Genre: Gen
Characters: Dean, Sam, Ruby, Castiel
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2,300
Spoilers: Up to 4.18
Summary: Dean wakes up and it was all a dream.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. I sold my soul to Kripke.
A/N: WIAWSNB and a bottle of wine. Not a good combination.
Please note, I'm spoiler-free, so please don't spoiler me in comments! This is all ridiculous conjecture with no basis in reality!

KEEPING IT REAL

By Irismay42

Dean opened his eyes slowly, gaze fixed on a point above his head no longer blackened and on fire.

Ceiling tile.

Off-white polystyrene, the cheap stuff he'd seen in a hundred police stations and hospitals over the years.

He blinked, dragging a ragged breath into unaccountably smoke-free lungs and wondered what had happened to the sky.

As blood.

Ash raining down all around him; darkness and fire and screaming and corpses piled like autumn leaves in gutters running with blood.

And Sammy.

Please, Sammy...

He blinked again, fire, blood, death and the yellow eyes of his baby brother once more dissolving and reforming into dirty ceiling tiles and a muted strip light.

He took another cautious breath, as if the air itself was an illusion, afraid to close his eyes again in case he should open them only to find himself strapped to the Rack with Alastair's razor slicing into his flesh.

Over and over.

It's where I need you to be, Dean.

Please, Sammy...

But Alastair was dead.

Sam had torn him to pieces with the power of his mind and the demon blood pumping through his veins.

It's where I need you to be.

The callused thumb that traced his cheekbone was gentle and hesitant, backwards and forwards, a large hand cupping his cheek with fingertips that no longer burned.

Wrapped around his throat, they burned as they choked the life from him.

"I'm sorry, Dean. I can't let you stay here."

"Please, Sammy…"

His eyes finally closed, and he was afraid to open them again, fearful of Hellfire and his brother's yellow irises staring back at him from where he stood atop a pile of corpses, human and angels alike, eviscerated with only a tiny inclination of his head.

Ruby at his side, watching.

"I never meant this," she'd said, eyes never straying from Sam's triumphant visage as his fingers tightened about Dean's throat. "I never meant for this to happen. Lilith. I only meant him to stop Lilith…"

And stop her he had.

One blinding flash of light and all that was left was a pile of ash, her demonic hoards now Sam's to command, prostrated at the feet of Azazel's Boy King.

Lilith was dead. Long live Sam Winchester.

And the End of Days was his.

Dean may have started the Apocalypse, but Sam was sure as Hell going to finish it.

"I never meant for this to happen."

Ruby had been gazing at Sam with love and adoration in her obsidian eyes, tears running down her cheeks even as she'd thrown her knife to Dean, the sigils on the blade glowing fire and blood.

And as he'd plunged the knife into Sam's blackened heart, he'd wondered whether Ruby loved his little brother as much as he did.

"I'm sorry, Dean."

Puppy-dog eyes, hazel-blue, blinking at his big brother, his protector, his best friend, his family, as his lifeblood, tainted and profane, seeped warm onto Dean's trembling fingers.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, Dean."

The voice was close by, a whisper in his ear as those same fingers that had burned Dean's flesh as they tightened around his throat gently brushed through his hair.

"I should have found you sooner."

Sam's eyes were glistening hazel when Dean finally plucked up the courage to open his own, apology, worry, love and Dean's own face reflected back at him in gathering tears unshed.

Sam was inches away from him, one hand stroking Dean's hair, the other resting on his brother's chest, right above his heart.

Dean could feel his own heartbeat quickening under his brother's hand.

"Sammy?"

Fear spiked like broken glass along Dean's spine and his whole body stiffened.

"Please, Sammy. Don't… please…"

"Dean? Dean!" A radiant smile unaccountably lit up Sam's face, his head snapping up from where his chin had rested on the edge of the mattress. "Oh thank God!"

And Sam almost sounded like he meant it.

"I thought—I thought I lost you, man!"

Dean swallowed, his hammering heart painful against his ribs.

"Please, Sammy."

"It's okay. It's okay, Dean," Sam soothed, his thumb smoothing the lines of fear creasing Dean's forehead. "It's okay, you're okay. I got you. I got you."

Sam was gazing intently at him, large hand pressed warm against his cheek.

Warm like blood on Dean's fingers.

"How much do you remember?"

Dean swallowed again.

Too much.

Blood and ash and his brother's mirthless smile.

"Do you know where you are?"

Dean couldn't answer. Even if he'd wanted to.

"It's okay, you're in the hospital. You're safe. You're safe. It was touch and go there for a while, but…" Sam shook his head, and Dean thought his hair looked too long.

No longer matted with ash and blood.

Dean reached out and touched a strand.

Sam frowned minutely, catching Dean's fingers and gripping his hand. "You're okay, Dean. You're safe now. Whatever that thing did to you—"

"Thing?"

"It's not going to hurt you anymore."

"But—"

"She's okay," Sam added hesitantly. "The girl? She's going to be okay." He sighed. "Physically. They've got her on a psych hold. Keeps asking for her dad. He's been dead ten years. She's got no clue where she is."

"Girl?" Dean's voice sounded odd, scratchy, the way it sounded after thirty years of screaming.

Sam nodded. "There was a girl in there with you. When I found you. She was in an even worse state that you were."

Dean frowned. "I was…?"

"I should have found you sooner." Sam was touching Dean's cheek again. "I'm so sorry, Dean. You almost died."

"Almost…?"

"It almost killed you."

"It…?"

Sam frowned again, inclining his head to one side. "The Djinn."

Dean blinked at him. "The Djinn?" he echoed uncertainly.

"I don't know how long she was in there—Katie, the girl he'd got strung up like you were. They don't know if she'll ever be right again. Her mind—the things he made her see… I guess—I guess you were lucky I found you when I did."

Dean took a long, uncertain breath. "The Djinn—that was—two years ago…"

Sam squeezed Dean's hand encouragingly. "I know what it did to you, Dean. You're going to be confused for a while, it's only normal—"

"Mom. And Jess. Carmen. But not—"

"It's okay. We're okay. Soon as you're up to it, we'll go to Bobby's. Hole up for a while till you're better."

Dean's chest hurt. "But—the Djinn—"

"It's gone Dean, I killed it. Silver knife dipped in lamb's blood, right?"

"No. No I was the one who—"

"Dean, you were out of it. You've been unconscious this whole time, since I found you."

Dean couldn't breathe, couldn't think, the air around him thickening as the room seemed to slid out from under him. "How—how long was I—?"

"It took me two days to find you. And you've been here two more." Sam glanced around him nervously, as if he expected someone to be watching, listening. "We need to get out of here as soon as we can," he said. "If Henricksen finds us—"

"Henricksen?" Dean echoed. "He's dead, Sammy. Lilith killed him—"

"Lilith? Who's Lilith?" Sam asked. "And I think if anything had happened to Henricksen we'd have heard about it."

Dean blinked. "But—the police station. Lilith. Ruby. The virgin—"

"Virgin? Wow, Dean, that must have been some tale the Djinn spun you."

Dean tried to sit up, tried to move, tried to grip his brother's shoulders and shake some reality into him. "No!" he burst out. "No! It—I stabbed myself. In the dream, I stabbed myself to make myself wake up! When you die in a dream—"

"That's just an old wives' tale, Dean—"

"And—and after I woke up—" Dean stammered on, "we—you went into a diner to bring me pie and you—you disappeared, Yellow Eyes took you, and when I found you—he—Jake. He killed you, Sammy! Stabbed you in the back! And you died and I—I had to—"

Sam shook his head. "I don't know anyone called Jake, Dean," he insisted. "Or Lilith. Or Ruby. The girl's name was Katie. She was the only one still alive in there with you."

"But—Sammy—I didn't dream… I didn't dream it. I woke up. And you died and I went to Hell and—"

"Hell?" Sam's expression floundered. "Dean you—you never went to Hell. You were in a warehouse. The Djinn was feeding off of you. It was all in your head, man. All of it."

"But—Ruby. The—the demon blood…"

"Demon blood? Dean, listen to me. It was a dream. A wish—"

"Why would I wish you dead? Sammy? Why would I wish you dead and me in Hell?"

"The Djinn, Dean. It messed with your head. Made you think things were happening that weren't really happening. Maybe he had to make you think you'd escaped so that he could keep you where he needed you."

"It's where I need you, Dean…"

"But—Ruby. Bela. Pamela. Castiel…" Dean trailed off, the blank expression on Sam's face reminding him of Hellfire and Brimstone.

"I don't know who you're talking about, Dean," his little brother said, gently placing a hand on his shoulder and pushing him back down onto the bed. "You should go back to sleep. When you wake up, maybe it'll be clearer. What's real and what's not."

"I know what's real."

Hellfire and ash. Yellow eyes and corpses in the gutter.

"Go to sleep, Dean."

"Please, Sammy…"

"Everything's going to be okay, Dean. It's over. Go to sleep."

Dean felt Sam's fingertip graze his forehead, and for a second he would swear his little brother's eyes glinted yellow.

Then he knew no more.

Sam's fingertip touched Dean's forehead and the older Winchester fell into a dreamless sleep, the lines smoothing from his brow as his body gradually relaxed.

"It's over Dean. You stopped it."

"You can't keep me here forever, you know," the voice in the back of his mind told him.

"I am aware," he replied coolly. "But for now, you are where we need you to be."

"One day I'll get out. And then what's going to happen to Dean?"

"It is a calculated risk. I cannot kill you. He would only try to bring you back. Therefore, you must remain—"

"Trapped in my own meatsuit?"

"You must remain here. With me."

"You think you're strong enough, Cas? To keep me prisoner here forever?" His captive chuckled mirthlessly. "That's what he calls you, isn't it? 'Cas.' Like you're his pet or something."

"I am an angel of the Lord. You would do well to remember that."

"I remember, Castiel. I remember everything. But Dean? How much does he remember?"

Castiel sighed, or rather his vessel sighed.

Sam sighed.

"He will remember nothing. He can remember nothing. It would destroy him."

"Killing his own baby brother? After everything he did to get me back? They'd have to lock him in a rubber room for the rest of his miserable life."

"His mind is stronger than you give it credit, Sam."

"Then why do you make him forget?"

"I could not spare him the agony of Hell."

"But you can spare him the agony of knowing he stabbed his little brother through the heart with a demon-killing knife?"

"Dean did what he had to do. He stopped it—"

"I stopped it! Istopped Lilith!"

"And Dean stopped you. As was prophesied."

"Oh, he stopped me alright. A blade through the heart will do that to a person."

"I have repaired your body, Sam Winchester. One day I hope to repair your soul."

"Good luck with that."

"My Father is not insensible to your situation. He knows you had no choice in this, damned ten years before your very birth."

"Thanks, Mom…"

"But forgiveness and redemption can be yours, Sam. If only you would ask."

Castiel's prisoner was silent for a time, the only sound Dean's breathing and the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor.

"What if I don't want to be saved?"

"That is my function here," Castiel told him. "To make you realize you do want to be saved. And in this, Dean will assist me."

"You're going to keep me trapped here until I beg for mercy?"

"I am going to keep you trapped here until you are no longer a threat. Until I can save you."

"And Dean? You're going to go on letting him believe everything's okay, that you're his baby brother, that two years of his life were just a bad dream?"

"Until you can be saved. Then you will be released and he will know everything."

"Was that prophesied too?"

"The future remains unwritten. You decide what happens now, Sam."

There was a pause.

"That's all I wanted. A say in my own future."

"Your mother's bargain took that from you."

"I wanted to save the world, not destroy it."

"That wasn't your destiny."

"And now?"

"Azazel is gone. Lilith is gone. Lucifer did not rise because you would not allow it."

"Only because I wouldn't share power with him."

"Lucifer did not rise," Castiel repeated. "Because of you. Because of your brother. You stopped Lilith's Apocalypse, and Dean stopped you before you could bring about your own."

There was a long pause, and Castiel's attention was drawn back to the young man sleeping on the bed before him, his face smoothed out and innocent in sleep and forgetting.

"You think that's enough to save me?" Sam asked eventually.

"It is somewhere to begin."

The End

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