He's floating.

It's a weightless sensation, robbing him of bone and muscle and thought until he's left hovering beyond his own existence, like an outsider looking in. Like a ghost.

Everything moves slower, almost frozen still and yet... the world's spinning at pretty much the same velocity as it has always been. Stuck in a oozing slow motion, and he can almost guess what is going to happen next, like a future that's become so lazy that anyone can easily guess where it's going.

He can feel his heart, pumping wildly inside his chest. It sounds like its got a purpose, somewhere to be, but Dean highly doubts that. He's not going anywhere.

Not anymore. There's no need.

Sam shifts on the other bed, inches away. He's sleeping.

The action, so simple, leaves Dean relieved and anxious at the same time. A pull and coil of a rope that's not really meant to be that elastic. It's not elastic at all.

Sam's just sleeping, Dean reminds himself. As if the gentle snores of one who is purely relaxed, deep in an untroubled sleep aren't evidence enough of that fact.

And somehow, Dean can see Sam snapping awake in his bed, stiff as a board, wide eyed and panting, lost in the throes of some nightmarish vision that jerked him awake, like a fish bolting from the water at the end of a fishing hook.

He can see Sam digging desperately into the meat of the palm, grinding at the aged scar of his hand, as if he's trying to reach his soul and... Just. Turn. It. Off.

He can see Sam digging desperately into the grind meat of the palm of his hand, as if he's trying to reach his soul and... Just. Turn. It. Off.

Dean can see all of that, and yet Sam still sleeps, still snores.

The before bears so much more weight than the now that Dean's not really sure in which point in time he's standing.

He's nowhere.

He's nobody.

He was stone number one of a crumbling structure that has eroded away, become ancient and useless. He is a ruin, something with no other purpose but to remind people of what used to be.

Sam is sleeping, untroubled and peacefully, for the first time since... Dean can't even remember when. He can't remember the before.

They've run out of beer. And whiskey. Even the rubbing alcohol they keep in the first aid kit is dry.

Dean can't sleep.

And he resents Sam for not being awake to know that. He resents himself for... being.

He floats away.