was to be kept in the dark. She wasn't a little kid anymore, and she was sick of being 'protected.' Instead of colliding her fist with her brother's face, though, she just tightened her jaw in frustration and let out a short sigh. "Fine. But I'm not kidding you, Sam, I can't do this for another week. I just can't." She tried to ignore the way her own voice seemed to quiver from somewhere deep as she walked back up the stairs, forcing herself not to either stomp her feet or look defeated. She could feel Sam's eyes on her the whole way.

()()()

It was almost an hour before Cas walked into the library, and Sam still had yet to come upstairs. But Anna was relieved to see at least one friendly face when she looked up from the lyric she'd been writing on her arm in sharpie. I'm dying and I'm trying but believe I'm fine but I'm lying I'm so very far from fine. She finished the words, capped the sharpie, and tossed it onto the table.

"Where you going?" she asked in confusion and popped out of her chair when she realized he was walking straight through the room without stopping.

Cas looked confused and stopped. "Well, Sam doesn't need my help to cure Dean. I'm going to go after my grace."

"Cure Dean?" Anna repeated, her heart beginning to pound out of her chest. He has Dean down there? What the hell is wrong with him?

"Yes. With the blood spell."

"Blood spe-" Suddenly feeling lightheaded, Anna braced her hands against the table. "Dean's a demon," she whispered.

"Are you alright?" Cas asked, his hand gently touching her back.

Anna shook her head. "Yeah, no, of course," she said. "I should probably help Sam, though. Make sure he- uh-" God, how could she help with this? "Make sure he eats and shit since he's gonna be..."

"Losing blood." Cas nodded. "It won't be any substantial loss, but it is important that he keeps his strength up while performing the spell."

"Right," Anna said and nodded along, still feeling strangely detached. Dean, a demon. It just didn't line up. How the fuck? She had a list of questions a mile long, but that one sat at the top. "Thanks for helping him, Cas," she managed to stutter out as he walked out in the direction of the map room and the front door to the bunker.

He merely looked back at her and nodded. "I will be back. As soon as I have my grace back."

Anna nodded, trying not to look terrified as a protective layer was torn away from her.

()()()

Sam came upstairs a few hours later, and Anna noticed what she hadn't in the dim lighting of the basement. His face was covered in bruises and a couple of cuts. Her heart thumped fearfully in her chest, wondering what had happened to Sam while he was gone and if it had anything to do with Dean and his newfound demonic self.

"What happened to your face?" she asked as he sat heavily in a chair across the table from her. She tried to ignore the needle marks in his elbow, but she couldn't help glancing at them a couple times. Sam noticed and rolled the sleeves of his flannel down to cover them without ever acknowledging that they were there or that Anna had seen them.

"Just a guy with a grudge," Sam answered her question. "Not a big deal."

Anna tried to buy that, but she knew there was more to the story and she wanted to know what it was. It could be a story for another day, though. "You should eat something," she said. "I think there's still pizza in the fridge."

"You should eat too," Sam said, making no move to go get himself any food.

"Should I? I mean, I'm not the one draining blood every hour to cure a demon, so..."

Sam got a furious look on his face for a second as he straightened his spine and sat taller in his chair. "How did you-?"

"Cas."

"Cas," Sam repeated, closing his eyes and rubbing at his temples as if clearing a headache. "Look, Anna-"

"Don't lie to me anymore," she said shortly. "I don't need you to lie to me, Sam. I don't need you to tell me things are gonna be okay. I stopped believing any of that crap when I was ten, so I'd really rather you save your breath. I just want to know what's really happening."

In her brother's eyes, heartache waved at her, and Anna looked down at her hand, resting on the table, at the words scrawled on her wrist, at the, believe me I'm fine. At the, I'm dying and I'm trying. She looked back up at Sam and his eyes were still all wrong.

"I still don't want you down there," he said. "He's not Dean, Anna, not really. You don't want to see him like that. Trust me."

Anna held her brother's eyes, searching for something she couldn't name. He was still trying to protect her from something, but it was different. He was warning her, giving her the information she needed to protect herself rather than taking it all on his own shoulders. He was asking her to trust him in a different way than he had a few hours ago when she found him downstairs. He was trying to protect her the way that he'd tried to protect Dean a time or two, the way that he might try to protect Cas. He was saying, Things are really bad right now, and I don't want you to put yourself through anything like what I'm going through. The difference was subtle, but it was important.

With a tilt of her head, Anna contemplated doing what he'd asked. But she thought about what Dean would do-- the real Dean, the one she remembered. "I can't sit here anymore," she finally admitted. Sam looked ready to argue, more angrily this time, but she stopped him. "Come on, I'll compromise," she said, straightening in her chair. "I know I'm still technically a kid-- whatever," she added with an eye roll when Sam actually twitched a tiny smirk at her words. "So what if... what if I go down with you, but I promise not to talk to him? I'll just be there." She tilted her head a little more but pulled her eyes away from his to instead look at the table, at her hands, at the words scrawled on her arm, at the I'm lying I'm so very far from fine. "Just so you're not alone." She tore her eyes from the word far to look at Sam's hands, at the thin, rusty lines of dried blood in the crevices where his nails met his fingers. He hadn't spoken after a moment, so she spoke again, this time brave enough to look him in the eyes.

She was surprised to find he was still looking right at her, that their eyes locked instantly. It felt like it always did when she and Sam shared a knife to the heart, like they were giving and receiving each other's pain, holding each other up and leaning heavily on one another, like brother and sister. It was the kind of look she'd never quite shared with Dean because he was a little too concerned with being her guardian and makeshift father to let her see him look that vulnerable. The kind of look she'd never shared with Kate because Kate could never understand her pain the way Sam could. It was the kind of look that could only be shared by siblings. The kind that hurt so badly in its healing power.

She couldn't bring herself to break it, so she used it to say what she still needed to. You don't deserve this anymore than I do.

In return, she saw a message being sent back to her. I don't want you to feel like I do.

It felt like an impasse, but it felt like an even playing field.

They both looked away at the same time a minute later. "I'll heat something up," Anna offered. "I honestly can't remember the last time I ate, and I'm sure it's been longer for you."

"Anna-"

"I don't want to either. But at least he's almost back. It takes, what, a day to do the spell?"

"Twelve hours," Sam corrected.

"Well, fine," Anna said. "And you started...?"

"Right before I came upstairs. It was 8:05 on the dot."

"So, 8:05 tomorrow morning, he's back. What's one more sleepless night?"

Sam smiled companionably at her, and Anna felt okay for a second. She felt like she'd done something right.

()()()

It wasn't like she'd expected. It was still Dean. Sort of. Well, it wasn't. But it was. Sort of.

"Oh, this is a whole new low, Sammy," he growled the moment they stepped into the dungeon together. Anna's heartbeat was in her ears as she stepped toward the table with Sam. She couldn't help but spend a moment looking at this demon version of her brother, though. He looked at her for barely a second before looking back at Sam. Her heart rate slowed considerably. She didn't feel threatened when he looked at her. She didn't feel particularly loved, but she didn't feel threatened. Maybe there was more of Dean there than she'd been led to believe.

Dean was cuffed to a chair in the middle of the room at the very center of a large devil's trap. A glance at the cuffs he was wearing told Anna they were the ones that had been used on Crowley last year. They had the etchings in them that allowed them to hold demons. Seeing them on Dean was... strange.

"Oh, you're ignoring me now? Cute. You know, I may be a dirtbag demon now, but at least I have morals."

Sam had been resolutely focused on the small table where he was lifting an empty syringe to use for the next dose of blood, but he stopped at those words. "Morals," he repeated incredulously.

"Sure. Saved that chick at the bar, didn't I? Let that poor bastard that tried to kill me go."

Anna watched as Sam bit his tongue to keep back some retort. He turned back to the table and seemed to fumble a little as he went back to preparing the syringe. He was about to stick it into his arm when Dean spoke again behind him.

"And I never would have dragged a kid into this."

Anna shot him a dirty look. Sam had not dragged her into this. He'd tried his best to keep her out of it.

"Don't get me wrong," Dean said when Sam turned to look at him with hardened eyes. "She's hardly the most innocent kid on the planet. Lot more dangerous than most. Got a lot more blood on her hands."

Anna swallowed. Maybe he wasn't so much like Dean after all. Or maybe he was. Maybe Dean believed that. He wasn't wrong, after all. She did have blood on her hands.

"But I don't hurt kids. As a general rule, they don't deserve it. You, though, Sam. You, I'm gonna kill."

"So you've mentioned," Sam said disinterestedly, pulling the needle out of his arm though Anna hadn't even noticed he'd put it in yet.

She forced herself to watch as Sam stepped toward their brother, syringe in hand.

"And you know, maybe I'll enjoy it a little more knowing that not only have you been a milestone around my neck-"

Sam chose that moment to stick the needle into Dean's neck, and immediately his words turned into angry grunting and a shout of rage or pain. Anna couldn't tell the difference. It didn't really matter, though, because it was difficult to watch either way. Not just because of the shouts, but because of the way Dean's green eyes-- the ones that looked like hers-- flicked into empty black.

It had been easy not to let any of this sink in until she'd seen that. Her hope disintegrated. Even if they cured Dean by tomorrow morning, there would be no telling if they could recover from all this damage. And the Mark would still be there. What if this happened again? And again? Fear turned her blood cold in her veins.

"Shut up," Sam said as he pulled the needle out and watched Dean pant in his chair. "Come on," he said to Anna after dropping the syringe on the table.

They stepped outside the dungeon and Sam shut the door to the sound of Dean hurling obscenities at him.

The look they shared this time was more like Sam apologizing and Anna trying not to look as scared as she felt. It didn't feel controlled and it didn't feel equal. It felt all wrong, because this was all wrong. Dean sitting there making sounds like a threatened wild animal, blaming Sam for things that weren't even remotely his fault, raving about moral codes and Anna having blood on her hands... It was all so gut wrenchingly wrong.

She'd decided, before they went in, that if there was any Dean left in that demon, then his soft spot would be his family. After all, knowing what she did now, she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he'd only left after his revival to protect her and Sam. And if he was there enough to try to protect them that way, there was no way he would be willing to hurt them. But watching him curl his lip in pure disgusted hatred and listening to him talk about killing Sam like it was something to celebrate... It wasn't Dean. It wasn't Dean at all. And strangely, that made this a little easier to bear.

This was like the shapeshifter in St Louis. It was like the time Sam was possessed by Meg. Like the time a siren took both her brothers under its control.

The man threatening Sam's life while sporting eyes the color of tar wasn't Dean. It was a monster resembling him.

()()()

It had been nine hours since that first round. Sam told her could do this round by himself, so Anna took the opportunity to step outside and get some fresh air. The sun was just coming up as she stepped outside in favorite pair of jeans-- the worn ones with two ragged holes in the knees-- and a black tank top and purple and black flannel. She'd put on her old black converse, too, even though they were full of holes. She trusted those shoes. She had no intention of going for a jog, or she would have dressed differently. But she did find herself wanting to run down the road until she could remember a time when Dean's eyes had been green, when they'd been Dean's.

She spent only ten minutes outside before turning back to the bunker with a small sigh of dread. Sam was probably finished with the dose already, and she wouldn't have to face the thing downstairs for another hour, so she really shouldn't have felt so miserable at the thought of going back inside.

She had just started to push the bunker door open when felt an inexplicable pang of terror in her stomach. Her heart fluttered with it and she had to swallow to keep from gagging at the sudden, terrible wave of fear that crashed through every cell in her body. "Sam," she whispered and shoved the door open with far less struggling than usual.

Just as she stepped inside, her phone buzzed in her pocket and Anna pulled it out. She frowned as she read the message from Sam that said only Stay outside.

Turning quickly, she watched the door she'd just come through slam shut, and her eyes followed the hand that had closed it up to a familiar face. Her pupils dilated and her mouth went dry as she stared into eyes the color of a starless night sky. It was Dean. Except it wasn't.

"Well, hello, Princess," he said and grinned with her brother's face. Anna couldn't think of a damn thing to say, and she was sure she did a poor job masking her fear. But the demon didn't seem to care. He leaned down just a little, she backed up a step only for him to grab her by the arm, a grip rougher than Dean ever would have used on her. "You're awfully helpful, aren't you?" His eyes flicked back to green, but Anna didn't feel better. Actually, she found that a lot worse. "Walked in the minute I lost him."

"What are you talking about?" Anna asked, trying to make her voice sound stronger than she felt. It only half-worked, and Dean-- not Dean-- only grinned at her.

"Oh, don't worry, Sweetheart. I'm not gonna hurt you. Only blood I want is from our selfish bastard of a brother." Using his grip on her arm, he suddenly yanked her toward him so her back was against his chest and pulled a knife out to place it against her knife. "But, you know... appearances and all that," he said, sounding less apologetic than his words might have implied. Anna jerked, hoping he would take mercy and let her get away since he'd said he didn't want to hurt her, but she felt the cold steel of the blade touch her throat. It wasn't enough to cut or even knick her, just enough for her to feel the cool, sharp surface of it and to still immediately. As she felt herself become paralyzed with fear, Dean spoke more quietly into her ear in a tone so low it made her shiver. "You might want to stay still, 'cause the blade's not going anywhere."

"Why are you doing this?" she whispered, not even bothering to disguise her fear anymore. It wasn't as if she'd been doing a good job at it anyway. "We're trying to help you."

Dean made a humming sound in his throat that sounded a bit like unamused laughter. "Cute that you think we have the same idea of what would help me." He eased the blade away from her throat and nudged her forward, walking the two of them down the stairs into the war room. "Now, you're gonna stay nice and quiet for me unless I tell you to talk. Unlike Sammy, I don't like Hide and Seek anymore."

"Don't call him that-" The blade touched close to her throat again as they paused halfway to the hallway.

"Funny, you're usually the one who knows when to keep her mouth shut." He eased the blade away from her neck again and began to move them forward once more. "He's my brother too."

"He's not your anything," Anna argued instead of doing what had been demanded of her. "You're not our brother."

Dean didn't threaten her this time, just leaned his head down close to hers and said, "Soon the only thing he's gonna be is dead."

It wasn't the damp heat of his breath on her ear or the cold quality to his voice that made her shiver, but the words themselves. The promise that Sam wouldn't live to see another day had her petrified. She couldn't lose Sam. And if she did, she couldn't fix Dean by herself. She'd never had to be in charge of anything before. She'd always been able to follow. Now, she felt cornered into that role, solely because she was alone and hearing threats not only to her well-being but to her family's. She felt like she should be doing something more than she was, but what was there to do when there was a knife at her throat and Dean's green eyes belonged to a monster?

"Sammy," Dean crooned loudly as they walked down the hallway. "Got a pretty sweet deal for you. Come out and play, and Anna doesn't have to."

"You already said you wouldn't hurt me. This isn't gonna work."

Dean pressed the blade closer to her throat, but he didn't cut her. "Come on, Sam," he taunted, voice low and rough. "Don't make me hurt her just to get to you. That's a whole new low, even for the selfish one."

A sound from a short ways down the hallway had Anna's breath clogging in her chest. Sam was leading Dean to him, just going subtle instead of answering.

"Attaboy!" Dean cheered, though he sounded only grim. "Come on," he said harshly and dragged Anna along in the direction of the noise.

Panic beginning to take over her more logical side, Anna tried to think of some way to stall. Maybe she could buy some time and Sam could take off, set up some kind of trap for the demon that had her. So, she began to ramble. "Wait. Wait wait wait. You don't wanna do this. It's Sam. If there's any bit of the real Dean left in you, you'll never be able to kill him."

Dean laughed outright at her attempt to persuade him. "You don't know anything about me, little girl. Not really. You think I love him or you, you got it all wrong. The only thing that ever held me here was the chain around my neck making me drag you two around with me. This Mark-" He held up the arm not holding the knife to show her the Mark of Cain. "-makes me strong. Makes me free. It wanted me to kill both of you, but I was just gonna go. Until Sam brought me back here. Looks like I won't be free until he's dead. Not that I have any problem with that."

"You don't mean that," Anna whispered with tears clouding her eyes.

"Don't get pitiful on me now, kid. Waterworks don't work on demons." He shoved her forward with more force than necessary, and Anna only narrowly avoided cutting her throat open on the blade he still held too close for comfort. "Now where do we think Sammy is?" Dean drawled slowly. He pushed open a couple of doors on either side of the hallway to look for Sam in the rooms before the lights suddenly went out and Anna felt his grip on her tighten fractionally. "Well now we know where he is, don't we? And lucky us! There's only one way out of there." Instead of bringing her in the direction of the doorway they knew Sam had to be behind, Dean dragged her back through the dark hallway now lit only by ominous red lights.

This scene would haunt her nightmares, Anna was sure. Darkness at their feet, red light cast over stone above their heads, green eyes that could turn black at any second, fingers holding her tight enough to bruise, the cold steel of a knife's blade on her neck, and the rapid, painful thud of her heart against the cavity of her chest. She was thrown into the first available room and landed on her hands and knees on the floor. She turned around, hoping to do something-- anything-- to stop Dean and help Sam. But by the time she got back to her feet, Dean had a pair of handcuffs out. It took him an embarrassingly short amount of time to get both her wrists handcuffed to the footposts of the bed, and Anna tried to get up on her knees or kick at him with her legs from her seat on the floor, but to no avail.

"Sammy!" she yelled instead at the top of her lungs, exercising one final hope to help him. "Get out before-!" A gag was knotted roughly behind her head and her words were muffled beyond understanding. She tried to warn Sam anyway, but she knew it was doing no good.

"Don't worry, kid," Dean said and gave her a pat on the head. "I'm sure you'll get out of here not long after I go. You're a resourceful little shit."

As he turned to go, Anna kicked him in the back of the leg, but the demon barely stumbled, and she only felt cold fear when he looked over his shoulder at her with a wicked smile.

The next half hour or so was one of the most terrifying of her life. The doorway to the bedroom was only open a crack, so her world was pitch black except the tiniest sliver of blood-colored light that filtered in from the hallway to paint a line of crimson on the cold stone floor. With nothing else to focus her eyes on, Anna locked her gaze onto that bloody sliver and tried to hear as much as she could. At first, she couldn't hear a thing past the pounding of her own heartbeat in her ears. But after a minute or two, she'd managed to force her breathing into a regular pattern and her heart followed suit.

It was hard to make out words most of the time, but she could hear Dean and Sam each shouting in some kind of exchange. Dean wanted Sam to come out of the breaker room, made a few threats about Anna and then about Sam himself. The lights came back on abruptly, but she hadn't heard anything that she thought could have been Dean killing Sam. Dean killing Sam-- the thought made her body rock as she gagged out of terror and revolt. She yanked against the cuffs keeping her hands in place. But when that did nothing, she focused on her breathing, though it was ragged, and she felt suffocated by the gag she was wearing.

The game of cat and mouse was, she knew, still going on outside of this dark room. As messed up as it was, that fact alone made her feel almost grateful to be in this corner of the bunker, trapped in the darkness of this little new moon. She couldn't face what was out there. No better than she could face what was in here. And there's nothing in here, she realized in the dangerous void of her own teenage mind.

It took only that one thought for her to decide in here was worse than out there. And the moment she made her decision, the thought, I have to get out was punctuated by the crash of something huge and heavy and solid against something equally solid and unforgiving. The crash and crumble from outside the room set her mind into an adrenaline-fueled buzz of unadulterated panic.

She twisted and turned and pulled her wrists, trying to get them out of the cuffs. Then she remembered a trick she'd never been taught, but one that she'd seen Dean use before. The real Dean. Her Dean. And just the thought of him was enough to motivate her to make the move. 

Wrapping three fingers around the thumb of her right hand, she jerked it hard and rough, and an abrupt pop and accompanying wave of pain announced that she'd successfully pulled the thumb out of joint. It allowed her to slip her right hand out of the cuff, though it was still a tight fit, and there were tears of pain running unabashedly down her face by the time she'd gotten her hand free. By the time her ears had stopped buzzing with it and she could breathe again, Anna could hear the noises from the hallway getting much more intense. There was shouting, grunting, and sounds of what could very well be physical fighting. 

Inside her bubble of darkness, Anna stared at that shaky line of red as she got a grip on her right thumb again, this time with the fingers of her left hand. Painfully, she forced the joint back into its rightful place, and the tears and the buzzing started all over again. It took the same frustratingly long amount of time for her mind to clear and his senses to come back online this time as when she'd pulled the finger out of joint. But when it was done, she felt ready. Both her wrists were bleeding from the many attempts she'd made to get out of the cuffs before dislocating her thumb, and she used the slickness to make it easier for her to slide her second wrist out without having to dislocate any fingers.

The violent shaking her cold, clammy hands were doing thanks to her enduring and debilitating panic made it infuriatingly difficult to untie the gag from her face, though, and she ran out of patience so quickly that she wound up bringing her hands to the front of her face to claw and pull at the gag until she'd managed to rip the fabric away, by which point her face was bleeding from several gashes dug there by her own frantic fingernails.

She heard Dean yell something else from outside, and they were closer than they'd been all the time she'd spent in the room. She scrambled to her feet and stumbled in a sort of daze to the door. Never in her life had she felt so frantic. Her mind was a buzz of detached terror and her heart was in her throat, her breaths punching in and out so fast she couldn't have counted them if she'd wanted to.

The sliver of red encased the whole room as she swung the door open as far as its hinges would allow, and the sight of Dean swinging a hefty, ginormous hammer at Sam's had left Anna screaming. She didn't waste a second in rushing into the fray, but she'd done all she could just in that scream, because Sam ducked and the hammer went into the wall, and Dean growled in uncontrolled anger.

Fear gripped her by the throat as the demon turned to see her. There was ferocious anger in the green eyes that found hers. But before she or Sam could do or say anything more, an angel in a trenchcoat came to the rescue, wrapping both arms around Dean, leaving his arms trapped at his sides. At first, Anna tensed, waiting for the moment Dean would throw Cas off and take another swing with that hammer, maybe at her this time. But it didn't happen. Cas was holding onto Dean even as he thrashed, tossing his head and growling from low in his belly like a wild animal.

It was an ugly image of her brother, but it was also the most beautiful one she'd seen in days. It wasn't Dean that was being trapped by Cas. It was the monster resembling Dean. The real Dean was being held by Cas, was in good, safe hands for the first time since he'd escaped the dungeon earlier that morning.

()()()

The lines of impressively bright scarlet on her face had Anna squinting interestedly. She'd done this to herself without even really noticing. There'd been some stinging, sure, but she hadn't really registered that in the moment, could only remember in hindsight that the sensation had been there as she careened out of the dark room. She dabbed at each one of the small cuts, some of them shallow, one of them surprisingly deep and even redder than the others, with a little cotton ball dipped in antiseptic. She'd never enjoyed doing First Aid on herself. She'd never enjoyed doing First Aid at all. But she had no desire to be down in the dungeon with Sam and Cas as the last dose of blood and the final steps of the spell were being fulfilled, all of which would hopefully lead to the safe return of the real Dean.

For the moment, Anna honed in on the scratches in her face and pretended they were from another hunt, that she'd been clawed in the face by a monster, not her own hands.

"Hey."

She didn't flinch, because even though she hadn't known Sam was there, some part of her brain had recognized the soft footsteps coming toward the bathroom before he stopped in the doorway and spoke.

"Hey," she said back without looking away from the mirror. She tossed the cotton ball into the trashcan without looking, and she knew she'd made it in when she heard the quiet sound of cotton hitting plastic.

"It worked," Sam said like a promise. But promise meant very little when they were made after the fact.

"Of course it did," she replied as if she'd never had a doubt. It was funny because all she'd had were doubts. "Is Cas sticking around? Feel like we owe him about three hundred PB&Js."

Sam snickered. "Uh, yeah. I think he's staying the night. He's actually-" He cleared his throat. "He's actually talking to Dean right now."

"Oh yeah?" Anna remarked, feigning disinterest. But the thought of anybody sitting and chatting with Dean-- the real Dean, their Dean-- was enough to make her entire being buzz with hope. What hope? Things were already better. This was joy. She just didn't recognize the feeling right away.

"Yeah, he- uh- Dean asked if I thought you'd even want to talk to him after..."

It was left open ended, but Anna didn't see how that could be a question. "It wasn't him," she said tersely, hoping no more conversation on the topic would be necessary. "It wasn't him that held a knife to my throat and it wasn't him that swung a hammer at your head and it won't be him in my nightmares."

"I know that," Sam assured her. "Won't be him in mine either."

Anna just nodded, feeling like they'd reached some sort of important agreement. Now if they could only convince Dean of the same thing. "Honestly, though, I am kinda nervous. You're sure it's him now?"

"Positive. I watched his eyes fade back to green myself. I threw holy water on him just to be sure. And after all that, Cas confirmed it too. It's him, Anna. We got him back. And after the way things have gone the past few weeks... I'm taking the win and not thinking about anything else for tonight."

Anna tilted her head at her brother before she realized what he'd meant by anything else. The Mark was still on Dean's arm. This whole mess could still repeat itself. In fact, it likely would repeat itself unless they found a cure for the Mark and fast.

"Can you help me with my wrists?" she requested of her brother instead of bringing up any of the new fears that had settled into her gut to replace the ones she'd lived with throughout Dean's time as a demon. "It's hard to get any bandage on right with one hand."

"Sure thing," Sam agreed and sat down on the toilet seat lid beside the vanity where the open First Aid Kit lay. He cleaned the shallow cuts out and then wrapped bandages carefully around both of her wrists.

"Can't believe it's only barely after noon," Anna commented as she toyed with the edge of the bandage Sam had just finished securing.

"Yeah," Sam snorted. "Been a full day, huh?"

"Been a helluva day," she corrected.

It was quiet for a second before Sam spoke. "You gonna go talk to him?"

"You don't think he wants to rest?"

Sam bobbed one eyebrow. "You think he'll be able to without knowing you're okay."

"You didn't tell him I'm okay?"

"Of course I did. It's not the same thing, though, and you know that."

Anna ran her right hand through her hair and winced when her thumb bent at just a slightly odd angle in the process. "I guess I'll go talk to him," she said, trying not to sound nervous, because there was no reason for her to be nervous.

"Yeah," was all Sam said as she left the bathroom.

The walk down the hallway toward her brother's room felt too short and atrociously long at the same time. Regardless, the moment she stepped into the doorway and Dean turned to look at her, she felt her fear melt into relief. His eyes were brimming with sadness, regret, relief, and a million other human emotions. He wasn't an animal, and he wasn't a monster. He was her brother.

"Hey," he greeted so casually it felt anything but.

Anna smiled a little. "Hey." For the life of her, she couldn't come up with any witty icebreakers, but she didn't really feel in the mood for one anyway. "You, uh, okay?"

"Shouldn't I be askin' you that?" Dean said with a snort. All traces of mirth disappeared quickly from his face, though. "Look, Anna, I'm sorry-"

"Don't do that," Anna rolled her eyes. "I don't want to talk about blame and guilt, Dean. I'm fine, and it wasn't you, and you are you, and I missed you. That's what I want to talk about."

Dean looked intensely at her through squinted eyes for a moment. Then he nodded, his gaze softening. "You make about as little sense as ever," he remarked with a tiny but fond smile.

Anna returned it, and things got quiet for a second. "It really wasn't you," she repeated. "It was just like every other time they took somebody's face. It was just more personal this time."

Dean looked like he couldn't be further from agreeing, but he didn't say that. Instead, he put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her in for a tight hug. If his hand on her arm that morning had been a grip to appear in her nightmares, his hand on the back of her head in this moment was a comfort to chase the nightmares away.

La Fin