Vigil:

Disclaimer: Still don't own Supernatural!

Author's Note: As a fair warning, this isn't supposed to be the most coherent piece of writing ever. Actually, it's supposed to replicate Dean's thoughts, and it may at points be jumbled and confusing. I'm hoping I've got the balance right and it's not too alienating.

Reviews are always welcome. And, again, I'm new to writing Supernatural... so any thoughts about my characterisation would be nice too.

Standing vigil over his brother's body, Dean thinks this is all wrong.

The last 24 hours have all been wrong. Before that, Sam had been missing, and he'd thought, it can't get much worse than this, Sam's been taken by a demon, and all leads lead to dead ends (or the dead Roadhouse, and damnit Ash...)

And now his brother was dead, and, hey, he'd sooner take Sam alive and missing than present and dead... ("be careful what you wish for" comes to mind).

It was a cruel irony, he had thought, that they seemed to have arrived in time - hey, Sam, how's it going, you any idea how worried we've been - and then some guy has the audacity to stab him - from behind, and Dean wonders if he's focusing on the wrong thing here, this concept of honour that demons may not follow, but humans damn well should - and God, he can't even think straight.

His brother dying in his arms, and he knows it, but he spews words of denial and all he thinks is shitshitshit. There's just him and his brother, and maybe he isn't even aware when Bobby gets back alone.

Sam is gone, and the guy who killed him is gone, and all Dean can think about is wasting him.

Sam's sprawled out at Bobby's, and it's pretty messed up how Sam looks, lying there on that bed. People say death is peaceful, but the blood's still there, and there's no sign of life whatsoever. It's Sam and it's not, and at one point he'd reached out to touch him, but Sam's cold now, and his fingers burned.

He wants to deny what's happening, but he can't.

That demon, he's going to pay, because Dean isn't stupid and he knows some of those bodies they found, that trail of the dead. He can see them now, even if he couldn't too well at the time, preoccupied as he was. Psychics.

The girl his brother had found – or she had found him, so Sammy said – had disappeared without a trace of anything but sulphur, but so had Sam, and he really shouldn't be surprised.

Dean wasn't an idiot. Yellow Eyes was dead.

And the other guy, the man who stabbed his brother in the back, and then ran like he was chased by hellhounds, and Dean just thinks, you wish, we're not hunters for nothing, well he was going down too.

He's going to kill him.

But Sam's voice is in his head, talking the shit that maybe Dean hadn't listened to when he was alive – Sam's too goddamn sensitive – but hey, his brother's dead now, and anything's better than the silence.

(He thinks maybe he's going a little crazy, but he's sitting in front of his little brother's corpse like it's normal, and maybe it's just the world that's gone off the deep end and not Dean.)

He's human, Dean, you can't kill him! says the Sam that isn't Sam, not really, because he's lying on the bed, not breathing.

Dean had seen the other kids face, just for a moment, and maybe it was desperation or anger or despair or triumph, but what Dean saw was inhuman.

(He can follow the logic of the things he hunts, but not humans. He thinks of a family whose sport is murder, and he thinks again, this is all kinds of messed up.)

He kind of gets how Sam felt now – and wow, these comprehension skills have come on too late – when dad died. Suddenly Sam wanted to please dad at every turn, and the man's dead, it's not like it'll do him much good, but now Dean can't lift a gun to waste someone without Sam's conscience butting in.

Thinking of Sam, thinking of dad, he curses the hunt that took everything from him. His dad, his brother, and a mother he can barely remember except from old photographs, so looked at and worn out that the colour seems to be washing off the page. He looks at it now.

He hasn't looked away from Sam in a while, and the image is burned into his mind, behind his eyes, another photograph as it's not like it's gonna change.

Dean isn't normally a sentimental man, but he thinks he can have these five minutes; it's not like Sam's going to tease him (and therein lies the problem).

He sits and glares at the floor savagely enough to burn a hole in it, but he thinks, if anybody is likely to set stuff on fire with his mind, it's Sam.

Dean misses his brother.

Dean doesn't miss the constant interruptions.

He cares for Bobby, he really does, but his milling around and shooting unsubtle looks at him is beginning to grate on Dean's nerves. He was used to Sam and his restlessness – he knew his brother as well as the back of his hand – and he was more tolerant of that, but now he's really starting to be annoyed, even though he wants to be up and pacing himself.

But walking miles across a bedroom isn't going to help anybody.

Dean's been thinking about the past few years, about where it all went wrong. Perhaps he should have left his brother at Stanford – he could have been happy, or the demon could have got him – but now his dad's dead and his brother's dead.

He's been thinking about searching for his dad with Sam, and then moving on afterwards, and the long hunt right down to his final memories of his brother are bogging his head down. Certain incidents are sticking in his head, but he doesn't tell Bobby, just tersely replies when asked how he is that he is "surviving".

Because that's all it is. He isn't living.

In his mind's eye, he can see a girl, all smirk and red eyes, who seals a deal with a kiss. He could save his dad, she'd said, and he'd declined like a fool, but he had a brother and a purpose, then.

(And, okay, Dean knows that demons aren't known for their truth-telling skills, but this screwed with his head. The best kind of truth, that; the kind demons love; the kind that stings more than any lie ever could.)

He could save Sam, and ten years isn't much of a price, really, screw all that buying of cheap talent and actually do something meaningful.

(If the papers knew Sam was dead, and if he wasn't regarded a criminal in association with his brother, then they'd say his life was "tragically cut short" and he was an "intelligent man" who was "destined for many things". But Sam hasn't even got a eulogy, because he's a hunter and saving people and the world doesn't look too kindly on that which they don't see.)

Dean sits and puzzles it out, and he knows it's stupid – hasn't he said himself not to mess with life and death, and that only fools deal with demons? – but Dean's a fool who knows how to handle demons.

Without Sam, this isn't working. It isn't as if Dean hasn't been alone before – hell, only two years ago when Sam was at Stanford, he'd had to wing it alone. He'd never really had a problem with it, but now he can't adjust, like he's missing a limb (and there's this phantom pain, like it should still be there), and, besides, now he can't contact his brother.

He can't even observe him properly, because Bobby's sure not gonna let Dean keep him there indefinitely. And that wouldn't normally be a problem, but with what he's planning… even if the idea's only half-baked…

"I'm gonna sort this out, Sammy," he says, knowing his words are useless, but unable to do anything else but try and stop himself punching a wall in frustration.

Dean's patience has taken a beating when Bobby calls for him (and so have his knuckles, and he hides them behind his back like a child), because, really, it's quite a private thing, sitting with a dead relative. It's not as if Sam has any other relatives, and Bobby doesn't seem to want to take too long staring. Maybe he's the sensible one, but Dean never went for that title (it belongs to Sam).

And Bobby's asking him how he is, and geez, he's never been into the whole sharing and caring deal (damn chick-flick moments), and he's through affirming that he's fine, and he feels as hollow as the sound, but then Bobby says,

"Don't you think... maybe it's time that we bury Sam?" He says it awkwardly, like there are lumps of glass in his throat and he's speaking so carefully so as not to disturb them.

And Dean panics, because he's lost track of time – how long's it been, anyway, how long has he been skulking around like a phantom? – and if Bobby buries Sam, then everything's ruined unless Sam's grave digging experience included digging a way back outside when trapped in a freaking grave.

(They'd thought they'd never need that lesson, and ha, look where it got them, and he sounds half hysterical, even in his own head.)

It pours out like a torrent, the fruit of god knows how long of scattered thoughts, of contradictions and denial.

And Dean thinks: I'm doing this now. Because Bobby's made up his mind for him, not that he'd tell Bobby, who'd probably gut him (maybe he still will, because he isn't naïve; Bobby's gonna find out, unless Dean essentially kidnaps his brother and they never see him again… but even Dean hasn't gone that crazy) for including him in such a suicidal plan.

Dean drives like a madman, red eyes reflected in stoplights, staring at him, but it's too late to back down now, too late to even think. He and the Impala – you're all I've got, baby, he thinks, but not for long – are on a mission, and if breaks a ridiculous number of transport laws on the way over, what does it matter? He's branded a murderer anyway, he hardly thinks a potential parking ticket's going to make much of a difference.

He stomps out of the car – and he's got all that crap laid out, it always pays to be around hunters, because who else would need this shit? – and he's digging, and roaring at her, and there's a different girl, but her eyes are red and he knows.

"Easy, sugar, you'll wake the neighbours," says the Crossroads Demon.

And she smiles like a shark eyeing up its prey.