"Hello, Dean."

Dean's eyes widened and he almost choked on his beer as he heard the familiar voice. He looked around, trying to take in everything at once, but the bunker was quiet and still. He stood up, squinting into the dim light, but there was nothing.

"Dammit, Cas," he muttered, shaking his head as he sat down once more. He should have known. It wasn't the first time he'd heard the voice, the first time his heart had leapt in hope only to crash-land moments later. He was beginning to sympathise with Sam a little now; the whole Lucifer thing didn't seem as strange to him as it once had.

He shook his head again as if to rid it of all memory and went back to reading the case file.


"Dean? Where are you? Come back to me."

Dean looked up sharply, cracking his head on the hood of the car. He cursed, rubbing it, though the pain was a mere footnote compared to everything else he felt. He almost stopped himself from looking around this time, but hope won out and he scoured the garage for any sign of a trenchcoat. There was none, of course.

"God DAMN it," Dean said, slamming the hood of the car down. He stood for a few moments, silent and brooding, before throwing his wrench to the floor and storming off towards the kitchen.


"I need you, Dean."

Dean's eyes flicked open, though only darkness met them. For a moment he considered turning on the light, but eventually he decided against it and rolled over, though he had lost all hope of getting back to sleep.


"Please, Dean. I can't- I don't want…"

"It's okay, Cas. You know Dean, he'll make it through."

"But Sam, you saw what they did to him. Not even I can reverse this. He might never-"

"He will."

"How can you be so certain? His injuries were so extensive, his brain so damaged, it's incredible that he is even alive at all."

"He's done it before. We all have. The three of us, look at what we've been through. Hell, Purgatory, Heaven, demons, monsters, angels… Dean won't let this beat him. Okay?"

"Thank you, Sam. Is it- Is this an appropriate time to hug?"


Dean had never heard Sam's voice before. These hallucinations, they had always been Cas. A sentence or two at the most, never a full conversation. Something was different.

Why would he hear Sam's voice anyway, he wondered? Sam was here in the bunker, with him. Except, try as he might, Dean couldn't remember the last time he had clapped eyes on his little brother. A sudden panic enveloped him.

"Sam?" he called out, voice echoing. "Sammy?"

He padded down the hall in his socks, picking up speed as he went. He skidded around a corner and sprinted down another corridor. Corridor after corridor, each one longer than the last, a maze of closed doors and empty halls and each one longer than the last, spiralling round and round in an endless circle and Sam was nowhere to be seen.

"Sammy!" Dean bellowed. His own voice came back to him in a million desperate echoes. "Cas!"

Searing pain blossomed in his forehead, his vision blurred and suddenly he was blinded with white light… Then nothing.