A/N: I know this chapter took a really long time to finish and I thank all those who have reviewed and waited patiently for the rest of this story. I hope the wait is well worth it.

Few notes, Narcan is another form of Naloxone that you can get over the counter in emergency O.D. kits. I did a lot of research on Narcan, Barbital, and side effects from both the write this chapter. I did stretch a few things for the sake of the story but 90% should be medically accurate. I won't bore you with all the details here but if you have any questions feel free to pm me. I would love to share what I know.

I hope y'all enjoy the story, please remember to review it's the highlight of my day. 3

Dean hovered in the soft gray that hung in the gap between oblivion and awareness; somewhere in a small corner of his mind he knew he shouldn't move to close to the vast, dark emptiness, knew that if he slipped too deep there would be no coming back. But maybe that wasn't such a bad thing, because maybe he didn't deserve the chance to come back. The things he's done, the people he hurt, the people he failed . . . it seemed like every time he tried to help, to do the right thing, he fucked up royally, or worse, stood by while someone else succeeded where he couldn't. Maybe he'd earned this, and maybe slipping quietly into that darkness would turn out better for everyone.

He could hear someone talking, but it was nonsensical, voice and cadence swirling together until Dean couldn't tell where one word ended and the next began. It didn't matter, though—he was tired, and the struggle toward awareness was becoming harder with each passing moment. He just wanted the chance to sleep, to let go of everything, to finally rest, but there was an odd echo from a corner of his mind reminding him that he had to fight, that he had to hold on. That was important; he couldn't remember why it was so important, only that it was.

The weightless gray world he'd been lingering in started to press down on him from all sides, suffocating him until his chest was bound so tightly that his breathing was reduced to a thin slipstream that seemed more pointless than anything. His body moved, or someone moved it for him, as he desperately attempted to pull air into his starving lungs. A searing pain lanced through his side, stealing away what little breath he'd been able to find.

In stark contrast to the fiery pain in his side was that cold air engulfing him, swallowing him, threatening to drag him back toward the darkness, back toward comfort.

Dean felt hands on his face, welcome warmth seeping into his chilled skin and pulling him closer to the surface, but bringing with it pain.

"Hey. Come on, man, I need you to wake up."

His mind rolled the words around, struggling to assign a face to the voice he knew better than his own.

Fingertips tapped at his cheeks like annoying gnats that refused to be ignored. "C'mon, Dean. Open your damn eyes."

It was Sam. Always Sam.

He was tired and weary and couldn't remember why he was even fighting anymore, but Dean had never been able to deny his little brother.

He blinked heavily as the image of Sam blurred unsteadily before his eyes. The faintest hint of a smile pulled at the corner of the kid's mouth and Dean could see pain in his brother's gaze, but he couldn't remember why it was there. The thoughts kept slipping through his fingers like tiny pieces of broken glass. He couldn't hold on to them, and the harder he tried the more it hurt.

His eyes felt heavy, like gravity had made it a personal mission to drag them down. Someone had told him long ago, You can't fight gravity. Or maybe that was a hall, or a city. He wasn't sure it really mattered anymore; he was freezing, his side was burning, and his chest felt as thick as peanut butter when he tried to breathe. He was too tired to care. He didn't want to fight it; he let his eyes slip shut. Gravity could have this round.

"No, no, no, no. C'mon, man. Don't—" The gnats were back. Tapping at his cheeks, gripping his chin. "Damn it, Dean!"

The hands mercifully disappeared, but before he could breathe a sigh of relief, a sharp pinpoint of pain stabbed into his thigh, followed swiftly by a burning sensation erupting at the spot and quickly moving outward until it faded beneath every other part of his body that was suddenly screaming for his attention.

Dean pushed the pain away and allowed himself to sink back into the soothing embrace of nothing, back to where it was warm and pain-free. He'd almost slipped completely under when his stomach spasmed tightly, then rolled with a vicious and unrelenting need to expel everything he'd ever eaten—immediately. He gagged and tried to push himself up but couldn't coordinate his limbs enough to pull off the deceptively simple task.

Suddenly, there were large hands on his shoulders rolling him onto his side and shoving a bucket under his face, giving his gut all the encouragement that it needed to begin turning itself inside out.

"Whoa, easy." The same hands curled around his shoulder, keeping Dean from tipping off the bed as gently as possible as his stomach emptied itself and he continued to dry heave. "Easy."

The voice sounded steady and unsurprised, like he'd been expecting Dean to cop it and prepared ahead of time.

Dean groaned, wrapping his arms around himself as the convulsions set off a chain reaction that rocketed in a circuit around his obviously broken ribs, ratcheting the pain from a hurts like hell to just fuckin' kill me now. He didn't resist when the giant paws on his shoulder shifted, moving him back away from the edge of the bed while keeping him on his side. They lingered for another moment before sliding off completely; he then heard the sound of a chair shift and someone sigh heavily.

He squeezed his eyes shut tightly as his insides decided on one more flip and pressed a shaky fist against his mouth, silently begging his stomach to stay where it was. After what felt like an exhausting battle of wills resulting in a barely won victory, Dean dropped his hand to the soft mattress, too tired to do much more than simply breathe.

The memory of Sam being shot, of him lying lifeless on the ground, crashed through his mind; Dean's eyes blew wide with the overwhelming need to see his brother whole, intact, and healthy.

"Sam?" Dean raked his eyes over his brother's form, sitting in a cushioned chair pressed flush to the bed, elbows braced on his knees and his hands cradling his face. He took in every detail his foggy mind could manage, then asked, "You 'kay?"

Sam dropped his hands to fall limply between his knees and looked up at his brother. "Yeah, Dean. I'm fine." He sounded anything but fine—something was wrong.

Dean longed to slip back into the darkness where there had been no pain—and no worries—but the wounded look etched across his little brother's face held Dean captive. He needed to fix that first, then he could rest.

"Sam?" Dean racked his brain, trying to figure out what could have unsettled his brother, made him look so worried and worn out, but his mind was a jumbled mess of cottony, vague memories of the two of them driving and checking into the motel, and neither activity warranted a bedside vigil.

Sam narrowed his eyes softly as if he was quietly debating on something. Dean had seen the expression many times before, usually when his brother was developing some plan of attack on a hunt, and he distantly wondered what it was Sammy was hunting for.

"Dean—" Sam started sharply, then stopped and pressed his lips into a thin line before seemingly changing tracks and asking instead, "How are you feeling?"

The question felt loaded, like there was some sort of message behind it, or a warning of sorts, but God, he was tired on so many levels and having enough trouble focusing his eyes, let alone his thoughts. He instead opted for the safe answer, the one that was as natural to him as breathing and required no thought whatsoever.

"Awesome." A shiver rocked his frame, belaying his words as he clenched his teeth around the chill and resulting pain.

Sam made a small hum under his breath, a sound that seemed caught between the lines of frustration, disbelief, and something else that Dean couldn't quite put his finger on.

He pressed a palm against the bed and attempted to roll onto his back, hoping to relieve some of the pressure on his side, but was stopped by the same giant paw from earlier.

"Easy, man. Stay on your side."

His brother said more, but his words became low and warbled, and his face kept blurring in and out of focus like there was a foot of water between them. Dean squeezed his eyes shut then blinked them open.

"Wha?"

Sam shifted closer, his hand still on Dean's shoulder, holding him still with little effort.

"—laying on your injured side might help with your breathing."

"My . . ." He trailed off, pressing a hand against the side of himself that was broken and attempting a deeper breath, only to pull up short when a sharp stab lanced up through his ribcage, squeezing his lungs and stealing his breath. "Fuckin' hurts."

This wasn't the first time he'd broken bones. It didn't happen often, but more than he'd care to admit. Breaks were always painful and always a bitch to deal with, but nowhere in his hazy memory could he remember it ever hurting quite this much.

Sam made that humming sound again, and Dean instantly decided he hated that noise.

"It's a side effect." Sam paused for a moment before adding, "From the Narcan. It, uh, it blocks the body's ability to regulate pain or something like that." He ended the statement with a small shrug.

"The what?" Dean frowned, struggling to make some sense of what his brother was saying.

"Narcan?" Sam reached over and picked up a small empty box from the nightstand, held it up for Dean's blurry inspection. "It's, uh, used to reverse the effect of opiate overdose." Another pause, chopping his explanation into bite-sized pieces, easier for Dean to digest. "You know, like barbiturates, for instance."

Dean cleared his throat, letting his eyes drop from his brother's face, and considered for a moment whether he could get away with pretending he didn't know what the hell Sam was talking about, but he knew that it would only manage to piss his brother off more than he already was, and, from the deceptively calm, sharp tone his brother was using, Dean was guessing that they were already at pretty damn pissed.

"How did you . . ."

Sam's eyes narrowed dangerously, and Dean immediately knew he'd picked the wrong question to lead with.

"Doctor Kessler called about an hour ago, worried about the fact you weren't in a hospital being closely monitored after you overdosed in a suicide attempt. You should be in a hospital right now. You realize you could still die from this, right?"

He didn't know that, actually. The lasting effects of an overdose hadn't seemed terribly important at the time. Dean rolled his lips against his teeth, choosing the safer route of not answering the question and instead asked his own.

"Not that I'm complaining, but why haven't you . . ." He let the sentence trail off, losing steam and strength halfway through, struggling just to pull in enough air to combat the black spots dancing on the outer edge of his vision.

"Taken you to the hospital?" Sam dragged both hands down his face. "Do you know what would happen? If I took you to the ER for a drug overdose they would admit you to the mental ward and keep you there for observation, and then how long do you think it would take them to find out that you're on the FBI's most wanted list, or that you officially died, twice?"

"Thought Charlie erased all that?" During one of Charlie's visits to the bunker she'd cheerfully informed them that she'd created some kind of program that went through multiple police and FBI databases and erased all files and records containing the names Sam or Dean Winchester, along with a few other aliases that'd been burned. She'd spent the rest of the day showing Sam how the program worked and . . . other nerd-related crap.

"Doesn't mean there isn't other stuff out there that given enough time and enough digging . . ."

Dean pressed his lips together, then hitched a shoulder. "Don't need a hospital anyway. Feel fine."

"Dean." Sam blew out a harsh breath then gave him a look that said he wasn't even gonna entertain the absurdity of that statement.

Dean shifted uncomfortably in the bed. He hated lying down during an argument; it made him feel exposed, vulnerable. He wanted to sit up, find a position somewhere closer to equal ground with his brother, but every muscle spasm and twitch weaved painfully throughout his chest and twisted his stomach, which threatened once more to turn it inside out before the day's end.

"Sam, I wasn't trying to—"

"Kill yourself? Dean, there's no fine line between that and not caring if you live. They both lead to the same place!"

"That's not what happened."

His brother raised a hand, cutting him off. "I'm not an idiot, Dean."

"Sam." Dean drew a shallow breath, wincing as it stabbed though his chest.

"You tried to make a deal, didn't you? For me? Do you have any idea . . ." He trailed off, a look of concern mixed with a liberal amount of frustration painting his face. Sam stood up from chair, hand pressed against his wounded side as he paced a few steps away then turned back to face him. "God, Dean, I thought we were past this."

"What? Me protecting you? Sorry, Sammy, that's never going to change."

"No, Dean!" Sam threw his arms out to the side. "This idea you have in your thick, obstinate skull that your life somehow has less value than mine!"

Dean's fingers tightened around the bedsheet and he shoved himself upward, aiming to match his brother in both volume and position, but he didn't even manage to get halfway there before a vice squeezed around his chest and all of the air was sucked from the room.

He gagged around his suddenly stubborn, utterly worthless lungs, and the room grew fuzzy and gray around him. He was disoriented enough to know only that he was seconds away from puking whatever his stomach had left to offer but couldn't be sure where the mess was about to end up.

Suddenly Sam was there behind him, handsy as ever and pushing him upright, shoving a clean bucket under his face as he was sick.

The strain on his ribs was beyond description, the pain exquisite. Dean had a fleeting thought that the pain alone would kill him, and the shake in Sam's hands on his shoulders made him wonder if his brother wasn't thinking that same exact thing.

Dean wasn't sure of how long it took to get his stomach back under control, or how much time it took for his brain to remind his lungs of their function, but it felt like forever before the black spots scattered from his sight, before he was able to draw a thin breath and the throbbing in his ribs died down to barely manageable.

"Easy, dude. Just breathe."

Dean swallowed thickly, wincing at the acidic taste coating his tongue as he reluctantly leaned back against his brother's support. Sam shouldn't be supporting him, shouldn't have to. It was his job to support his little brother, to protect him, but now he could barely hold himself up, hold himself together. How was he supposed to protect Sam, stop Amara?

Dean grabbed a fistful of the comforter draped haphazardly across his lap; he tried to drag himself away from his brother's support, but his whole body seemed to be working in concert against him. He gritted his teeth as the pain ricocheted from one end of his body to the other.

"Easy, Dean. I got you."

That's the problem.

Sam slid away from Dean, stuffing a few pillows behind him, providing Dean with the ability to sit up without putting a strain on his ribs. Dean allowed himself to sink back against the pillows, taking slow, steady breaths as Sam sat back down in the chair, wincing as his side pulled painfully.

Sam let out a soft snort and glanced around the motel room. "Good thing you decided to drop the extra cash for some place nice for once."

Dean slid his eyes over to his little brother, silently waiting for the man to finish his thought.

Sam pressed a hand against his wounded side, shifting uncomfortably in the large chair.

"Looks like we may be here awhile. I can't drive right now, and there's no way that you . . ." Sam shook his head softly.

"Doesn't matter," Dean mumbled, talking to himself more than his brother.

Sam turned back to Dean, his eyebrows arching high. "What doesn't matter?"

Dean swallowed a bitter chuckle. All the choices Dean had made, all the actions he'd taken—they meant nothing. They accomplished nothing.

He'd left Sam behind to save the man that had tried to kill him and risked death to save a brother that didn't need his help. Dean hadn't even been able to save himself; Corbin had nearly choked him to death before Sam stumbled in, bleeding, barely conscious, and saved them both. And that was just the most recent in the ever-growing list. The worst of it wasn't even that he did something and made things worse, but that he tried to do something, tried his hardest to help, and in the end . . . it didn't matter. He was just a witness to things happening around him with no real influence to the outcome.

"Dean?" Sam leaned forward. "What doesn't matter?"

Dean pulled his attention back to his little brother. He wasn't sure how much loss a person could hold without it crushing them. He carried a graveyard around in his soul full of ghosts and grief, full of all that he'd lost and those he couldn't bring back.

"If we stay here"—Dean hitched a shoulder—"Lucifer and Amara will still be there in the morning."

He never noticed how heavy absence was until it was resting in his hands, until he found himself suffocating under the weight of nothing.