A/N: This was conceived as a companion piece to 'Memory Awake', but is fairly well off on its own.

The crucial thing to keep in mind is that Sam gets enraged first thing upon forced resoulment and storms out, not before having some loaded words with Dean. Dean is left to carry subsequent dismay to desolation's very edge and beyond.

Set after 'Appointment in Samarra', season 6. AU, apparently, with regard to the show's proper development.

Disclaimer: None of the characters, plot-points, inherent to the show, belong to me.

Before I sleep*

For all that Bobby had stocked the panic room for a long-term siege, he really shouldn't have slacked on the heating. Dean was freezing, body raked with bone-deep shudders, his jacket doing little to ease the ever-present shiver, those days. Or maybe it was the metal floor. He refused to use the cot, still reeking of Sam's anguish and fury. Still oozing the scent of Sam, days after his brother stormed out, a gritty, choking vacuum in the wake. The walls were still ringing with Sam's screams and curses, as the blaze of the soul seeped in; Dean's own skin was still steaming from Sam's scorching glares, chills or not. So Dean chose to squat on the floor, for the most part, ever since Bobby got thoroughly unamused by his newly developed apathy and insisted he spent the nights locked up. Dean would huddle in one corner or the other and try to ignore the echo of Sam's wails, soaking the stale silence.

The dream crept closer every time Dean let fatigue get the better of his conscious mind. The same one over and over again. A long dark hallway with doors on each side, he has to walk alone. He's sure full well what's behind the doors. Who is. There's Dad, and Mom, and Sammy, of course, Lisa and Ben, even Cassie and Samuel, at times. Dean moves from door to door, knocking with one hand. Another one is clasping a small, pulsing bundle. It's smooth and sticky to his touch. Dean looks down and it's his own heart his fingers are clutching, smeared with lukewarm blood. He's knocking on closed doors, though a raspy voice from a hind-nook of his brain prompts eagerly there's no use. No one will answer, anyway. They don't want it. Don't want him. But Dean keeps banging till his knuckles are raw. For there's nothing else he has to offer, but the bruised, weary glob of flesh. Never has been.

Dean can't ever make it to the end of the corridor, his heart infallibly squashed by his own fist, force born of loathing and desperation. Sometimes as early as the very first door. Sometimes closer to the end of his woeful passage. And it hurts, oh God, it hurts, all the way to the deepest core of his very being. Dean had only undergone pain like that those thirty endless years strapped to Alastair's rack. His tears would've dried out by the time he gasps awake.

He eventually speaks up, whence Bobby barges in one of those mornings, with a usual pledge of breakfast and a mandatory exasperated kick in the ass to snap Dean out of his stupor. Dean's aware of the words being the good ones. The right ones. About acceptance and accomplishment, for Sammy's latest bout of anger was nothing if not proof his brother was able to at least feel something again. Anything.

Sam's ire at having been force-fed a soul might subside, eventually, in any given approximation, of course. But there's no Apocalypse pending this time around to prioritize over sorting through the implications of what if it, in fact, doesn't. Ever. Instead, Dean preaches his big brother's work to be done here, spells the pending need to move on to the enigmatic task Death's set up. The need to keep digging. And if Bobby doesn't buy his alleged enthusiasm, Dean wouldn't know, for it's not Bobby in the eye that he looks. He stares down at his hands, half sure the skin is still tarnished with smidges of caked blood.

Dean flexes the fingers still sore from grasping his own frenetic heart for dear life, and just knows. He's at the long last sure what awaits at the end of that hallway, how to make it all the way to the exit. As much as he's certain his meager offering would be welcome there, finally appreciated for the sheer virtue of having been ripped out of his chest.

That there should be an envelope opener, protruding among the incessant undergrowth of papers, littering Bobby's desk, is just too perfect, he muses. A good omen, if you please.

Bobby's already head over heels into research, pouring over volumes of Dante's translations into an array of non-mainstream tongues. Which is good, too, Dean makes a mental note to self. It'll keep Bobby focused. Keep the old hunter angry enough, once all's over. Bobby's ever better off researching, intense, alert and edgy. Everything is for the better.

It's easy from there. Dean's long overdue a nice hot shower, and all he really has to do is watch the slow, thick flux of crimson mix with torrenting water, muddle the swirl of rivulets at his feet, as the world dims into the blur of spattering white noise.

He loses track of time, whence the voices come piercing through the shaky, lulling haze. One, familiar in its gruffness, spitting curses so gaudy Dean's woozy mind soon fails to keep up. Another is next to unrecognizable, a prickly sharp pitch. The name shrieked out by that one is not Dean's either. Dean drifts back into the blissful fog to the breathless 'Caaaaaaaaas!' blared into nondescript ether over his ear.

The next thing his body registers is the cold. More like a cooling swish of air over bare skin, bringing the short hairs at the back of his neck to stand up. And for the world of him he's clueless why he should be exposed to chilly elements. It's supposed to be hot where he was headed, to the best of his recollection. There's way too much light as well. Enough to make Dean reconsider opening his eyes, just yet. Still, a distinct shadow looms over, obscuring the otherwise offending blaze and Dean ventures to crack sealed eyelids up a bit. The face to have inched into his line of sight is nothing short of disfigured, features wrought into tight knots and twists of furrows, gaze, boring into Dean's own countenance, cast into stony rage. Dean summons the will to wonder if that's why he's freezing, before he has to look any closer.

Still, it's not the face he expected to see, sprawled numb and helpless on a horizontal surface, that he is. The odd-angled frame of dark hair is wrong, and there's nothing teasingly condescending nor reassuring about the glare meant to burn a hole in Dean's brow, no less. It's almost with regret his memory prompts that Alastair is, in fact, dead anyway, before Dean goes for the next best guess:

"Sam?" – his voice rustles the single syllable from a hollow distance, thinned down to a shallow echo from what feels like centuries of disuse.

The tangle of facial muscles to have filled out all of the world Dean's got visual access to, by now, relaxes an infinitesimal notch, the frown adjusted into a slightly more identifiable taut shape.

"Th'nks God, Dean!"

The inflection is still off, too thick, words too choked around the edges to ring clearly, but the flare escalating up the cheekbones and flooding the eyes leaves no room for further doubt. Dean's instantly aware of pressure, applied to what he thinks should be his own shoulder. A stray muscle beneath Sam's sleeve twitches notably to indicate the squeeze is, probably, hard enough to bruise, but the sensation is too distant for Dean to flinch. Everything is too distant at the moment, too dull, but the mellow amusement of the ceiling spinning slowly above Dean's head.

Sam's mouth quivers for an indecisive bit and Dean is left wondering there, if his brother is about to say something or spit him right in the face. Dean's faintly confident to not get surprised by the latter option. In a matter of the next heartbeat, though, Dean's distracted by a jolt of pain, soaring through his upper body, as his arm is pulled up in one fluid jerk, Sam's iron paw seizing firmly below the elbow. Dean has but to stare bewildered at his hand dangling limp in midair, the source of sudden ache narrowed down to a steady throbbing sting where his wrist is bandaged tightly. Queerly fascinating is an intricate artwork of random stain pattern where the red's seeped through the gauze.

The voice demanding his attention again is down to a strained hiss:

"Don't you dare - you hear me, Dean? – don't you friggin' dare do that again!…" – a far from gentle shake of Dean's arm to accentuate each point.

Dean contemplated fighting back for a split second, wrestling his assaulted limb out of Sammy's death-grip, throwing a swing of his own, maybe. But his entire body feels too feather-light for its own good. So much so Dean's fairly sure that bone would snap, were Sam to yank any harder. Besides, the ceiling keeps spinning, the walls following cue to join in on the square dance, hence Dean is forced to shift the focus onto the only solid fixture he can spot so far – and that being Sam's gigantic form, hunched over him. Fat good it would do to throw that off kilter too.

"Why?" – in all honesty, Dean's too exhausted for sarcasm. The curiosity is genuine indeed.

The dark imposing bulk, that is Sam, recoils, his features doing that twisty thing again, instantly snapped into an ugly foreign pattern, all popping jaw muscles and trench-deep cringes.

"Do you even have to ask?"

"Of course he does! He's a Goddamn idiot, dontcha know?"

The unbidden prompt comes out in a ragged scoff from outside the secluded personal space Dean is currently trapped in by Sam's towering frame, perched on the side of the bed Dean doesn't remember to have been deposited into. It takes a tilt of the head and an upped ante on Dean's reality winding into dizzying spirals to venture a vaster peek about the premises. The upstairs guest bedroom at Bobby's (where else would he be, really?). The faded vaguely floral design of peeled wallpaper a backdrop to the efficient pattern of Bobby's interior design of choice – loaded saw-offs and a collection of silver knives. Bobby's damp (when was it raining?) weirdly blanched face… Dean's gaze bounces away, immediately, skipping back onto a rusty spot standing out on the expanse of shirt Sam's clad in. It's all of a sudden of paramount importance to figure out if that be Dean's blood or yesterday's ketchup. Bobby's is the one glare Dean never anticipated to withstand in all of this. He can't.

There's a rumble of yet another foray of curses and an offensive clunk of wood against wood (or brick, for that matter), as Bobby, apparently, tosses the chair he's been propping himself onto, before an onslaught of stomping thuds signal Bobby's exit. Each step is intoned with a pounding deep within Dean's scull, as Bobby storms out.

"How?"

Dean deems it safer to communicate with the ambiguous dollop on Sam's chest, for now. Thankfully, his brother seems to second the decision, not actively searching his gaze anymore. The silence stretches longer than expected, and Dean has to battle off the weight pulling his eyelids down, when a huge sigh ruffles the air in his close proximity.

"I had a vision. More of a daydream, like before – of you, your hands and all the blood… Good thing I made it on time. Your phone was off, Bobby wouldn't pick up and Cas never showed up to my summons… God, Dean! What the fuck were you thinking!"

Sam is up and sprung to his feet at that, nearly sending Dean's prone form tumbling over the edge of the cot. His mind afloat as it is, Dean didn't even try to anchor a veritable reference for the latter diatribe, treading the still waters of easy monosyllables for the time being.

"Why?"

There is an actual inference this once. "Why would you bother?" "Why not just text Bobby, why come in person?" "Why not let me bleed to death?"

Dean keeps addressing the plane of Sam's upper torso, not inching up to meet what he's almost sure to ebb by way of accusation, or indignation, or something equally justified in his brother's pointed stare. As much as he is almost sure what he's about to hear in reply: " 'Cause I have my soul now, dude", " Cause I care", " 'Cause you're my brother", "Go to Hell!"… The nasty catch is, a deep hollow within the confines of his ribcage aches just as well, since it's occurred to Dean to wonder, in the first place.

Dean dragged the bandaged hands cautiously up from the comforter and onto his lap, catching a better examination angle, half expecting to spot sticky smears of blood and dried-out tissue on his palms, still. Yet another shift in the quiet spells movement and it's at the precise halfway between Sam's shoulder blades Dean's look stumbles next.

There's hardly anything but the remote thump of pulse in Dean's sore wrists to mark down the stillness for a long while, and it's too tempting to sink back into eager milky nothingness. That's how he knows he has to get up. Now. Not in the least from not quite trusting himself to pull another wake-up. He's too tired as is. And too surprised he hasn't let go yet. There might be a detached gust of an association between his ongoing alertness and the six feet four of pulling gravitas, still looming by the windowsill in the room, but Dean's not exactly in the frame of mind to connect metaphysical dots. His tethers are scrapping at the ground, come undone.

The whole hurling himself upright gig comes across a lot more manageable in theory, seeing as from Dean's vantage point on top the pillow the world pretty much ceased the uncontrollable nose-dive of earlier and settled into a fairly steady, not entirely unpleasant cadence. Not entirely unpleasant, until the actual feat of plopping the bulk of his weight on the elbows, wary to overexert the raw gushes lower, and edging his feet off the bed, that is. The backs of his eyelids are a variety show of black moths and stars going nova, and rainbows exploding into lush splatters of greens, blues, and purples.

Once again, the touch records as if seeping onto his skin through thick layers of cotton. Dean is marginally aware of hands, arms (there have to be but two of each, right?) shaping the geometry and speed of ever revolving space in his immediate vicinity. Holding him up, rather than dragging down. Tethers.

"Whoa! Hey, hey… Where do you think you're going?"

The voice is closer, than Dean could expect, as well. Did Sam friggin' jump all the way across the room to his side? Can he do that? Dean ought to explain the need to get up, to get going, lest he drifted away, snarl his brother's hovering members off, but to speak is way too much right now. Dean leans, or topples, more like, into the well of arms flung around his shoulders, instead, to brace himself.

The hug is off. Again. Dean's certain of that much. Awkward. Hesitant. Too loose. The bumps and dents of Sam's upper body clashing with those of Dean's at all the wrong angles. They've molded all but seamlessly since the tender ages of four and six months old, respectively, so Dean would know the difference even halfway out of it, that he is at the moment. Should've known all along since that day, months ago, his reality tipped askew with Sam's reappearance.

The reminiscence instantly drains Dean, like a God honest starving Shtriga. Colors around tune down a good deal of shades, his body slumps forward, inert, drawing the circle of Sam's limbs to tense just ever so. Incidentally, that's when the well-practiced, once, pattern of contact finally begins to fit back. The last of lingering oddity gets readjusted, clicked into place, as Dean's world fades into unyielding black.

Bobby makes a point to set them both on close watch. Not quite trusting them around each other, not quite trusting Sam to roam about the house and junk yard freely, not quite trusting Dean on his own for longer than ten minutes. Not quite kicking them out. Not quite on speaking terms with either of them, too. Out of residual anguish more than a festering grudge, Dean prefers to believe.

Dean's not sure they're on speaking terms with Sam, just as well. They discuss soul lore and mythology, at length, these days, fair enough. But they don't talk much outside of that. Namely, they don't talk of the 'then' – as in 'before the Cage'; they don't talk of the 'after the Cage' too, or of 'now'. They don't talk of the Wall and of Death beyond what fits the profile of 'case discussion'. Dean's still scabbing wrists are, somehow, a moot point too, by default.

The afternoons get rather lazy. There's a puzzle to solve, all right, but there's no real pressure. No Dad gone MIA, no demon war to wedge, no seals breaking, no Lucifer arisen. And no, they do nottalk about the Wall. Dean still gets light-headed at times, from all the extensive reading they do lately (for lack of any better leads to pursue but the musty medieval pentameters), or, maybe, from the aborted exsanguination stint. 'Suicide' is never brought up by all the three of them, in the know. Not even in passing.

From where he's flopped on the couch, Dean has a clear view of Sam crossing the living room all the way to the kitchen and back, two beers in hand. One soon to land a chilly wad on Dean's lap, in perfect silence. Sam doesn't motion to sit, pacing back and forth for a bit, clearly restless. Still Dean wouldn't mention caged animals, ya see? 'Stir crazy' would, probably, do it justice just as much. It's truly been a while since either of them was on a real hunt. Well, at least not the one Dean's aware of. There's that week or so on his own, Sam's yet to account for. Isn't there ever? But there shalt be no privacy breach among the Winchesters, no sir. There are rules for this kind of thing, for God's sake!

'You don't have to do this, you know?' – Dean's staring down into the amber depths of his beer bottle. Eye-contact is something they're not big on these days either. When was the last time they were?

A halt in the rhythm of steps and ensuing silence is the only response he gets, but it's enough to pass for a 'Have to do what?', it figures. Sam's staring straight ahead, his profile at a right angle to the line of Dean's sight, once he drags his eyes up. If pin-dotted, their gazes would, probably, crisscross at a certain point, just, maybe, not in this galaxy. Not just yet.

'You don't have to stick around, if you don't feel like it, Sam… I mean, you made it quite clear the other day… It's not like… Well, you don't owe me anything, okay? I screwed up, overreacted… whatever… and I can't very well undo that. But there're dayjobs out there, besides baby-sitting your suicidal big brother… So if you wanna leave…'

A shadow flutters over the side of Sam's face and for a second Dean is sure his brother is about to rotate a ninety, stare Dean down, pull a customized puppy-dog, or a one-finger-salute, a right hook. Something. Anything. Down to taking Dean up for the money and actually walking out there and then. What follows is more silence, though.

Dean is back to examining the molecular structure of his beverage for the most enticing activity in the whole wide universe that it is. It's not that he's well accustomed to the self-absorbed, guilt-ridden douchebag-of-the-family mantel (at least not to the 'self-absorbed' part, anyway), but he'll manage just fine. He's got this far.

When Sam speaks up, it's not at the sound that Dean starts, but the reference.

'Dean, what I said… Can't claim I didn't mean most of that stuff, man. Was scared out of my wits, too. Still am. There're things that I did. Things that I'd still do, most likely, given the set-up. Didn't matter if you hated me for that, back before… before my soul was back… It matters now. Figured, if I got to hate you first, it'll hurt less…'

'Does it?' – Dean's sarcasm cup has been running dry lately, so the imperative behind the question is still distilled to pure wonder, hands down. And somewhere, on the outer rims of the solar system it will be crisscrossed with an answer in par. Someday. Not just yet.

'Dean, will you ever forgive me?'

There's no apparent urgency in the quiet inquiry. The scope of implications ranges so vast it might as well have been rhetoric. Except Dean needs to be sure it isn't, if he's ever been sure of anything. Dean's eyes roam the far-off celestial 'scapes for a speck, in search of a plausible interception point, before settling down on his own palms, cradling the cool glass, tight bracelets of gauze still in place.

'Will you ever forgive me, Sammy?'

*Cf.: "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost

… The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.