Part of my Deleted Scenes series. Full list of fics in reading order available on my profile page. They will make more sense if read in order. :)

The first thing Dean notices is the smell. It isn't a bad smell. It's very familiar. It's like fresh air mixed with gasoline and exhaust fumes. He's at a gas station. There are cars, one mini-van, and people filling them up at the pumps. A three-ton truck getting air put in the tires, a convenience store with an ice machine out front. It's just a regular gas station on the side of a highway in Anywhere, America. Except he doesn't remember how he got here. The last thing he remembers is lying in a bed in a motel room in Idaho with Sam half on top of him. Dean looks around a little. The Impala isn't here. Neither is Sam.

A woman a couple yards away from him catches his eye, and offers him a polite half-smile.

"Where are we?" he asks her.

She frowns at him and doesn't answer.

"What's the closest town to here?" he tries again, and again she just stares at him and doesn't answer.

Dean glances around himself, at the trees and the other people and the store behind him, and there's a lion on the roof. Dean's eyes pass over it and then he jumps a little and looks quickly back. It's lying on the roof, just behind the eaves troughs, flicking its tail at flies and just watching everything that's going on at ground-level. Okay, so either someone slipped Dean some LSD or he's dreaming.

He calls out, "Sam?" because if this isn't real it doesn't matter if he looks like a crazy person, standing in a parking lot yelling a random name. "Sammy?"

No one answers; they don't even look up, and still no Sam. Dean's pretty sure it's a dream now. When he looks closely at the fields and trees in the distance, they don't look real. They're kind of fuzzy, and the colors are too bright, like someone painted them on a canvas.

"Hell's real, you know," a woman's voice says behind him.

Dean whips around. It's Ruby. It doesn't look like Ruby – she's got short red hair and blue eyes and freckles on her cheeks, and she's maybe thirteen years old – but somehow Dean knows it's her. "I know. You told me that already."

"It's not like they say. It isn't pitchforks and brimstone and the devil walking around in a red mascot costume. It's more like jail. Like being in a dungeon. And every morning they march you out and strap you down and carve every sin you've ever committed into your organs. They'll have a whole palate to work from with you."

Dean swallows and clenches his jaw. Like he's afraid of anything she has to say. Bitch. "Thanks for the bedtime story. I'm leaving now."

He turns around and starts walking away, although he doesn't know where's he's going since suddenly the gas station is gone and they're in a church Dean knows he's been in before but can't place.

"You can't imagine what they'll do to you," she calls after him, her small, childlike voice resonating in the high-ceilinged room.

"This is a dream," Dean says over his shoulder, still walking down the aisle and toward the pulpit for no reason other than to put some space between them. "It isn't real."

"It's a dream," she agrees. "But that doesn't mean it isn't real."

"That makes no sense."

"Doesn't have to. It's a dream, remember?"

Dean slows his steps and then eventually stops altogether. He sighs, rubbing his hands over his face and turning around. She's right behind him, and it startles him. "Jesus," he breathes.

"He won't help," she says with a cruel smile. She's someone else now. An older woman, maybe forty, with long brown hair and olive skin and sharp features. "It won't always be a demon, either. It'll be Sam sometimes."

Dean frowns. "What will be Sam?"

"The person with the knife in their hand. They like to play with you. Mess you up from the inside just as much as the outside. They'll make themselves look like Sam. They'll get in your head, tell you he never needed you. Never loved you. That he's happier without you. You won't believe it at first, but then the days and weeks and years will pass and eventually you won't be able to convince yourself it isn't true anymore. You'll watch your little brother slice you open and you'll hear his voice say he always hated you and you'll believe it. It's how they turn you. They know there are worse things than pain."

She grins at him and then the image of her twitches and sputters and fades out like a dying hologram, and Dean's alone. The silence in the hall is deafening; his own heartbeat loud to his ears. He tries to remember where this church is in real life, but he doesn't know. Something bad happened in it. It smells like death in here.

"Sam will try to get you out."

Dean looks up – she's on the balcony now, perched dangerously on the railing like the lion was perched on the roof, and she's the little girl again. Only now, she's covered in blood.

"I'll tell him not to."

"It won't matter. He'll do it anyway. And it will destroy him, because there isn't anything he can do to save you once you're downstairs. You should've just let him die."

Dean presses his lips together, and a muscle in his hand twitches so he balls it into a fist. "I couldn't. He's my brother."

"You didn't do it for him. You know that. He was gone, Dean. He was in heaven, even if he doesn't remember it. Eternal peace and happiness. That's what you ripped him away from, back down into the stinking, rotting, decaying pile of garbage your life on this planet is, because you were too selfish to live without him. He was up there floating on a cloud, with a daiquiri in his hand and Jessica pressed up against his side. And you brought him back here, and now you're leaving him alone to descend slowly into madness as he tries desperately to get you back and never can."

Dean's jaw clenches again. He squeezes his molars together so tightly they hurt. And he doesn't say anything. Even if she isn't real, she's still Ruby and he's still not going to give her the satisfaction of knowing she has any effect on him. In truth, her words make Dean feel like he's going to throw up. Because she's right.

"You should've let him go. That's always been your problem, Dean. You always wanted Sam all to yourself, so much that you don't let him have anything else. You've never been able to let him go."

That part is true too, and Dean closes his eyes and tries to make his leg move. He needs to wake up.

"The two of you, you're like one of those dysfunctional married couples where the wife is miserable but doesn't leave because the husband has convinced her she has nowhere to go. He tells her she's ugly, and worthless, so she doesn't believe she can ever do better."

"I don't do that!" Dean snaps, finally losing control and glaring up at her. "I tell Sam how much I love him all the time!"

"Yeah, like once every couple of months when you realize you haven't said it in a while and feel guilty," she scoffs.

"He knows. I don't need to have it engraved on a watch for him, okay? He knows!"

She shrugs. She pushes herself off the railing, falling a story down to the floor but landing softly. "It doesn't matter anyway. Time's up."

She smiles and snaps her fingers. For a moment, Dean's confused. Then the ground starts shaking and the walls start crumbling, and the floor cracks and opens up and there's fire and screaming and Dean's falling, tumbling down into the pit. He lands with a soft thud, flat on his back, opening his eyes and gasping for air and breathing so fast he's almost hyperventilating. But the fire is gone. Dean sits up abruptly, patting his chest to make sure he isn't hurt and glancing frantically around the room, and it's just the dark, cookie-cutter motel room he fell asleep in. Dean looks to the right at the bed beside him, and Sam's curled up with the sheet half off him and his hair falling over his face. The Impala is outside – Dean can see it through the threadbare curtains. He's back. He's okay. His heart is still thudding dangerously fast against his ribcage and there are nervous butterflies in his stomach and he's sweating and cold at the same time, but he's okay.

Dean exhales, and then takes a few more deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself down. He throws the sheet off himself and swings his legs off the bed so his feet are on the floor, leaning over to rest his elbows on his knees and rubbing his face with his hands. He doesn't usually get this worked up over bad dreams. He's in the motel room, he's safe, but he still feels like he's far away. He can't get Ruby's words out of his head, though. Sam's only here, in the bed with Dean right now, because Dean would rather have Sam for himself than let Sam be happy. He's not sure a single thought has ever torn him up inside this much.

Sam stirs after only a few moments, his body in tune with Dean even in sleep, and he inhales audibly and mumbles, "Dean?"

"M'fine, Sammy. Go back to sleep," Dean says quietly. He isn't fine. But he's not going to tell Sam that.

"Wha's goin' on?" Sam slurs. "You sick or somethin'?"

"I said I'm fine." Dean feels warm fingers on his lower back, and the cinch that was clenched in his chest loosens just a little. "Just had a weird dream, okay? It's nothing."

For a minute, Sam doesn't say anything. He just absently trails his fingers on Dean's back. Then he softly asks, "Hell stuff?"

Dean hears himself say, "Yeah."

"Dean," Sam whispers, and Dean knows what he wants and he's too tired not to give it to him.

He sighs, and lies back down. Sam shifts closer to him and pulls Dean into his arms and Dean's exhausted and still agitated so he lets him. He's on edge, like during a hunt, and it takes him a long time to come back down. Sam tucks Dean up against his chest; Dean's face pushed into Sam's neck so all he can breathe is his brother, and he hugs him tight so Dean couldn't move away if he wanted to. Dean closes his eyes, concentrates on the feeling of Sam's bare skin against his own and on the sound of Sam breathing, slow and steady and even, and eventually his heart rate returns to normal.

"I got you," Sam murmurs, and that's usually Dean's line and it breaks Dean just a little further to hear it said in Sam's voice.

He doesn't answer, and he doesn't tell Sam about the dream. He just lets Sam hold him, lets Sam rub his back and kiss his forehead and soothe him enough to fall back to sleep.

In the morning, Sam doesn't ask and Dean doesn't tell. Sam maybe touches him a little more than he normally would, hugs him before he gets out of bed and kisses his cheek when they pass in the bathroom, but he doesn't bring up the night before and Dean's grateful for that. Sam knows him well enough to realize Dean doesn't want to talk about it.

"We should do the Morton House."

"What?"

"You remember Dad tellin' us about it? That one in … what is it, Michigan?"

"Yeah, the one where people go missing on leap years. And it's in Wisconsin. What d'you mean we should do it?"

Dean shrugs. "It's supposed to be one of the most haunted places in the country right? The world, even? We should go see if it's true."

"Like, to hunt whatever's taking people?"

"No, as tourists. Yeah, to hunt it. It's like our Grand Canyon."

"How is it like the Grand Canyon?"

"No not the Grand Canyon, our Grand Canyon. Y'know, everybody's got like a place, right? A ground zero? Catholics have the Vatican – "

"And we have the Morton House?" Sam interrupts, a skeptical look on his face.

"What's with the bitch-face?" Dean asks. "It's a hunt, Sam."

"It's maybe a hunt."

"C'mon, when in our lives has something like that ever turned out to be a hoax?"

"Don't you think we've got better things to be doing?"

"Like what? You said it yourself, Bela's in the wind. We got Bobby trackin' her, but for now we just gotta wait until she turns up. What else have we got goin' on?"

Sam blinks. "What else have we got going on? I don't know, Dean, what about the fact that you're going to Hell and we've only got sixty-two days left to figure out how to stop it?"

"Well, I mean, there's that," Dean says with a smirk. He knows Sam doesn't buy his casual attitude about it, but Dean doesn't really know how to be any other way. "It's on my list, okay? So let's go."

"What list?"

"Of things I wanna do before I die."

"You're not dying," Sam says firmly. Then his eyes go soft and his lips part and he looks at Dean sadly. "Wait, you have a list? What else is on it?"

"I don't have, like, an actual list. Just, you know. There are things in your head that you always thought you'd do someday."

"What else is on it?" Sam asks again. He looks like it's the saddest thing he's ever heard, and Dean regrets using the expression. Now he's got Sam thinking he's had a bucket list all these months that they could've been checking items off of. There are things Dean wants to do before he dies, things he probably won't get to do like seeing the actual Grand Canyon, but it doesn't really matter. It's not like the time he has left would suddenly be amazing if they drove to a desert and looked at a hole in the ground.

"Nothing, Sam. Okay? It's a figure of speech."

"Look, Dean … we're running out of time, alright? I just think we should be figuring out how to get you out of the deal instead of chasing ghosts."

Dean can't think about that right now. Not while that dream is still so fresh in his mind. "Sam, it's a leap year. If we don't figure out what's going on in that house, on February twenty-ninth someone is going to die."

"Only if someone goes in the house," Sam points out, the little brother in him coming out as he argues. "Maybe they won't."

"Yeah, and maybe they will." Dean finally loses his patience. He pulls his jacket on and grabs the keys. "I'm going to Wisconsin. If you wanna sit here twiddling your thumbs and waiting for Bela to surface, you do that."

He throws his bag over his shoulder and walks out of the room, heading for the car. By the time he's got the door unlocked, Sam's exiting the room too, hastily pulling his own jacket on and trailing after Dean like he always done. Dean smiles to himself and finds it comforting that some things don't change. Then he remembers what Ruby said to him in the dream, and suddenly he hates that Sam followed him. Sam didn't want to go, but he's going anyway because Dean wants to. It makes Dean feel sick to even think about, but he wonders if he has made Sam think he has to stay because he has nowhere else to go. And now Dean's going to die and Sam's going to have nothing, because Dean never let them have anything but each other.

"You, uh. You know I love you, right?" Dean asks as he pulls the Impala onto the highway.

Sam looks over at him, his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth slightly open. "Yes. Of course I do. Why?"

He shakes his head. "No reason."

"Dean."

Dean turns up the radio and doesn't respond. He can feel Sam's eyes on him, and he feels bad about the concerned look on Sam's face and for freaking him out, but he can't do this right now. A nice simple hunt is exactly what Dean needs to get his mind off everything.