Notes: Final chapter! Thanks to everyone who read this story, and doubly so to anyone who favorited and/or reviewed. Your feedback and encouragement mean a lot to me.

Onward!

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Dean glared at the Trickster, fingers twitching to wrap around his neck, but he managed to restrain himself. He needed to know what was going on, and more importantly, he didn't have a stake dipped in the blood of its victim.

"You know this guy, Dean?" Bobby asked sharply.

"I don't need you," said the Trickster, and snapped his fingers.

Bobby disappeared.

"You bring him back you fucking –"

"Relax, Dean-o, he's just a couple towns over. He'll make his way back in a few hours." The Trickster pushed away from the wall he had been lounging against. "'Course, if you learn your lesson, he technically won't exist in a few hours. Interesting metaphysical dilemma."

"What do you mean, if I learn my lesson?" Dean growled.

"Think about it for a second. What do I do?"

"You fuck with people," Dean replied immediately.

The Trickster rolled his eyes as he moved over the fridge.

"What kind of people do I fuck with?" he prodded, voice echoing slightly as he rooted around inside.

"Dicks. And Sam," Dean added, because Sam was a lot of things, some of them pretty bad, but he wasn't a dick. "Is that what this is about? Fucking with Sam? Because that didn't work out so hot for you last time."

"Is that really what passes for logic with you people?" the Trickster asked rhetorically, emerging with a jar of maraschino cherries. "Sam isn't here, genius. He's dead. Offed himself, ten years ago. Never even graduated high school."

Dean flinched, white-hot fury flaring in his chest. He didn't care that he didn't have a stake; he didn't care that even with one the Trickster had always managed to elude them. He surged forward, slamming the shorter being into the counter.

The jar of cherries hit the ground and shattered.

"You bring him back," Dean snarled. "You bring him back or I swear to god I will hunt you down and make you wish that I had killed you."

"I didn't kill him," said the Trickster, unfazed. "I just pulled a little switch-a-roo. You did the rest. Some of my more elegant work, I think."

"So, what?" Dean spat, letting him go and backing up a few steps. There was guilt roiling in his stomach like acid, but he refused to let it win. This was on the Trickster. "You want to show me I'm being a dick to Sam? Alright, I get it, I'm being a dick to Sam. I think I've earned the right. But he's not fucking fifteen anymore; he can deal."

The Trickster stared at him with something that looked a hell of a lot like disbelief.

"I'm going to have to spell it out for you, aren't I? Fine."

The Trickster snapped his fingers.

Dean jerked back with a curse as their surroundings shifted abruptly, then stumbled on the knobby carpet which had replaced the hardwood.

"Where the fuck are we?" he snapped.

"A motel room. Now ask when we are."

Dean scowled. The Trickster sighed dramatically.

"You have no sense of drama. We're in your original timeline, a week ago."

Dean glanced around the room, eyes raking over the salt across the doorway, the sigils on the windowsill, the familiar bag tossed on the other side of the bed.

"This is Sam's room," he stated.

"Very good," said the Trickster with mock approval. He brought his wrist up to his eyes with a flourish, and it was suddenly equipped with a flashy digital watch. "And we're live in three . . . two . . . one."

The door opened.

"Sam!" Dean exclaimed, relief flooding him. His brain caught up with his eyes a moment later. Sam looked like shit. His shoulders wear slumped with exhaustion, and yellowing bruises stood out on his sickly-pale face. He also didn't react to Dean's voice.

"He can't hear you," said the Trickster, loudly and slowly as if explaining something very obvious to someone very slow. "We're not in the same timestream, Bozo. Now pay attention."

As if Dean would be doing anything else. His eyes were fixed on Sam as he pulled a prescription from his inside pocket, dropped the bag in the trash, and set the bottle on the table. The label read 'Oxycontin.'

Dean's blood ran cold.

"You know, funny thing," said the Trickster conversationally. "I must have gone through thousands of timelines trying to find the right point to switch him around from – and first of all, let me tell you, your Sammy is a poster child for suicide risk. Something like half the timelines he offed himself. But, point is, he usually goes for the pills first. Doesn't like to leave a mess. He's considerate that way. You, on the other hand –"

"Shut up," Dean ordered, and he didn't even care that his voice was shaking. Sam was carefully tidying up the room, smoothing the sheets, removing his knife from beneath the pillow. Putting his affairs in order, the Winchester way. As a final touch, he opened his phone, punched in Dean's number, and set it, unsent, on the table.

"Dammit Sammy," Dean muttered. "Just call me."

"He did," said the Trickster. "I think your exact words were 'pick a hemisphere.'"

Dean swallowed.

"This isn't real," he said thickly, his voice echoing strangely through the almost silent room and his numb and empty chest. "Sam's alive. He must've changed his mind."

The Trickster shrugged noncommittally.

Sam moved to the tiny linoleum-floored kitchenette and filled a glass. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. His face was dry and his hands were steady.

"Sam," Dean pleaded.

Sam opened his eyes. For a dizzying instant, Dean thought he had heard him – but then Sam snatched up the bottle, and in one, two, three swallows, the pills were gone.

Dean stood frozen in shock, staring at his terrifyingly calm little brother He couldn't process what was happening. This didn't make any goddamn sense. Sammy was alive. Sammy was –

— listing to the side, catching himself on the counter before sinking to the floor, head flopping against the cabinet with a painful-sounding thunk.

"S'rry," Sam slurred groggily, tears finally beginning to fill his eyes. "'M s'rry. Gonna be okay now. 'M gonna sleep."

"No!" Dean argued desperately, dropping down so he was eye-level with Sam – not that Sam could tell. Probably he was too far gone to understand even if they had been in the same timestream or whatever, and Dean's stomach turned at the thought. "Sam, c'mon, don't do this."

But Sam's breathing was already becoming slow and uneven, his eyelids sliding shut and sending tears coursing down his face.

"Sam . . ." Dean whispered brokenly. This wasn't real. This wasn't real. Ohgoddon'tletthisbereal.

"Calm down," said the Trickster from behind him. "It's not like it's permanent. Watch."

Sam's chest stilled. His body slumped as his last breath left him. He was gone.

. . . Until a moment later, when he gasped awake again, cursing between his ragged breaths as he scrambled to his feet.

"How . . . ?" Dean questioned, relieved and bewildered.

"Lucifer," said the Trickster flatly. "Doesn't want his best suit self-destructing before he has a chance to show it off."

Dean never thought he'd be grateful to the Devil, but right now he was coming pretty close.

"Fine," Sam spat, fury replacing his cold calm, and Dean hated to admit that it was a huge improvement. "You want to play that way? Fine. Fine."

"Thing about your brother, though," said the Trickster as Sam dug through his bag. "He's too damn persistent for anyone's good. None of this is gonna work – "

Sam straightened up with his .45 in hand. Dean barely had time to feel his stomach sink with dread before Sam put it to his temple and pulled the trigger. Sam dropped, half his head blown across the wall, and gasped back to life again in the time it took for Dean to empty his stomach onto the floor.

"— but if you keep going like you're going, he's going to find a way to make it stick," the Trickster continued as if nothing had happened, as if Dean's baby brother hadn't just put a bullet through his brain, as if he wasn't reaching for a knife and dragging it up his arm with gritted teeth –

"Stop him," Dean said, and he didn't care that he was pleading, didn't care about anything except Sammy, sliding to the floor with blood pouring from his arms, thinking this was the only way, thinking he didn't even have to leave a goddam note –

"Haven't you been listening?" the Trickster demanded. "He'll be fine. Or he might be, anyway, if you get your head out of your ass. I couldn't care less about your little lover's spat, but if Sammy-boy manages to shuffle off this mortal coil it throws a major wrench in my plans."

"I don't give a fuck about your plans," Dean snarled, and Sam was alive again, starting to sob now, awful, gut-wrenching sounds of pure desperation as he snatched up the shotgun this time and put it in his mouth – "He's my brother."

"Brothers destroy each other all the time," said the Trickster snapped.

Sam pulled the trigger. Dean dry heaved as another splash of blood and brain and bone painted the wall.

"Okay, okay," the Trickster conceded, and snapped his fingers just as Sam revived. The room froze, tears glistening on Sam's cheeks, despair in his eyes. "I think I've gotten through your thick skull by now."

"Send me back," Dean demanded, voice colored by fury and grief in equal parts. "Send me back to him or so help me –"

"Yeah, yeah, you'll tear me into little pieces and feed me to myself," said the Trickster, rolling his eyes. "If I had known it was as simple as showing you this – eh, I still would have done the rest of it. It was too poetic to pass up. But all good things must end."

The Trickster snapped his fingers.

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Sam sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes as he tried to figure out what had his gut churning with even more anxiety than usual. He must have been dreaming. He remembered something about Dean, young and wide-eyed, and a wound in his side, and dreading Dad's return . . .

"Sammy?"

Dean's voice was thick with sleep.

"I'm fine," he said, as lightly as he could manage, trying not to show how affected he was by the familiar nickname, undoubtedly let slip in a moment of confused grogginess. "Weird dreams."

"Sammy," Dean repeated, and Sam looked up, startled. What he had mistaken for sleep thickening his brother's voice was something else entirely, and before he could work out what it was Dean had crossed the gap between them and pulled him into a rough embrace. He was shaking, Sam noted with alarm.

"Dean –" He stopped as a thought occurred to him. "That was a dream, wasn't it?"

Dean wasn't listening, too busy grabbing his arm and forcibly flipping it over, staring at his forearm as if it was evidence of some horrible crime, all the while choking out incoherent curses as his eyes swam with tears.

"Dammit, dammit, don't you fucking – shit, shit –"

"Dean," said Sam, by now thoroughly freaked. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" Dean repeated, anger suddenly flaring as it always did, eyes snapping up to meet Sam's. "You tried to fucking kill yourself, Sam!"

Sam's stomach sank. He didn't know how Dean had found out, had certainly never expected him to, at least not while they were both still alive.

"I . . ." Sam looked at Dean, furious and terrified, supporting his shaking form with the rickety motel bed, damp eyes begging for some kind of – what? Explanation? Sam had all his reasons laid out in his mind, always, cold and logical and implacable, just waiting for him to find a method that would stick – but of course, that wasn't what Dean needed. He knew the reasons. He had to. He wasn't asking why Sam had tried to kill himself, he was looking for reassurance that it would never happen again.

Sam couldn't give him that.

"I didn't think you'd . . ."

"Didn't think I'd what? Care?"

Dean was staring at him with horror and incredulity, but all Sam could do was shake his head helplessly. Of course he knew that Dean would care – but he had figured it would be in an abstract, removed way, more grief for the memory of what they had been than this raw, bleeding pain.

"Sam – Sammy," Dean grasped him by the shoulders, hands strong for all their trembling, eyes desperate. "I've been a dick, alright, I know I have, but dammit, I'd be one bullet behind you."

Sam shuddered. He believed him, it was impossible not to, but he didn't know what to say. He couldn't tell him it would be alright, couldn't tell him the thought wouldn't continue to gnaw at his mind as Lucifer filled his dreams and the world slid further towards disaster, couldn't make any more promises that he'd never be able to keep.

"I'll do better, Sammy," Dean said, and he meant it. He always did. That didn't make it true. "We're in this together, you and me. We'll get through this."

Sam closed his eyes, and wished he didn't know it was a lie.