Okay so as far as this fic goes, here's my first posting for Supernatural, the show that's recently taken over my life. There is language in this fic and minor damage to the boys (heh heh) but that's all as far as warnings go. There's also really no plot. Really.

A Double-Edged Sword

-Sam-

"You know this is just ... weird right?" Dean's voice was tight and pinched. The way it was when he was scared and not trying to hiding it.

Sam sat on the cold ground, rubbing his face with his hands. "Yeah Dean, it's weird."

The elder brother nodding shakily and asked "but how, how did it happen? I don't remember you-" He stopped talking abruptly and Sam knew it was because he didn't want to say it. Sam sighed feeling suddenly very alone. It didn't seem to matter what he said because he hadn't been able to change Dean's mind. Yet he still tried. For the past hour he had tried to convince him, ever since they had woken up here.

"I'm not dead Dean. I'm right here." He reached through the bars towards his brother but it didn't matter. It never changed. And as always Dean reached forward for a second before wincing away. Heartbreaking to see the pain written clearly on his face, pain he normally locked away to protect Sam. Pain that he no longer bothered to hide because there was no point if Sam were dead. Sam shook his head frustrated. But he WASN'T dead, this was all some horrible delusion brought on by the creature that had trapped them here and was playing with them. "Dean, I'm right here." He didn't know what else to say.

He could see Dean trying to believe it, wanting to believe it and then, with the practiced strength that had been drilled into him by their father, pushing down what he wanted in order to face the truth. "Oh Sammy" Dean whispered more to himself now believing the lie even more fully. "What is Dad going to say?"

Their father, without him they would have been alone in the cold world to face the real demons, without him they would never have had the power to defend themselves and to stand up for good. Without their father Dean would have been able to break this delusion in a heart beat, the way Sam could because for some reason he'd never had the blind loyalty that Dean had had. Then again he hadn't had the responsibility that Dean had shouldered either. To Sam their father was a double edged sword, one that made you able to defeat any enemy but not without cutting yourself in the process.

Sam pounded on the bars with the flats of his hands. "Dean, Dad's not going to say anything because I'm fine. I'm right here!" But Dean was ignoring him, probably thinking it would be less painful to no longer interact with the creature that was cruelly torturing him. Sam had had enough. He couldn't stand to watch the agony sit on his brother's features. He couldn't handle the way Dean complacently didn't move from the corner of his cell, as if he was done and didn't need to move ever again. And Sam realized most of all, he couldn't deal with the idea that without him, Dean was nothing. Dean wasn't nothing, Dean COULD never be nothing. Dean was ... well, Dean was Dean. And right now he wasn't and damn it if Sam wasn't going to get his brother back.

Time to change tactics. Sam steeled himself with a short breath then plunged ahead. "I told you once that I didn't mean what I said at the asylum." Dean's head shot up and with an added sense of courage from that one singular motion Sam rushed on. "I'm taking that back. You are pathetic. You're just going to sit there and do nothing?"

"You want me to take revenge?" Dean was looking at him, something hard to describe burning in his eyes.

Sam had almost said yes, he had almost just agreed to force Dean to do anything but deep down, he didn't want revenge. If he had really died, it's not what he would have wanted for Dean and somehow that seemed to matter. "No, not revenge. I want you to get up and get yourself out of here." And me out too but we'll get to that later.

Dean narrowed his eyes. "How?"

Sam had been hoping he wouldn't ask that question. "I don't know, I just know that you have to try."

"No I don't."

Sam widened his eyes. "You ... don't? Yes you do!"

Dean sighed, a sigh of annoyance. "No I really don't Sammy. What's the point anyway? You don't want me to go kill the thing for you, I didn't figure you did, so what's the point?"

Sam felt his heart stop at those horrible words. What had he seen there in Dean's eyes?. The last embers of desire to do something? Sam's hope was fading away too. He wasn't sure if they could get out of this bazaar prison but sitting here watching crushed and defeated Dean was beyond him. He jumped to his feet and started tracing the wall of the prison with his hands. He felt a brick out of place suddenly and gave it an abrupt shove only to have it break into hundreds of pieces in his hands. The pieces fell to the ground leaving one large shard in Sam's hand. He studied it intently and somewhere in the back of his mind the thought that this was strangely convenient floated through but he pushed it back down and buried it. Frustration had given way to desperation and he walked over, shard in hand to the bars of his cage that separated him from his brother.

"Dean. Dean look at me!"

He looked up, cold dead eyes meeting shining desperate ones. "Dean, if I'm dead would I be able to do this?" He took the shard and viciously began to cut deep lines across his arm. Deep red blood welled up from the wounds and began running down his arm. Dean didn't make a sound. Sam was gasping in pain as he continued to cut lines down his arm trying to get any type of reaction from his brother. Dean ignored him completely.

Sam threw himself backwards against the wall of his cage and suddenly screamed out as loud as he could. All his pain, rage and horror voiced in one scream which tore across the room like a roll of thunder. His anger vented, Sam slumped down against the far wall he'd hit, cradling his arm and staring at his brother. Dean wasn't even looking at him and with absolute certainly Sam knew that this wasn't Dean. Dean, no matter how their father how trained him, no matter what facts lay before him would never have been able not to react to Sam hurting himself.

Never.

But it didn't make any sense because Sam could clearly FEEL Dean across the way from him. He didn't know how he knew that Dean was here, but he could feel that low hum that was Dean was near by. Sam staggered back to his feet just as a loud thumping noise coming from notDean's cell across from him started. He regained his feet then tripped and caught himself with his tore arm causing him to cry out with pain. The thumping increased just then and suddenly the brick wall exploded and as notDean faded gently away real Dean came crashing through the wall bricks and mortar falling around him. Dean stood there for a second, dust hovering around him from the wall's destruction and Sam smiled broadly. "Dean!"

Dean walked quickly across the cell to the bars. "Sam? Come here, are you hurt?" He demanded, gesturing for Sam to come to him. Sam came willingly, still smiling broadly. "What did it do to your arm?" Dean's concerned voice filled Sam with a type of joy he didn't know existed. Everything would be alright now. He had Dean back.

"It's fine. The cuts are small." This was, interestingly, a complete lie. He hadn't been able to make the cuts small and their situation was in no way fine but he couldn't help feeling light headed and almost giddy with relief. "You okay, man?"

Dean looked up from where he was smearing the blood away from the cuts on Sam's arm with his shirt to give him a 'are you crazy' look then just went back to cleaning the wounds as best he could. "Sammy, what made these? Claws? I didn't see any claws. Are you hurt anywhere else?" Dean seemed unusually obsessed with Sam's wounds and it was starting to freak Sam out.

"No, no I'm not hurt. What's wrong with you?" Sam ducked his head to make eye contact with his brother.

"Nothing's wrong with me. Jesus Sam, I hear you-" Dean paused for a moment, seemed to decide something then continued. "I heard someone screaming, I plunge through a wall here to save your sorry ass and here you are bleeding to death and all you can say is what's wrong with me?"

"I'm not bleeding to death!"

"Not now." Dean's smirk was back on his face.

Sam rolled his eyes in response, half knowing it was the reaction Dean wanted and half because GOD Dean could be so annoying. "Come on, let's get out of here."

"How are we going to do that? You going to smash through another wall?"

Dean smirked again. "Or we could just go through the door."

Sam followed Dean's glance over to the open door in his cell. "That doesn't strike you as too easy?"

Dean shrugged. "You could knock down your wall if you'd rather. I'm going through the door." With that he walked through the open door, there was a pause and Sam could hear Dean picking at the lock to the door to his cell.

"You know I was always better at picking the locks and you were only good for brute-" Dean swung the door open causing Sam to duck back "-force."

"Let's get out of here."

Dean and Sam raced through the hallway, finding a staircase out of the basement and up into the outside. The house they had been in was a small suburban home and they found themselves walking quickly down a sidewalk in the small community of Nowhere'sVille as Dean had put it so eloquently earlier.

"So what happened to us? I mean, we were caught up in, what? It's delusional death throws?" Sam was struggling to get a grip on all that had come about in the past hour of so.

"Yeah, Dad's journal said it could trap you right after you kill it. Some type of retaliation thing." Dean's words were clipped and flat. He was back to hiding.

Sam stopped walked, his arm was stinging. Dean paused beside him. "Dean, why did it... what's the purpose to its delusions?"

Dean looked at him strangely. "I don't know Sam, to punish you for killing it I guess."

"What did you see?" Sam was staring at Dean... really wondering if he actually tell him.

Dean's eyes hardened for a second. "Why'd you cut up your arm?"

They both fell into a silence and Sam nodded his understanding. They then continued down the street towards the waiting Impala, Dean's haven and Sam climbed in the passenger's side. Dean started the car and they drove off to the hotel where Dean would patch up Sam's arm, cross off another bad guy from his mental list and go back to pretending that nothing bad could ever happen to Sam. Sam sat in the car thinking about what had happened, his memories set to the roar of Metallica and suddenly the image of notDean asking him if he wanted revenge flashed unbidden into his mind. He remembered notDean's eyes and with real Dean sitting next to him humming to Metallica the expression was the same. He knew instantly what emotion had been burning in his eyes. Guilt. Sam could see it now, hidden but there in Dean's eyes.

Sam closed his eyes and sighed to himself. He loved his brother and he knew Dean loved him too and with that depth of love came responsibility, came fear and came pain. He knew that he could do anything for his brother and had proved that to Dean unknowingly with the wounds on his arm even through Dean hadn't even been there at the time. Still he wouldn't give it up and that was the final truth of the double-edged sword they welded. Sure, love hurt but without it you have nothing and nothing, Sam had learned, was much much worse.