He's in too deep, he knows this. The key is forged, the one thing that would open the very gates of hell and kill anything that dared to step out of those gates. Only thirteen bullets. Each forged with the intent to protect the man that would walk into hell just to save his sorry ass. Sam swallows thickly, let's his fingers run along the sleek, cool metal of the gun. A true masterpiece as ever was crafted, and the most dangerous to demon and hunter alike.

He places the gun into the velvet of the box, his fingers tracing along the pentagram, a bitter smile twisting his lips as he thinks of the words engraved in the handle.

Non timebo mala. I will fear no evil.

Damn his soul to hell for what he's done. He knows that he will never be forgiven, not once he knows what's been put into the gun to be his saving grace. Jensen Ackles, one of the greatest hunters of this time, would be the first to condemn him.

The deal has already been made. No going back now. The gun, the key, seals his fate and Azrafel laughs at him, his eyes glowing a fierce amber in the shadows as he watches Samuel Colt place the thirteen bullets into their spaces below the gun in the velvet lined box.

Colt turns to where the demon is chuckling in the shadows. "You asked for a key to your gate. It is done. Now bring him back. I know he was one of the men that died at the Alamo. This is our deal, now bring him back."

The demon smirks. "Oh, Samuel, my good man. We've watched you from the shadows ever since you escaped us. And you give us the key to our gate back for the very hunter that dragged you from the depths of Hell? This key is not the only price you pay, Colt. You should know that from all of your reading. Your soul as well as his will wander this earth until the gates fall open, and there you will learn of your greater destiny. You've condemned him as much as you've condemned yourself. Do you think he will forgive you when he finds out that you've cursed him to be a wandering soul the same as those weary souls he hunts and releases to the ascension?"

Colt swallows. "It is enough in knowing that he breathes once more. I will pay whatever price there is so long as he breathes for all of the days that we are meant to wander."

"His soul is yours then, young Master Colt. His soul shall be yours for all the days of your wandering. There will be no peace for him without you. There will be a restlessness in him, and he will only find comfort in the shadows which shall remain his hunting grounds," Azrafel says, a smug smile twisting his lips. "Is he so good a fuck that he's worth this? Lust, it's my favorite sin, closely followed by avarice, both driven by passion and madness. Pleasure doing business with you, Colt."

He watches as the demon swaggers toward the door, tilting his hat and giving a wave without bothering to turn around.

"Your precious key shall be your death, and it will be by his hand," Colt hisses, and a shiver races up his spine as the demon's voice whispers coyly by his ear, "Thirteen bullets to attempt the deed. Tell your precious hunter to make each one count."

----------

Sam jolts awake, sucking in a harsh breath of air, his eyes wide as his hands reach for the dash of the Impala, his knuckles white with their grip. The car swerves a little and Sam hears a familiar voice cursing. His eyes widen as he looks around the strange carriage that he's in, memories of the lifetimes past melting together as he realizes that he's in a car, and his lover, Jensen, is now his brother.

"Sam? What the hell?" Jensen, no it's Dean now, Dean Winchester, the descendant of another great hunter of their time, even named for him.

"You did it. You really killed Azrafel. It's finally over," Sam replies, his voice thick as tears slip down his face. "But I made a deal. There's no year for you Dean. You bargained with something that doesn't belong to you. Christ, as stubborn as ever, Jensen. And the last laugh is on me, because you don't remember."

"Sammy? There's a motel not too far up ahead. Saw the sign for it a while back. We're gonna stop for the night and you're gonna tell me what the fuck you're talking about, and then you're gonna tell me how you know that son of bitch's name, and why you didn't say something sooner," Dean growls.

Sam eases back into the leather seat of the Impala. He admires the car, recognizes it finally for the beauty that it is, and strokes his fingers along the door panel. It's strange as the memories come back, his deal with the demon for Jensen's life only to pass on the gun, the key, and say goodbye. That was the last time he'd seen Jensen that lifetime as Jensen, and their paths have crossed in the lifetimes after that, always short lived, and Jensen always a hunter.

He's torn from his thoughts when the engine goes quiet and he hears, Jensen, no Dean, his brother, mutter, "Christo."

He wants to laugh, because he understands Jensen's… Dean's worry. Sam lets his head roll to the side to get a good look at Dean, the man that Jensen's become. "I wish it were as simple as all that," he whispers, the tears rising in his eyes again, because the deed is finally done, and he's facing judgment now.

Dean shakes his head, slips out of the car, and goes to the dingy office to get them a room. He comes back, turns the engine over, drives to the end of the open corridor of rooms, parks in front of the room farthest from the office, tosses Sam the key as he gather's their duffels from the back seats and follows Sam to their room. Sam slips the key into the lock, his breath hitching, and then he opens the door and Dean follows him inside.

Sam takes a seat on one of the double beds in the room, rests his elbows on his knees and drops his head into his hands. He's bowed like a prisoner condemned, while Jensen…Dean secures the room with rock salt and hastily drawn symbols.

He hears the thump of a chair as Dean sets it down in front of him and straddles it, then clears his throat. Sam feels a shiver light up his spine, as he slowly brings himself to look up. His eyes are full of all of the pain and confessions from a lifetime ago. Learning about the death of Jensen, summoning the demon, making the deal, forging the gun, the key, anything to bring back Jensen for that one last goodbye followed by lifetimes of chance meetings only to end up brothers.

Sam lifts his hand, it trembles as he reaches out to the man that Jensen has become in this lifetime, so strong, struggling to hold everything together, willing to give up everything for Sam again, just as he did all those years ago when he walked into a maddened hell to save the wretched boy that Samuel Colt was. He doesn't recognize the agonizing whimper that slips from his throat as his fingers brush along Jensen's jaw, and Dean stares back at him, wondering what the hell is going on.

"Sammy?"

Sam lets out a little snort as a bittersweet smile tugs at his lips. "You used to call me Slim. I miss those days, back when you were the scariest sonofabitch of the West. You'd ride that crazy half-possessed stallion of yours, Tempest, over a thousand miles for anything that so much as smelled like a hunt. You weren't my brother then. You were just the man that walked into my own personal Hell to save my sorry ass, and look how I've repaid you."

Before Dean has a chance to question him further, Sam leans forward, Dean's face between his large hands, his fingers slipping into Dean's short hair, and he misses the days when Jensen's hair was longer, as his lips brush against Dean's, one last plea for forgiveness, one last breath of salvation before he accepts his damnation.

Dean is stunned as Sam pulls back, his eyes are comically wide and Sam would laugh were it not for the shit he landed himself in well over a hundred and some odd years before. Dean wipes his mouth with the back of his head and swallows thickly before he lets out a gust of air that sounds a lot like a confused, "Huh."

Sam watches Dean carefully, waiting for the punch that he knows is coming. You can't kiss your brother, even if you were lovers in another life. Blood connects them now, the blood of their mother and the destiny that thrums thick in the Winchester line. This is cruel and yet he can't help himself. He's given over to the fact that John Winchester, his father, got it easy compared to this lingering before judgment, waiting for the final strike of lightening, the final sin that sends him to the fire and sulfur where he belongs.

"I had a dream when you died the first time, and I went to the crossroads. He came, Azrafel, and he asked me to make a key with my unique talents. Six days after the Alamo was lost, on March 12, 1836, the gun was finished, along with thirteen silver bullets, blessed and charmed to expel or kill anything evil that it struck. I found you a year or so after that, after I'd heard that you'd been killed by a poltergeist, but you made it out of the fire and the house collapsed behind you. I tried to get you to give up hunting, but I knew you wouldn't, so I gave you the gun for the first time, told you to use the bullets sparingly, to save them, and we parted ways. I didn't see you again until maybe twenty years down the road, a young boy playin' with his daddy's six shooter, but damn you always did have good aim," Sam says softly.

Sam's eyes follow Dean's tongue swiping across his mouth, and it's always been that mouth, so succulent to kiss and taste, so sharp and quick to cut anyone down with a quip or a curse. It's a mouth Sam will always recognize against his own, no matter what. Dean draws in his bottom lip between his teeth for a moment, worrying it, like he always does when he's deep in thought. Sam has seen that gesture throughout lifetimes, a habit Jensen had with him even the first time they met.

"So my soul wasn't mine to bargain with?" Dean asks slowly, and cocks his head to the side narrowing his eyes on Sam's. "Then who does my soul belong to?"

"I've owned you body and soul since the deal was made. You will breathe for all of the days that we are meant to wander, and this is the lifetime of our reckoning. That's why you didn't die from the heart attack or the wreck. This is our reckoning, my judgment," Sam whispers, and turns his sad gaze to the floor.

Dean lets out a choked laugh and shakes his head. "No wonder I took to you when Mom and Dad let me hold you the first time. You'd just come home from the hospital, and I knew there was no one else that would mean more to me than you. I knew it even then. You son of a bitch! You just said goodbye!"

"You wouldn't leave the shadows, Jensen! I wanted you to! I thought maybe I could save you if I just dragged you out of the darkness, like you dragged me out of my Hell!"

"It was his daughter, that Meg bitch, that killed me a few years after your God damned deal! She had me on a rack, slowly cutting me open and he laughed as she carved me up, asked me how the gun would save me now as he spun it on his trigger finger. He told me that I would hate you one day, that I would find out what you were and I would hate you," Dean snaps.

Sam's shoulders slump further down. He jumps when he feels Dean's hands grip his shoulder firmly.

"And like I've always said, Sammy. Slim, whatever the hell you want me to call you. Demon's always fucking lie," Dean growls and then his lips are pressed against Sam's, his mouth eager as his tongue slips past Sam's lips and tastes his brother, his tongue circling and battling Sam's for control of the kiss, a challenge, a fight, like always, one that they both always concede to.

Dean pulls back with a gasp, breathing heavily. "You made me promise to kill you. It's the one time I ever lied to you Sam. I can't ever bring myself to do that. I considered killing myself, it would have been the honorable thing, considering we're brothers, but then you went off to Stanford. I thought I could keep my distance but Dad disappeared and I couldn't face the hunt on my own anymore. I came back to you, Sam. I came back for you, and it's slowly killing me. Knowing I can't have you, it's always been my weakness. You've always been my greatest strength and weakness. I'd do anything for you. Guess now I know why."

"I need you," he whispers against Dean's lips.

Dean replies, "You have me."

"But for how long?" Sam asks.

Dean frowns for a moment, his brows furrowed and then he opens his mouth to answer but Sam presses a finger to his lips.

"Don't answer that unless you are ready to leave this life behind, leave the hunt behind. We are done. We've paid off my debts. Our deal has been signed and we're free. We can help when we come across hunts, can offer up our knowledge, but the looking for trouble, this living in darkness, it's done. I'll stay with you forever in the sun. Please, this is how you save my soul, and how I give you back yours," Sam pleads.

Dean's hand finds it's way to the back of Sam's neck, his fingers slipping into Sam's soft, brown hair as he drags his younger brother into a kiss, his lips making the promise that he can't find the words for. He pulls back, trailing kisses along the underside of Sam's jaw and along his throat, his hands shifting, working to remove the various layers of clothing covering Sam's body.

Sam lifts his arms as Dean pulls away his shirts, and then he grabs Dean, yanking him forward, the chair tumbling between them, and then sliding across the room as if by an invisible hand. It takes less than the blink of an eye before Sam has Dean shirtless and straddled beneath him, his teeth scraping across his brother's stubbled cheek and jaw and working his way down Dean's throat, sinking his teeth in his shoulder hard enough to leave a mark, and then licking over the bite soothingly, while Dean arches up beneath him.

"It's your choice whether or not you belong to me anymore. What do you want?" Sam breathes against Dean's chest in between nips and licks.

"Not giving me too much to think on here," Dean says around a groan as Sam's tongue flickers into his navel and his fingers flick open the button on Dean's jeans. "You never have played fair, Sammy."

"It's not in me to play fair. Not when it comes to you," Sam whispers, and the sound of Dean's descending zipper fills the room.

Sam shifts and then jerks Dean's jeans and boxers down his legs, and Dean's cock slaps his belly in its eagerness.

"How long have you wanted this, Dean? How long have you wanted me to fuck you?" Sam whispers huskily against Dean's thigh as his hand curls around Dean's cock, his thumb slipping across the head of his cock spreading the precum beading at the tip.

"Christ, Sammy," Dean moans.

Dean watches with wide eyes as Sam's face nears his crotch, his breath hitching in his throat and then Sam bypasses his cock completely. Dean let's out a groan until he feels something wet darting along his testicles, and licking a stripe along the crease of his ass. His hips jolt upward and Sam chuckles.

Sam pulls Dean's legs over his shoulders, and lifts his brother's hips, his tongue darting along the crease of Dean's ass. He scrapes his teeth along Dean's right ass cheek as he pulls the cheeks apart, reveling in the musky smell as his tongue darts out, slick and hot against Dean's entrance, and Dean jolts forward again, a strangled sound escaping his lips. Sam hums a little, his tongue wiggling and working it's way into the tight ring of muscle, bitter and salty, but with that lingering taste of Dean and sin, and temptation that he cannot deny.

He tightens his grip on Dean's hips, and Dean slowly begins to relax, his breathing coming out in pants as the tension melts in his body until he gives himself over the sensation of Sam's tongue and his ass.

Sam moans, when he feels Dean take his left hand and sucks his fingers into his mouth, tongue tracing over the pads of his fingertips. Sam pulls his hand away from Dean's mouth, and it isn't long before one of those spit slickened fingers is working it's way inside of Dean along with Sam's tongue. Sam gets the finger in to the knuckle, and Dean squirms.

Sam pulls back and lifts his head to watch Dean as he crooks his finger and Dean jolts, his head falling back with incoherent noises escaping his older brother's throat, and then Dean lifts his head and their eyes lock.

"Damn, Slim, still a strange one," he replies.

Sam smiles. "And you still love it."

Sam adds another finger and brushes against a particularly sensitive spot in Dean. With Dean's very vocal encouragement Sam adds a third finger, and pulls back. He looks around the room, sees nothing particularly wet or nearby and spits in his hand to slicken himself up. He leans down, his hand around his cock; thumb spreading his precum along with the spit to make slipping into his brother easier.

His cock nudges Dean's entrance as he bends down, catching Dean's mouth in a kiss, and Dean nips at is tongue before sucking it soothingly and then pulling back.

"Fuck me already. I can take it," Dean growls.

Sam thrusts forward and Dean seizes. Sam cocks his head to the side at Jensen's…Dean's glare. He slows down, let's Dean adjust as he inches his way inside, and he stops when his hips finally meet Dean's ass, and his hand once again curls around Dean's cock. Dean's body trembles, and then he shifts and Sam pulls out and thrusts into that tight heat again, his hand fisting along Dean's cock in time with his thrusts.

Dean groans and thrusts up into Sam's hand as Sam fills him and he cries out, his back arching up from the bed and Sam bends over him thrusting fast, hard, and deep. Sam's lips trailing along Dean's throat and shoulder, one hand around Dean's cock, the other firm on his hip, and Dean's blunt nails scrape down Sam's back as Sam hits that spot inside with nearly every stroke.

"Mine," Sam growls as his teeth sink into Dean's shoulder and a shiver races up Dean's spine as he comes all over Sam's hand and their stomachs, his ass clenching down on Sam as he throws his head back and yells out Sam's name.

Sam gives one final thrust as he let's Dean's shoulder go, arches his back and his brother's name accompanies the shallow thrusts as he comes. Sam's bows forward, his breath warm and heavy against Dean's shoulder as he slowly pulls out of his older brother, pressing his lips to Dean's neck.

Dean tilts his head, and Sam lazily meets Dean's lips with his own as he settles down next to Dean, his arms loosely going around Dean and he trails fingers along Dean's ribs.

"Possessive bastard, aren't ya?" Dean says with a lazy smirk.

Sam chuckles. "Yeah, guess I am, but I'm yours too. I'm just as much yours as you're mine."

"I know, Sam. Knew that the first time I did an exorcism on ya. Something about you just makes me want to protect and keep you."

"It's always been you looking after me. I'm strong enough now," Sam replies, then he lets his head fall back on the pillow and sighs as he continues, "Maybe the deal is done, but I still owe the Devil his due. I mean I did make that key."

Dean nods, and then a knowing smile slips across his lips, "Yeah, now what're you gonna do about it?"

"Kill as many evil sonsofbitches as it takes to save lives and make amends."

"Even if it means living in the darkness?" Dean prompts.

Sam lets out a sigh. "I wasn't strong then, but I've learned to hunt, and I have abilities. I have them for a reason. It's wrong of me to ask you to give it up. You've always done it for the right reasons, helping people, saving lives."

"So, you're finally cut out for this life? Even if it means forever in the shadows, in the darkness, Slim?" Dean asks.

Sam takes in a breath. "Yeah, I think I am. Greater destiny. Huh. Guess I'm more than a gunsmith. I'm a hunter now, a Winchester."

"Yeah, but a gun is a gun whether it's a Winchester or a Colt," Dean replies with a snort.

Sam lets a smile slip across his lips. "I'll stand by you forever, even in the darkness."

Dean turns to Sam, his lips brushing the corner of his younger brother's mouth as he whispers, "Bout damn time, Slim. Bout damn time."

And for once the restlessness is gone, because with Sam in his arms Dean is home.