Disclaimer: I own nothing Supernatural. Just so you know.

Author's Note: This is for Vicki, who wanted some pitiful Dean angst among ZombieJohn. And I promise, both of those are to come. But for now, an introduction to what will be...well, hopefully, a worthwhile story.

Everything was so…jumbled. It didn't make any sense. None of it did. There were memories he couldn't remember making. A life he couldn't remember living. People he couldn't remember knowing. Loving.

'Dad? Dad? Where are you going? Dad?!'

Dean? No. No, it was the voice of a child. And Dean is a man. Isn't he?

'I can help, you know. I can handle it. I'll do whatever you want, whatever you say.'

Dean, he knows, he's sure. Dean. Mommy's little helper. Daddy's little soldier.

But who is this Dean? A son without a face, only a voice echoing in his mind. And falling further into the din with each passing moment.

'Daddy?'

And Sammy.

'There's something in my closet. Dad, I'm scared.'

Scared. Me too. Because of Sam. Because of Dean. Scared. Of Sam. For Dean.

'Don't you let it kill me!'

Scared of himself, what he had become and, oh God, what he turned his children into, children he doesn't even know. Loners. Killers. Didn't he know that sad little boys grew into bitter men? Didn't he know he was ruining them?

No. Saving them.

Each voice, the same but different. Little boys and full grown men. His sons. His family. Each one getting softer and softer. Disappearing. Those familiar notes dissipating like smoke in the wind, blown out the window while the fire continued to burn away the ceiling.

'I'm proud of you.'

For what?

For doing well. For doing good. For doing all that he couldn't.

This is his own voice. He knows it, recognizes it if only because he can somehow feel it rising from his chest, up his throat, out too clenched teeth.

'Take care of Sammy,' he says. And he knows what it means, knows, remembers – the last thing he may ever remember – what he didn't say.

Before he takes care of you.

00000

The room was spinning, this he could tell even through the veil of heavily lidded eyes. He could feel it spinning wildly out of control. And it made him sick.

His head pounded, limbs throbbed. Dry mouth, dry throat, but skin wet, slicked with sweat. A fever? God, was it hot.

Something touched his forehead, a rag or sponge, and cool liquid spilled down either side of his face. Then skin, soft, fleshy fingertips, took to wiping away the moisture above his brow, keeping it from dripping into his still closed eyes.

Closed, because he couldn't open them. Couldn't remember how.

"There, there," he heard, a woman's voice cutting through the hum and buzz of the room. Of his own ears. "Sleep now, mon petit." Her tone was ragged but soothing, and it possessed a sort of cadence, a lyrically commanding quality that he had no choice but to comply with.

So he slept.

Four months. It had been four months since they last searched for the demon. Four months since asking Ash for help, and, of course, getting nothing from him. Four months since they set their father's shrouded body atop a tier and burned him into ash and bits of bone. It had been four long months.

And for the most part, things had been relatively quiet, uneventful. A vengeful spirit here, a vampire cult there, nothing too big. And only the one vision. Well, set of visions. One more psychic wonder found. Two, if you include his evil twin.

They told Ellen about that, Ellen and Jo and Ash. And they were supposed to help find more. More children like him. But they hadn't talked to anyone at the roadhouse since leaving six weeks ago. And they hadn't really planned on calling them up any time soon either. After all, neither of them knew how much time might be needed before being able to move on, forgive and forget the accusations hurled that day, about their father. About Jo's.

So they had no leads on the demon, no leads on other people connected to it – and how he hated to think of himself as being connected to it – save for his visions, which just wouldn't come. Not that he really minded that part.

"Sam?" he hears his brother say, that tight, pained lilt to his voice that had become so common lately. "Sammy, hey, I'm talking to you man."

"Yeah," he says, clearing his throat and realizing that Dean's probably been talking to him for quite some time, chatting away while he just let himself drift further into thought. "Sorry, what?"

Dean eyes him suspiciously, a gaze he's perfected over the years but seems to be using much more often these days. "I said," he drawls out, "that we should get going if we want to be there by morning. What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing." He shakes his head and looks away from his brother's piercing stare. "Nothing," he says once more, this time with more confidence. He flings some cash down on the table, grabs the folded, earmarked newspaper, and scoots out of the booth. "Let's go."

And then, not two steps out the diner's door, Dean lumbering somberly on behind him…bam! That all too familiar strangle hold bears down on his brain. And he falls, crumples to the ground, doesn't even feel it, doesn't even notice, when Dean trips over him, sending them both to the rain splattered concrete.

Sometimes he wonders why it hurts so much, whose idea it was to give him these vision amidst so much pain. Because if it weren't for the blinding agony, he could likely see so much more of what's being shown. If he didn't have that pulsating throb curling and fraying the very edges of his conscious mind, he'd probably be able to make so much more out of them, glean so much more from them.

But instead he gets mere flashes laced with pain. Flashes that make no sense. Flashes that seem important, seem real, but can't be. Because these flashes show a man he'd recognize anywhere, a man who even in this dreamlike state, he can smell – sweat and leather and smoke. A man whose steady breaths he'd easily be able to discern, even among a crowd of others.

A man who's been dead for four months.