-A/N: I took and altered the episode In my time of dying to my liking. It's wincest, baby, because this is me writing it, but it's barely even there. It's not the focus, I want the story to revolve around, so sit back and enjoy. And cry.-

Sam stares at the glass and the water, smashed on the floor. Then he looks up to his father, who seems just as startled as he is.

"Dean," they breathe out in unison and rush to Dean's room. Well, Sam does. John is still in his hospital bed, so it takes him a bit longer to untangle himself from all the tubes, but eventually he stumbles into the room, where his eldest son is lying unconscious.

Sam pulls up another chair for him and the older hunter slides into it gratefully, just another proof of how hurt and exhausted the man must be. Sam can't remember his father ever looking so weak and fragile.

Both men stare at the pale, unmoving form of their brother and son.

"It couldn't have been Dean," John breaks the silence finally, his eyes never leaving Dean.

"What?" Sam blinks at him surprised.

"The glass. It must have been a wind or...or someone else, because it couldn't have been Dean. If Dean was a spirit, then..." he trails off; probably not trusting his voice.

"Yeah," Sam nods. "I mean, can you imagine Dean as a spirit? Dean, of all people?"

His father's lips curl into a smile, even though it doesn't reach his eyes.

"Yeah, he'd rather die than become one of the things we hunt."

He turns pale, when he realizes what he'd just said and shuts his mouth closed.

Sam refuses his mind to even go there. He's pretty certain his eyes are just as watery as his father's appear to be, so he turns his gaze back to Dean. They sit in silence for a little while, and this time, it's Sam, who breaks the silence.

"Do you think we did this to him?"

John turns to him with a confused look.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think it's our fault he's here now?" Sam asks again.

John chews on his bottom lip and returns his gaze back to his firstborn, before answering.

"No, not ours. Mine."

"Dad, if this is about what I said earlier-,"

"No, Sam," John cuts him off. "It's true. The way I raised him, I made him think he was any less important than me, you, the revenge, you name it. When all he ever did was trying to be a good son. Trying to make me proud," his voice changes into a whisper.

Sam guesses his father is on the verge of breaking. He can't blame the man; he himself is close to falling apart.

"And I am proud, you know? Who wouldn't be? Dean is a great man, not thanks to me, though. The demon, responsible for all this, he showed me a glimpse of what Dean's hiding behind those walls of his. He wanted me to watch my son die by my own hands, thinking his dad never loved him enough." John has to take a deep breath to calm himself.

"And? What did you see?"

"Boy, it wasn't pretty," John shakes his head. "Dean's hurting so badly. He doesn't think he's worth for anyone to just stay with him," he shoots Sam a pointed look. "And that's on us, Sammy. We're the ones, who hurt him this bad. Not demons, not freaking bullies in high school, but us. His family."

Sam bites his bottom lip. He wants so much to counter, to get offended by the accusation, but he knows it's true.

"I just wish he'd wake up. I want to tell him so much. I want to see the light go back to his eyes, when I tell him how much I love him and how proud I am to call him my son." Sam notices the tear that is running down John's cheek, but he doesn't say anything.

"Every father should have a son like you or your brother. And Mary gave me both, and what did I do? I fucked everything up. Made you both think that I put hunting above you. It was never like that, Sam. I know you won't believe me, but it was never like that. I'm proud of you. Always was."

Despite the dull ache that had been in his chest ever since he woke up in that car, Sam feels his heart swell over the words.

"Even after I left?" he asks quietly.

"Especially then," John nods. "My son got the full ride to Stanford, all by himself, standing up to me, on his way to live his dream and become a lawyer. I've always admired that about you."

Sam swallows. He didn't quite expect that.

"Then what was all the shouting about, before I left?"

"I was scared, Sam," John sighs. "Afraid of letting you out there, all alone. You were just a kid to me. You still are," he almost-smiles at Sam.

"I really thought you hated me for giving up on killing the thing that killed mom," Sam admits. His chest feels a little lighter.

"No, Sammy. But I was mad as hell, too. Not because of you going to college or because of the revenge, that's never really been yours to begin with, or even because of leaving me. But because you left him," he nods towards Dean's bed. "I just couldn't understand that you had it in you, to just up and leave him. After everything he's done for you. I still don't to be honest."

"Yeah," Sam fights against the tears and he himself is surprised, when he wins that fight. At least for now. "Truthfully? Neither do I. Back then, I was a pissed off teenager, with dad that hated me being good in school, and brother, that followed said father's orders to the letter. But it didn't take more than month for me to understand just how much Dean meant for my life and me. I missed him every day."

"And still, after all the shit we keep throwing at him, he loves us," John sighs. "He loves us so much, that it almost broke my heart, when I saw it. You, oh god, he loves you so much it's almost impossible. And at the same time, he thinks you hate him and no booze, no girl will ever soothe that pain, no matter how hard he tries."

"B-but I don't- Dad you don't think that I-" Sam is stunned. He knows that Dean has issues, but what did Sam ever do to make him think that he hates him? When he wasn't under the influence of some crazy doctor, of course.

"Of course I know you don't hate him. But that doesn't matter. It's what he thinks."

"When he wakes up, I'll tell him," Sam said resolutely. When. Because there were no ifs.

"You do that," John agrees. "But it's gonna take more than just words to prove him how much he means to us. You should have seen him the first few months after you left. It was as though he got dumped on prom night."

"That bad?" Sam chews on his bottom lip again. It hurts him just to think about the damage he's done to Dean, but he has to know. He has to know how to make it right.

"He just drowned himself in hunting, booze and sex. He started being reckless. After one of his rookie mistakes, that almost killed us, I tried to yell some sense into him, being the great father I was," John snorts. "And he just...I don't know how else to put it...turned himself off. He said he was sorry and that he'd like to hunt by himself, cause he didn't want to be a bother."

Sam could imagine the scene as though he had been there. Dean with slouched shoulders and bowed head, taking all the blame, whether it was his fault or not and leaving the only person he thought he had left, because he believed he wasn't good enough.

"And wanna know what I did?" John laughs mirthlessly. "I let him go. I didn't leave him, I couldn't. Just like I couldn't leave you. Still went to check upon you from time to time, just to know you were fine."

Sam nods. He already knew about that.

"And so did Dean," John smiles. Sam gasps, because that he didn't know. "I know that, because I checked upon him. Even though we were meeting every other week, I still had to make sure my boy didn't get into trouble. And Dean was looking for trouble, I can tell you that."

"You mean you stalked him," Sam chuckles.

"Call it whatever you want," John grins, but then the grin fades. "Point is, he thought I agreed with him about him being a bother. I should have known better."

"Dad, there's something else I want to ask you," Sam said carefully.

"Shoot."

"Dean told me about the Shtriga...did you know he killed it? Anyway, he told me that ever since then you'd looked at him differently. I just...how could you?" Sam doesn't mean to start another fight, but he just can't understand how his father expected an 8-year-old Dean to behave like a professional hunter. "He was just a kid, dad. You shouldn't have left him alone with me, if it was so dangerous."

John nods, but doesn't say anything for a long while.

"You know, when I scared that monster away and turned around, I saw Dean looking at me with those big eyes of his and shaking with fear. But he wasn't afraid of the monster, no. He was afraid of me. Of how I'm gonna punish him for that. It was then, when I realized, that I might be forgetting just whom I was living with.

You see, Dean was always so good at what we did and so reliable, that I often forgot that he was just a kid and not my partner in crime. Maybe that was what made me look at him differently. Because I finally saw my son again."

"I seriously don't understand why he never hated me. When he was always stuck with me, feeling like he was your second choice," Sam rubs a hand across his face.

"You know, Dean had something you didn't," John says quietly. "Four years with Mary. He remembers her. She taught him how to love you, how to take care of you. Everything that's good in Dean, he got from her. And I think he felt a little guilty that he got to experience that and you didn't. So he tried to give you as much love as he could."

Sam lets the words sink in. And then finally loses the battle and tears are falling down his face freely.

"He doesn't deserve this, dad," he sniffs. "He doesn't deserve to die, because of a demon that killed your wife and my girlfriend. He should die grey-haired with a bunch of grandkids jumping around him and telling him how he's the best grandpa in the world."

John stands up and puts his hand on Sam's shoulder.

"He's not going to die," he says with the same certainty, as though he was saying that two and two is four.

Sam just hides his face in his hands and sobs. He believes their father, because the other option is to believe that Dean might never...and that's just not going to happen.

"Did you know he wanted to be a firefighter once?" John says and Sam looks up at him, grateful for the distraction.

Their father is looking at Dean with emotions in his eyes that Sam just can't put a name on.

"When he was really little. He had a toy fire truck. He would spend hours playing with that damn thing. He couldn't wait to show you all his toys, once you grew up a little..."

"Seems like some things wouldn't change, even if we never hunted," Sam smiles fondly through the tears at his brother. It figures that Dean would want to save people and share everything with Sam, no matter what life he was living.

John takes a step toward Dean's bed, puts his hand on Dean's shoulder and caresses his hair gently with the other.

"You're not going to die," he says to Dean. "Even if it's the last thing I do, I will save you. You'll walk out of this hospital alive."

Then he bows down and presses a soft kiss on Dean's forehead. And then he's gone.

Sam just stares for a moment, because he's never seen their father so affectionate, much less with Dean. Then he stands up to move closer to Dean as well and takes him by his hand.

"You gotta wake up soon, Dean. We have so much to tell you. I want to spend the rest of my life making up to you for everything I've done wrong," he whispers and caresses Dean's cheeks gently. "I love you so much, Dean, you have no idea. More than I should, actually. And it took me almost losing you twice, but I figured I want to tell you, no matter what happens. Please, Dean, wake up."

He lowers his head to kiss Dean on the forehead like his father, but changes his mind and aims for his lips instead. It' just a brief brush of lips, because dad or a doctor might come in and he doesn't want to explain that.

"Wake up soon," he pleads one last time, before he leaves the room as well.

Dean sits on the end of his own bed, staring into space. He touches his lips, as though it was his spirit's mouth that got kissed by his little brother and not the body lying down on the bed. He knows that if he was in his body, he'd be crying by now.

After he broke Sam's and John's fight, using the glass, even though he still doesn't know how he did it, he ran after the other Winchesters. He stayed there, trying to soothe their worries, but he wasn't able to move anything else. And he heard everything they talked about. He still can't believe he's not dead and this isn't heaven.

His father's proud of him. Sam loves him. It's all he ever wanted, but never dared to hope to have. He didn't know he was so important to them. His family. They need him. He didn't expect them to be happy that Dean was dying, but he thought, that maybe they would use the opportunity that he no longer slows them down to focus on hunting the demon that killed mom. And him, but he didn't think they would want to avenge him.

Honestly, he's been slowly giving up on waking up. He just wanted to find a way to say goodbye to Sam and dad. But now he feels like he's got a reason to live again. And he'll be damned if he won't try his hardest.

Tessa gathered herself up from the floor and now is spitting the aftertaste of the disgusting demon's smoke. This has crossed a big line. Demons aren't allowed to posses Reapers. Her boss is going to hear about this.

She, however, couldn't find it in her to regret not bringing the soul of Dean Winchester to the other side.

There is only one thing she is sorry for and that's that Dean doesn't remember anything from the time he spent as a spirit.

But she believes that the other two Winchester will stay true to their words. Dean deserves nothing less.

The End

Ugh, I guess I have a obsession with miserable Dean that needs repairing-and the repairing itself, of course. I just want him to be happy. Don't you?

You can leave your opinion in the reviews, I'll make sure to respond ;)