A/N: I posted this in its entirety earlier, only to discover 1) that's not how things are done around here ;) and 2) the formatting I had in place to differentiate between sections and POVs didn't work. All apologies to anyone who attempted to read that jumbled mess!

Also, I don't know if I have the stamina to upload all the parts tonight, so I'm listing it as in progress for now, even though it's done. :)

Cheers, sbgrrl

Weaver

Dean was being a total pain in the ass. Sam understood that it was a mechanism, a means to alleviate stress, but that didn't make the remarks any less annoying. His head swirled with fear and dread despite Dean's attempt to prove everything was just fine by joking constantly and tormenting the shit out of him. Dean was a terrible actor. Things were not fine, and no amount of teasing from his brother was going to make Sam feel any better about his potentially huge, definitely frightening abilities.

The analogy of spoon bending had only made him feel worse, for the lack of control was what scared him the most about his mental…powers. As far as he was concerned, about the only thing he knew about his ability to move things with his mind was that it happened when he was experiencing a spasm of enraged fear. That wasn't exactly comforting. The chances of being in a similar situation were pretty good, considering what they did for a living. Sam didn't want anyone getting hurt (Dean, his mind screamed.) because he couldn't control what might blow up or fly across the room.

"Sam, what's going to happen if I turn left up here?" Sam clenched his jaw twice and glared over at Dean's smirking face. Jerk loved this way too much; Sam could only hope he'd get tired of it soon. "C'mon, use your divining powers and predict it."

Sam still couldn't believe they were actually heading for Vegas. He thought that, too, had been a joke, but Dean said he figured they had to go some direction, so why not head for money? Just in case Sam miraculously managed to gain control of whatever the hell was up with him in time to hit a poker game or two and win big. Right. Regular joes didn't just show up for the high stakes games of poker in the biggest gambling city in the world. Sam suspected Dean actually wanted to go there for the showgirls. T&A, 24/7.

"I dunno, Dean, we'll be heading west?"

"Wow, you do have some amazing new skills."

"Shut up."

"And witty comebacks, too."

Sam glared at Dean for another ten-count and then closed his eyes. The best way to deal with Dean when he was being this big a jerk was to try to ignore him. Unfortunately, that left him alone with his thoughts, which invariably turned grim. His head kept swirling with all that had happened in the past couple of days, and with unshakeable guilt about Max's fate. Dean was right. He wasn't Max, and he hoped to hell having a brother like Dean around was enough to prevent that madness and desperation from happening to him. As messed up as their upbringing had been, at least there had been love. It wasn't always obvious and it was usually tempered with anger and antagonism, but Sam knew his father loved them, even if he didn't always show it.

He sighed. Something about the sound of the car's engine combined with rubber spinning on pavement always made him tired, but he was reluctant to sleep. He shifted a little and leaned his right temple against the cool glass of the window, opening his eyes a crack. The night sky seemed thick with darkness, brightened only by a muted orange glow of a small town off in the distance. Dean turned the music down a notch or two, a mild act of consideration Sam wasn't going to take for granted.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty, do you want to stop at a hotel or something?" Dean said. "Get some real sleep?"

Sam lifted his head and looked over. Dean never moved his gaze from the road, and for a flash Sam thought it was probably because his brother couldn't stand the thought of looking at him in all his freakish glory. Ridiculous, since Dean had been smirking at him about it every chance he got for the last six hours. Sam shook his head slightly.

"Dean, we're in the middle of nowhere."

"Well, I meant when we hit a town or something."

"No," Sam said. "Not unless you're tired."

"Nah, could drive all night. But I swear if you complain about a crick in your neck I'm going to hurt you."

He put his head back against the window. A thin trail of cold air tickled at his face, coming from where the rubber had slightly eroded and hardened like always happened with cars this old. Sam didn't mind. He hoped, actually, that it would keep him just awake enough for him to keep from subconsciously calling Max back into his head. Not Max literally, but what he represented. It was so much worse to envision himself like that. It was in him, and that was a fact no amount of fighting could change, no matter how strong Dean thought his influence was.

The rhythm of Dean drumming his fingers against the steering wheel joined the growl of the engine and susurration of tires on the road. Sam smiled to himself in spite of his lingering unease. Maybe he should stop worrying so much about it and enjoy the showgirls as much as Dean was going to. Sam let himself drift toward sleep with images of beautiful women with beautiful long legs dancing before him. It was nice and warm and if sleep could always be like it, he'd never get up.

And then he was alone, running, running faster than he ever had before and all Sam could see was blackness. Direction didn't matter. He didn't know where he was or where he was going, he just knew he had to keep going before it found him. He heard it, always right on his heels, its breath hot and moist against his chilled skin. He'd been running forever, and he couldn't tell if his muscles were quivering from cold or fatigue. Suddenly, there was brightness amid the black. A gorgeous woman appeared before him, her skin so pale and translucent in contrast to the black that she appeared to glow. Her eyes were too huge and dark for her face and she cried out to him but her lips didn't move. 'Help, someone help me.' Sam couldn't feel or hear the thing behind him anymore, and he kept running for the woman, focused solely on her terrified eyes, which were now so big he could see the reflection of himself running toward her in them. The blackness was behind her now, and he could see it edging closer.

"Move," he shouted.

She blinked and shook her head at him. She wore silver and glitter and a huge headdress, showgirl, and the feathers swayed like they were alive. Tentacles that reached out for him. Sam skidded to a halt, wildly looking left and right for escape, for Dean, for something. There was only darkness, it and her. He looked at her again, and frowned. She smiled coyly, not a trace of fear showing on her serene, familiar face. This wasn't right.

"Jess?" Sam whispered, and her smile grew to reveal sharp, yellow teeth. This wasn't how his dreams of Jess went. "No."

"Help me, help me," she said mockingly, and laughed at him. Her lips moved now. Her eyes, besides being too large, weren't the right color. They were black as oil and he realized suddenly why the thing that chased him didn't scare her. "Woe is little old me."

Sam took a step back, into impossible empty space that had been ground only seconds ago. He fell. The black-eyed beast morphed out of Jess' shape and into Max. It peered at him over a ledge, a decapitated head floating in the dark. Sam stopped falling with a jerk, suspended in mid-air by absolutely nothing. By Max. Fear choked him, filled his throat so he couldn't breathe or cry out.

"See what I can do?" Max said casually, his eyes boring into Sam. He wanted to look away, but couldn't. Max held him in place, and even at a distance Sam recognized arrogant sureness in his eyes. They were no longer the scared, desperate eyes Max had when he was alive. These were cold and possessed with real evil. "You can do it, too. You're going to be just like me, Sam."

No, Sam thought, nonono I'm not. He managed to shake his head. Max's nostrils flared for a moment, like a bull enraged by a waving red flag. He started falling again, flipping over and over until he finally stopped on a headfirst descent. Max stood below him now, arms open as if waiting for an embrace. Sam closed his eyes.

"Sam, Sam, Sam." Max's voice was taunting and cruel and much harder than Sam remembered it. "You can't fight it, Sam."

Max was right. Sam shook all over; couldn't stop. He wasn't in control of his own body.

"Sam!" Everything shook, every muscle vibrated in involuntary contractions and he wondered if Max could somehow manipulate people as well as objects. "Sammy, wake up and breathe, damnit."

Dean. Sam opened his eyes and saw the Impala's sleek dashboard. He gulped for air, automatically jerking forward so his head was almost between his knees. He felt Dean's hand on his shoulder now, squeezing tightly. He looked over and, through the black starbursts obscuring his vision as oxygen returned to his bloodstream, saw Dean's face was the picture of abject terror. It only lasted a second, vanishing so quickly Sam wasn't sure it had even existed. Dean was left looking calm, cool and collected, which seemed like just what Sam needed.

"What happened?" Sam said, still gasping.

"I think you were dreaming," Dean told him.

"Yeah, I knew that." Sam thought he'd finally regained control of his lungs again. He stared at Dean. "I meant what else."

"You wouldn't wake up."

Which explained Dean's apparently active participation in the task. Sam had a brief, paranoid thought about the myth of falling dreams and what actually happened to people who hit the ground in them. It wasn't something anyone could substantiate. Sam closed his eyes, and was treated to an image of Max standing as he had in the dream. Sam shook his head, wrinkling his nose a little as he opened his eyes again. Something didn't really make sense to him. Lots of things, actually.

"You don't usually try to wake me."

"You don't usually stop breathing, Sammy. You usually jerk yourself awake."

Sam didn't miss the faint annoyance that crept into Dean's tone, symptomatic of extreme fear rather than anger, he knew. As always, he chose to not acknowledge it. Dean seemed to need the illusion that he was unaffected most of the time. Wait.

"I stopped breathing," he said. That was new. "For how long?"

"A minute. Probably less. Seemed like more." Dean gave him a funny look. "It doesn't matter how long, just that you did. What the hell were you dreaming about?"

In other words, was it one of those kinds of dreams? Emphasis on 'those' to make it sound like a dirty word. Sam figured his brother was as freaked out about this stuff as he was, but damnit if it didn't hurt just the same. A little or big part of Dean probably now put Sam into the 'freaky things we usually fight and kill' box. Dean had been prepared to kill Max, who was as human as the next guy. That was as disturbing to him as the powers themselves. He didn't know how much detail he should go into about the dream, and didn't really want to talk about it.

"I can't remember much. I think I was falling."

"You stopped breathing because you were falling," Dean said with a quizzical, disbelieving quirk of his eyebrows. "In your dream."

"I guess," Sam said. He looked away.

Dean didn't believe him, but he started the car and pulled back onto the road. Oh. It had scared Dean, Sam thought, enough to pull the car to the side and turn it off entirely. He looked out the window into darkness again. Any hope of getting rest was gone. He remembered Dean telling him the guilt-fueled dreams of Jess would kill him if he didn't find a way to deal. Sam felt the draft of air from the window, and this time it only left him chilled.