Natural Order, a supernatural fanfic

NATURAL ORDER

This story takes place early season seven. Sam's wall is crumbling, Castiel is AWOL and the bad guys just keep on a'comin.

The first thing he saw was grey.

Blinking was hard; whatever the grey stuff was that surrounded him seemed to be sanding away his corneas, and no amount of blinking would clear them. The air was heavy, grainy and filled with dust. Every breath was like inhaling oatmeal, choking and gagging him until he turned his head and spat a lump onto the floor next to his cheek.

What the hell?

He closed his eyes, took one shallow breath and then another. When he opened his eyes again, the ceiling above him slowly came into focus…or what was left of the ceiling. That was when he remembered where he was …or where he was, before the world fell out from under his feet and deposited him….here.

He and Sam had been hunting a poltergeist. It wasn't a particularly strenuous case; poltergeists were usually more of a nuisance than a threat to the general population. They had gone in well prepared, except for one small hitch. The spirit was an old one, more powerful than they had planned for, and when the furniture levitated off the floor and the windows blew out, it was time to retreat and regroup.

"Guess we didn't make it." Dean's voice echoed off the damp walls of the basement, as harsh and grainy as the thick cloud of dust and mold that hung suspended in the air. His eyes had finally adjusted to the dim light filtering through the gaping holes in the ceiling, and he could swear he actually saw daylight seeping through a jagged hole in the roof, far above his head.

"Damn, did the whole freaking house fall in?" He shifted to roll over and the world blinked out in a blinding flash of white hot pain. Gasping for breath, he fell back upon his back again, watching through glassy eyes as a support beam from the demolished ceiling swung lazily from side to side, hanging by no more than a couple of nails and splinters. The hypnotic motion gave him something to focus on, a rhythm to set his breathing to; by the time the swaying motion stopped, he was ready to take inventory.

The damage didn't seem too bad: a sizable lump on his forehead and a gash somewhere over his left eye that had bled a bit but seemed to have stopped now; bruised ribs but nothing that felt broken, scraped hands. Nothing that explained the pain that had put him back down when he had tried to sit up…so he tried again and this time the result was consistent and self explanatory: his right arm hung at an unnatural angle, completely useless, attached to a swollen shoulder that was obviously and painfully dislocated.

When he could finally breathe again, Dean reached over with his one good arm and slowly lifted the other to his chest, cradling it there until the red faded from his vision. One determined heave and he was upright, sitting hunched over and shaking like a old man. Not that there was anywhere to go, but it felt like a small victory at the time.

Now that he could see more than the hole he had fallen through, he took stock of his surroundings. He was stunned by the amount of debris that had followed him in his descent: plaster, lumber, furniture, ceiling tiles. He had been damned lucky not to have been buried under it all.

"Sam?" His voice was shaky and rough; he cleared his throat and called again. He gazed up toward what was left of the kitchen they had been standing in before the roof caved in. Only now the kitchen floor was down there with him, lying in a twisted heap of linoleum, broken dishes and the remains of a shabby dining room table.

"You up there?" He glanced up at the beam that hung precariously over his head, swaying slightly but hanging in there. Couldn't have been out too long if that damned beam's still swinging. He listened for his brother's reply, his scrambled brain unable to place exactly where Sam had been standing when the poltergeist had made its move. The house, or what was left of it, was eerily silent. No answering call, no sound of movement whatsoever.

"So," Dean shifted slightly, cradling his useless arm as he glanced around. "He's gone for help." He coughed, doubling over as his damaged chest suggested that maybe his ribs were a little more than just bruised. The cough tightened the vise around his temples, and yeah, maybe a concussion should be figured into the equation here as well. Not the worst injuries he'd ever had, but enough to keep him from digging himself out of this pit on his own. Good times indeed.

Of course, there was always the possibility that Sam's absence was due to more ominous reasons: he could also have been caught in the unworldly blast that had sent most of the house to the basement. Dean shook his head to clear that line of thought and immediately regretted it, as his bruised brain sent a lights out signal that dimmed his vision to murky spots of black. He closed his eyes and took as deep a breath as his battered chest and the dust cloud around him would allow.

After a long moment, he opened his eyes. "Okay, won't do that again," he murmured as he leaned back against a wall of splintered shelving that still stood upright. "Come on, Sam," he spoke to the gaping hole over his head. "Toss a rope down, or call Bobby or something."

Dean paused, allowing his stuttering thought processes to catch up with his rambles. "Call...why didn't I think of that?" He automatically moved his right arm to the pocket where his cell phone was hopefully still nestled. Only thing was, his arm moved only a couple of inches, his fingers wouldn't move at all, and when he stubbornly grit his teeth and tried again, the world went from murky gray to black before he had time to stop his ungraceful slump to the debris laden floor.

-o0o-

The air was a bit cleaner and the sun a bit brighter the next time Dean attempted to open his eyes. Unfortunately, he was still in the basement of a poltergeist ravaged house and he still felt like someone had dropped him head first from a moving train. The numbness that had fooled him into thinking he had two perfectly working arms was gone now; in its place was a throbbing pain that moved under his skin like a serpent trying to chew its way out. Experience being the best teacher and all, Dean knew this time around to move slowly, sliding carefully across the floor until he was semi-upright, a precariously leaning wall providing support for his stiff and bruised back.

"Okay, let's try this again," he said, twisting like a contortionist to bring his left hand around, under his useless right, and down to his jeans pocket.. A bit of twisting and muttered cursing soon produced his cell phone, still miraculously in one piece. He leaned back, balancing the phone on one bent knee as he checked the signal strength. "Finally, something goes right". He clumsily punched in the first number on his speed dial list, frowning as the screen faded out of focus for a moment. He closed his eyes, leaning his head back on the fractured wall as he waited for the call to go through.

Dean felt himself drifting, eyes weighted and heavy. He shifted on the ground, reminding himself that falling asleep...again...with his level of concussion would be a very, very bad thing. Almost as bad as the ominous silence on the other end of the phone; he studied the display: fully charged, signal strength acceptable, and yet there was only silence on the other end of the line. "Terrific," he growled as he snapped the cell shut.

"You won't be needing that."

The deep, cultured voice from the shadows startled Dean. The automatic reaction to push himself upright reminded him of his mangled shoulder, which was now on fire. With a strangled curse, he stilled, peering into the darkened corners of the basement for the owner of the voice.

His eyes widened as a shadow stepped forward, picking its way gingerly around what had once been part of the kitchen floor. A thin, emaciated hand reached down, set an amazingly undamaged wooden chair back on its legs and tested its strength. As the figure slowly lowered its gaunt frame to sit, a pale beam of sunlight sifted through the ruined ceiling, casting shadows on the new arrival's wasted features.

"And here I was, thinking my day couldn't get any worse." Dean grimaced and attempted to sit up straighter. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Indeed," Death looked around distastefully. "Could use a bit of tidying up."

Dean nodded, wondering just how jacked up his head really was, if carrying on a conversation with a harbinger of the End of Days didn't really seem that odd anymore. "Forgive me for saying this, but you're really the last person I wanna see right now."

"Totally understandable." The Horseman crossed his spindly legs, absently brushing dust from his perfectly creased trousers.

"That is, unless you brought a ladder." Dean closed his eyes, willing the sour creep of nausea down as he coughed out a lump of dust.

"Sorry, no ladder. But tell me, Dean, why on earth are you...here?"

Dean opened his eyes, a snark filled reply ready to go. Instead he studied the aged man, who sat with his head tilted as if listening to an reply only he could hear.

"Ah, a spirit," Death nodded. " Poltergeist?"

Dean blew out a long breath. "That's what we thought. Turned out to be a bit trickier than we planned on."

Death leaned forward. "Did you get it?"

Dean stared back. "Don't you know?"

The ancient eyes narrowed in irritation, and Dean backtracked. " I mean, you already knew why we were here. Just figured you knew the rest."

"If I knew," the Horseman growled. "I wouldn't have asked."

Dean nodded slowly; even that small movement sent acid up his throat and tightened the vise around his temples. "To tell you the truth, I don't think we got the bastard." He paused, breathing deeply before opening his eyes again. "Things kinda got out of hand, I got blasted down here, and I don't have a clue where Sammy is."

The Horseman nodded, his wizened head cocked to one side. After a moment, he stood, reaching into his coat pocket.

"Forgive my manners," he said as he held out a bottle of Perrier.

Dean hesitated, staring at the bottle of sparkling water like it was manna from heaven. Finally he reached up with his good hand, taking the bottle and wedging it between his knees to loosen the cap. "You wouldn't happen to have a sandwich in there, would ya?"

Death stepped back to his chair, brushing off invisible dust motes with a skeletal hand before sitting back down. "Sorry," he replied. "If I'd known you were going to be here, I would have packed a lunch."

Dean paused, the bottle half drained as he suppressed the urge to match the Horseman's sarcasm with a zinger of his own. The cold water had revived him somewhat, but his shoulder still throbbed like a bitch and the metal band around his forehead wasn't going away, either. Frankly, he just wasn't up to a pissing contest with the old man, not that their encounter in Chicago had won him any macho points, either. But at least the guy could have brought some Chicago deep dish...

The question fluttering around Dean's scrambled brain...why Death was there, in the middle of their jacked up poltergeist hunt... was perched on the tip of his tongue. Thing was, Dean wasn't really sure he wanted to know. He was coherent enough to know he was in serious trouble; for all he knew, so was his missing brother, and things could only get worse if help didn't arrive soon.

Dean's eyes blinked open and he automatically sat up. The faint ringing from his lap was being matched by an echoing tone, muted and dull, barely there at all...from a mangled pile of rubble to his left, no more than twenty feet away. He barely felt the phone slip from his hands; it struck the floor, bounced, and the ringing finally ceased.

"No," he whispered, but despite his muddled thoughts and sluggish reaction time, he knew. He knew, the certainty of it slamming into his gut and stealing his breath. He knew why Sam wasn't hovering over him, wasn't tossing him a rope or calling Bobby for help, and in a twisted sort of way, he knew why Death was there. He knew as well they were both truly screwed to hell this time, as the muted echo of Sam's cell phone mocked him from underneath the massive pile of debris.

-o0o-

Twenty feet felt like twenty miles as Dean staggered to his feet, tucking his throbbing arm into the front of his shirt. He leaned against the wall, felt it shift under his weight then hold steady. His eyes burned and he blinked repeatedly, trying to focus. The damned dust in the air, he wiped one eye and then the other against a grimy shoulder. Of course the involuntary blurring of his vision he could blame on that and...oh yeah, his concussion. It had nothing to do with the very real, heart stopping possibility that his brother's body lay underneath what used to be the upper floor of a haunted house.

One lurching step led to another; an eternity later Dean reached the pile of wood beams, broken furniture and plaster that filled the corner of the basement to almost shoulder height. He deliberately ignored the specter who sat watching, silently, as he started to dig, slowly, laboriously, with his one good hand.

Sometime later, he stopped to catch his breath, leaning forward, sweat dripping into his eyes. As he slowly straightened and reached for what remained of a splintered kitchen chair, something shifted in the rubble and Dean froze. Either the precariously balanced pile of debris was settling, or...

"Sammy?" Dean knelt, one knee in the dirt, listening. "If you can hear me, I'm gonna get you out...hold on."

Dean waited, listening, hoping for a reply. The basement was eerily silent, save for the pounding pulse of his heartbeat thrumming in his aching head.

"I don't suppose you could help me out here?" Dean glanced over at his now silent visitor as the remains of the wooden chair slid off the pile.

"That is not why I am here."

A chill slid down Dean's spine that had nothing to do with the sweat sliding down his face to pool at the hollow of his throat. His one functioning hand shook as he reached for another splintered piece of lumber, tossing it into the corner before pausing to catch his breath.

Time to change the subject. "By the way," another piece of debris landed in the corner. "Where's your sidekick?"

"Pardon me?" The boredom in the Horseman's voice carried clearly across the room.

"You know," Dean paused to wipe salt and dust from his eyes. "Tonto...Robin?" When Death's frown deepened, Dean continued hastily. "Perky little brunette, reaps souls for you?"

Death leaned back in his chair. "You mean Tessa."

"Yeah."

"Oh, she's here."

Dean kicked what had once been a cabinet door to the corner before glancing around. "Must be more concussed than I thought, 'cause I can't see her."

"There's no reason why you should." Death leaned forward, into Dean's line of sight.

"She isn't here for you."

-o0o-

A splintered shaft of wood fell from Dean's nerveless fingers as he slowly turned and stared at the ancient Horseman. His throat worked but no sound would come out into a room suddenly sucked dry of oxygen. Death met his stare with an unblinking one of his own as Dean finally found his voice.

"No," he winced at the shakiness of his voice. He took a deep breath, then another, then stepped toward the Horseman. "You can't take him."

A look of bewilderment passed over the ancient figure's face. "I don't think..."

"I won't let you take him." Dean's voice was rough, his determination unwavering.

Death tilted his head to one side, one eyebrow canted. "Suppose you tell me how you're going to stop me."

Once again Dean's voice failed him. His head ached, his shoulder burned like a sonofabitch, his one good hand was bleeding and studded with splinters. He was trapped and alone and hurting and his normally sharp response time was shot to hell. Not to mention that his brother was about to board a one-way train to eternity, if the ghoulish figure before him was to be believed. One foot on the platform, the other foot on the train... lyrics from a classic rock song flashed into his head, and Dean honestly believed he was losing his mind.

And yet...

Dean leaned against a support beam, absently tucking his useless right arm back into the front of his shirt. He studied the ancient being who sat, brushing at dust motes and glancing around disdainfully at his surroundings.

If he was gonna take Sam, he would have done it already. He's right; I can't stop him, so why he is...and Sam...still here?

Dean turned back to his task, too exhausted to waste time and energy on questions he didn't want the answers to. Only one thing really mattered, and that was digging his brother out from underneath the pile of rubble that looked as insurmountable as when he had first seen it.

"Look," he said as he dragged a section of ceiling tile off the pile, "Don't let me keep you. I'm sure you have more important things to do than hang out here with me."

"That is true." Death looked around distastefully. "There are much more...cleaner...places I could be."

"That makes two of us." Dean grimaced as the sound of a timber crashing next to him shot a white hot beam of pain through his concussed skull.

"You shouldn't be doing that, you know."

Dean turned with gritted teeth. "Yeah, well, I don't see anybody else here to do it, so..."

"Why do it at all?" The Horseman rose from his perch, hands clasped behind his back like a soldier.

"Do what? Save my brother?" Dean turned his back in disgust. "Cause if you're here to talk me out of it, you wasted the trip."

Death took a step closer, and his next words froze Dean in his tracks.

"What do you know about crush injuries, Dean?"

-o0o-

The dim, dust filled room was spinning. It was like that freaky assed scene in Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy's house was in the middle of the tornado...or maybe the world outside was cycling the drain, Dean never was really sure about that. Most probably it was all a figment of a concussed Dorothy's imagination. At least that was Sam's theory, the first time he watched it at ten years old, and damned if he wasn't right. The brothers never watched it again after that; Dean because it was a lame movie, and Sam because the flying monkeys freaked him out.

Dean could swear the room was spinning now. Bile crept up his throat and his knees refused to hold him. The sudden jar of hitting the floor on his ass did nothing for his headache, which was screaming at him now to do something about it, or just pass out, just pick one.

He stared up at the implacable, ghoulish face above him, and only the thought of the total humiliation of losing his lunch in front of the Horseman held the nausea down. Of course he knew about crush injuries; John Winchester was nothing if not thorough in his instruction on how to handle most any injury their chosen lifestyle could give rise to. A person trapped under a heavy weight could survive the initial injury, only to die from organ failure when the poisons released by crushed muscle shut the body down. Then there was the ever popular bleed-out when blood flow was reestablished to a fatal wound.

"What are you..."The question lodged in Dean's throat, choking him as surely as the dust laden air.

"What did you think falling through a floor and having half a house follow you down would do to a human body, Dean?" Death was warming to his subject matter now. "Humans are pathetically soft and fragile." He stopped in front of Dean, staring down placidly. "They don't bounce, you know."

Dean slowly pushed himself up from the floor, swaying slightly as he stood. He'd be damned if he'd let that freak of nature look down on him like the insect he so obviously thought he was. The Horseman tilted his head up as Dean towered over him, as if daring him to respond.

Dean shifted his feet and almost landed on his ass again, the ringing in his ears an accompaniment to the ever growing pain in his head and shoulder and hand and...hell, most everything hurt now. Finally he shuffled back to the pile of rubble; taking a deep breath, he pulled another section of flooring off the pile and tossed it toward the corner with his one semi-good hand.

The pile shifted again, and Dean froze. His brain wasn't firing on all eight cylinders, he knew that, he'd had enough concussions to recognize the signs. Maybe that was why the Horseman's words had taken awhile to sink in. Crush injuries...oh my God...

"You're saying..." Dean said softly without turning around. "That if I dig him out, he could die."

The silence from behind him was all the answer he needed. "But, if I don't dig him out, he could still die."

"Why don't you ask me what you really want to know?"

Dean reached for another piece of lumber, wondering if ignoring the pompous specter would make him go away. A long suffering sigh from behind him answered that question.

"You want to know why I'm here," he persisted.

"No, actually." Dean heaved a splintered piece of a kitchen chair across the room. "I really want to know why you're still here. Because Sammy's not going with you, and I'm not going with you, I don't care how hot Tessa is."

A pause, then "You've seen what I do, what my responsibilities are."

Small talk, really? Dean stopped to reposition his useless-and now throbbing-arm back into the front of his shirt. "Yeah, and your job sucks."

"Depends on your point of view, I suppose. And yet..." Death stepped over a shattered slab of ceiling tile and stood next to Dean, watching him work. "The two of you have been doing my job practically your entire lives."

The close proximity of the Horseman sent a shiver down Dean's spine. "Guess you didn't get the memo, then." Another splintered beam slid off the pile. "We don't kill people."

"You decide to end a creature's existence."

Dean gritted his teeth. "Sons of bitches who deserve it. But not humans."

Death nodded his head. "But who are you, to decide who lives and who dies?"

"I can't say it any plainer than this," Dean paused, glancing over his shoulder as he wiped his sweaty brow on his sleeve. "My brother said once that there was so much evil in the world that you could drown in it. Maybe we're just trying to keep our heads above water."

"Because someone has to do it."

Dean paused, swaying, his patience all but gone. "I guess so. Now, if you don't mind, I..."

"Why?"

Dean whirled and the room spun. He reached out blindly to steady himself and the pain shot lightning through his damaged shoulder and down his back. "Can we play twenty questions another day?" he growled. " I've got work to do."

The Horseman's eyes narrowed and the room felt noticeably colder. Dean knew he was nearing the end of his endurance and if he fell, neither he nor his brother would leave this place alive.

"You didn't answer my question."

"God...what question?" Dean was sorely tempted to just lay his head down on the timbers and go to sleep, just for a little while. Maybe then the irritating little man would go away and leave him alone.

"This...crusade of yours. Why do you do it?"

Another glistening bottle of ice cold water appeared in Dean's line of vision, and he grabbed it without hesitation. Half of it was gone before he came up for air, exhaustion pulling him back to lean against the pile of debris.

"Why do we do it?" he coughed, a dry hacking sound from deep in his chest. " You're talking to the wrong person. Sammy...now, he'd debate you all day about being compassionate...about saving people."

"And why does he do it?" Death had perched back upon his chair again, his skeletal frame tilted forward as if he was enthralled with the discussion.

Dean blinked. " I...to tell you the truth, I really don't know."

"Family business?"

"In the beginning, yeah, I guess so."

"And now?"

"Like I said," Dean turned slowly and reached for another piece of lumber. "You should ask him that. Now, professor, if philosophy class is over..."

He reached for another slab of plaster, tossing it over his shoulder as the Horseman sat silently behind him. Dean shoved a section of splintered wood off the pile, grimacing as the crash sent slivers of white hot pain through his skull. He leaned against the pile, head hanging, shoulders sagging as what little energy that had sustained him thus far seem to drain from him like a sieve.

"You know, Dean," the pretentious voice echoed off the crumbling walls. "There are many ways to help your fellow man. Most of them don't involve guns and blood and exorcisms."

Dean whirled, his balance and the water he had just inhaled precariously about to be lost. "Are you kidding me?"

Death sat up stiffly in his chair, eyes narrowed and cold.

Dean knew he had stepped over that infamous line his brother constantly bitched at him about; the line that had ignited more than one bar fight and might possibly be the last line he ever crossed in this lifetime. But his head was splitting, his arm and shoulder were on fire, his brother was dying and he had had enough.

"If there was an easier way, don't you think we'd be doing it?"

The Horseman held his gaze, unblinking and still. After a moment, he leaned forward.

"If it was easy, Dean, everyone would be doing it."

Their eyes met and suddenly gravity flipped a switch and sat Dean down on his ass in the rubble. With shaking hands braced on either side, he blinked away tears laden with dust and frustration as he looked up.

"Tell me why you're here." The words were out before he could stop them.

-o0o-

Death sat back, head tilted to one side, studying him. "I'm waiting," he finally said.

Oh God. "For what?"Dean's voice was no more than a whisper, but it carried clearly across the demolished room.

The Horseman stood, pacing the littered floor in front of Dean like a commander addressing his troops. "I don't usually make personal appearances like this, you know. You should feel honored."

"Nothing personal, but I could have skipped this whole freaking day, no problem." Dean said as he wearily swiped a grimy sleeve across his eyes. He knew he should get back on his feet, keep digging, but his vision was blurring and the pain in his head and useless arm was making him nauseous. Frankly, he was pretty sure just getting off the floor was more than he could handle. He leaned back against the debris that separated him from Sam and closed his eyes.

"Suppose I told you," the Horseman said softly as Dean opened his eyes. "Suppose I could assure you that your days of looking after your brother, of being responsible for him, were over." Death stepped over and looked down at him. "How would you feel about that?"

"I already told you," Dean growled as he slowly pushed himself to his feet, swaying slowly as he rose. "You're not taking him."

"Are you being obtuse on purpose?" When Dean merely blinked at him, Death continued. "If I wanted to take him, I never would have retrieved his soul from hell. You do know that he still carries Lucifer in his head?"

"I know he has...hallucinations...about Luci," Dean shot back. "They're flashbacks, memories. Memories that your wall was supposed to protect him from."

"Your angel friend is to blame for the failure of the wall; I suggest you take that up with him," Death said haughtily. "Although I understand he is...unavailable...at the moment. There is one thing you seem to have ignored since the collapse of the wall."

"Oh, yeah?" Dean said wearily. "And what is that?"

Death studied him thru narrowed eyes. "You were in hell and you still carry your memories of that, I'm sure. Have you never wondered why your memories are of what happened to you there, while your brother's memories consist of Lucifer being here, with him now?"

Dean leaned against the debris pile, too weary to start again. "I don't see your point. If you have one, that is."

"My point," Death stepped forward into Dean's personal space. "My point is simple. Your brother sees Lucifer with him...here...now...because he is here."

Dean returned the Horseman's unflinching stare. "That's not possible. Luci is locked away in his cage."

"Is he?" Death turned and paced slowly back to his chair, perching primly on its edge. "All it would take is one little piece of him, attached to your brother's soul, and he could exist in your brother's mind forever. He would never be free of him."

"But only in his mind, right?" The words stuck in his throat, his heart thudding in his chest. "He wouldn't be real."

"In Sam's mind, he is real." The Horseman sat back, crossing his spindly legs. "How long do you suppose he can maintain his sanity under those conditions?"

"If Luci rode piggyback when you pulled Sam's soul out," Dean said, hearing the challenge in his own voice, "Then that would be on you, wouldn't it?"

Silence, thick and heavy, settled between the two men, the hunter and the horseman. Death studied the weary young man before him for a moment. "Which would you prefer, Dean? The way he is now, or the way he was before?"

"How about a door number three there, 'cause I don't like either of the first two choices," Dean replied as he turned and lifted a shaking hand to pull out yet another piece of splintered wood from the pile. But this time, the wood held fast, refusing to move even an inch, and Dean knew he had reached the end of his endurance. Before he realized it, he was slumped on the floor again, drained and exhausted, unable to move.

-o0o-

"You can't save him, Dean," Death said, and Dean's insides twisted into a knot. With clenched teeth he sat up and glared back at the ancient man.

"I'll die trying."

The Horseman studied him, then slowly rose to his feet. "Yes, I suppose you will. But, in order for you to-once again-sacrifice yourself, you have to save yourself first."

Dean leaned back against the rubble and closed his eyes. "I was kinda shooting for the both of us to get out of here together. I'm not leaving him." He frowned at the rough scrabble of his voice and the vice that continued to tighten around his temples. The air felt thicker where he sat, but the energy to get up and start digging again just wasn't there. He glanced up as the Horseman nodded back at him, with what might pass as a smile softening his rigid features.

"You asked why I was here."

"Forget I asked," Dean wheezed, his vision blurring as the Horseman looked down at him.

"And I told you I was waiting. I was...intrigued...by your motivation to keep going, to keep fighting when any sane man would have given up." Death paused, a slight smile on his thin lips, as if the answer pleased him. "I gave you an impossible choice: to let your brother, and whatever may or may not reside within him, live... or die. I was waiting to see what your answer would be."

Dean closed his eyes and blew out a long, ragged breath. "But you already knew the answer. You said I can't save him."

When he opened his eyes, Death was looking down at him, his expression as implacable as usual. "I never said you couldn't, Dean. I said it was not your responsibility to save him...not this time." When Dean merely stared at him, blinking slowly, Death continued. "There is a natural order to the universe. Upset that order, and chaos is the result. All things happen for a reason, Dean."

"You have any more cheesy platitudes to spit out there, pal? 'Cause, frankly, I file your 'natural order' right up there with destiny. It's a crock of..."

"Regardless of how you feel about it," Death continued as if Dean hadn't spoken. "That is the way it is." He paused, studying the young hunter until he was sure he had his attention. "I do have one more 'cheesy platitude' for you, as you so glibly put it."

When Dean merely blinked at him, the Horseman continued. "Patience is a virtue, one you obviously do not possess. But this is one situation where you will have to learn patience. You want to save your brother, but sometimes you have to ... step back...and let things happen as they were meant to." He turned as if to leave, then paused and glanced back over his shoulder.

"You and your brother will live to fight another day. You still have work to do, the both of you. But saving him is not your responsibility. That falls upon the one who caused his current condition, and it falls upon your brother himself. All you have to do is catch him when he stumbles, and have faith when he loses faith in himself. It wouldn't hurt to have a little faith in yourself while you're at it." A slight smile creased the ancient one's shrunken features. "In other words, just keep doing what you've been doing your whole lives."

He stepped toward the shadows, looking over his thin shoulder once more. "Building a wall is easy, Dean. Holding it up when it starts to crumble takes much more strength."

Dean blinked, shaking his head to clear his fuzzy vision. When he glanced back up, the Horseman was gone. The air in the room seemed to lighten slightly, as if someone had opened up the demolished ceiling and allowed more light to enter. Exhaustion settled like a blanket around his shoulders. As his eyes slid shut, he thought he heard voices calling his name, but the siren call of sleep was louder, and he slipped away.

-o0o-

The first thing he saw was white: a white tiled ceiling, illuminated by harsh fluorescent light. Dean blinked against the glare, his eyelids heavy and his vision unfocused. When he opened his eyes again, the light overhead was extinguished, the room softly lit by filtered sunlight thru drawn shades across the room.

"Is that better?"

Dean rolled his head on the pillow toward the voice, the muzziness wrapped around his brain slowly fading as a hand came to rest on his shoulder.

"Are you with me this time?" The voice had a name, and if he concentrated hard enough, Dean was sure it would come to him.

"Guess not," a soft chuckle was followed by a tug on the blanket that covered him.

"Sam?" His voice was rough as ground glass and almost unrecognizable. "S'that you?" He blinked, and this time his brother's face came into focus, leaning over his bed.

"Got it in one," Sam said as he lifted a straw to Dean's lips. "Here, you sound like you need this."

Dean drank until he was breathless, his eyes never leaving the younger Winchester's face. When the cup was empty, Sam set the cup to the side and eased onto the side of his brother's bed. "How do you feel?" he asked.

"I..." Dean hesitated, looking around the dimly lit hospital room. "I'm fine, I guess."

Sam frowned. "You're not fine; you're nowhere near fine. But you will be; the doctor says..."

"Wait...wait," Dean shifted in the bed, trying in vain to sit up.

Sam stood and propped pillows behind Dean's back until he looked more comfortable. "What?"

Fragmented pieces of memory were beginning to fall into place: the poltergeist, the fall into the basement, the horrific rubble that had separated them, and the specter of Death, hovering over him, telling Dean there was nothing he could do to save his brother.

And yet, there he was, sitting inches away, his eyes shadowed and his face stubbled...but breathing and alive. Somewhere between the then of the basement, and the now of waking in a hospital, Dean knew he had lost a chunk of time. He had no memory whatsoever of how they got out, or when.

"Are you alright? And don't tell me you're fine."

Sam sighed and sat back down in the bedside chair. "I'm tired. But..." He glanced down, fingering a fold in the crisp linen sheet. "I feel a lot better now. You've been drifting in and out for a couple of days now; this is the first time you've been lucid."

"A couple of days?" Dean's eyes widened in disbelief.

"Yeah," Sam sighed again as he leaned back in the chair. "You've been here since Tuesday. It's Thursday now. I've told you this a couple of times already."

Dean frowned. "I don't remember any of that."

"I know," Sam smiled. "But you sound more with it this time. You've been rambling, mumbling a lot of crazy stuff the last few hours."

Dean rolled his head, his aching - three sizes too big - head, now that he was awake enough to be aware of it, on the pillow and fixed a bleary stare on his brother again.

"So...how did you get out?"

"Honestly? I don't know; just lucky, I guess..." Sam paused when he saw his brother's eyes widen and face drain of color. "Dean...what is it?" He leapt from the chair, leaning over the bed toward the call button. He froze when a shaking hand caught his wrist.

"Lucky?" Dean's voice sounded like gravel on ice. "Is that what you call it? You were under like a ton of crap, man..."

Sam frowned at the bone grinding grip, sliding back to sit down and finally prying Dean's hand from his arm. "What are you talking about?"

"I remember running right behind you." Dean closed his eyes, willing his headache to back down so he could put his thoughts in order. "Then...it was like the whole freakin' house was caving in."

A moment of silence prompted Dean to open his eyes again. Sam sat frozen, eyes stricken and unfocused; obviously the moment was replaying in his mind's eye, too.

"It did."

-o0o-

Dean blinked. "It did...what?"

Sam took a deep breath, exhaled it shakily. "The house...it just...collapsed. I remember running out onto the porch, and looking back into the kitchen, looking for you." His hands twisted the starched sheet at Dean's side, his knuckles white. "I saw...the floor, it just...swallowed you up. Then the poltergeist, or whatever the hell it was, dropped the house on you."

Dean met his gaze. "On us, you mean."

"No," Sam whispered as he glanced away. "I tried to get back to you, but the walls caved in, and then the roof went, and I couldn't get back in, and I..."

"Take a breath, bro." Dean gazed up at the ceiling, trying to reconcile the version of events his brother was relating to the swiss cheese version his scrambled brain recalled. "No, no" he mumbled to himself. "That's not right; that's not what happened."

"Dean, look," Sam said as he stood, nervously smoothing the hopelessly wrinkled sheets he had crushed moments ago. "You just woke up, the doc says you have a kick-ass concussion so I know your head's gotta be killing you. Get some sleep; we'll talk more tomorrow."

"We'll talk about it now," Dean said, his normally because I said so tone sounding painfully weak. "I'm not...Just tell me this: how did you get out of the basement?"

Sam sat back down. "I was never in the basement. I told you..."

"I know what you told me, but he said..." Dean paused, frowning at the ceiling.

"Who said?"

Dean opened his mouth to reply, then hesitated. Every passing minute brought his memories a bit more into focus. There was something jacked up about this whole situation, some reason why his version of events, scrambled as they might be, didn't jive with Sam's.

Sam sat back in his chair, studying him. "You sounded like you were talking to someone, the last couple of hours, in your sleep. Did you think I was down there with you?"

Dean glanced away, suddenly unsure of the reliability of his thoughts, his memories. Then something Sam said earlier bounced back in his brain, and he turned his head toward his brother again.

"You said I've been here since Tuesday." When Sam nodded, Dean continued. "Sam, we went to that damned house on a Sunday."

Sam swallowed audibly and for a long moment, Dean thought his brother was going to be ill. Sam closed his eyes for a moment before leaning forward again.

"Dean, when I said the house collapsed on you, I meant it. It took fire and rescue almost two days to dig you out. They had to stabilize the building before they would even go in." He nodded when Dean's eyes widened in shock. "This is the first time you've been coherent since they brought you in." His voice softened to a whisper. "You're damned lucky to be alive, big brother."

Dean shifted in the bed, each abused muscle and bruised body part making their presence known. He glanced over at his brother.

"Two days, huh?"

"Yep."

"No wonder you look like crap. Have you slept at all?"

Sam shrugged. "Some, I guess. At least this chair is more comfortable than the back of the piece of crap we're driving now. Camped out there while the rescue guys were doing their thing."

"For two days?" Dean frowned as Sam shrugged again.

"I wasn't leaving until I knew you were okay." Sam sat up a little straighter, his chin out in defiance. "You would have done the same thing."

...I'm not leaving him...His own words, uttered in desperation, echoed back to him now. He stared at the ceiling, unable to reconcile the feeling of hopelessness from his conversation with the Horseman, with the incredible relief of knowing his brother had not needed him to save him from certain death...at least not this time. The adrenaline rush of waking, not to a dusty tomb but to a dimly lit hospital room, was rapidly fading away, leaving Dean feeling wasted and exhausted.

Sam saw his brother's eyes glaze over and slowly close. "You hung on longer than I thought you would," he smiled as he smoothed the covers over Dean's bruised chest. "But then again, you always do." He rose, switching the bathroom light on, leaving a crack in the door. The last thing he wanted his brother to do was to wake up in the dark, after two days under the ruins of that damned house. "Going for coffee. I'll be right back," he whispered, stopping in the doorway one more time before slipping out, blinking wearily against the harsh florescent lighting as he trudged slowly down the hall.

-o0o-

Soft voices and the squeak of rubber soled shoes outside his door roused Dean from his slumber. He started to raise his arms to stretch, feeling the pull of an IV line on one side and the restriction of the sling holding his damaged shoulder immobile on the other. Moving also woke up damaged muscles that threw his entire upper torso into lockdown. He settled for flexing his fingers, the only part of his anatomy that didn't feel like it had been hammered and rolled flat.

Sam was sleeping in the chair beside him, looking so uncomfortable that it almost made Dean feel guilty for being in a bed. Then he shifted again, and bruises on top of bruises reminded him of why. At least the blinding headache of the previous day had settled down to an dull ache behind his eyes. His thought processes felt less jumbled, clearer, too. Things were looking up.

A gasp, followed by a groan, signaled Sam's return to life, as he stretched cramped muscles and massaged his stiff neck. He frowned as Dean grinned at him from the bed.

"You have bed head from hell, Sammy."

Sam ignored the taunt, rising stiffly from the chair and stretching long arms that almost touched the ceiling. "How'd you sleep?" he asked.

"Better than you, I'll bet." Dean wiggled, peering under the sheet, a frown appearing, followed by a sigh.

"Yeah, maybe so," Sam grinned. "But I don't have a catheter attached to me like a puppy on a leash."

"This ain't no puppy, Sammy. This is..."

"Whoa!" Sam held up his hands. "Save that for the nurses."

"I will. There's plenty to go around."

"You must be feeling a lot better today." Sam rounded the bed, headed for the washroom. "I have something to tell you that'll make you feel even better." He splashed water on his face, eyed his stubble with bleary eyes, then returned to his brother's bedside. "Talked to your doc last night. He says your X-rays were clear, nothing broken. So, you're cleared to get out of here today."

"Best news I've heard in a long time." Dean glanced around. "Where's my clothes?"

"Not so fast,"Sam said. "Doc said he'd come around about ten to write up your discharge. You can wait until then."

"Since when have we ever waited?"

Sam pointed toward Dean's lap. "You really want to take Fido off his leash yourself?"

Dean shivered. "Not really. Didn't want the damned thing to begin with."

Sam sat down, easing his head back against the wall. Dean studied him, noted the pallor of his skin, the dark circles under his eyes.

"You sure you're okay?" he asked as Sam rolled his head toward him. "Luci been keeping you company while I was out of the game?"

Sam stared at the ceiling, absently massaging his scarred palm. "He was in and out. Wasn't too bad." At Dean's huff of disbelief, he turned toward his brother again, his head still propped against the wall.

"You know," Sam began softly. "Sometimes I go for days without seeing him. It used to be...just in my dreams, you know? But now..." he paused and Dean waited. After a moment, Sam took a deep breath and continued.

"Now, I see him, hear him, anytime, anywhere. It scares me, but it makes me mad, too."

"Mad?" Dean shifted up in the bed. "Why?"

"We've got so many problems a lot more important than my...issues. We got Castiel, and the Leviathans, and that's what we should be dealing with now. I'm tired of being scared of a ghost, Dean. And that's what he is. He's not real, he's not here. I know that, in my heart, but my head isn't listening."

Dean was shaking his head before Sam finished talking. "First of all, Castiel is a non-issue. He broke your Wall, and as far as I'm concerned, he's not even on our list of 'issues' anymore. I'm done with him. And the Leviathans, well, they're out there, and we'll deal with them."

Now it was Sam's turn to huff out a note of disbelief. "I wish I had your confidence. I just feel like I won't be much help to you until I can get my head on straight again."

Dean leaned back as more fragments of his possibly concussion birthed conversation with the Horseman popped up in his mind:

"You do know that he still carries Lucifer in his head?"

"I know he has...hallucinations...about Luci. They're flashbacks, memories. Memories that your wall was supposed to protect him from."

"Your angel friend is to blame for the failure of the wall; I suggest you take that up with him."

Fat chance of that happening, Dean thought, considering Castiel was no more than an oil slick now. Still, the prospect of watching his not-so-little brother fight a demon, real or otherwise, and not being able to help, pissed him off royally. He refused to believe Lucifer was entrenched in Sam's head. There was an answer out there, he knew it. He just had to be...patient...

"I do have one more 'cheesy platitude' for you, as you so glibly put it."

Dean knew how things were meant to happen; he was the one who should be able to fix Sam's broken wall. It had been his responsibility for as long as he could remember. Sure, he'd like nothing better than to summon Castiel and demand he fix the damage he had caused, but that option wasn't on the table any longer. Patience was not a virtue Dean aspired to, and waiting for things to happen per Death's "natural order" of the universe wasn't going to help anyone, least of all Sam.

The more he thought about it, the more certain Dean was that his bizarre conversation with Death, down in that basement, was nothing more than convoluted spasms of a concussed brain. Thinking back on it, the Horseman had never specifically confirmed that Sam was buried under the rubble; Dean's shaken brain had just assumed it. Seeing his brother, tired and scruffy looking, but alive and well and in full mother-hen mode, was reason enough to write off the entire experience as nothing more than a pain and stress induced, four day long equivalent of a very bad dream. Death may well have been in that basement with him, but only in a figurative way. Dean had escaped its clutches because of tireless rescue workers and a little brother who never gave up. It was as simple as that.

-o0o-

"Take it slow," Sam cautioned as he tucked Dean's elbow into his palm. "Just ease around and sit down."

Dean wanted to snatch his arm away and grumble something appropriate for the situation, but his muscles were locking up and walking the three steps from the bedside to the wheelchair was looking like something he should have postponed until, oh, maybe next week. But they were halfway there now, and he'd be damned if he was staying in that hospital bed another minute longer than necessary.

He felt Sam's strong arm around his back as he landed none too gracefully in the seat. "I'm not sure you're ready for this," Sam frowned as he leaned back and studied him. "Your bruises have bruises."

"Been there before, will probably go there again," Dean growled. "I want a real bed and real food. Not staying here."

Sam smiled at the pout that accompanied Dean's words. "You're gonna need to take it easy for a while, you know. You were trapped under that house for a long time. Crushed muscles take a while to heal."

Dean frowned as another fragment of his trauma induced memory resurfaced...

"What do you know about crush injuries, Dean?"

"What did you think falling through a floor and having half a house follow you down would do to a human body, Dean? They don't bounce, you know."

"You know," Dean said as his brother pushed him toward the door. "When I was down there, I thought you were, too. I spent a lot of time trying to dig you out and you were up here, okay the whole time."

Sam stopped at the doorway, stepping in front of the wheelchair to open the door. He looked down at his brother and shook his head.

"Dean, you're still a little confused. The rescue guys said you were trapped under a ton of beams and stuff. There's no way you would have been digging anybody out. You couldn't even get yourself out."

"Yeah, I know. There was a lot of freaky stuff that I thought I remembered that really didn't happen at all. Guess it's a good thing I don't remember being down there all that time."

"Yeah," Sam agreed softly as they entered the hallway. "You must have been in survival mode, though, even though you don't remember it. Good thing you packed those water bottles."

"Water bottles?" Dean reached out, grabbed the wheel and dragged the chair to a sudden stop. "What water bottles?"

"The ones you must have put in your coat pockets before we went in," Sam said, leaning over and removing Dean's hand from the wheel. "The rescue guys said they found two empty bottles lying near your hand in the rubble. They said if you had gone two days without water, you would have been a lot worse off when they found you. Good thinking, bro, but since when can we afford Perrier?"

Dean blinked against the glare of the sun as they rolled through the hospital exit. The sun was warm, but the chill snaking down his spine had nothing to do with the weather.

"Perrier is just a fancy name for overpriced spring water, Sammy," he replied, searching his memory for any reason why he would have packed expensive French spring water for a poltergeist hunt. He held up a hand to stave off his hovering brother's hand, choosing to rise stiffly from the chair under his own power. He couldn't stifle the groan that escaped, however, when he lowered his aching body into the front seat.

"I don't care how much you spent for it," Sam said as he shut the door. "If it kept you hanging on until they got you out, it was worth every penny."

"Damn straight." Dean's grin faded as his brother shoved the wheelchair back toward the entrance and headed back to the car. He slipped on the sunglasses Sam wordlessly held out to him as they eased into the late morning traffic. His headache surged forward again between his eyes, and this time he knew it was due to more than just latent trauma.

If the bottles were real...Dean didn't want to let the disconcerting thoughts back into his mind, but they wouldn't stay in the corner where he had stored them away earlier...

The Horseman nodded, his wizened head cocked to one side. After a moment, he stood, reaching into his coat pocket.

"Forgive my manners," he said as he held out a bottle of Perrier.

He could hear the voice now as clearly as if...as if it had been real, and not a figment of his concussed brain...

"Building a wall is easy, Dean. Holding it up when it starts to crumble takes much more strength."

"Hey, Sammy?"

"Yeah?"

"Keep a lookout for a McDonald's. I could use a sandwich."

Sam grinned as he skillfully changed lanes. "Nothing ever changes, does it?"

Dean glanced back, his smile a little softer but just as sincere. "Nope. And nothing ever will."

THE END