This is it. I don't have much time to write these days but hope to be back before too long. In the meantime, with new episodes starting in ten days, I'm sure we'll have plenty to occupy us! -K

Inspired by an old Man from U.N.C.L.E. novel, of all things.

Secondary Victims
K Hanna Korossy

"So," Dean led with. "You wanna tell us why you said you killed your husband?"

"Because, I did," the mouse of a woman said.

His grit teeth audible in his response, Dean pressed, "Why?"

"I just did."

And that was it, Sam could feel Dean's thin patience evaporate completely. Even as his brother tensed, Sam quickly elbowed him in the side, hard.

Dean's glare transferred momentarily to him. That was fine; Sam could take it. He was far more concerned with what was going on with his brother.

Okay, so it was their third fruitless interview of the day. And Dean had never been the most patient guy to begin with, but especially not since Purgatory. He was good at what he did, however, and this short a fuse was unusual for him. It was just one of the many things wrong with this picture.

Another was that they were in a mental hospital. The woman in front of them was dressed in a gown and thin robe, her hands clasped so tightly that they were bloodless. She looked sick, gaunt and haunted and only half there. Presumably, the other half was still in the room where the cops had found her, standing over the body of her 230-pound husband. Who'd had, according to the medical examiner, "several perforated organs, the wounds consistent with puncture by a sharp weapon"...with no exterior wounds.

Dean blew out a breath. "Okay, then, you mind telling us how you did it?"

The woman, Hazel Greenstock, averted her eyes and began to rock in her seat.

"Mrs. Greenstock—" Dean snapped.

"We know you didn't kill your husband, Hazel," Sam interrupted gently. "Maybe you think how he died was your fault—" And there it was, a flash of something in her face. "—but it really wasn't," Sam continued. "There was nothing you could have done."

He said the wrong thing. He knew it the moment he saw her face shut down, the rocking recommencing.

"Hazel..."

"I could've. I should've. I could've. I should've." Tears started to roll down her cheeks as her voice rose. "I should've!"

One of the nurses appeared with an orderly. "Officers—"

"Yeah, yeah, we're going," Dean grumbled. He was watching Hazel with equal parts frustration and anger, and only a grudging bit of sympathy.

Sam gave the nurse a tight-lipped smile and followed his brother out.

"Well, she was as helpful as the other two."

Despite his longer legs, Sam had to hurry to keep up with his brother's stride. "She's traumatized, Dean. She's in a mental hospital because of whatever she saw." The fourth "suspect" had suicided before they even got to town.

"No," Dean glanced at him, "she's in a mental hospital because she says she killed her husband—who could've bench-pressed her without breaking a sweat, by the way—even though there's no frickin' way she could've done it."

"Maybe a spell," Sam mused. "A supernatural killer on a leash?"

Dean smacked the building's door open. "She look like she dabbles in the dark arts?"

"I'm not saying she—"

"Or Eric down in county lock-up? Or Nasty—"

"—Nastya—"

"—in the psych ward two towns over? Dude, do any of them look like they've got an altar stashed in the root cellar behind the pickled beets?"

Sam rounded on Dean, making him pull up short just a few feet from the car. "I'm not saying they're the ones behind this."

"Then why are they all claiming they killed people they loved, huh?" Dean raised his arms and dropped them again. "None of this makes sense, Sam, and unless one of them starts talking, I don't know where to go next, do you?"

Sam squared his shoulders, staring his brother in the eye. "We've worked cases with a lot less—what's really going on, Dean? Is this...is this about what James showed you?" He'd assumed the witch had trapped Dean in the same visions as Sam: reminders of Mary, of Adam, of all their failures and losses. But maybe he hadn't. Maybe what he'd shown Dean had been about Sam.

"No," Dean growled with an irritation too sincere to doubt. Sam had seen his pain from James's little lesson, but his brother had obviously buried it with the rest of his baggage and moved on. "Nothing's going on, okay? I just don't like this."

Sam huffed. "Right, 'cause you always go off on victims like that. Dude, why is this case yanking your chain?"

Dean rolled his eyes with another flap of the hands. "Oh, I don't know, man, maybe it's because we've got four dead bodies and four confessions and a suicide, and nothing adds up. Or maybe it's because if something kills your husband or wife or brother, you should be doing whatever you can to stop it instead of lying about it. Or, hey, maybe it's because we should be figuring out how to finish the Trials and get you off the hook instead of running halfway across the country to save a bunch of crazy people from themselves!"

And therein lay Dean's moral paradox, Sam realized with little satisfaction. He talked about forgiveness and trust, but down deep he was still hurt by Sam for not looking for him while he was in Purgatory, while at the same time worried about the toll the first Trial was taking on Sam. The classic Dean sandwich: stuck in the middle between protecting Sam and civilians, and protecting himself.

Sam got it, empathized and struggled and hated it. Things weren't exactly fun on his end, either. But this wasn't the place for that conversation. Not while they had some sort of invisible, mind-bending killer on the loose.

"We can't do anything about the Trials," he pointed out, because logic sometimes got through to Dean when emotion was too complicated. "Kevin's working on it, but until we know what the second one is, what, we just sit around the Bunker and wait?"

Dean glared at him. "It's called 'resting up,' Sam. You gotta be ready for the next one."

"I'm fine, okay?" Fine except for a constant throb in his head, a bone-deep ache, and a blood-speckled cough. Then again, when had they ever had a chance to fully recover between hunts? "I'm not just gonna sit on the sidelines waiting for Kevin to send me out there again."

It took the twist of Dean's mouth for him to review what he said—me, not us—but it was too late. His brother's stormy gaze turned to stone. "Fine. You want to keep working, you tell me, what do we do next?"

It was ironic, Sam considered sometimes, that as hard as he'd fought all his life to be able to make some of the decisions, he usually didn't want to when he had the chance. Maybe because Dean tended to let him lead mostly when he was mad at him. For better or for worse—usually both—that was their twisted relationship.

He sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair while he thought. "Go back to the victims. They have to have something in common."

"No, they don't," Dean said maddeningly, if accurately. "It could be total coincidence, or they all crossed paths with the same thing at some time, or—"

"I know, all right? But it's what we do, man. We keep looking until we figure it out."

"Not every time," Dean said quietly. The fire in him died, until he just looked sad.

Sam's own chest tightened in grief and remorse. He'd never explained his actions of the last year to Dean, pretty sure he couldn't when he'd wondered about them himself. In Sam's defense, Dean hadn't asked, either. But when his brother looked that miserable, Sam found it hard to feel any sort of justification.

Whether Dean saw something in him, or just couldn't help himself when it came to Sam, he let him off the hook. "Fine, but you're hitting the books. I'll go track down the friends and family."

"Meet you at that place from yesterday for dinner?" Sam offered his own olive branch. There'd been grease on the placemats: needless to say, Dean had loved the diner.

A little animation returned to Dean's face. "Six. Don't be late."

Sam put up a hand in mute pledge before turning away to walk back to the motel.

He wondered if Dean looked back at him as Sam was tempted to.

00000

Okay, so he had a few drinks along with those interviews. People tended to talk easier with alcohol, and that included him.

And he had an answer by the time he walked into the diner hours later. He wasn't surprised to find Sam already there—and, yeah, he noticed that Sam had wiped the booth down—and threw him a smug smile as he slid onto the other bench seat.

"It's the house."

He realized a second later that Sam had said the same thing at the same time.

Longing and resentment, a familiar combination those days, beat in his chest. He ignored it, cocking his head at Sam. "The Drew house?"

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

The waitress appeared to take their order, and they dropped the conversation for the moment: civilians tended to misunderstand mentions of murder and spells and demons. Dean ordered a medium-rare burger—his taste had become more carnivorous since Purgatory, something he didn't want to think too much about but saw Sam note—and Sam, the grilled chicken club. They smiled as she poured them coffee, then leaned across the table to continue in private as soon as she walked away.

"Hazel's best friend," Dean answered. "Who wasn't so broken up that she didn't try to get into my pants, but, dude, she mentioned that when Hazel was a kid, she lived in the house Eric Drew killed his brother in. How much you wanna bet Nasty has some connection to the house, too?"

"Nastya," Sam corrected absently. "Her uncle lived there, in between Hazel's family and the Drews."

"Huh." Dean sat back, taking a sip of coffee before he set it aside. Another post-Purgatory change: he'd completely detoxed from alcohol and caffeine in his year...away, and both affected him more than they had in years. He felt almost a little buzzed from the few beers he'd had earlier. "You look into the history of the house?"

It was an innocent question, but he could still see Sam bristle a little. "Of course." Right, because he was still a hunter despite his year off. "No history of violence except for the suicide of one Perry Atwater about forty years ago."

"They sure it was suicide?"

"He was the only one home, no signs of a struggle."

"Did he stab himself?" It was rare, but it happened.

"Hanging."

Dean winced. "Okay, so, no relation. Probably."

Sam shuffled through the papers he'd brought, even though they both knew he'd memorized everything on them. "He was thirty-two, same approximate age and gender of all the victims."

"Yeah, well, that's pretty thin." Dean sat back, giving the waitress another grin as she slid their plates in front of them. One thing Purgatory hadn't weaned him of was women. A year was a long time to go without female companionship. Not to mention, they were a really good distraction from the joy that was his life now.

Sam conceded his statement with a half-nod, then concentrated on the food.

They ate in silence a few minutes. Sam had not-so-subtly turned his plate so the side with the fries was near Dean, and he obliged by stealing a few after finishing his own. Sam, in turn, ate Dean's pickle and took a sip of his Coke, ignoring Dean's automatic grumble. Sometimes it was like they were strangers trying to learn how to be friends, but other times it was like he'd never been gone. Dean wasn't sure if that didn't make it worse.

When they were finished, Sam reached for his wallet, but Dean was already paying the check, their pattern of so many years when Dean had been the lead hustler and breadwinner of the team. Sam sat back, his expression unreadable.

Dean swatted him on the shoulder as he rose. "So, check out the house tonight?" They might as well. The place would be empty with Peter Drew dead and his brother in jail for the murder.

If Sam saw the possible parallels, he didn't say anything, just nodded and silently followed Dean out.

How was it possible to miss someone when they were right there next to you?

00000

The headache was a cloud of pressure in his head, making it hard to think. Sam opened the glove compartment and pulled out the first pair of sunglasses he found—Dean's—and put them on. Behind the dark lenses, he closed his eyes.

"Head hurt?" Dean surprised him by asking quietly.

He was tempted to brush it off, but Sam was tired. "Yeah," he admitted, and silently pleaded for Dean not to lecture him—again—on how he should be resting back at the Bunker instead of on this case.

But Dean's only response was to nudge some painkillers into his hand and fish out a bottle of water from under the seat for him.

Sam had no idea why Dean even had the pills, but he wasn't going to overthink it. "Thanks." He popped two and leaned against the cool window with a sigh.

Another minute of quiet; he realized the radio wasn't on. When Dean spoke again, his voice was still pitched low. "So if the house and land doesn't have a history and we're not thinking ghost..."

Sam coughed, rubbed his mouth. "Uh, curse?"

"Which we're gonna find, how, exactly? Besides when I try to skewer you from the inside?"

There was a pause, Sam opening his eyes to give Dean a look.

Dean flushed and cleared his throat. "You know what I mean."

Sam shrugged one-shouldered. "See if we find any clues? EMF, cold spots, ozone..."

"Do spells even leave EMF?"

He pondered that briefly. "Maybe? If they're strong and they were activated recently enough."

Dean looked doubtful, but he didn't say anything and neither did Sam. It sucked, but sometimes they just had to go in blind to figure out what they were up against.

The house was a three-story Victorian. Funny, Sam mused, how ghosts seemed to prefer Victorians to, say, ranches or split-levels. He was pretty sure he'd never heard of a poltergeist in a beach bungalow, or a haunting in a condo. Age of the home was a factor, no doubt, but sometimes he wondered if ghosts didn't sometimes just have a sense of the theatrical.

They loaded up on one of everything portable, not knowing what they'd need. Dean handed him several clips—silver, cold iron, sanctified bullets, salt rounds—and a flask of holy water. They debated, then decided against taking in Borax; while there were still some Leviathan around, this job had none of the signs. Between them they had blades of five different metals, and Dean even stuck a flare-gun into his pocket. He slammed the trunk, and with unspoken synchronicity, they headed in.

Sam picked the lock in seconds. Dean checked the EMF meter as they walked in, and turned it so Sam could see what he already heard: only the very low hum of a building with electricity. They stood and took measure of the cluttered home.

"We shouldn't split up," Sam said, softly just in case anything was listening.

He could feel Dean's eyes on him. "Yeah," his brother finally said, "I wouldn't want you to have to come looking for me if I disappeared."

Sam flinched away from him. One step forward, two back...

Dean's jaw shifted, genuine remorse in his eyes. "Sam, I'm—"

"Forget it." Which wasn't possible, for either of them, Sam knew that. But this wasn't the time or place, either.

Especially when the EMF meter started picking up volume, like a roiling steam kettle. In seconds, the shrill sound pierced Sam's ears.

Dean turned it off without looking, both of them scanning the room, on guard and shotguns up.

The ghost that materialized on the upstairs landing was oddly familiar. He looked about their age—at his death, anyway—a little paunchy and thin-haired but with a boyish face, although the expression was anything but childlike. He was watching them with a cold calculation that made Sam deeply uneasy. Or more uneasy than he already was with the feeling he should recognize the spirit.

"Hunters. Welcome to my house."

"Why don't you come down here and welcome us in person?" Dean snapped back. Their shotguns didn't have the range to hit the ghost, but Sam saw his hand inching toward the Colt he'd loaded with salt-filled hollow-points.

That was when Sam remembered where he'd seen that face before. "Dean," he hissed.

"Not now, Sam," Dean growled out of the corner of his mouth.

The ghost cocked its head. "Do I detect some discord? A weakness?" Its gaze was boring into Sam.

"Discord this," Dean replied with unflappable illogic and pulled his gun.

The gun went flying out of Dean's hand, the same moment the ghost—Perry Atwater, the suicide from forty years before who didn't seem to have any relevance to their case—materialized right in front of them.

"This is for your own good," it said solemnly.

And before Sam could even put enough distance between them to raise the shotgun, they were someplace different. Frozen in place.

If he had to guess, he would have said it was the dining room from the size and the burgundy walls. There was no furniture, however; in contrast to what they'd seen of the house, this room was completely bare. The doorway about twenty feet away opened into what looked like a living room, as fully furnished as the foyer.

Sam had a bad feeling about this, magnified a hundred-fold when he was able to catch Dean out of the corner of his eye, sitting—sitting?—in a chair just inside the living room facing Sam. Motionless.

"I'm sure you're wondering what's going on. Well, let me enlighten you."

The ghost, Perry, stepped into Sam's fixed field of vision. He looked almost solid, and that and the fact that he had immobilized them so easily told Sam he had an unusual amount of power. That typically came from powerful emotion if the ghost wasn't old, and that was rarely a good thing.

"You seem to recognize me. Perhaps you know my story then. No?"

Sam tried to scowl. To move a finger. To turn his eyes even a fraction of an inch toward Dean, but he was completely paralyzed. And disgusted. Taken down on a stupid ghost hunt, of all things? He was, as his brother liked to rub it in, a little out of practice, but where were Dean's Purgatory-honed warrior skills?

"My father was...demanding. He did not want a son who was weak." And there it was: the unfinished business. The spirit's eyes blazed with fury. "So he devised a little exercise to 'toughen me up.'"

The room shimmered behind the ghost. And suddenly where there'd been empty air before, blades of all sizes and shapes hovered at different heights and angles. A literal maze of knives.

Sam's head could suddenly move, and he turned to take in the room with horrified fascination.

Beyond Perry, Sam saw that his brother was indeed seated, apparently comfortably, in a hard-backed chair in the doorway. Despite no visible bonds, like Sam, he didn't—couldn't—make a sound or a move. But his eyes were wide and full of rage. And panic.

Sam looked back at the spirit as something appeared in its hand. A blindfold, and Sam felt a cold prickle down his back.

The material moved of its own will, slithering to Sam like a snake, and tying neatly around his head. It wasn't uncomfortable, but the total blindness, and the implications, made his throat grow dry.

"The task is simple, really. All you have to do is cross the room. There is a path, I assure you. Reach your partner—brother?—and you are free to go."

Sam's legs suddenly unlocked. He staggered momentarily in place, trying to find his balance, only to discover his arms still couldn't move, his hands stretching only a few inches outward from where his wrists were glued to his thighs. Short of fleeing, he had no defenses, and running in that room would be instant suicide-by-skewering. His breath shortened, panic of his own threatening to overcome sense.

"There is one more caveat. You can stop at any time, released and free to go. But if you do, your brother is forfeit."

And then it abruptly made sense. The people they'd talked to who were adamant they'd killed their loved ones. The victims run through without exterior wounds. How far had Hazel, and Eric, and Nastya gotten before they gave up, gave in, resigned their spouses or brother to their deaths?

How far would he get?

"Your brother is waiting." The biting cold of Perry's presence faded back to room temperature. Sam was alone again.

He and Dean, a lethal obstacle course away.

Sam tried to take an experimental step back, only to find the air a solid wall behind him. Apparently the only way out was through. He snorted out a nervous laugh, surprised to hear himself. Had the ghost freed him that much? "Dean?" he tested.

He could almost feel his brother's frustrated attempts to respond, but there wasn't a sound.

Sam swallowed, lifted his chin. "Here goes nothing."

He slid his right foot forward a few inches.

No resistance.

He took a cautious breath, fingers reaching as far as they could, spreading wide. He turned slowly sideways and sidled forward another few inches with his right foot.

Something poked through his jeans, just penetrating the skin of his shin when he froze.

Slide back an inch. The prickle was nothing, but sweat broke out on Sam's forehead. He slid his left leg toward ten o'clock, angling away from the obstruction.

This time when a blade sliced through his shirt above his elbow, it surprised him enough that he jerked back...and promptly impaled his thigh on something that felt like several inches of icepick.

Sam swallowed his groan, not moving until he got his bearings back. Okay, if he had this right, he could pull back, off the pick. He eased his leg the opposite way, feeling the resulting trickle of blood down his leg.

An instinctive terror beat at his chest, the darkness suddenly suffocating. The ghost had said there was a path, but what if it'd been lying? What if that was just part of its twisted game? And even if there was a way, could Sam find it without shredding his skin and succumbing to blood loss? Or, worse yet, gouging his eye out, or skewering himself in the throat or the heart or the gut? He'd seen hatchets and Bowie knives and even an honest-to-God cutlass in the glimpse he'd had of the room: just one wrong step could do major damage.

Sam gulped a few times, pressing down the consuming fear. He was trembling, and even just standing in place, he felt the whisper of something brushing against his shoulder. Okay. Okay, he had seen the room. He had to try to remember the layout, and just...move slowly. He could do this. He could get to Dean.

Wait.

"Perry?" Sam demanded.

"Yes? Are you ready to concede?" The temperature barely dropped, the spirit apparently just checking in.

He ignored the question. "If I reach Dean, we both go free? Him, too?"

"Yes. Or you can go now."

"With Dean?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Then no." It came out so much stronger than he felt.

"We'll see." The cold faded.

Alone again. Sam's hands shook. He could just imagine what Dean was going through.

He let out a breath slowly, and took another step.

00000

It was another kind of Purgatory.

No matter how exhausting the constant guardedness was, how the constant fear of hunting or being hunted ate away at his mind, at least Dean had been in control of his own actions. And Sam, no matter how many times Dean had wished it and even blamed him for it, had been safely elsewhere.

So sitting here, paralyzed and safe and downright friggin' comfortable, while Sam tried to make it blindfolded through a jungle of blades? It was excruciating.

Sam was already bleeding from a half-dozen places, body visibly trembling as he tried to move slowly and carefully. Dean's heart constricted as the kid managed to cut himself on a sword that looked dangerously close to his femoral artery. He screamed at Sam to be careful, but the sound never made it out of his head.

He was gonna riddle that ghost's corpse with iron and salt before he burned it, slowly.

Sam had jerked himself away from the sword, and stood, shaking and slumped, as he tried to figure out which way to go next. Sharp objects threatened from at least three different directions, and Dean found it hard to swallow as Sam picked the wrong one. At least this one only seemed to snag his jeans, before his brother caught himself and stopped.

He was slower to start each time.

Dean got it. Why those people had given up, picked death for their loved ones instead. This wasn't a physical test so much as a psychological one, and even with Hell on both their resumes, he couldn't imagine what Sam was going through, didn't think Sam was prepared for it, either. Dean half-expected him to call it at any moment.

But Sam—stupid, loyal, stubborn Sam, who hadn't looked for Dean when he'd vanished in an explosion of black goo—lowered his chin and pushed on into the minefield.

Dean tried yet again to yank at his invisible bonds, but there was no give, no knots to work on, no ropes to rub his wrists raw and lubricate with his blood. He was completely safe, and completely helpless. And completely suffering.

Sam was mumbling now, too softly for Dean to hear, even though he strained to. It was broken with a grunt when an ax got a little close to Sam's right biceps. Dean could count at least nine wounds on him now, probably more he couldn't see. Sam was moving more heavily, pain and blood-loss and fear taking their toll. But he kept moving.

Don't do this, Dean pled in silence. It wasn't worth it. I'm not worth it. He wouldn't even have wanted Sam to look for him if it'd cost him this much to do so. He'd just...wanted to know Sam had tried.

Did he ever say he didn't even try? Did I even ask him?

Sam made it a few more steps. He was two-thirds of the way to Dean now. But he got cocky with his progress, and managed to walk into some little rake thing, all four of its sharp little prongs sinking into Sam's side. He groaned, staggering back, and made a sound too close to a sob as the movement fetched him up against a serrated knife.

Dean's eyes swam. Give up, Sammy. I didn't mean it.

Sam seemed to consider it for a minute. He stopped in place, head hanging, panting, bloody and defeated. When he spoke, low and rough, Dean braced himself for the words.

But not these words.

"I'm not giving up. 'M coming, man."

And jaw set so familiarly, he pushed on.

Two more minor injuries, one that might've only cut clothing. Sam was just a couple of feet away, when he stumbled. A high hatchet caught him along his right sideburn, flaying the skin to bone.

Sam keened, shrinking in on himself.

Dean was going to burst a few blood vessels himself, he was straining so hard to reach him. Sam was close enough to touch.

"Last chance," the sadistic ghost's disembodied voice spoke up. "Do you concede? If you fail, your brother is forfeit anyway."

Nice new wrinkle. Dean wanted to trap the thing in its own Hell.

Sam shook his head slowly, blood fanning across his cheek, dripping off his chin. He coughed and...was that red on his lips? Son of a bitch. Dean didn't think any of the blades had gone that deep, but it wasn't like he had a good vantage point. Freaking Sam and his freaking ideals.

"No." Sam was whispering. His hands weren't stretched out anymore; they were pressed up toward his stomach, like he was trying to hold himself together. "No. 'M not...giving up."

He was shaking so badly, he scratched the back of his hand on a razor, but he was shuffling slowly enough to avoid the worst. Two more blades. One more.

Sam staggered free of his jagged cage.

And just like that, Dean was free.

He leaped up just in time to catch Sam as he listed. Sam jerked at his touch, a small, panicked noise escaping him, but Dean had grabbed his arms and wasn't letting go.

"It's me. It's me, Sammy. You did it. It's over."

Sam was shivering, his skin pale. Shock.

Dean didn't dare hold him tighter, not sure where he could touch that wouldn't hurt. They had to get out of there, had to get Sam's bleeding stopped, had to make sure Perry didn't pull his little trick on anyone else. But first things first: Dean yanked that freakin' blindfold off.

Sam blinked in confusion at the light.

"Sam? Hey. You with me? Look at me, bro."

Sam blinked at him, face blank. The blood coated the side of his face like war paint, but right now he just looked like a scared kid.

"Sammy," he gentled his voice. "Hey. It's over. It's over. You made it through." Dean swallowed. "You saved me, dude."

Sam stared at him a moment longer, shaking. "I did," he finally said, so faint that Dean didn't know if it was a statement or a question.

Then his eyes rolled back and he crumpled into Dean's arms.

00000

He had vague impressions of waking in a hospital, or a clinic. Someone in scrubs asking him where it hurt and what happened and whether Dean was his brother and had hurt him. He wasn't sure he answered, or even that he knew the answers to any questions but the last two.

There were pain- and drug-hazed impressions of Dean rolling him out and then riding in the car. Dean's hands on his neck and face and wrists. Dean sounding worried. It was confusing and he was tired and hurting, but he knew he was safe so he slept.

Sam woke, head finally mostly clear, to the sight of Total Recall playing on a big-screen TV across the room, very quietly. And the uncomfortable pressure of a full bladder.

He knew moving would hurt, but sucked in a breath and froze when just starting to sit up made it feel like his skin was about to rip off.

"Yeah, that's probably not the best idea," Dean's voice came from the left.

He turned his head, slowly because it seemed even his neck and face hadn't escaped unscathed, to the sight of Dean beating something in a bowl with a fork.

Sam raised an eyebrow.

Dean put the bowl down and rounded the kitchenette counter, dusting his hands on his jeans as he went. "The docs put more than a hundred stitches in you, dude—you're not gonna wanna go anywhere for a while."

"Bathroom," Sam said hoarsely.

"Oh." Dean looked around the room. "Bottle?"

Sam glowered at him.

Dean blew out a breath. "You're gonna regret it, man," he said, not without sympathy, but stepped forward to help.

It...hurt. Far more than he thought a bunch of relatively superficial cuts should hurt. Even with Dean filling his ears with details like how there was no significant internal damage and he could take painkillers now that he was up and he'd been sleeping for most of thirty hours, Sam still found it hard to focus on anything besides that his skin felt like a sewn-together patchwork. Which it kinda was.

Dean left him sitting on the toilet to do his business and helped him back to bed after. Then he looked Sam over with a critical eye, then stepped away to return with a glass of cold orange juice and three different pills.

Sam didn't hesitate to take them all.

The drink helped, too, making him feel a little less floaty. Enough that he could look around and better take in his surroundings. Dean's bed was rumpled, the nightstand between it and Sam's moved out into a corner. That meant he'd pushed the beds together the night before, worried enough about Sam to want him in arm's reach. Dean was back to cooking now, bacon and maybe...pancakes? The bedding and floor were clean, the walls muted, and there was no smell besides the cooking food, which meant Dean had gotten them a better-than-usual place to stay. No doubt because Sam would be laid up for a while.

He sighed, settling back against the pillows, then realized where they were in the movie.

"Dean."

"Yeah?" His brother looked up.

Sam nodded at the TV.

Dean glanced that way, then crowed. He pulled the pan off the stove to come sit on the end of Sam's bed and watch. "Dude, three breasts! She does make me wish I had three hands."

Sam laughed. "You say that every time, man."

"Well, it's true." As the movie moved on, Dean stood and swatted the soles of Sam's feet. Incidentally, probably the only place he didn't hurt. "Breakfast in five. You hungry?"

He didn't think he was, too sore and, incredibly, tired, but his stomach begged to differ. "Yeah."

"Dean's famous pancakes coming up."

Sam sipped at his juice and took stock of his body. He could feel pools of pain and bandages on four places on his arms and...several more on his legs. One was near enough his crotch that he stuck a hand down to check, just in case, but that at least was good. His stomach pulled unpleasantly, however, and something in his back flared when he tilted too much to the left.

"Yeah, basically you're a pincushion," Dean said conversationally as he approached with two plates. He snagged a chair with one foot and dragged it to Sam's bedside, then settled one plate on Sam's half-propped torso. "You need some help with that?"

"No," Sam answered quickly. Even if he did, he would figure it out.

Dean had actually cut up his pancakes, which helped more than Sam cared to admit, but neither of them mentioned it. Nor that he knew how Sam liked it, enough syrup to coat but not puddle, no butter, a little overdone.

They ate in silence, Dean with enough appetite that Sam wondered when he'd last eaten. Between two bites, he asked, "What did you tell them?"

"At the hospital? That you were an idiot and tried to take on a guy with a knife who wanted your wallet."

"Thanks," Sam said wryly.

"Hey, you try to explain somebody who looks like he went five rounds with Edward Scissorhands."

Sam made a face and kept eating. He hadn't even realized how hungry he was, and pancakes were something Dean had perfected in their childhood.

"Perry got torched last night," Dean threw out there.

"Yeah?" He tried for offhand but managed something more strangled. Just the name made his heart speed up for a second. Sam glanced around the room again, frowning at the thought of Dean going out to do a salt-and-burn when he'd been worried enough to sleep next to Sam. It made sense—he was more than happy to have that ghost meet its end—but he felt oddly disappointed, too.

Dean was looking at him. "Yeah. Connie and Pete took care of it, said they were in the area."

"Oh." And there was Sam's own push-pull: wanting his independence and autonomy and pride, but feeling adrift, desolate and abandoned when Dean was gone. No wonder Dean felt he still needed taking care of, with the mixed signals Sam kept sending him. Frustrated, he pushed his half-empty plate away.

Dean kept eating, but his attention was clearly more on Sam than the food. "I made a few calls. Turns out Perry wasn't the only suicide in his family, we just missed it because it wasn't at the house."

Sam snorted. "Did dear old dad finally lose it?"

"Nope." Dean chewed and swallowed. "His sister."

Sam startled back, then hissed and pressed a hand to his neck when it pulled on stitches. "He had a sister?"

"Uh-huh. And guess who was watching when Perry's old man made him walk the gauntlet?"

Sam sucked in a breath. "He was 'toughening' them both up." He grimaced. "So Perry started doing the same thing to others."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

He didn't bother answering, knowing that was true. Spirits often got confused, inflicting their torment on others to try to fix themselves. Forcing innocents to walk into their own probable suicide...and to watch their loved ones give them up. Being gutted, either literally or emotionally, at the end.

Dean put his own plate down on the floor next to his chair, then leaned forward, clasping his hands together to hang between his knees. "Sam, what you did back there..."

Sam shook his head firmly, neck be damned. "I had no choice, Dean."

"Yeah. You did." The words hung between them, weighted. "Look, I don't...I don't really get why you did what you did when Cas and I...blew up. And if you ever want to tell me about it...I'll try to listen, okay? I will." Dean raised his eyes briefly, then dropped them back to his hands. "But what I do know is, you didn't take a hike because you didn't care. I know that, okay? So, I'm gonna try to...move on. Focus on the Trials and getting you to that bright, shiny light at the end. All right?"

Sam tried to swallow and found his throat too tight. So he just nodded, eyes prickling.

He'd figure out a way to explain it to Dean. He would. He'd finish the Trials, make Dean understand how much he'd missed him and show him again that there was nothing Sam wouldn't do for him, and drag his brother out the end of the tunnel with him. And he'd succeed because this time he wasn't alone. Just like at Perry's house.

Dean smiled a little, shook his head once, then turned the TV volume up. Without looking, he pushed Sam's plate back into his hands, and propped his legs up on the edge of the bed.

Just like he wasn't alone now.

The End