A/N: Well, this is it. It's taken about six months longer than I originally planned, but it's been an incredible ride and I've had a lot of fun writing this fic. I hope everyone's enjoys (and just so you're warned: this is a looong chap).

NOW:

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to."

"I don't much care where."

"Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.

" . .. so long as I get somewhere."

"Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough."

-Alice and the Cat, Alice in Wonderland

I.

The few weeks after were very . . . weird.

Sam and Dean stayed with Bobby. This wasn't so much a decision on their part as it was an order given by the older man, quiet, mild, but no less intractable. Had John Winchester been alive, he might have yelled, might have screamed. "You will stay here till I say you're ready." That was John Winchester. No room for questioning. No backtalk.

Bobby was pretty much the same, only less with the yelling and more with the . . . Bobby-ness. Instead of screaming about orders, Bobby'd taken a beer from the fridge and leant against the wall. "You know where the room is," he'd said, daring them to argue.

Neither of the boys did. They didn't have the energy to fight much of anything, right then.

The first few days were the worst. Sam wouldn't let Dean out of his sight no matter what, and Dean couldn't seem to meet Sam's eyes . . . no matter what. Could barely meet Bobby's, for that matter, and mostly didn't—if he spoke at all, he spoke to the floor or the wall or the ceiling—anything, but who he was talking to. Mostly he just nodded or shook his head accordingly, eyes shadowed, refusing to say anything unless it was absolutely necessary to do so.

Not that it often was.

Sam and Dean had sort of moved beyond that.

II.

A few nights after the Demon died, Sam was sitting on the floor outside the bathroom. His father's journal was resting a few feet in front of him, seeming somehow small to Sam, almost insignificant. They'd relied on it so much over the last few years, let it tell them where to go, what to do, how to hunt. Now, it seemed that there was so much that wasn't in it. The story was incomplete. So many pages empty.

Sam and Dean had been through so much over the last month. None of it was in this book. None of it was close to anything their Dad could have imagined.

Sam looked at the journal before him and lifted it in the air with his mind. He made it fly around the room for a few minutes before letting it sink back down to the carpet.

There had been a part of Sam, a huge part of him, that had hoped his abilities would die when the Demon did, that, after all was said and done, he could go back to being normal. As if that was even possible, as if he'd been normal before his psychic powers started manifesting. Normal was a dream that had crumbled to ash about the time his brother went evil and soulless on him. Now, with his Dean back, Sam was the closest to normal he was ever gonna get. And he could live with that.

They just . . . had side effects now.

Sam sat on the floor outside the bathroom, listening to the scrubbing sounds of Dean brushing his teeth. Sam could hear it, but he could also feel it—could practically taste the minty freshness circling around his own mouth. He could feel Dean standing in the bathroom, face tilted down, never looking at himself in the mirror. Sam could feel Dean in his head pretty much all the time now, and he could feel Dean's ability to feel Sam too.

Jesus, they were fucked up. But that was the nature of being a Winchester. Dean had said it best in his (suicide) goodbye note: Nothing good's ever happened to a Winchester, anyway.

Sam didn't know the origins of his abilities, didn't know if they were a gift from the Demon or a genetic mutation. But like it or not, they were a part of him now. Magic had a way of stitching itself inside you.

Sam knew that, better than anyone. And he could feel (think, taste) that Dean knew it too.

It wasn't that Sam knew everything his brother thought. It wasn't that he always knew where Dean was, or what he was doing, or what he was thinking about doing. It was just that, if Sam concentrated enough, he could usually figure it out.

Eventually, that could get pretty awkward. But Dean's mind was so far from sex right now that it almost didn't feel like his brother.

It worried Sam a little. But everything worried Sam a little, these days.

Sam trailed his fingers down his father's journal, trying to take comfort from the familiar feel of old leather. Dean, he thought, and then tried to push the thought forward, project it to his brother consciously instead of just randomly picking up bits and pieces. Dean? You hear me?

Sam felt Dean pause, toothbrush held frozen in the air. Yeah? Dean asked warily, and, behind that muttered, This is so friggin weird.

Sam smiled at that. He didn't really have anything important to say (except I love you and how could you do this to me and are you okay and I'm scared Dean I'm scared) but he had to say something because he was the one who started this. Just . . .checking in, he said, which was beyond lame because—

Jesus, Sammy. I've been in the can all of five minutes. What, you miss me already?

The humor in that was sticky, awkward—humor was coming pretty difficult for both of them these days—so Sam just chose to ignore it entirely. Yeah, he thought simply to Dean. I do. And it shouldn't have been so surprising, because he'd only had Dean back for three days, and Dean had been gone an entire month.

His Dean, anyway.

Dean didn't have much of a response to that. There was a surprised, sort of warm feeling, a quick youdid?youmissedme?youloveme?iloveyoutoo, before being hurriedly brushed away, repressed as if it had never been felt in the first place. Sam heard Dean turn on the faucet and felt him spit out the toothpaste, wash out his mouth, gargle a little. Do the normal night routine. Once he was done, Dean went to sit down on the floor, cross-legged, mirroring Sam across the bathroom door.

Things can't ever be the same, Sam, Dean thought to him. The bald honesty in the statement surprised Sam a little. Dean, it appeared, was better equipped to deal with his emotions if he didn't have to express them out loud or look at the person who he was expressing them to. That bothered Sam, but this was a step; this was the most honest thing Dean had said to him since the Demon died and they had sort of fallen apart together.

He felt Dean take a breath. I'm . . . I . . . I can't . . . A rueful laugh, then, bitter and resigned. 'm all fucked up, Sammy. I . . .I'm all fucked up.

I know, Sam thought, mostly to himself, although he wouldn't be surprised if Dean had heard it to. I know, he thought again. I know. We both are.

He felt Dean nodding, and then they were quiet. Sam, trying to think of something to say, went back to levitating the journal for the hell of it. He tried to imagine what his father would say if he could see the two of them the way they were now. Sam playing with his telekinesis, idly and telepathically chitchatting with his brother . . .

He'd probably shoot us both in the heads and move on, Dean said dryly. It made Sam's lips twitch upwards. He liked to think that it wasn't true, but it was hard to know what John Winchester would make of his sons now. Sam supposed it didn't matter. Whatever happened to him and Dean, they were in this together now.

We were always in it together, Dean thought. Sam shook his head.

No, Dean. If we'd been in it together, you wouldn't have left the way you did. You wouldn't have made that deal. If we'd been in it together, we would have faced what was happening. We'd have been there for each other. We'd have been standing side by side.

A silent sigh, then, almost imperceptible. I did what I had to do, Sam.

Do you regret it? Sam asked.

Immediately, there was a chill in the air, something physical, tangible, frosted over. Sam could feel a sliver of ice moving down his spine as it tracked its way down Dean's as well. Sam felt his brother draw back from the door a little, as if trying to create a distance between them. I'm sorry for what I did to you, Dean finally said. I'm sorry for that. You'll never know how sorry.

Maybe, Sam thought, even though he knew exactly how sorry Dean was. He could feel it, the guilt in his own gut, threatening to split him, to tear him in half. But that's not what I asked you, Dean. I didn't ask if you were sorry. I asked if you regretted it. If you regret making that deal.

Another pause, long and chilled, and then suddenly the door opened. Sam scrambled up and peddled backwards, avoiding a painful death by brother-trampling. Dean stood motionlessly before him, his eyes resting on an arbitrary spot above Sam's left shoulder. "I'm tired," Dean said quietly. "I'm gonna go to bed."

And before Sam could say anything else, Dean left.

III.

Please don't hurt me. Please, I'll do anything you want.

Dean closed his eyes. He was leaning over the toilet, waiting to see if there was anything else ready to come back up. Maybe a piece of his esophagus—he was definitely down to his internal organs, having already puked up the little food that he'd forced down his throat today. He didn't want to eat, didn't see much point in it, but Bobby and Sam weren't exactly being subtle about shoving food in his direction every chance they got. Maybe if they knew about the nightmares he was having; maybe if they knew that he'd spent the past week vomiting at three in the morning, maybe they'd back off. Maybe they'd just learn to leave him the fuck alone for a little awhile.

Dean almost snorted at that, thinking of Sam constantly hovering in the background, trying to give him space and watch him at the same time. Right, Dean thought. Fat fucking chance of that. He didn't know why he was bothering, the hiding, the secrets. Sam was gonna figure it all out, sooner or later.

But right now Sam was asleep, safe from all the monsters that lurked in the real world. There was a certain amount of comfort in that—though dreams had never been kind to Sam in the past, and Dean would have to hope that they'd be kinder in the future, would give him somewhere he could rest instead of tormenting him further. The kid deserved that, a place to rest, a place he could just shut off the world for a little while. Dean wanted to get to that place too, but he knew he had no right to be there.

I have money, if that's what you want. Please, anything, ANYTHING you want, just, just, please, please don't, please don't, please, PLEASE.

Dean tried to silence the voice in his head—the voice, Jesus, because he didn't know whose it was, had no name to put to the face, blonde girl, stacked, tattoo on her right hip. Picked her up out of Arizona, some bar, crappy little dive. Nothing special about the place. Nothing special about the girl.

There were so many and they all sounded alike, all screaming the same things. No and please and stop and God and save me, somebody, please, save me. He didn't know any of their names, didn't know what they were like or who they were. All he knew was how good they had fucked and how much infinitely better it had felt to kill them.

Killing them, killing all of them, blood on his hands, watching the light die in their eyes—it wasn't the worst part. It wasn't the thing tearing him up inside. Because he was pretty sure if that was all he'd done—killing those girls, burying them in unmarked graves—he was pretty sure he could get through that, learn to live with it, keep food down, at any rate.

(And how much of a monster was he, for thinking something like that, for wishing that murder was all he'd done, as if killing those girls had meant nothing at all. As if they didn't have fathers and mothers and little brothers waiting for them to come home and be okay, fathers and mothers and little brothers waiting for the phone to ring, their safe return.)

He shouldn't have been able to deal with that—no sane person should be able to deal with that—but Dean was pretty sure he could've, if the murders were the only things he was reliving.

Instead, he was dreaming of screwing them, raping the few who hadn't been willing, and only then he would kill them, and only then would he wake up. And he wouldn't wake up horrified; at least, not all of him would be horrified. Some part of him would be screaming nonono, but the rest of him . . . he woke up aroused. Jesus Christ, he woke up aroused. Wet dreams about screwing and murdering some chick.

Nameless. They were all nameless.

In the dreams, it was just memory. He relived it without thought, without realizing he could switch it, that he wasn't that thing anymore. The nightmares weren't the problem, because they weren't really nightmares just . . . instant replays. It was the waking up that was the problem. It was waking up horrified and disgusted and . . .hard.

Christ. His dreams of raping and murdering women were getting him fucking hard . . . Jesus . . . Jesus, he was just so fucked . . .

Dean threw up whatever was left in his stomach and then flushed the toilet, standing to brush his teeth once again. When he was done, he left the bathroom and headed towards the kitchen. He wasn't bothering trying to sleep anymore. He couldn't deal with the dreams, or the waking.

He got a few beers from the fridge and his cigarettes from the kitchen table. He knew Sam and Bobby didn't approve of this newfound habit, but he had so much shit on his plate it was a little ridiculous, at the moment. He wasn't about to throw nicotine withdrawal in, too. Anyway, he wasn't gonna live long enough to die from lung cancer. Wasn't sure he even wanted to see 30, these days.

He padded barefoot outside. It was cold as fuck out, still early, early morning, but the darkness out here was more comforting than the warmth inside. He sat down on the porch steps in nothing but his sweat pants and a thin T-shirt. He lit a cigarette, cracked open one of the beers, and drank deep.

More than half the bottle was gone when Dean remembered that he had to stop and breathe. He wasn't very interested in that, but he knew that Sam sure would be.

I don't get it. Candy or Callie's voice, something with a 'C', anyway, which was more identity than the other girls had. She hadn't been scared for long, too drunk and confused. Dean had killed her quick. She had bled out within minutes.

Fucking merciful, compared to the other girls (and there were so many other, nameless girls). She was the lucky one.

Please, I'll do anything you want.

Maybe they were all the lucky ones; maybe it was better that they were dead. They didn't have to live with the fear; they didn't have to know what kind of monsters were out there. Not like that kid, Ryan. Ryan knew. He knew what was out there now, lurking in the shadows, ready to attack. Dean remembered the moment that boy's tongue gave way, remembered the ripping sound, like tearing cloth between his fingers. He remembered the boy's mouth filling up with blood.

And Sam . . . and Sam . . . pinned to the motel wall, spread like fucking Jesus, crucified, bleeding, terrified . . .

Dean finished his beer and cracked open the next one.

By the time the sun came up, Dean was three beers in and definitely a little buzzed. Normally, three beers would be friggin nothing, about the same high he'd get from a soda, but Dean had eaten next to nothing in a week, and the beer had hit him hard. He had just opened his fourth beer and was grinning at the rising sun when he heard footsteps behind him, slow, not trying to be quiet.

"Bobby," Dean said without turning around. Sammy was still asleep—Dean could almost feel him, shifting under his covers. Dreaming something. Dean wasn't sure what. It wasn't a nightmare, anyway. Something without blood or claws or psychotic brothers. You sleep, little brother, Dean thought. You find yourself a place to rest.

Sam had been holding back the last few days, trying not to poke at him too much. He obviously wanted Dean to talk, but Dean couldn't and Sam seemed to understand that. Mostly, Sam just kept a close watch, hovering a little but ready to pull back at any moment. Months ago, that shit would have pissed Dean off. Now, he was grateful. Sammy was the only thing keeping him anywhere near sane.

Not that this was necessarily a good thing. Situations might be improved by Dean going full on fucking nuts. They could lock him in an asylum somewhere, pump him full of sedatives, keep him staring at pretty flowers or rainbows or something. Hell, he'd probably be happier, not that he deserved to be happy. But Sam deserved to be happy; Sam deserved so much more than Dean had put him through. If Dean was in a nuthouse somewhere, maybe Sam could lead something of a normal life. He could move on, not worry about Dean. Dean would be safe, after all.

Getting hard from some girl screaming, "God, god HELP ME!"

Christ. He belonged in a fucking nuthouse, all right.

"Think that's such a good idea?" Bobby asked from behind him. "Sunrise is an awful early time to be getting drunk, boy."

Not drunk, Dean thought, just buzzed. But Bobby wasn't Sam, couldn't read Dean's thoughts, his guilt. Dean shrugged, and Bobby probably read it as, Fuck off, I'll do what I want. There was a little bit of that. A little bit of stop trying to help me; I don't want it.

"You're scarin your brother, Dean. Scarin me a little, too."

Dean sipped his beer and turned to look at Bobby. The guy didn't look scared, but Bobby was like that sometimes. Took a lot to rattle a guy like that, and Dean couldn't think of anything he'd done recently to warrant that kind of fear. Dean wanted to turn his back on him, just drink his beer and say nothing at all, but he wasn't a little kid anymore. He couldn't pretend to be a mute just because he felt like it. Besides, this was the kind of thing that warranted a voice, if Bobby was really worried about him turning into something else again.

"'m not changing back," Dean said quietly. "You don't gotta worry bout that; I'm not gonna do—what I did. That's done." He thought for a minute, tried to replay the last few days over in his head. He couldn't think of anything he'd said that seemed particularly darkside, but his whole head was fucked. What did he know?

Bobby shook his head and looked almost disgusted with Dean. Disgusted and concerned, all wrapped up under a funny hat and a grizzled beard. "Jesus, Dean," he said roughly. "Boy, we're not scared of you. We're scared for you, ya numbnuts."

Oh. That was different, then. That was something Dean could turn his back on, and he did, returning his gaze to the cloudless pink and gold sky above him. After a minute, Bobby stepped closer to him. "We didn't get you back just to lose you again, Dean. Talk to your brother. Let him help you."

"I don't need help," Dean snapped. I'M not the one who needs help. I'm not the one who got tortured, got CRUCIFIED, by his own fucking brother. I'm the bad guy, Bobby, don't you get that? I'm the bad guy, man. I've always been the bad guy.

Dean tried to drink another sip of his beer, but Bobby snatched the bottle away from him. Dean frowned, but Bobby just raised his eyebrows, unapologetic.

"Come on," Bobby said, at last. "I'll make us some breakfast; get something in that stomach of yours. Not the finest chef in the world, but I think I can manage scrambled eggs."

Dean shrugged again. Bobby couldn't read him, not the way Sam could, but Dean always knew how to talk without saying anything. He sent him a look that said, Not very hungry, Bobby.

Bobby sent him a look, too: Wasn't a request, Dean.

IV.

Sam was exhausted. He was beyond exhausted; he was beat. He felt like he had been kicked around and stomped on and maybe dragged behind a wagon for good measure. Some of it was physical, he knew, but mostly it was just mental, emotional. He was just so tired from everything. Getting out of bed had absolutely no appeal.

Of course, lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, only forced him to think about the same things over and over.

Losing his brother, searching for his brother, finding his brother—but not his brother. Finding Dean not but not his Dean, and it was still hard as hell, reconciling that. Sam wasn't scared of Dean or mad at him—well, that wasn't true; he was fucking pissed at his brother, but not because of the torture part. That was the easiest part to forgive in this whole mess. It was the leaving him part, the running away to take Sam's place part. It was the sacrifice Dean made, the sacrifices he always made, for Sam.

Dean wouldn't be Dean without the sacrifice. But his soul? A piece of his fucking soul?

Sam was so fucking pissed about that, because godamn, he was just so guilty too.

Sam rolled over on the bed and buried his face into his pillow. It was too early in the morning for these kinds of thoughts—better to just go right back to sleep, pretend none of it had happened in the first place. He realized he could smell food from the kitchen—Bobby burning bacon, no doubt. Bobby was good at a lot of things, but cooking wasn't really one of them. Not that Sam could say much. He had trouble with toasters most days. Jess used to find that funny. My genius pre-law boyfriend. Defeated by the cinnamon Pop Tart.

What he wouldn't give to be battling Pop Tarts again. Maybe even Toaster Strudels. In the grand scheme of things, breakfast was a lot easier to deal with than demons.

We killed The Demon. We killed THE DEMON.

Sam was still trying to get used to the idea.

The smell of burning bacon made Sam's stomach grumble—food sounded amazing, even food that crumbled to ash in your mouth like it had just been exorcised—but Sam was just so low on energy. He didn't want to move anywhere. Come on, Sam, Dean-In-His-Head said. Time to get up. Rise and shine, whatever. Daylight's wasting, little brother. Let's get a fuckin move on.

"Fuck off," Sam muttered in his pillow. Daylight wasn't wasting. Daylight was barely there. He shouldn't even be awake right now. He'd probably have fallen right back asleep, except that Dean wasn't in the room with him. Dean had been getting up before daybreak for almost the whole week they'd been there. Sam knew that Dean was getting sleep; he just wasn't sure how much.

Well, if you're so worried about the poor bastard, why don't you get up and check on him?

That was a good idea. Except, Sam was so tired. And it wasn't like Dean would talk to him about how he was doing. Dean was barely talking, period. More importantly, he was barely eating. Dean not eating was always a sign of the impending apocalypse. Quiet Dean Sam could deal with, but a Dean passing up on free fried food? That was a scary thing to behold.

Sam didn't know how to fix him. And the energy he'd put into trying was wearing him down pretty damn heavily.

He wished Dean would just say something, just let himself cry or scream or something. But his Dean, his big, self-sacrificing, martyr of a brother, would never do anything as weak as that, never allow himself to show some healthy demonstration of emotion. He wasn't even self-destructive and violent the way he was after Dad's death. He was just . . . quieter. Just so much more withdrawn.

That should have been a good thing. That should have been manageable.

But Sam worried about just how withdrawn Dean might get.

They were so close now, so much closer than they had ever been before. And it wasn't like they'd been distant growing up; save four years at college, they were practically inseparable. And even when Sam had been at Stanford, he'd thought about Dean every damn day, talked to an imaginary brother in his head whenever he needed to, so maybe once or twice an hour. Sam and Dean had always been close, always been "the boys" wherever they went. But now, it was so different. Sam was a part of Dean, the way Dean was a part of him.

If Dean withdrew to a place that even Sam couldn't reach . . . maybe there was no coming back from that. Maybe after all of this, Sam was still going to lose his brother.

He couldn't let that happen. He wouldn't let that happen.

But Jesus, he was so . . . damn . . . tired . . .

Dude, Dean-in-his-Head said. Seriously. Get your lazy ass outta bed before I come up there and lay a smack down.

Yeah, okay, Sam thought. Keep your panties on, Dean, Jesus. And then Sam froze, even as he was starting to sit up.

Because before, when he woke up, he'd been talking to Dean-In-His-Head. But just then, right there? That had been Dean, in his head. Dean, his brother Dean, sitting in the kitchen, waiting to be force-fed burnt bacon and maybe a glass of OJ. Sometime, in the middle of all this insanity, the real Dean had replaced the fictional Dean in his head.

Jesus. This was going to take some serious readjusting.

Sam ran a hand through his hair and forced himself out of bed. He threw on a pair of jeans before making his way slowly to the kitchen. Dean was sitting at the table, pale, deep shadows under his eyes.

Serious readjusting, Sam? Dean thought. I think that might be the understatement of the fuckin year, dude.

Sam smiled faintly at him. Amen to that, he thought.

V.

Dean was working under the car when he felt Sam walk over. Sam didn't say anything, just stood there, only his worn down sneakers visible under the frame of the car. He'd done this for the last three days, just standing, waiting to be acknowledged. So far, Dean had refused to acknowledge him. He worked silently, until Sam went away.

Dean had fallen into a routine at Bobby's over the last week and a half. Every night, he went to sleep and dreamt of the things he'd done, the people he'd killed. Every morning he'd wake and throw up everything that he'd managed to eat the previous day, leaving him spent, exhausted. He looked like road kill in a pair of blue jeans. His ribs, his collarbone, even his cheekbones jutted out. He was a gaunt skeleton that still desperately held onto its skin.

After his daily round of pukefest, Dean would rinse out his mouth, first with water, then with beer, and get just buzzed enough to help him through the morning. He'd ignore Bobby's quiet attempts to talk, Sam's much less subtler ones. He'd work on the car, getting reacquainted. She didn't really need much work, but Dean had missed her.

It was sort of like an apology, for leaving her behind. It was a hell of a lot easier to apologize to the Impala than to Sam.

Sam wasn't giving up, though. He was still hovering, all, look, ma, no hands. Observing without prying. Watching without poking. Sam marched himself out to the car, stood there like one of those British guard dudes that don't say or do anything. He'd been coming out here everyday since he'd mistaken Dean for the imaginary brother in his head.

And wasn't that a trip? Finding out that, after all these years, Sammy had a Mental Dean just like Dean had a Mental Sammy. Dean was grateful and unsure and confused as all hell; he didn't even know how to begin thinking about something like that. So, he didn't. It was easier, not to think.

Sam came out here, waited to see if Dean would talk, and eventually wandered off to do whatever Sam had been doing with his days. Dean worked as long as possible, usually until dusk if he could push it that long, then finally scoot out from under the Impala, take a shower, and ignore Bobby and Sam some more. When he went to bed, it was mostly to avoid answering any unwanted questions. Sleep took forever, and when it came, he'd dream, wake up, puke, and begin again.

Dean knew it wasn't the healthiest way to deal with . . . whatever. But it was working for him. He was doing okay.

He couldn't seem to convince Sam of that, though. Sam, who only knew how to deal one way: by talking and crying and acting like a complete pussy. The Oprah Winfrey way. Dean couldn't deal like that.

The only way Dean knew how to do this was to shut everything out. He couldn't think about what he had done, what the girls had screamed, how he'd cut out that boy's tongue—Dean couldn't deal with it, not any of it, so he just chose not to. And he'd be okay; he knew he'd be okay, if he could just get Sam off of his fucking back.

Come on. That's not fair. Sammy's been trying, hasn't he? He had been; Dean had to give him that. He knew how hard this was for his little brother. He could feel Sam's fear, Sam's guilt (although he couldn't figure out what was causing it; didn't Sam know that this was all Dean's fault; didn't he know that Dean was the bad guy here?). Sam was ready to tear his hair out from frustration, and yet he was still giving Dean his much needed space, trying to help just by being there. Trying to somehow wait Dean out.

Dean knew it wasn't fair to keep Sam waiting. Sam would be waiting there forever. He wouldn't give up on Dean.

Dean didn't know what to do with that, either.

He sighed, closed his eyes for a second, and then slid out from under the car. Sam was standing there like the giant beanstalk he was, his mouth rounded in a slight O, surprised that Dean had actually showed. Dean wiped the sweat off his forehead and raised his eyebrows at his brother. What do you want, Sam? he thought, not so much projecting as letting it show in his face.

Twenty years ago, Dean and Sam had communicated without ever using words. Sam would chatter by using his voice; Dean would talk by flexing an eyebrow, quirking a lip upward. This new psychic thing they had going was a lot like that for Dean. He never really had to try; he just looked at Sam, and Sam knew.

I wanted to see how you were, Sam thought back to him. Dean could hear the thought, feel it, see it move across his brother's face. Man, I . . . I really think we should talk.

Dean lifted a shoulder. About what? he asked.

"Well, about this, for one," Sam said. Sam, Dean noticed, seemed to prefer verbal speech, felt awkward about using his eyes to talk to someone only two feet away. "This is kind of a huge deal, Dean."

Dean shrugged again. No, it ain't, he said. It's just a side effect from all the hoodoo mumbo jumbo. Either it'll pass or it won't. Whatever. Doesn't matter. He quirked a crooked grin. As long as I'm not growing claws or something, I'm good.

Sam didn't smile. Shock of the world, there. "Okay," he said. "Then how about this?" Sam gave him a pointed look. You're not talking anymore, Dean.

Dude, I'm talking to you right now.

No, you're . . . looking at me. Projecting at me. You're not TALKING to me, Dean.

Dean smiled bitterly. Thought you didn't care, man. Thought the talking didn't matter; you just don't want me to be so sad, anymore, right?

Sam blinked at him, startled, but Dean could feel him remember. Two boys, sitting in some backwater café, one never speaking, one never shutting up. Sammy, crying quietly, too scared of hurting Dean to ask him about his Mother's Day project. Sam, telling him, "That's why you don't talk so much. Because of Mommy. Cause you're sad."

"Do you want me to talk more, Sammy?"

"No. I mean, you can, but I don't care. I just don't want you to be so sad anymore."

I'm trying, Dean thought. I swear to God, I'm trying.

Sam hunkered down by the wheel and Dean turned his face away from him. "That's it," Sam said quietly. "That's exactly what I want. If talking out loud is harder for you, man, you don't gotta. I don't care about that. That's not the issue here."

Dean turned back to glare at him. Then what IS the issue, man, because I am too godamned tired to be playing games with you.

Sam sighed. He touched Dean's hand gently, and Dean pulled back instinctively, ended up sitting with his knees drawn to his chest. Sam pulled his hand back, grimacing, but forced Dean to actually look at him.

I want you to deal with this, Sam thought. I want you to let me help you deal with this. I want you to let Bobby help you deal with this. I want you to acknowledge that there's something to be dealt with. You're not fine, Dean, and you need to stop pretending that you are. What you did—what you did for me—it was the bravest thing anybody could have done.

Sam looked away, then, furious and grieving and complicated. It was brave, Dean, and it was selfish, and it was scary as hell for fucking both of us. And now that's it over, you're gonna have to face it. WE have to face what's happened to us, what we've done.

Dean looked away again, desperate to retreat back under the car, but Sam wouldn't let him. Sam took his hand again and refused to let go, even as Dean tugged it away. "I forgive you," Sam said quietly, "for everything you did. I forgive you, and I need you to forgive yourself too."

Sam finally let go of his hand, and Dean held it close to his chest. He kept his face blank, looked stonily at Sam, until Sam finally sighed and stood back up. "Okay," he said finally. "I'll be here. I can wait. Just . . . we just became brothers again, man. Just . . . just don't leave me, okay?"

I'll never leave you, Dean said instantly without even thinking about it.

Sam smiled humorlessly at him. "You already did," he said. "Remember?"

VI.

They were never sure whose nightmare it was to begin with.

Only that Dean was stabbing Sam, piercing him to a motel wall, and Sam was screaming his name, screaming, "Please," and "Dean," and "Stop." And Dean was shoving the blade in Sam's side when he remembered that this had already happened (no, this isn't you anymore, remember, Sam fixed you, you're not this THING anymore) and he stepped back, pulling the knives out of Sam's palms as he retreated.

Sam fell to the ground, confused (wait, that's not how this is supposed to end), and he held his arms around his waist even though the blood flow had already stopped. Jeff Buckley's, "Hallelujah," was still playing, though, from the speaker by the bed, and Dean spun around, started kicking it, attacking it with a single-mindedness he usually saved for rescuing Sam. Sam got to his feet hesitantly, trying to remember what the hell was going on. "Dean," he said, putting a hand on Dean's shoulder, and Dean spun around again to punch him in the jaw.

Sam fell back, hard, against the wall, and watched Dean blink first at him, and then at the knife in his hands. The color leached completely out of Dean's skin, leaving him empty-looking and sallow. "Dean," Sam said tentatively, pushing himself off of the wall, and Dean glanced up at him. The expression on his face was stripped bare.

"Dean," Sam said again, watching the bloody knife shake in his brother's hands. "What the hell, man? What's going on? Are you okay?"

Dean stared at him, so much remorseguiltterror in his eyes, and he worked his mouth soundlessly, let the knife slip through his shaking fingers. "Sam," he finally whispered, not looking at his brother but at the floor. "Sam. Sammy?"

Before Sam could open his mouth, Dean suddenly disappeared.

Sam was so startled that he blinked himself awake, eyes opening and focusing on the shadowed ceiling above him. He rubbed at his face with a groan, trying to puzzle out the meaning of his dream, when he realized that he could hear the unmistakable sound of someone vomiting. He rolled over, but Dean's bed was empty and Sam had somehow known it would be. He quickly slid off his bed and walked down the hallway to find Dean.

Dean was in the bathroom, puking over the toilet. He pushed back to lean against the wall, rubbing one hand over his mouth. Sam stood in the doorway, staring at his brother, remember how Dean had backed away in the dream. "Dean," he said. "Were you—was that you, in the . . ."

He trailed off.

Dean looked at him, pale-faced and spent. He nodded once and turned away to throw up again.

VII.

They didn't get anymore sleep that night. Sam wanted to talk, but Dean wasn't having any of that bullshit. Talking wasn't going to make this go away. Dean knew it; he didn't know why his brother couldn't understand it.

The whole day, Dean made a special point of staying the hell away from Sam. Away from Bobby, too, and the Impala—he just walked, mindlessly, around the junkyard. He smoked half a pack of cigarettes in the space of a single hour and ignored the cravings when he finished the rest in the afternoon. He had some more, stashed by the side of his bed, but he'd have to go inside for that, and Dean didn't want to go inside.

Dean knew nothing would be resolved by going inside to talk.

Instead, he walked his circles, ignoring his feet when they started to hurt. He'd stop sometimes, staring at nothing, silent and motionless for the better part of an hour. Then, like someone flicked a switch, he'd start walking again, endless, silent circles.

By the time he went back into the house, Sam and Bobby had already gone to bed, probably scared of spooking him anymore if they tried to ambush him. Sam wouldn't be able to wait that long, though. Dean knew that by tomorrow morning, Sam would be tying him to a chair if they didn't have a friggin heart to heart.

Dean also that knew he wasn't going to be able to deal with that conversation without some beer.

After a few hours of lying on his bed, staring at the blank ceiling, Dean gave up on sleep—he didn't want anything to do with it, anyway. He was tired of dreams, tired of pretty girls' voices in his head—all he wanted was to be numb. To just forget about everything.

He raided Bobby's fridge, pulled out as many beer bottles as he could possibly carry, and went out to sit on the front porch with the few remaining cigarettes he had left.

Dean was pretty wasted by the time Sam came out, a couple of hours later, to sit next to him.

"Hey," Dean said, smiling. He handed Sam a beer and Sam took it silently. "Thought I'd watch the sun rise, y'know. Like beauty or sumthin. Like God." He laughed, because that was sure funny. The whole idea of God was just so fucking funny.

He used to sit out with Pastor Jim sometimes, early in the morning. Dad would be out on a job, sometimes gone two, three days overdue. Dean could never sleep, would spend hours standing guard over his brother or pacing holes into Pastor Jim's carpet. Eventually, Pastor Jim took him outside and they'd sit out on the porch a lot like this. Only, minus the beer. Pastor Jim was pretty cool, but sometimes he was just an old stick in the mud when it came to things like underage drinking.

"S a good time," Dean said, lighting a cigarette. He had some trouble with the lighter, but it worked on his fourth try, and Dean let the lighter fall to the ground with a thud. "Pastor Jim said, said s a good time, early inna mornin. Said it was his favorite time, when he liked to pray, like, he felt connected or sumthin, sumthin or other. Said you could see the world like when God was makin it or whatever, see it before the fall, was all gorgeous and, dunno, God-like, I guess."

He chuckled at that, took a deep drag from his cigarette. "Can't picture it," he said. "Been tryin to, but I can't. It's just . . . there's nuthin out there. Can't see nuthin out there, you know?"

Sam said nothing.

"Kinda drunk," Dean announced abruptly. "S good, though, s good. S'just—s'harder to dream, harder to think. All muzzl—muzzy—s good." He tipped his head back, drained the last of his beer, and fumbled for another, accidentally knocking over a couple in the process. Sam opened his for him, when the task proved to be too difficult for Dean. Dean looked his brother in the eye. "You still pray, Sam?" he asked.

Sam watched him. "Sometimes," he said quietly.

Dean nodded, took the beer out of his brother's hands. "Think about it sometimes," he said. "Can't figure out what I'd ask. Not . . . not that I really think anythin's out there, but . . . y'know, s cool, cause there's nuthin out there, s'just buncha lies, just bullshit, but . . .if I wanted to, if I wanted to ask—"

Dean closed his eyes, felt the world shift a little around him. He slid to one side, felt his head land on Sam's shoulder.

"Can't," Dean said quietly, eyes still closed. "Can't ask for nuthin. I did this. I did it."

He blinked a couple of times, watching the sun rise from behind the horizon, and pulled himself back up so that he look at Sam again. Sam was watching him silently, tears making his eyes bright. Dean didn't like that, didn't want his little brother to cry. "I'd do it again," Dean promised him. "Cause I love ya. I'd do it again."

Sam face twisted, then, like that wasn't what he wanted to hear. "Dean," he whispered.

"I would," Dean said insistently. "I would. Jus—just next time, kill me, okay? Just kill me, cause I can't . . . I can't . . . ." He shook his head, tears spilling down his cheeks. "I can't do this, I . . . I don't belong ere."

"Dean—"

"I don't," Dean said. "I don't. What I did, what I did—"

Sam gripped Dean's hands tightly, pushing the beer bottle and dying cigarette away. "Dean, that wasn't you," he said.

"Yeah," Dean said. "It was" He pulled his hands away, clumsily grabbing the open beer beside them. He drank from it, tipping his head, and would have fallen backwards if Sam hadn't caught him by the arms. "What I did, Sam, what I did—to you, to those girls, that kid—I can't, Sammy, I can't—I can't deal with it, I, I can't—"

Sam pulled him into a hug, wrapping his arms tightly around him, and Dean was just too drunk and exhausted and hurt to even think about pulling away. "We're going to deal with this, Dean," Sam said. "We're going to deal with this together. It's going to be okay, Dean, I swear to you. It's going to be okay. It's going to get better."

Dean sobbed against Sam's chest, the half-empty beer bottle slipping through his numb fingers. "Can't," he whispered. "Can't get better. 'm a—I'm a monster, Sammy. I'll never get better."

"No," Sam said firmly. "You're not a monster. You're my big brother, and I'm not letting you go. You hear me, Dean? I'm not letting you go."

VIII.

Sam held Dean against his chest, rocking him gently back and forth, and listened as his brother mumbled things that were mostly incoherent. Sam whispered, "It's okay. You're okay," long after Dean had passed out in his arms. He wiped the tears from his brother's cheeks, still rocking back and forth, back and forth.

Eventually, Sam glanced up to see Bobby standing unobtrusively in the doorway. Sam wasn't sure how long he'd been there, but knowing Bobby, it'd probably been long enough. He waited, but all Bobby did was stretch out his arms and say, "Give him here." The two of them half-lifted, half-dragged Dean to the guest bedroom. Dean started snoring the second they laid him down on the bed.

Bobby said quietly, "I'll be in the kitchen," and left Sam alone with his unconscious brother.

Sam sat next to Dean, absently running his fingers through Dean's hair. It was a lot longer than usual. Sam hadn't even noticed until now. "I kept telling myself I'd find you," Sam murmured to his brother. "I said I'd find you and I'd fix you, that I'd save you for once, Dean. I told myself I could do it, and I did, but—you're still broken. I—I don't know how to fix this. I don't know what to do."

Sam let his hand linger next to Dean's head for a minute and then drew it back, watching Dean sleep. "I don't know what to do," he said again. "You have to tell me, Dean. What am I supposed to do? How do I make you better?"

He sat there silently for awhile. Dean shifted a bit towards him. His snoring got even louder, and the sound of it made Sam smile a little. "You're worse than a freaking chainsaw," he said fondly. Then, he put his hand to his brother's face, closed his eyes, and concentrated. He didn't know if his brother could hear him, maybe deep down on some unconscious level, but he knew it couldn't hurt. He knew he just had to keep trying.

I don't know what I'm doing, Dean, Sam thought to his brother, to himself. But we're gonna figure it out, okay? We'll—we'll wait it out. We'll wait it out together. In the meantime, this is something I should have given you back weeks ago. Don't lose it again, okay? It doesn't look nearly as good on me.

Sam put his hand to the cord around his neck and lifted Dean's necklace over his head. He put the amulet back where it belonged and smiled again, watching his brother sleep.

After a minute, Sam squeezed Dean's hand once and stood up, retreating to the kitchen. Bobby was standing behind the counter, a cup of coffee offered in one hand.

Sam drank it without tasting. Which was a good thing, ultimately, because Bobby's coffee was practically liquid fire. Sam had taken shots of whiskey with less punch.

Bobby drank from his own cup and let the silence stand for a minute. Then, he said, "Dean's a strong kid, Sam. He'll make it through this. Don't you give up."

Sam nodded, staring into his coffee. "I'm not," he said quietly. He glanced up at Bobby, who was watching him doubtfully, and threw him a brief, tired smile.

"We'll make it through this," Sam said. "I don't know how, and I don't know when. But somehow, we're gonna make it through this."

We will, Dean. We will.

IX.

Things started to get a little better, after that.

Not that everything got better at once, or resolved fully in a manner befitting a happy ending. Sam and Dean stayed at Bobby's for over a month, recuperating from both emotional and physical wounds. Dean still didn't eat much, had only half of his conversations in words, but he also started looking people in the eye again and even made a few smiles or jokes that wasn't forced. His nightmares didn't disappear, and they were still vivid, still haunting, but he almost never puked afterwards, and he didn't try to hide them from his brother anymore. Dean wouldn't give Sam any details, refused to let him have access to all aspects of brain, but when he woke up, panicked, confused, he'd let Sam talk to him about anything else. Music or movies or whatever random geek thing Sam had picked up that day—they'd talk about any of that, until some of the horror had passed.

Sam's own nightmares started to come less frequently, but they didn't disappear either, and he didn't expect them to for a very long time. The worst ones were when the Demon came back, sauntering into Bobby's home like he owned the place. He'd touched Dean on the hand, and Dean would lose his soul again. "You thought you saved me," Dean would say. "But that's something you could never do." Dean would kill Bobby; Dean will kill Sam, all the while asking, "Why didn't you save me, Sammy?"

Sam woke up from those nightmares, lost, terrified. And then he'd look over at the bed that Dean was sleeping on. "Dean?" he'd ask quietly. Dean? Dean?

"S'okay, Sammy," Dean would say, sometimes grumble, into his pillow. Most times, he never really woke up. He seemed to just unconsciously understand that Sam needed reassurance. Just a dream, man, you're okay. Go back to sleep, Sammy. And sometimes Sam couldn't go back to sleep, but at least he'd be able to breathe again.

They started to find a slow, easy rhythm between them, a balance of sorts, to make things more manageable. The psychic connection didn't appear to grow any stronger, but it certainly hadn't faded any, either. They learned to put up some simple boundaries, keeping themselves from wandering into places they'd rather not venture. They were brothers and they would die for each other, but some things they just had to keep to themselves.

Mostly, they were simply hyperaware of one another, knowing without thinking where the other one was, if they were okay. Once they got used to it, Sam found it actually kind of comforting. And he could feel that Dean felt that it comforting too.

The brothers talked. They healed. They dealt, as best as they could, for that month or so at Bobby's.

And then, on an arbitrary Tuesday, things went and changed again.

X.

Dean sat on a stool, impatiently tapping his fork against the counter. "C'mon, Bobby," he said. "It was chow time forty minutes ago, man."

Bobby stood over the stove, flipping over bacon that wasn't even burnt yet. He didn't bother to look up. "Don't know what you're talking about, boy. I'm making this breakfast for me. You can drive your ass over to Denny's."

"Bobby, man. That hurts. You know nothing satisfies like a home-cooked meal."

Bobby raised one eyebrow. "Cook it yourself, then. Assuming you know how to use a stove, that is."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Were you talking about my culinary skills, Mr.-My-Bacon-Ain't-Bacon-If-It-Don't-Crumble-To-Ash-In-My-Mouth?"

"Yeah," Bobby said, completely unfazed by this unflattering assessment. "Got Lucky Charms in the cupboard, if that ain't too troubling for you."

Dean rolled his eyes at that. He had to push for it a bit, but the easy banter was nice, stable, relaxing. Familiar, in a comforting sort of a way. It was harder to do with Sam, at least out loud, using his voice, but he was getting there. He was sort of doing okay.

And for the first time in weeks, he was actually really hungry.

He turned to look at Sam, who was sitting at the table reading the newspaper. "Dude," he said. "Can you believe this guy? The shit I have to put up with."

Sam smirked. He turned another page, trying to think not quite so obviously about Dean's improved appetite. Sam was failing, of course, but Dean decided not to rib him about it. Truth be told, he hadn't felt this good in awhile.

"Seriously," Dean said, pounding his fork into the counter for emphasis. "Here I am, a guest at his home, just wasting away while the man cooks his own food in front of me. And to think, this guy actually calls himself our fr—"

A sudden, stabbing pain to the left side of his head cut off the words, made him lose his train of thought. Dean put his hands to his temples. "The hell—" he said.

The pain came again, this time sharply from both sides, and Dean clutched at the sides of his head, started to slide off the kitchen stool. "Dean?" Sam said, but Dean could barely hear it, barely felt his brother's arms grasping his own, keeping him off the floor. "Dean?" Dean?

Dean tried to look up, but sunlight was glaring through the kitchen window, so bright that it was blinding, obscuring everything in his sight. He dimly heard Bobby's voice from behind him, could barely make out Sam's scared eyes, locked on his. The pain in his head was overwhelming, like his head was being split open from the sides by a meat cleaver.

It was unbearable. It was too much.

It was also oddly familiar.

Dean gasped, trying to breathe through it, and met Sam's intense, frightened gaze. "Sammy," he whispered. "I . . . I think—"

And then he thought nothing. The world around him disappeared.

XI.

Dean stood in a room somewhere, blinking at a whole lot of pink furniture. The curtains were pink, the couches were pink . . . even the walls had a vaguely pink-peach tinge to them, like someone had swallowed a whole pharmacy worth of Pepto-Bismol and yarked it up all over the place.

Jesus, Dean thought to himself. It's like the fuckin Twilight Zone. Or Hell.

There was a blonde woman standing next to a window, her pale face reflecting in the rain-streaked glass. There was mascara smudged around her eyes, leaving her raccoon-faced with dark, inky tears trailing her cheeks. Her fingernails (pink, of course) tapped against the windowsill impatiently. She was waiting for something. For someone.

She was scared. That was obvious.

Dean could read it in her face, in how her eyes darted back and forth, glancing from the window to the pink space around her, as if waiting for someone to materialize. Her eyes passed right over where Dean was standing as if he wasn't there. Because he wasn't really there. He already knew what this was.

Jesus. I thought this was done with. I thought this was gone.

Music started playing out of nowhere, startling the hell out of Dean and the blonde woman. All I want is to be left alone in my average home. But why do I always feel like I'm in the twilight zone?

Dean blinked, looking around. "The hell," he muttered.

The blonde lost what very little color she had in her face to begin with. It was obvious the song meant something to her, although all it reminded Dean of was annoying 80's pop. "Paul," she whispered, stepping away from the window.

I always feel like somebody's watching me
Who's playing tricks on me
I always feel like somebody's watching me

"Jesus," Dean grumbled. "Pink hell and Rockwell? C'mon, this is cruel."

The blonde thought so too, apparently. Tears poured faster down her cheeks as she stepped hesitantly towards the center of the room. "Paul?" she whispered again.

There was a flickering behind her, a man with red hair and freckles. Not exactly the most intimidating guy until you took into account the side of his head that was missing and the bloody meat cleaver in his hands

"Lady, look out!" Dean yelled, well aware that the woman couldn't hear him. But she turned anyway, hearing something, and the ghost flickered out of existence before she could see him. She breathed hard, hands going to a silver cross lying around her neck. "Paul, please," she said.

Cause I might open my eyes and find someone standing there . . .

The ghost flickered behind the woman again. The woman turned in time to see the meat cleaver swung down into the base of her neck.

"No!" Dean yelled, trying to move forward, too late.

The woman gurgled. She put her hands up to her throat, pushed against the weapon imbedded there. Blood poured from the wound, from her open mouth, still trying to scream. She fell to her knees on the pink carpet, now colored a darker shade of red.

And I don't feel safe anymore, oh what a mess . . .

The ghost flickered again, disappeared, leaving Dean alone with the dying woman. She tried to speak again. Blood poured out of her mouth like a godamn faucet.

Dean? Dean?

"Paul," the woman was trying to say. Paul.

DEAN!

The woman fell forward on her blood red rug.

XII.

"Dean! DEAN!"

Dean had slid off the stool and went boneless in Sam's grip more than five minutes ago. Sam held him upright as much as possible, trying to get a response out of his brother. The only plus side he had right now was that Dean was still breathing. On the other hand, he was staring sightlessly around him, watching something that wasn't there, completely oblivious to both Sam and Bobby's calls.

Sam would have been calling an ambulance yesterday if he wasn't already pretty sure what this was. But it didn't make sense, though, didn't seem possible—Sam was the one with the abilities now . . .

No. No. They had only assumed that, because Sam was the one throwing objects around with his mind. Sam had gotten the telekinesis back. It made sense to think he'd gotten the visions, too, that this psychic link between them was just a side effect, a strange merging of soul between the brothers. It had never occurred to either of them that they might be splitting the abilities.

"Sam?" That was Bobby, and Sam blinked, trying to focus on him instead of his scattered thoughts. "Sam, what the hell's happening to him?"

Sam glanced at Bobby and then back at his brother, who was moving his mouth soundlessly. "I, I don't know," he stuttered. "I think, I think he's—"

Dean gasped suddenly, as if coming up for air, and his body jerked so hard that Sam thought he was seizing for a second. Dean blinked hard, looking around even as he winced.

"Dean," Sam said hesitantly. "Dean?"

Dean blinked at him, worked his mouth, and tried to lift himself up out of Sam's grasp. He immediately sunk back to the floor, his head bowed low, hands clutching the hair at his temples. "Christ," Dean whispered. "Aw, Jesus fucking Christ—"

"Dean?" Bobby said, hunkering down by them. "Dean, what the hell happened to you, boy?"

Dean didn't respond, just curled into a tighter ball against the floor. His fingertips were digging into his skull, hands carefully blocking his face. Jesus, Sam, Jesus. The light, the LIGHT . . .

Sam nodded immediately, understanding. "Okay, Dean, okay," he said. "Just, hold on a second. Just let me get you up . . ."

UGH.

"I know. I know, but we need to get you somewhere dark, okay?" All right, Dean, c'mon. Don't worry, man, I got you. Sam looked at Bobby kneeling beside him. There was a slightly stunned expression on the older man's face. "I need your help getting him into the bedroom."

Bobby just looked at him for a second, questions written all over his face, but he nodded, helped Sam get Dean to his feet. Dean smirked between them, but it was a sick kind of smirk, like he was suppressing the reflex to gag. "'m not usually this cheap of a first date," he murmured softly.

Bobby raised an eyebrow at him. "Son, I didn't think you even knew what the word 'date' meant."

Dean laughed weakly as they staggered slowly into the guest bedroom. "Dude," he said, eyes closed. "Like you're some kind of fuckin Casanova." He tried to break out of Bobby's and Sam's grip, the bed only two feet away from him, but dizziness caught him, left him swaying in the middle of the room. Bobby steadied Dean while Sam steadied himself—Dean's vertigo was contagious, and Sam was left blinking for a few moments before he remembered to shield himself.

"Sam," Dean said thickly, eyes closed again. "Sam—" –think I'm gonna hurl, man.

Dean sank to his knees again, Bobby keeping him from face planting on the carpet, while Sam lunged for a wastebasket and shoved it under Dean's face. Dean gagged hard, threw up, and spent the next few minutes breathing heavily. Sam eyed him seriously until he was sure that Dean was done.

"Okay, Dean," Sam said. "Okay, it's okay now. You're okay." He and Bobby got Dean back to his feet and in the bed this time. Dean immediately threw the covers over his head, peeking an eye out only for a second. "Sam," he said weakly.

"We'll talk about it later," Sam interrupted. "Do you need anything?"

A shotgun.

Sam smirked, but the humor was forced. Blowing your head off isn't the answer, Dean.

Nah, Dean thought. I just figured I'd blow some holes into Bobby's walls.

Sam raised an eyebrow. "That gonna make your headache disappear?" he asked.

Dean made the mental equivalent of a shrug. Probably not, he said. But it might make me feel better. The pain flared again and Dean actually whimpered, curled tighter under the covers. "Sam," he said out loud, after a moment. "This is . . . it's pretty fucked up, man."

"I know," Sam said quietly. I know. It's okay.

He was pretty sure he was lying, then, but he didn't know what else to do.

Bobby and Sam left Dean alone then, taking refuge under the covers. As soon as they were back in the kitchen, Bobby turned and glared at Sam with an intensity that Sam didn't realize was in the man. "What the hell was that?" he asked.

Sam wearily sat back down at the table. Twenty minutes ago, everything had been just fine. Everything was finally getting better. He had been naïve to think that it would last. "I'm pretty sure Dean had a vision," Sam said quietly. "The headaches afterwards—they could be pretty intense."

Bobby's eyebrows rose until they disappeared behind the billfold of his hat. "Intense?" he asked incredulously. "Sam, I've seen your brother running around after his stomach was split wide open, still finished the damn job before finally going down. I have never seen Dean react to pain like that."

Sam shrugged helplessly. "Some are worse than others," he said. "I mean, they all suck, they suck a lot, but some of them—you just gotta treat them like migraines. Really, really intense migraines."

Bobby stood silently for a minute, trying to process that. Sam let him think—he had things he needed to process as well. "How long's he gonna be like that?" he asked Sam.

"Just depends," Sam said, shaking his head. He was trying not to think of his big brother curled up like that, whimpering. He wanted to go to him, help him, but he knew the best thing he could do was to leave Dean alone for awhile. And as much as he hated to think it, there were some potentially bigger problems at hand.

"I don't get it," Sam told Bobby. "The visions, they were always linked to the Demon. Every single one I had came back to him, one way or the other. But, but now . . ."

"The Demon's dead," Bobby finished.

"Yeah," Sam said, "yeah."

So what the hell is Dean seeing?

XIII.

Dean felt like crap. Crap on toast. Crap on a cracker. Crap . . . just crap. Too crappy to come up with any wittier crap catchphrases.

But better, sadly. Crappy as all hell, but still better.

Dean slowly wormed his way out from under the covers, blinking at the sunlight that had managed to peek around the bedroom curtains. He had no idea how long he'd been in this bed, no concept of time, really, just pain, pain, and a little more pain thrown in for shits and giggles, but he was pretty sure he needed to be moving. Pretty sure it was time to get his lazy ass up.

He really, really, really didn't want to do that.

Groaning, Dean pushed himself to a sitting position and moved the curtains to the side, glancing out briefly at the blue sky. He was no fucking outdoorsman, couldn't glance up at the sky and say, "Oh, it must be 4:36 on the damn dot," but he'd been lost before, a time or two, and could get a rough estimate based on the sun's position. Right now, it was looking like late afternoon or early evening, which meant he'd been in this bed all fucking day. He needed to drag himself out of it, get himself moving.

He still really didn't want to do that.

Dean closed his eyes and rested his head back on the headboard. His whole body was sore, as if he'd been thrown in the ring and pounded on by about fifteen big guys named Bubba. Every muscle hurt, down to his fucking toes, and what exactly had his toes done to hurt this godamned bad? The nausea was gone, at least, and the sunlight from outside wasn't slicing his brain like a cheese grater anymore, but his head still hurt like a sonofabitch, hurt more than any other part of his beaten down body.

But better than this morning, he reminded himself. Coherent thought was possible and everything.

Not that Dean really wanted to think, anymore than he wanted to move. If he spent time thinking about what was going on, he'd have to dwell on some shit he really wasn't ready to dwell on—what he'd done, after all, those girls he'd murdered, and now being stuck with Sam's weirdo visions, and shouldn't those have stopped with the Demon being dead? He was pretty sure that should have stopped when the Demon was finally dead.

Too many questions. Too many thoughts. Better to just sink back down into bed and let himself fall asleep. Pretend none of it had ever happened.

Dean sighed. He wished.

Slowly, Dean forced himself to sit up again and, with the grace of a seventy year old man, made his way out of the bedroom. He found Bobby and Sam pretty much where he had left them, sitting in the kitchen with a bucket of chicken wings between them. Sam looked up almost before Dean stepped foot into the room. "Dean," Sam said, jerking in surprise. "Hey, man. How're you feeling?"

"Oh, peachy," Dean snapped, because dude, Bob Barker walks faster than this, and he's gotta be like 200 or something. I'm fucking awesome, Sam. He fumbled around Bobby's medicine cabinet for a minute before finding some painkillers. He threw them back dry and walked over to the table, easing himself down before Bobby's and Sam's obnoxiously watchful eyes.

"Shouldn't take those on an empty stomach," Bobby said mildly and pushed the bucket of chicken wings in Dean's direction. The smell of barbecue and grease hit, and it was all hello nausea, my old friend, I've come to talk to you again. Dean closed his eyes and waved off the chicken, forcing the nausea back down. "I can't, man," he said, and Bobby pulled the chicken back.

They sat quietly for a long minute.

Then Bobby broke the silence by taking a long drag of his beer and saying, "So, Sam tells me you're having visions now."

Dean shrugged. Then winced. Even shrugging seemed to hurt. "I guess," he said, holding his head gingerly in one hand. He glanced at Sam out of the corner his eye. "Sammy, man, you're spell-casting just sucks."

"You started it," Sam reminded him. "Anyway, it wasn't my fault. The moon wasn't in the right phase."

Dean glared at him. "Next time?" he said. "Wait a couple of weeks. Jesus. I'm never complaining about a hangover. Ever again."

Sam raised his eyebrow. "Didn't you get visions when you were . . . well . .. y'know, before?"

Before, when I was killing pretty girls and torturing kids for kicks, you mean? Dean smiled faintly. Say what you mean, Sammy.

He hadn't actually meant to say it to Sam, but Sam picked it up anyway. Dude, his brother thought. Don't. And Dean was just too damn tired to argue.

"Yeah," Dean said instead. "I had visions and dude, they sucked, but not like this. This one was . . ." He trailed off and shook his head. The movement caused explosions behind his eyelids and he cursed at himself silently for a good five minutes for just generally being a stupid motherfucker. He ended up closing his eyes and resting his head on the kitchen table.

"Dean," Sam said. "If you want to wait to talk about this—"

"No," Dean said to the table. "It's okay. I'm good." He didn't bother looking up at the collective snorts he heard from above him. "Saw a girl get murdered," he said. "Pretty girl. Blonde. Not much in the boob department, but . . .."

He felt Sam roll his eyes. Dean.

Dean almost rolled his eyes right back but remembered not to at the last minute. Whatever, Sam, he thought. Just because you're a friggin WOMAN doesn't mean I have to act like one. "This girl, she was in some godawful pink apartment, like, freakishly happy place, unicorns, rainbows, shit like that. But, uh, she was real scared of something, you know, crying and all, and then this music started playing up out of nowhere."

"What song?" Bobby asked.

Dean grunted. "Somebody's Watching Me. Rockwell. Michael Jackson." He repressed a shudder.

Dude, Sam thought. That's creepy.

"You're telling me," Dean muttered. "Anyway, girl starts calling out a name, uh . . . Paul. Yeah, it was Paul, and then Paul shows up . . . well, guess it wasn't necessarily Paul, but it sure as hell wasn't Caspar the friendly fucking ghost . . . and buries a meat cleaver three inches into the chick's neck."

"Jesus," Sam muttered.

"Yeah," Dean said. "Crazy fun time." He lifted his head up from the table and looked wearily at his brother. "I so got the short end of the psychic ability stick."

Sam almost smirked at him, but the expression never quite made it. He looked back down at the table. "That's it?" Sam asked. "Nothing else? Nothing—"

"Demonic?" Dean asked. "No, Sam, nothing. I mean, maybe if we dug around we'd find something out, some demon poking around the place, stirring up shit, but . . .I don't think so. The Yellow-Eyed Demon's dead as a doornail, man, and he ain't coming back. This seemed pretty straight-forward. Pissed off ghost, creepy music . . straight-up haunt, nothing else." Dean rubbed at his eyes, tried to push some of his weariness back. "Whatever the visions are now, I don't think they're about the Demon anymore."

Sam looked at him. "What do you think they're about?"

Dean paused. "The job," he said, after a minute. "Doing the job. Just like it's always been. There's some innocent girl out there and we gotta find her before that spook does." He smiled wryly. "Some things never change."

Sam nodded, then paused, frowning at his brother. "Wait," he said. "Waitwaitwait . . . you mean . . . you mean you want us to go? You want us to leave Bobby's and track down your vision now?"

Dean stared at him. "Well, yeah," he said slowly. "That's what we do, remember?"

Sam's jaw actually dropped open, which made him look pretty damn funny. "But . . .but you're still not . . . no. No, Dean. No. We've got to get our strength back, man. We need more time; you need more—"

"Dude, we've been hanging out at Bobby's for more than a month. Not that I ain't grateful." Dean swung his gaze over to Bobby. "You saved us, man. Don't you think I don't know that."

Bobby lifted one shoulder. "Didn't do much of the heavy-lifting," he said. "And I ain't in a huge hurry to run you boys off." He looked seriously at Dean. "Don't think you're up for a car trip tonight, son."

Dean wanted to argue that, but he couldn't. He could barely sit up at the table; he knew he'd last in the driver's seat for about ten minutes before he passed out. "Sam can drive," he said, which was such a painful admission that he gritted his teeth. Not that Sam couldn't handle her, of course, but Dean had missed his baby. He'd been looking forward to taking her down the Interstate again.

But that wasn't possible right now, and Dean knew that some battles weren't worth gearing up for. He glared balefully at his brother. "Don't get used to it," he said. "I'll be driving my baby in no time."

Sam, of course, was too busy brooding to notice anything as immature or ridiculous as a sense of humor. "No," Sam said again, as this was apparently his new favorite word. "No. We don't have to fight this one, Dean. There are other hunters out there. You . . . you've been through too much, man; we've been through too much. There are other people to save the day for once. You're not—you're not better. We're not ready for this, Dean."

Dean raised a careless eyebrow. "That's the thing with monsters, Sammy. It's all ready or not, here I come."

Sam glared at him. "Don't joke," he snapped. "Not about this. Not about—I just got you back, dammit. I'm not ready to lose you again."

Well, dammit. When the kid sounded like that . . . Dean sighed, his face softening at the fear he could see stitched into Sam's skin. Dude, he thought. You're not gonna lose me, Sammy. Then he leaned forward, and the movement cost him. "Sam," he said, even as he winced, "I don't . . . I don't know why I'm having these visions. I don't know what I'm tapping into or if . . . if anyone's sending them or . . . or whatever . . . but it doesn't matter, Sam, don't you see? This is our job. This is what we were raised for. This is who we are."

Sam opened his mouth to protest, and Dean cut him off. "Sammy," he said. "I need this. I need to be . . ." normalgoodahunter again.

Sam's eyes closed. He didn't say anything for a minute, and Dean didn't push. Bobby didn't either, just watched the two of them watch each other. Finally, Sam looked back up, a frustrated but resolved sort of look in his eyes. "In the morning," Sam said. "We'll go in the morning."

"Sam—"

"Dude. This is not negotiable. Besides, do we even know where we're barreling off to? Did you happen to see a mailing address? Maybe a name or a town or even a side of the country to start with?"

Dean glared at him. "No," he admitted, after a minute. All he could remember was pink walls and blood carpets. "But, Sam—"

"But nothing, Dean. This is what we're going to do. You're going to tell me anything you remember and I'll research it while you get something to eat. Don't give me that face. You need to eat something. Then you're going to get back in bed because you look like crap on toast, man, seriously. And in the morning, when it's really morning, like the sun's out and everything, then we can go and find this girl. Okay?"

Dean stared at his brother for a minute. Then, he glanced over at Bobby. "The little bitch is getting bossy, isn't he?"

Bobby shrugged. "Probably best to do what he says," he advised.

Dean sighed and cradled his head in his hands again. "Fine," he said. "Fine. But the very second I feel better again? I'm kickin your ass, man. Just on general principle."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Whatever, Dean," he said.

XIV.

They said goodbye to Bobby that night, as Bobby was leaving fuckearly in the morning to pick up some parts or something. Sam hugged him and said, "Thanks. Thanks for being there, Bobby. For getting me my brother back." Dean hugged Bobby and said, "Thanks, Bobby."

Bobby understood everything else that went unsaid.

When he fell into bed that night, Dean still felt pretty much like crap. He figured Sam would stay up late, researching and geeking-out and whatnot, but Sam went to bed early too, claiming that he was tired. Dean had the idea that Sam just didn't want to leave his brother alone . . . and Dean was kind of okay with that, for right now, at least.

"Dean," Sam said, as they laid down in the dark. Dean waited, but Sam didn't follow it up with anything.

"Yeah?"

Sam shrugged. I don't know, he thought. There was silence for a moment, then, "We're getting through this, right?"

Yeah, Dean thought. Yeah, we're getting through this. And they were, he supposed. They were slowly getting on by. He just didn't know how long it would take for them to feel normal again, for him to feel like a person again. He felt like he never would, and maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he'd feel like this damaged, crippled thing forever. Or maybe it'd be like all the other times in his life, when he slipped into normal without ever really realizing it.

Logically, he knew that was what would probably happen. But when he remembered slicing through that boy's tongue, he had a hard time picturing it.

"It wasn't you," Sam said quietly. "I mean, it was, but it wasn't. You know?"

No.

"Yeah," Dean said softly. "I know."

He shut his eyes against the darkness, saw a darker darkness lying behind his closed eyelids. Pretty girls and bleeding boys and a thousand questions, all how and why and where do we go from here.

"We'll get through this," he heard Sam say, not asking this time but reassuring him. "We'll get through this."

Dean turned on his side, facing Sam, feeling as his body began to relax by degrees into the mattress. I know, Sammy. I know.

XV.

Sam was sitting at the edge of the Grand Canyon, his legs dangling over the gulch, knowing that he'd been there before but not able to remember when (Wait, he thought, you have been here before, when Dean was missing; you were here in a drea— and then Dean was suddenly sitting next to him, as if he'd been there all along).

"Don't think this is right," Dean said, as he looked down at the vast nothingness below them. "Pretty sure that they got fences or something, on the real deal, I mean. Wouldn't do to have tourists jumping over the side. Kinda fucks up a good tourist spot."

"You wouldn't be able to see their bodies," Sam said quietly.

"Doesn't mean you wouldn't know they were there. The dead got a way of talking, you know?"

Sam knew. He also knew that this was a dream, although he didn't think about that for too long. Knew that if he did, he'd wake up in Bobby's guest room, and he didn't want to do that quite yet. It was nice here, at the moment. The sun felt warm against his shoulders. He felt safe here, with his brother, sitting at what felt like the edge of the world.

"This could be a place to rest," Sam said, knowing that he'd said those words in some other time, some other dream. "For the both of us, you know. This could just be . . . a place we could go to. A place we could just be. No guilt, no consequences."

"No memory," Dean said, nodding. "No hallway of blue doors. No one forcing you to see things you don't want to see."

"No brother's sacrifices haunting you."

"Or father's."

"Or your regrets—"

"Failures—"

"Ghosts—"

"Just you and me," Dean said, smiling into the horizon. "Just a place to rest. I like that, Sammy. I like that a lot." He trailed his fingers against the ground, watched bits of pebbles and dirt fall into the abyss below them. "You can't hear them land," he said. "Wonder what that'd be like, to fall and never land."

Sam felt it again, that dejavu. "You said something like that once before," he said. "Well, not you-you. Just the Dean-In-My-Head. But you wanted me to push you. You wanted to die."

Dean looked at him. "I don't want to die, Sammy," he said quietly. "And I'm not the Dean-In-Your-Head. You know that, right?"

Sam did. This was his brother, his big, wonderful, stupid brother, sitting beside him, and though everything else around them wasn't real, they were, and that was all that mattered. He stood up at the edge, scuffing his shoe against the dusty ground. "I'm glad you don't want to die," he said. "Cause I can't push you again."

"You never pushed me at all," Dean said. "You saved me, Sammy. You saved me."

Dean stood up and, somehow, in the dreamlight, they almost looked to be the same height. "I won't leave you again," Dean said. "I promise you, man. I'm never leaving you behind."

Sam nodded, throat tight, and turned away from his brother. He looked into the dark, deep chasm. "You know," he said, "if we did fall . . . we wouldn't have to land, if we didn't want to. We can do anything we want here. This is our place. Our world. Our dream."

Dean quirked a small grin. "Could be kind of cool," he said, smiling. Without thinking about it, he took Sam's hand, as if they were kids again about to cross a big street. "We're getting through this," he said, and Sam thought that Dean might actually believe it this time.

"I know," Sam said, "I know." He took a small step towards the edge. "I love you, Dean," he said, knowing that he could get away with such a chick statement here.

"Yeah," Dean said, stepping with him. "I love you too. Bitch."

Sam laughed. It felt like it was the first in a very, very long time. "Jerk," he said, grinning, and the brothers tightened their hands together before jumping off the cliff.

Time seemed to stop for a minute and then they fell, fell faster . . .

. . .they fell . . .they fell . . .

. . . and then they flew. . . together.

-FIN

A/N: Well, that's it. My God, it's finally DONE. Woo hoo! I should mention that I have more ideas planned for this universe, dealing with Dean and Sam and how they hunt now that they're both psychic and soul-liked and stuff. I definitely need to take a break, but if any of you would be interested in reading something like that, I'd love to know. Thanks to everybody who's been patient enough to continue reading this story. I hope the end is to you're liking. Here's to being renewed for Season 4!!