[fic] Sew me up with threads of steel || Sam/Dean, nc-17 || 1/2

[hybridshade]

Title: Sew Me Up with Threads of Steel
Author: hybridshade
Artist: amber1960
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: nc-17
Warnings: AU with spies/agents/covert operations, angst, hurt!Dean, amnesia, violence, injury, scarring, noncon body modification, references to medical situations, death of minor character
Word count: 20k+
Summary: Sam left his previous life of guns and covert ops behind for a reason. But when the past comes knocking in a big way, he has no choice but to confront it and deal with the tattered remains of what he once turned his back on. That includes his brother, who's been in the hellish clutches of the enemy for too long and no longer remembers himself, let alone Sam. When Sam gets his hands on intel from said enemy, he puts his skills to good use - he's going to fix things if it kills him.




All it took was one phone call.

"Bobby? Is that you?"

"Heya, Sam. Long time, no see."

"Yeah, uh, ten years by my count… And why exactly might you be calling me?"

"Well, I'm still in the same place y' last saw me – nothin's changed where that's concerned." Bobby's voice was as grizzled and whiskey-warm as it had been the last time he'd heard it, all that time ago. "And I've done my damnedest to respect the decisions you made back then, Sam. Have done the whole way, even when I didn't want to. But I'm callin' outta the blue like this because I just can't do it anymore. Or not if I intend to keep some semblance of conscience."

Sam clenched his fingers around the phone in his palm, trying desperately not to crush the thing. He knew Bobby must have fought hard to keep the distance between them for so long a time, to not make any sort of direct contact, just as Sam had asked. He had been a true asset to the program even at such a young age. In fact, his age had been part of what had made him so successful – him and Dean. It was just that the expense had proven too great. Or, at least, the threat of it. Too close, too real. And even back then Sam had known that he couldn't handle such a weight hanging over his shoulders for even a moment more, much as it had killed him to admit it at the time.

"Bobby—"

"I need you to come back here, Sam. Need your help. Wouldn't be callin' ya if I thought there was any other way."

The plea sent a reflexive chill down his spine. He wanted to ask… but he dared not, fearing the worst. Maybe it appeared cowardly, but Sam knew a thing or two about survival these days. And besides, when it came to the Hunters for Euthanising of Non-standard Threats (or HUNT for short), the less he knew the better.

"Well, you're gonna have to find another way, Bobby. I left for a reason, you know that, and as much as it pains me I don't think I can turn back the clock for anything. I've made a new life for myself, a good life. I've gone as legit as a guy like me can go and it's taken me ten years to get here."

Yeah, as 'legit' as the Research and Sciences division (a.k.a. RANSID) of the CIA's secret tech wing could be, anyway. He'd tried another way in the beginning, a more normal, straight-laced way, but all the unexpected and not-nearly-normal pit stops he'd had to make in the process? He'd had no choice but to give that 'normal, straight-laced way' up for dead. He was cursed to always be pulled just this side of the regular life he'd once hoped for. So he hadn't fought it in the end, when the opportunity had come calling. He'd just let the wind carry him where it would, and it had worked out for the better somehow. Sure, there were still a whole lot of lies and secrecy involved – it was the fucking CIA for crying out loud – but all the people in his current life that really mattered, they all knew the (near) truth, and that was enough.

Not to mention, it was a nice perk to not have hostile firearms being pointed at his person every other day.

"I know, son. I keep an eye on you here and there, y'know. Old habit, that. But, look, I just— Aw, hell, never mind. I'm sorry to bother ya, Sam. I shouldn't have called."

"Wait-…" Sam hesitated, knowing he really should just let sleeping dogs lie, "What's going on? I don't want to ask, but now you've got me worried."

Bobby sighed heavily. "I can't tell y' that, boy. Won't tell ya, more like. Not unless you're coming in to the fold. But just… watch yourself, okay? These bastards we're dealing with right now really ain't messing around and we don't know how far out their feelers have spread."

"Gotcha. I'll be careful. And you… take care, too, alright?"

"You just worry 'bout yourself now, Sam."

Switching off the power, Sam dropped the old burner phone back into his pocket and took a steadying breath. Usually he didn't let himself dwell on the past too much, it was just too painful and filled with so much regret. But when the past was the one landing itself on him… well, that couldn't be helped, could it? For all that he'd tried to distance himself he'd never once entertained the notion of tossing that burner phone, of essentially cutting all ties. He couldn't let go of Bobby like that – his one last connection. The thought drummed up memories about all those things he'd left behind. The all-consuming anger and resentment that flowed up whenever he thought of his father, the fondness and trust he (still) held for Bobby, and then Dean… All the things he felt for Dean could fill a book.

Squaring his shoulders, Sam stepped out of the empty conference room and headed back into the main area of Restricted Lab 2A. It was not long after lunch and plenty of people were milling about having just returned from their break, although Jess was still nowhere to be seen – she was probably still waiting in the queue for one of those ridiculous pastries she loved. He had been about to take a seat back at his computer when the alert went up, the test result window he'd left open on the desktop freezing completely when a warning box suddenly appeared. He looked around only to find that the warning was visible on every computer screen in sight, and somewhere at the other end of the room there was some kind of buzzer going off – that couldn't be good.

"Unplug! Everybody unplug your stations right now!"

Sam did as the supervisor instructed, his computer immediately winking out and taking his hard-earned results with it. He remained standing, idly watching the commotion around him unfold, only to see Ellen dashing in and calling three other technicians by name. She shot him a strange look from across the room, but she was gone again before he could consider what it might mean.

Not deigning to get involved, he simply sat.

He checked his watch.

Ten seconds and his knee was bouncing.

Twenty and he was tucking his hair behind his ears for the fourth time.

Thirty and he could feel the pressure threatening to build behind his eyelids – loud alarms, stress, and regular migraines did not mix.

Sam reached into his desk drawer to find a spare blister pack, easily popping a couple of pills. The bottle he usually used was in his bag, but getting down onto the floor and rummaging around to find said bottle was something he didn't currently have the patience for. He hunched down over his desk and cupped his hands over his ears, grunting with annoyance when it didn't help. He had to wonder what was really going on since the shut-downs he'd experienced in the past didn't normally last that long. Had someone tried to hack them? An employee trying to access files from above their pay grade? Maybe a physical break in? Their cover was as a pharmaceutical company after all, and some people had problems with that. Maybe he should check it out? Or maybe he shouldn't. He was either chained to his desk or his lab equipment these days, nothing more.

But then it didn't matter how long he'd been out of the HUNT world. All that training, all the suspicion and paranoia, the subconscious itch for action – it had been ingrained in his blood since he was a pre-teen.

It wasn't that his current job wasn't an exciting one, because it was. Just in a different sort of way. Yes, once upon a time he had been all about the fight, even if not by choice, but that just wasn't him anymore. He'd made his own choice to step away, no longer the one running headlong into danger with weapons drawn and at the ready, and he'd been making and lying in that bed for nearly ten years. So Sam pulled out some hardcopy results and looked at them instead, leaving messy notes in the margins with a pen. There came another flurry of activity over on the other side of the room but this time he simply ignored it. These things happened sometimes, but they were resolved quickly enough. The CIA had protocols upon protocols for this stuff.

Except then the lights went out. A backup generator kicked in and cast the entire lab in an unearthly shade of blue.

Sam stood up, the smell of something strange tickling his nose.

A woman screamed from nearby.

He couldn't ignore it this time. His body kicked into gear even if his brain was still a couple of steps behind.

Getting to his feet he pulled his satchel from under the desk and threw the strap around his shoulders. His hand slipped under the flap and into the hidden back pocket, fingers running along the edges of the two switchblades he kept there, disguised like USB drives so going through security wouldn't raise any alarms. He slipped one into his palm and raced towards the storage room – hard drive storage, that was – even though he wasn't sure why. Just a gut feeling. His subconscious guiding him through the twists and turns of the hallways. Only to be stopped in his tracks by Ellen's firm hand on his chest. Her eyes only came level with his sternum, but that fierce look of hers still brought him to a halt as if she were seven foot tall.

"You ain't goin' in there, Sam."

"Why? What's the—"

"You don't need to see that, y' hear me?"

"What? See what?" Sam felt his heart rate pick up. "Ellen, what's—"

"You need to get out of here and go somewhere safe. You hearin' me, boy?"

One of the technicians came out of the room she was blocking him from, revealing just enough that Sam could see the missing grate from the air vent and the foul mess coating the floor.

No. It couldn't be.

"Is that… Was that—"

"Sam, you listen to me—"

"We gotta go," Ash – the technician – cut in with a rush, "Like, right the fuck now, man. Smells like gas in there."

Ellen reached over and smashed the glass to the fire alarm on the wall, the wail of the alarm immediately blaring out at full volume and spiking painfully through Sam's ears. She headed toward the fire escape and dragged Sam with her, ignoring whatever protests he made along the way. Eight flights they ran down, just enough to turn Sam's legs slightly jelly-like, and they had barely stepped a foot outside when the ground rocked and an explosion rang out from behind them.

"Fucking shit!"

"This way! Keep up!"

Sam turned to Ellen, even as they ran to clear the unmarked RANSID building.

"Tell me the truth. Was—"

"She was dead, Sam. Only just, but there was nothing to be done. The whole thing was sloppy if you ask me." Ellen led him and Ash down the sidewalk, eyes darting around attentively, and suddenly she pulled them into a shadowed side street. "We were breached, Sam. Our whole system was compromised in a matter of minutes."

It took Sam a couple of shaky breaths to get with the program. "But how?"

"Someone's been plannin' that for a while, is my guess," Ash said with his usual drawl, "Although from what I could tell, once they actually broke in, they weren't real sure what they were lookin' for. It's like, they had the battering ram ready to go, but once they stumbled inside they realised they hadn't looked at the blueprints properly."

"Sloppy again. Just like-… Just like with Jess."

"Yeah, Sam. I checked the security cams. She was just walking past and heard a noise in the storage room, went to check it out, end of story. And much as I'd rather not say either way, you gotta know that the killing blow was clean and instant, though the aftermath was a whole lot of remorse and hesitation. Gotta wonder what kind of contractor has a freak out like that, 'cause this whole thing was otherwise too well planned to be set up by an amateur."

Sam ran a shaky hand through his hair. "But what I don't get? Our prototypes at the moment aren't even that good, nothing's anywhere near complete, so they can't have been after the tech, right? I mean, I don't understand why this is happening."

"Oh, Sam." Ellen looked at him pityingly. "I think you do."

His mind turned over and over, looking for answers, but everything in his life had been so normal lately. No threats, no break-ins, no prickling hairs on the back of his neck. The only thing that wasn't routine—… And then it struck him.

"Oh, God. Bobby? They traced the phone call? But that was…" only a matter of minutes before it all went down. Sam shuddered to think that they had to have been on his scent already.

"I know, son. I'm sorry. We couldn't have known they were watching this closely."

Sam was stunned by her words – it was certainly a day full of surprises. "So… you know about… whatever's going on. With them."

"I keep my ear to the ground," Ellen said with a knowing smile, eerily reminiscent of Bobby, "But I won't say a word more, not out here. Too risky. As for you? I think you know there's only one place you'll be both safe and able to get the answers you want."

Safe? Yeah, what a joke. And still, Ellen was oh, so right. If it was him they were after – and let's be serious, when there was a Winchester in your midst, who else would it be? – then Sam was left with no other option. He was backed into a corner, just like they had probably intended him to be.

All it took was one phone call to bring everything crumbling to dust. Everything that Sam had spent the last ten years building. All the walls he'd put up, layer by layer, brick by brick. The literal and the metaphorical. It was all going to crack into porcelain shards so fine they could never be glued back together. And he was going to let it.



=///=



Sam sat on the edge of a mattress. It was on the floor and pushed into the corner of a tiny, otherwise empty space. There was a small bathroom to one side, with more tiles cracked than not, and a kitchen area that was more a sink and a cooktop than an actual kitchen. At least it had a fridge, that was all he could say, because he didn't think he would've been as calm if it weren't for a cold beer or three.

It was the first time he'd been there out of necessity. He had dropped by very occasionally, maybe once every six-to-twelve months, just to keep the place stocked and make sure it was still secure. It was his best effort at a safe house and when it came to that sort of thing Sam could be paranoid to a fault.

Samuel Campbell was the one to blame for that little personality quirk.

He'd been the one to take Sam in back then, the one whom Bobby had called when Sam had gone to him in secret and begged to be free of the life he'd once lived. And Samuel had given him everything he possibly could have needed at the time – a home, a father figure, safety, stability. Samuel himself led an interesting double life. Part military specialist and trainer of spycraft methodologies, part gruff university professor and family man. He couldn't have been better suited to be taking someone like Sam under his wing. He'd known exactly what to give Sam, what to tell him, before he'd even asked. Had helped him change his name and everything about himself, and build the foundations of a new life that would keep him as free of the old as possible.

And then there were the backup plans. Samuel Campbell would put a bullet in his own brain before he was ever caught without a backup plan. He'd helped Sam with that side of things as well, which included the crappy little safe house he was currently sitting in. It was listed under the name Sam Wesson – one of the several aliases he had ID cards and a passport for. Just in case.

Sam had to laugh. He'd always thought Samuel was a little off his rocker when it came to the manifestations of his distrust of authority, and yet look at him now. A safe house had been exactly what he'd needed, and somehow Samuel had known it would come to that one day. He'd told him again when Sam had spoken to him just a few moments ago.

The burner phone (a different one than he'd used earlier that day) still sat in his hand, its screen now gone dark. He still had his normal phone and his laptop in the satchel, which Samuel would probably rip into him for if he knew, but Sam had disabled the wi-fi and data connections early on. He just hadn't been able to part with the hardware itself – too many memories and keepsakes still embedded inside them, plus his laptop had most of his research on it. He'd told Samuel every other detail, though, and Samuel had admitted that this was the right thing to do, that Sam's old life needed to be faced head-on this time, even if he didn't like it.

He'd also told Samuel about Jess. He'd made himself say it out loud, though his voice had shaken through every word. Yes, they'd only just started going steady, had gone to bed together all of two times, and he was sure he could have truly loved her one day. But first and foremost she'd been a friend, a confidante, and he was going to miss her something fierce. Samuel had been as comforting as he ever was – which was not very – but Sam appreciated it all the same. Besides, it was hardly the time to grieve. Whatever was coming? He was going to have to keep his head on straight, that was for sure.

For now he was left with little more than his thoughts. And the impending need to call Bobby, since he was the only one with the ability to sort this shit out. With a sigh he reached into his satchel for his pills and popped another – his headache had thankfully eased off, so this one was of the 'just in case' variety.

Sam fell back on the bed, landing hard on the stale-smelling sheets, and forced himself to dial a number he'd known from memory since the grand-old-age of twelve.

"That you, Sam?"

"How'd you know?"

"Not that many people got this number and most of them are… indisposed right now. You somewhere safe?"

"Yeah, I got a safe house in the city. And I'm on a burner."

Bobby chuckled. "That Samuel Campbell is one hard-ass bastard but at least he's got his priorities straight. Knew he'd do right by you."

"That he did. So, do you want me to come in?"

"Hm. Might be better givin' it a day or two. There's no benefit to you comin' in now, and while there's people out there lookin' for you it's best if you're not moving around too much. But in a day or two… we might really need you by then."

Sam paused, mulling over the significance of that sentence, as well as the fact that Bobby already seemed to know what was going on. "Bobby, where's dad?"

"Well, ain't that the mystery of the year. No one got a single clue where your daddy is right now, boy, and we haven't seen him for a couple years now. Don't even know if he's still breathin'."

"Which means he's probably elbow-deep on a lead. If he was dead you'd know."

"Most likely."

"So…" Sam had to push to get the words out. "What about Dean?"

"That brother o' yours…" Even through the crackly reception Sam could hear the heaviness in Bobby's voice, "Sam, he ain't the same kid you used to know. After you left, and then John leavin' again not long after… you might say he cracked. Had a bit of a death wish for a while. He was reckless. Defiant. No one wanted to work with him. Not that they wanted to before, but still. Then when things started heating up with this particular group of loons, he hatched a plan without authorisation. A stupid plan, too. No doubt he knew I woulda socked him if he'd even suggested it to me… But he did it anyway and went and got himself captured, didn't he?"

"Captured?"

"Yeah. The 'thrown into a deep, dark hole he probably can't climb out of'-type captured."

"Do- do you-… Can I—"

"My reason for calling you was never about you helpin' us to find him, Sam. Got that covered. It's taken us a long time, though, and we still ain't got him back yet. I'm hopin' any day now."

"Is… is he?"

"He ain't dead if that's what you're askin'… We've got a guy on the inside, so we know he's still alive. But what they've been putting him through? Hell, maybe he'd be better off."


=///=


Two days later saw Sam sitting in Bobby's office, a file as thick as his wrist perched on his lap.

He'd left early that morning, armed only with the gun he'd had stashed in the mattress and the switchblades from his bag, and carrying the few items of musty clothes and supplies he'd had at the safe house. He hoped they might get someone to stop by his apartment to pick up a few more things – preferably that didn't smell like mothballs – but he supposed there were more pressing matters at hand.

Finding the hidden entrance was like riding a bicycle – old hat. The building that housed it was still as old and run-down looking as always. Wood crumbling and paint peeling at every corner. But slip inside and pull on the right door handle, and you found yourself face to face with a panel of metal several inches thick, equipped with a palm- and retinal-scanner like something out of the movies.

He'd been glad to see the system register him as Agent Sam Campbell, and he'd been greeted with more than a few overly curious stares once he'd made his way down in the elevator and stepped into the main part of the facility. It still reminded him a bit of a scrubbed-up 50s bomb shelter, but the technology and information it housed was far from outdated. The file on his lap, for instance. Just the first couple of pages revealed enough for Sam to see not only why he might be needed, but also why this particular enemy was so frightening. Their technology was almost out of this world.

There were implantable microchips, strangely shaped pieces of metal that looked like armour plating, biocompatible wire systems that branched out like tree roots. The microchips he understood, but the rest? What were they building? Fucking robots or something?

"I hope to hell you can make some sense of that crap."

Sam looked up as Bobby entered the room and sat himself on the other side of the desk. He looked the same as ever – bushy beard and truckers cap, and still dressed like a fisherman on his off-day. It was hard to imagine him as the head of a government organisation so covert even the government didn't know about it. And yet, that was what he'd been for as long as Sam could remember.

"Yeah. I mean, the schematics make sense to some degree, but I have no idea what they're for. They're incredibly advanced. Even more so than the stuff I've been working on lately, and that's top secret high-tech super-spy-type stuff at its best."

"I admit I know more than I should about what you've been working on. But tell me, what about it makes it especially slow going, do y' think?"

Sam wasn't sure where this was going, but he played along. "Well, a lot of it is intended to be personally, genetically matched to the person who is going to use it, and creating a complete synthetic genetic profile external to the source and then having to embed it in the technology without constant analysis is so time consuming it's ridiculous. So, I guess… being able to adequately test it is-… holy shit."

He couldn't be serious? These people they were after – that were after them - they couldn't really be-

"Good thing you're such a quick study, kiddo. And yep, that's exactly what they're doing."

"Experimenting with that sort of stuff on live subjects is nothing short of torture. Who the fuck are these people?"

"The bullet points? This group call themselves Heaven's Paradise, or just Paradise for short. But let me assure you, they're more like something from Hell than from any kind of Heaven I can think of. They've supposedly been around for hundreds of years, existing under everyone's noses. Maybe you could equate them with the stonemasons, since they like to be everywhere and stick their thumbs in a lot of pies, but their ambitions are very single-minded and far more sinister."

"Hundreds of years? But what's making them act now? And why these methods?"

"A trifecta of new blood came into power about thirty years ago."

Bobby threw a piece of paper at him and Sam looked at the three fuzzy pictures on it – two men and a woman, the names underneath listed as Azazel, Lilith, and Uriel.

"What's with the biblical references?"

"Those are their pledge names. They take them on when they become part of Paradise, kind of like an initiation thing. But back to the point – their predecessors were mostly a little more subtle in their objectives, but these guys? They're in a whole 'nother level, and they think big picture. They put plans in place thirty years ago that are still playing out today, and that’s a pretty mean feat by anyone's standards."

"What kind of plans are we talking, though?"

Bobby heaved a tired sigh. "In most cases if someone pressed their fingers together under their chin and told you they wanted to take over the world, you'd probably laugh at 'em. These guys? No one's laughin'. They've infiltrated our society deeper than we could've imagined. On top of that they've got technology we can't beat except to blow it to smithereens. They've got secret stashes of stuff in hundreds of places, and they move it all around constantly. We need to start fighting back somehow before we end up on our knees. They've already had at our two best operatives as you know."

Sam swallowed down the emotion that seemed to well-up whenever his brother was mentioned. He hated that he hadn't known Dean had been taken, and he hated that Bobby hadn't contacted him sooner even though he'd demanded to never be called, period, and he hated the thought that even if Bobby had contacted him he probably wouldn't have listened. But he was there now, and Sam would do anything and everything in his power to help, to atone for his abandonment of his family. He only hoped that it wasn't too late. Whatever Paradise had been doing to Dean over the past three years it couldn't have been good. Were they torturing him? Most likely. Leaving him in a cell to rot? Possibly. Experimenting on him? Using them as a lab rat for their bio-tech?

The very idea made Sam shudder with dread, yet it was the option he'd be willing to put money on.

And the more he considered it, the more he wondered if it was at all possible he might get his brother back in one piece. Highly unlikely. But now they were coming after Sam too, weren't they? Had Dean said something? Had they caught wind of his research at RANSID? Maybe they just loved the Winchesters so much they wanted to collect the whole set. He'd been targeted for a lot less back in his HUNT days. But Paradise as a whole seemed to be making a lot of noise just to get their hands on one person.

"They've stepped things up recently, am I right?" Sam hypothesised.

"Yeah, they've been building to something without a doubt. Ain't got the foggiest as to what, but if our inside man comes through I think we might be able to throw them off. For now, anyway. But, Sam… I gotta tell you somethin' and you ain't gonna like it."

"I'm not really sure what you can say that—"

"Boy, you don't know the half of it."

Sam felt that hollow pit in his stomach drop even deeper.

"Out with it, old man."

Bobby pursed his lips, nostrils flaring as he let go a heavy breath. "These guys are the ones responsible for your mother."

Sam's blood roared through his veins.

"That can't be—"

"I dunno how much your daddy told you, and I always respected him in knowing and deciding what was best for you boys even if I thought he was being a bloody idiot. But your ma, she was one of the first operatives to try and infiltrate under the new Paradise leadership. We knew they had some crazy tech stuff in the works and your mother was our computer genius, much like yourself, and she wanted to crack them open like an egg. She was only just back from maternity leave after having you, but when she found out what Lilith was doing back then she wouldn't take no for an answer."

"And what was that, exactly."

"Under her guidance, they were kidnapping infants with the intention to raise them under their own ruling and create their own little faithful army."

"But how did she-… Dad always said Mary was killed in a fire?"

"She was. After they would take an infant they would burn the house down with the rest of the family inside, the intention being that the infant would be listed as dead and therefore no one would look for 'em."

"That's sick."

"Like I said, that's only the beginning, kiddo. Uriel's a dab hand with the pyro, but Azazel's the technology man. He's got a whole lot of science-types under his thumb, working on everything from brainwashing through electric shock therapy, to ray guns and cyborgs. Sounds like a sci-fi novel, but he's closer to making it happen than anyone can imagine."

"But what does—"

Sam was interrupted by the sudden opening of the office door, and he whipped his head around to see a blue-eyed man stride in, dressed in a trench coat that was torn, bloody, and singed around the edges. He felt the movement of Bobby standing up from his chair so quickly that he bumped his knee on the desk.

"Cas."

"Bobby."

"And?"

"It is done."

Bobby slumped back down in his chair with a groan, pressing his thumb and forefinger into the corners of his eye sockets. This 'Cas' on the other hand, barely blinked an eye.

"What's going on? What's 'done'?" Sam knew in his gut that whatever it was that had just happened was something he needed to know.

The man eyed Sam suspiciously. "And who are you?"

"I'm—"

"Someone who might actually have a chance in hell of helping us out with this one," Bobby cut in before Sam could get any further. "Sam, Cas. Cas, this is Agent Campbell."

They both reached out to tentatively shake hands, eyeing each other off in the process.

"Bobby has mentioned you before. I can only hope you are as able as he claims you to be."

"Nice to meet you, too," Sam said with an edge of sarcasm, not quite sure how to take the man's stick-up-the-ass attitude. "So, Cas, right? That short for something?"

"Yes, for Castiel."

Sam looked to Bobby for an explanation.

"Cas is our inside guy. He was a part of Paradise' ranks until he realised their end game. Gave himself up to us, but agreed to go back in with the intention of bringing them down from the inside out."

"So Castiel is your code name?"

Castiel continued to look at Sam uncomprehendingly, as if wondering why he should be divulging such information in the first place. Sam supposed he didn't blame him. He didn't know who Sam really was, after all.

"Castiel is the name I adopted, yes. My real name was Jimmy, but I was not a man to be proud of back then. I have moved on from that life. 'Cas' will be fine, should you need to call me."

"Now that's out of the way," Bobby said, rolling his eyes, "We've got something way more important to discuss. Also known as Dean."

Sam gaped. "Dean—"

"Be quiet, Agent."

"Dean is being treated as we speak. He knows me as one of Heaven's lot so it wasn't difficult to convince him to come with me, but I had to sedate him once we got clear."

"You won't be able to go back there now. But you've done a lot for us. I hope you'll stay here, Cas, I think we could still use your insight."

"I'd be happy to. And I want to see that Dean recovers. After things went awry the other day, they worked him over… rather efficiently."

"What does he mean that- Bobby, what does he mean? I need some explanations right the fuck now. And I need to see him."

"Sit down, boy."

It wasn't until Bobby said the words that Sam ever realised he'd risen from his chair. He cleared his throat and resumed his position.

"You wanna do the honours, Cas?"

"Dean's training with them was difficult from the start – he is very strong minded, but Azazel was determined. It has only been recently that they deemed him fit for solo missions. Three days ago he was assigned a mission to infiltrate the data banks of the CIA's research facility known as RANSID, which daylights as a pharmaceutical company. Someone back at Paradise would make sure the infiltration was successful and then speak a code word. Once he heard that word, Dean would blow part of the building. He was then to monitor the exits and take out a particular subject with a sniper rifle."

"He killed someone?"

"Yes and no. He was to take down anyone in his way, which he apparently did. Then he was supposed to gun down a specific target, but for some reason his orders didn't take and the mission failed. Another soldier was sent in to retrieve Dean, and he was punished for his failure."

"Who was the target?"

"I'm not sure. It was not listed on his file."

"Bobby?"

"No. I'm not letting you go down to Medical. That's a goddamn order."



=///=


Sam looked up to find Castiel standing in the doorway of his room. They'd parted ways awkwardly earlier that afternoon, Cas eyeing him in a very strange manner the entire time. Sam really had no idea what the man could possibly have to say to him, but he put down the file he'd been reading and beckoned him inside.

"What is it, Cas?"

"It's just occurred to me who you are," he said with a slight tilt of the head.

"You've heard of RANSID? Or are you implying you have short-term memory prob—"

"Who you really are."

Alarm bells suddenly started going off in Sam's head, but Castiel quickly raised his hands in a sign of peace.

"I will not reveal this secret to anyone. You have my word. But it… makes a lot more sense now that I know."

"Is he okay?" Sam couldn't stop the question falling from his lips. Just as he couldn't bear the thought of bad news, and turned his focus back to the file now sitting on the bed. The bright blue of Cas' eyes was somehow too much to look at.

"He is recovering. Sedated, though. Once he realises that he is not where he is supposed to be… it might be unpleasant."

"How-… How long was he there, Cas? Bobby won't tell me the details, but I need to know." I need to know how badly I've failed him.

"If you were anyone but who you are, I would not tell you…" Cas stepped inside and closed the door behind him. "He was there for a little under three years. As I understand it he was trying to find a way in by himself. They had taken John the year before, experimented on him, but it didn't take and he somehow got free. He razed one facility to the ground, but John still wasn't the same after that. Bobby told me that Dean was looking for any reason he could find to exact revenge. His plan was sound, as it happens, but he went in half-cocked and got himself caught. Since John's escape they had upped their security, so there was little chance for Dean to manage the same."

"Stupid motherfucker. I'll kill him if I ever get half a chance."

Castiel looked at him with an air of melancholy.

"What they've done to your brother, Sam… You may not recognise him. And it's almost certain that he will not recognise you."


=///=


The first time Sam saw him, he was wrapped up in blankets and bandages like a porcelain doll in a glass box. He was still as the dead, with half a dozen tubes sticking out of his face and body, feeding and leeching and sedating.

He was still Dean, though. Despite how little he could actually see of him, Sam would always be able to tell. But the more he looked, the more he saw that Cas was right. There was something hard and impenetrable around the edges now. The cut of his jaw, the set of his eyes...

He was Dean, and then some.

There was a ghost, a demon, taking up the hollow space inside his brother's body – Sam could all but feel it, the unnatural presence. His upbringing may have been all about how quickly and how accurately you could gun down your enemy without getting caught, but Sam learned his lesson early on. An enemy could be much more than just a physical target, and it was those ones that were always the hardest to kill.


=///=


When he saw the x-rays, the MRI scans, the blood work, Sam was so close to bringing his lunch back up he could taste the acid at the back of his mouth.

All through Dean's body were screws and plates and wires… Fuck, most of his spine wasn't even bone anymore. And all of it showed ample evidence of healing and adhering to the surrounding tissue – clearly it had been there a while. The scientific side of his brain was dumbfounded by the thought that such a thing could have been accomplished in such a short space of time without, at the very least, irreparably damaging the patient. The amount of operations, the drugs, the scarring, the rehabilitation… And what did they do with all the bits they removed? Where were Dean's missing pieces, and what sons of bitches had their paws on them?

Sam shuddered where he stood, despite that he continued to stare at the light box. Yes, it made him feel sick to his stomach, the throb of a migraine building behind his eyes, but more than that he was angry. Angry that Dean had been violated this way, and even more so that he probably didn't even know it. One of the Corp's medical advisors had told Sam that Dean's brain had been toyed with, too – that's where the MRIs had come in – and Sam was no expert on the human brain, but even he could see the scarring on the images. They'd attacked nearly every lobe at some point or another. The medic had told him that even if there were any proper brain function left, his memories and normal behaviour would likely be 'shot to shit'.

It was hard to argue the point. But something in Sam told him not to despair just yet, and he'd always had pretty accurate gut feelings especially where Dean was concerned. Something just told him to wait it out, just wait and see Dean prove them all wrong. He could only hope his gut didn't fail him now.


=///=


They kept Sam busy in the tech labs. Kept his mind occupied with schematics and diagnostics and numbers numbers numbers.

He knew it was Bobby's doing. And maybe even Cas a little bit too. They were colluding to keep his mind as far from Dean as possible. But it didn’t work as well as they thought. Sam knew this game too well. He'd been playing it for the better part of his life, after all. So he kept it up for as long as he could stand, letting them think he was so deep in reports that there was barely a whiff of anything else on his mind. Yet still, when all was dark and silent in the depths of night, he would sneak down into medical to get a look at Dean in his hospital bed. He was starting to look better – less black and blue, and more pale skin – but the real test would be when he woke up. They'd apparently tried pulling back the sedation a little already, but Dean had gotten restless enough to pose a danger to himself, so straight back to the full dose of drugs they went.

Sam started to get a little worried when the following three days passed without him getting a glimpse of Dean. Going down to the medical ward in the night got him nowhere then. Suddenly there were too many locked doors and too many guards patrolling the corridors. He asked Cas (casually, of course) how Dean was doing, and he gave his usual placating response that didn't really tell Sam anything new. Bobby had already made a point of not telling Sam anything, so he didn't even bother asking anymore. He deserved answers, though, surely. Like why had Dean been moved? Why wasn't the usual medical ward enough? Had something gone wrong? Was he awake? Was this whole thing a bid to keep Sam away?

Sam hoped that wasn't the case. Yes, he realised he was supposed to be playing the part of Agent Campbell, bio-tech researcher and engineer extraordinaire, or some such shit, so he'd been keeping his little 'visits' on the down-low. It wasn't as if anyone had warned him to stay away (apart from Bobby), and it wasn't like he'd been allowed inside either. The whole time he'd been watching his brother heal from behind a double-thick pane of glass. The distance was such that he might as well have been a world away.

Perhaps it would have been easier if Sam hadn't been told Dean was there in the first place, then he wouldn't have had to torture himself night after night, standing there, so close yet so far, telling himself if only he'd stayed that things wouldn't have turned out this way, that Dean wouldn't have gone off on his fucked-up little suicide mission, wouldn't have gotten himself captured, tortured, turned into a science experiment... But Sam couldn't take it back. Couldn't wish it away. For all the whacky shit that existed in the world, time travel and genies in bottles unfortunately weren't amongst it. And who was to say that Dean wouldn’t have cracked anyway. They'd been through some really messed up situations, not the least of which was the incident that had caused Sam to leave, and Dean had come out of it looking far worse than Sam. Physically, at least.

Sam dropped his head into his hands as he remembered. The dark, the cold, and the metallic-tinged scent of blood, the crunch of bone as he'd mangled his hand in order to get it free of the restraints, the agony as he'd gone tumbling through the black after his brother. He blocked out the memory of pain that came thereafter, forcing himself to think only of those moments where Dean was in his arms again. The rasp of his voice as he'd called him 'Sammy' and then grinned that bloody grin. They'd gotten out somehow – Sam could barely recall the details – but all he chose to remember was the softness of the bed back at HQ, the warm weight of Dean's body on the other side of the mattress. That had been the last image he'd captured before he'd slipped out, dressed, and left his old life behind.

And there they were again. Dean unconscious in a bed somewhere, and Sam still at a loss as to what to do about it.

Deciding he had nothing to lose, Sam turned to his laptop and pulled a few extra items from his bag, setting them up on the small desk beside his bed. It had been quite some time since he'd last hacked a government-level mainframe, but thankfully he proved to be not wholly out of touch. It also helped that he already had some basic access to the HUNT system, and it wasn't long before he found himself scrolling through the numerous views of the compound security cameras. He found the ones he wanted on cameras 43 and 44. Both gave him an uninhibited view of Dean's bed. He was hooked up to far less machines now, which could only be a good thing, and Sam suspected that the drip that remained was the one keeping him sedated.

It wasn't ideal – Sam still had no idea where Dean was being kept, nor what his condition was really like – but it calmed him enough in the meantime. He fell asleep to the vision of the security footage, the glowing screen filtering through the dark of the room.


=///=


No one really knew what to make of 'Agent Campbell', so Sam was usually granted a wide berth by the other agents and researchers and left to his own devices. But the following day he was approached by one of the doctors from the Medical unit, a 'Dr Roman' as Sam noted from the stitching on the man's lab-coat pocket. The man was polite enough, even if it did take him a minute to get to the point.

"So we're thinking we could use your expertise."

Sam finally tuned into the conversation.

"In what way, exactly?"

"We've been running diagnostic tests on Agent Winchester's 'additional features' for the last forty-eight hours, and while we have reached some conclusions, most of us that are working on this are medical doctors. We're used to human bodies. But a lot of Agent Winchester is no longer… organic. That's where you come in."

He took a moment to consider it.

Finally, Sam had an opportunity to get in there, to get behind those walls, get some sort (any sort) of contact with his brother.

"What sort of tests are we talking? Will he be awake for it?"

Dr Roman took one long look at Sam before bursting in to laughter.

"Oh, heck, no! What do you think we are, suicidal? He's sedated through the whole process, of course. For all intents and purposes, dead as a doornail. So no need to worry about that, buddy, he won't be leaping up to choke you out in the middle of an examination or something."

The doc was still chuckling when he reached out as if to pat Sam on the arm, but Sam took a step back to remain out of reach. Dr Roman suddenly calmed and looked at him questioningly.

"Fuck off."

"Huh? Agent, you—"

"I said, get the fuck out. You want me to look at something, you can fucking email it."


=///=


"Heard you cursed-out one of the docs."

Sam turned away from reading an email about Dean's diagnostic tests to find Bobby standing in the doorway.

"Better believe it."

"Yeah, well, best not get too mouthy with them or they'll gladly make this research thing a crapload harder on you."

"Yeah, well," Sam mocked, "Maybe they should remind themselves of their Hippocratic Oath or something, because that Roman guy was talking as if they had a goddamn animal down there. But he's a man, Bobby. My brother. Violated and abused like an animal, perhaps, but still a man."

Bobby sighed, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe. "I know, son, but I don't want you clinging to these high hopes when we still have no idea how much of Dean is actually left inside that thick skull of his. Gotta be realistic here."

"Hopes are all I have right now," Sam said, turning back to his computer, "In my mind there's no choice but to cling to them, especially when no one else will."

"You're as much a stubborn idjit as yer daddy ever was, Sam Winchester, but I guess you got your priorities straight at least." Bobby stepped in close enough to give Sam's arm a squeeze, then turned again to leave. "You need anythin'?"

"No, thanks— No, wait. Actually, there's… When Cas stole all these schematics, did he manage to get anything else? Like, anything biologically-related? Blood, chemicals, all that stuff?"

Bobby started to leave before he finally nodded. "I'll see what I can find."


=//=


It was incredible, if a harrowing reminder of Dean's plight.

Yes, he should still have been going through the file of tech stuff and the diagnostic reports from the doctors – that was officially why he was at HUNT Corps in the first place, was it not? – but Sam couldn't manage to break himself away from the new file Bobby had brought him that morning. It was as large and involved as the one containing Paradise's technological schematics, but instead was focussed on the biological science behind it all. And it was fascinating.

Sam almost hated how enamoured he was with the reports he was reading. But as a scientist himself, he couldn't not acknowledge the ground-breaking work that had gone in to the experiments. It was genius. Almost too genius. Almost unbelievable. Not to mention their methods were utterly inhumane. Yet the science was sound, the science worked – apparently his brother was living, breathing proof of it.

He couldn't flip through the pages fast enough, and when the words began to blur, Sam had to nearly throw himself back from the desk in order to make himself stop. All the answers to Dean's physical conundrums were in this file, he just knew it, but that only meant that he had to be all the more careful with what he read and how he read it. He couldn't afford to make mistakes where Dean was concerned. Enough mistakes had already been made.

He wondered how much of the file the doctors had seen. If any.

The information seemed on the verge of being too sensitive to be shared – even amongst half-a-dozen or so highly specialised doctors – so Sam had to wonder what sort of heads up Medical had been given in order for them to treat Dean appropriately. Had they been given select pages, maybe? Or a redacted version of the full file? He could only hope they'd been given something of worth, else they'd been wasting more time than he dared to contemplate.

Leaning back against the wall of the lab, Sam pressed his thumbs into his eye sockets. The lights in all the research labs were almost obscenely bright and kept the threat of a migraine simmering away behind his eyes. He'd left his pills back up in his room but he wasn't sure if he could be bothered to retrieve them. He knew he should. Knew what would happen if he let it linger too long, and his injections were back in his apartment – far out of reach.

Dragging his feet back over to the desk, Sam stuck his fingers somewhere in the middle of the stack of papers that made up the file and turned to somewhere randomly in the middle, just to see what would happen. He found a drawing of a molecular model – an incredibly complex one – but no explanation as to what it was or what it did on any of the surrounding pages, only the reactions of the chosen 'subject' when they were injected with it. Sam could only assume the subject to be Dean, and the reporting of his reactions to be the coldest descriptions of human torture he'd ever come across.

He was pulled from his reading suddenly by the loud blaring of an alarm.

The last time Sam had heard an alarm like that his girlfriend had just been killed and he and his colleagues had barely gotten out alive.

So he stood, slipped the file into a locked drawer, and stepped out into the hall, following the sounds of chaos and trying not to think about the dull pounding in his temporal lobes. It brought him to the edge of a high security area, only the guards that were usually watching the doors were nowhere in sight. There were plenty of people still milling around frantically, though, and they gave Sam those strange looks that they always did – suspicion and disregard and 'why's this nobody in my way?' sorts of looks. He couldn't blame them either, since they had no idea. Not to mention it was their job to be critical of unfamiliar people. He'd been like that once, too.

Ignoring them, he pushed his way through the unmanned security doors and into a large area beyond that was edged with more science and research labs, and a room that looked a bit like an interrogation room. Only it had a bed bolted to the wall and a half-private bathroom in the corner. It was practically a jail cell. Though what really drew his eye were the dozen or so bodies lying on the ground – some of them out cold, some of them curled over and groaning in pain. The door to the cell was partly off its hinges, and in following the trail of bodies Sam turned a corner to come before another pile of bodies pressed against a wall. They weren't out cold or injured this time. They were alert and moving and swarming something that was just out of Sam's sight. He stood and watched until it became apparent that it was a person, squirming and fighting against their hold.

And Sam realised suddenly that the hand he could just see? He was pretty sure he recognised that hand.

"What… Hey! Hey, what are you doing! Get off—"

"Sam, stop."

He turned to find Castiel at his side, dressed in a clean trench coat and looking on at the body-pile with worry.

"Let them do their job. Dean is much stronger now – abnormally strong. He might kill them all if they're not careful."

The mass struggled and writhed, some men swooping back as Dean tried to take a swing, but they managed to catch his arm and pin it to the wall before it connected. Sam would catch a sliver of his brother's face every now and then, his teeth bared like a growling dog. It was an apt description perhaps, as Dean kept trying to kick and punch his way out, despite the futility of his situation – the metaphorical leash around his neck. His expression never lost that angered desperation until, for a split second, their eyes seemed to meet.

Sam felt as though his body had been hammered into the ground, such was the weight of that momentary glance. And when there appeared a gap between the guardsmen again he found that Dean was still looking straight at him, too, their gazes locked together with no key to separate them. Sam's heart thundered in his chest, thinking that Dean must surely recognise him, but there was no change in Dean's expression, no call of 'Sammy' from across the room, only the slow droop of his eyelids as his vision clouded over. The guards disentangled themselves just in time for Sam to see the syringe being extracted from the side of Dean's neck, and he watched as his brother's body went gradually limp, two of the men picking him up from beneath the armpits and dragging him off somewhere out of sight.

He wondered by what degree Dean's treatment at Paradise had been worse.

A hand on his shoulder brought Sam back to the present, Castiel's pitying gaze staring down at him from above. Apparently he had managed to back right up to the wall and slide down to the floor at some point.

"It's for the best Sam," Cas placated, "At least until they devise a sedative that will allow him to interact but also keep him calm."

"But- I-… what was that, then?"

"Double-strength horse tranquilizer. It's the only thing that will take him down that quickly, short of physically knocking him out, and even then there's no telling how quickly he'd recover. I did manage to bring back a sample of whatever drug Paradise were using, but Research haven't been able to isolate all the contained substances as yet. So they're making do."

Sam let his head drop back against the wall and pushed the heels of his palms against his eyes. He thought of what he'd seen so far in the second file and felt confident there'd be more detailed mention of sedatives in there somewhere.

"I think I can probably help with that… And I'm assuming this has something to do with his enhanced strength, am I right?"

"Yes. Whatever they experimented on him with has heightened his metabolism tenfold. He's also stronger, faster, has better aim, and heals a whole lot quicker than any normal human."

"So normal medications and things won't work. Makes sense. He's probably more immune to disease and infection as well."

"It's highly likely. But—Sam are you okay? You don't look so good."

"Yeah, yeah, I—" Sam peeled his hands away, only to wince in pain at the sharp brightness of the lights overhead. "Okay, maybe not so good. Help me up?"

Castiel helped him back on to his feet and all but steered him back to his room. He put Sam on the bed, pulled his shoes off, and even soaked a handtowel with water, draping it over Sam's face.

"You're kinda good at this, Cas."

"I had children once."

"Oh."

"Now are you going to tell me what is going on with your eyes?"

Sam sighed, taking a moment to gather his thoughts.

"I don't know how much you know about me and Dean, or my leaving ten years ago, but there was a… a case. The last one before I left. Our dad had serious issues, even way back then, pissed a lot of people off. Mostly bad people. One group of them managed to track us for a long time, and we had no idea about it until Dean and I ended up kidnapped. They fucked Dean up real bad, all because of something Dad had done. I got away with nothing worse than a head injury, but ever since I've gotten bad migraines."

"I assume you're on medication?"

"Oh, yeah, right." Sam heaved himself upright just long enough to pull the bottle from his bedside table and knock back a couple of pills. "I have injections for the really bad ones, but they're at my apartment, so I'll just have to manage with these. It's probably just all the stress that set it off."

"Understandable. Let me know if you need anything, but I have somewhere to be."

Sam listened as Cas left the room, closing the door on his way out and leaving Sam there in the dark. His thoughts, however, were awash with colour and swirling images, flashes of Dean's distress haunting him and preventing Sam from finding calm. He knew he had a shitload of work to do, but he needed to sleep this off, too – he wouldn't get anywhere plagued by pain and conjured visions of Dean's torture. Yes, there was no doubt in his mind it was because of the stress.


=///=


He spent the subsequent three days in his private lab, barely leaving to eat or sleep, and popping pills to keep the headaches at bay. Somewhat reckless perhaps, but worth it once his plan finally began to come together, when he started to see the results right there in front of him, real and substantial. Somehow he even managed to spare enough time to find the right references in the file, and isolate and recreate Paradise's sedative of choice while he waited for his own tests to complete.

There was little in the world that made Sam feel as worthy as when he was being productive. Making progress toward a final goal with what would have living, breathing results.

The only thing that could compete was one particular person. And that person was locked in a room somewhere on the floor below, and was not currently himself.

Sam heard the alarm go off a second time during those three days, but paid it no mind. He had to keep reading, keep working. Once he managed to unlock Paradise's secrets he would hold Dean's fate in the palm of his hand, would be able to save him as he had failed to do so before. When the time came not even Azazel could stop him.


=///=

on to part two-->>