There's a story, written after All Hell Breaks Loose 2 but without incorporating anything from season three canon, where Sam is desperate to save Dean. He finally does it at the eleventh hour by summoning/whatever Destiny (the
Sandman version) and saying that if Destiny doesn't rewrite Dean's page in his book, Sam will react with extreme prejudice by ending the world.
Destiny is startled, a bit, by Sam's outlook on Dean's impending death, but eventually reaches a covenant with Sam: he will save Dean, and in return, Sam will never ever become what Destiny sees in his book. Destiny rips out the relevant page and leaves.
Dean, who made Sam promise not to make any more deals, comes in when he's survived for too long and freaks out before Sam can convince him that Sam hasn't made that kind of bargain.
There was a whole bunch of stuff leading up to it - that incorporated the rest of the year Dean had left, and
might have had something to do with a list of things Dean wanted to accomplish before he died. (But that might have been another story altogether.) Really, the conversation with Destiny is the most distinctive factor of the story.
Storyfinder twins, activate!
ETA: shortly after posting, I realized that it's called "The World is a Small Child in the Dark" but the link I found for it is dead - livejournal expunged. Anybody have a different link to it?
ETA the Second: I knew it couldn't be gone for real. Thanks,
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