(A/N): Hey Guys!
So, welcome to the new story!
It's an idea I'm having a lot of fun exploring considering most of my other SPN fics (unposted as of yet) are very AU/Reverse Verse' oriented.
This is based in our known Supernatural Universe, but diverges from Canon a fair amount, naturally.
It was inspired by a video I watched on youtube the other day while indulging my Richard Speight Jnr. obsession a little. (Or a lot. Sshh.)
I would highly recommend you give it a watch, particularly if you're a Sabriel fan, because it's really freaking good.
I watched it, added it to a playlist I've got on loop right now, and realised I honestly have to write this.
It's probably inspired fics before mine, but I had to explore it just the same.

Welcome to the ride. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Happy Reading!

If you want the video (And I strongly suggest you should!): TV Land: Gabriel's Plan B (Sabriel) by sakuri 69

Find it here: www . youtube watch?v=_Mmwt9mkc_I&list=PLjKtKydJTAsE836YPlblWgUrCc8UtODmS&index=14
(You'll need to remove the spaces.)

Chapter One

He did okay hiding it from Dean.

He didn't need to hide that it upset him, because that much was natural. It had upset Dean too, losing someone on their side like that. But Dean was okay, shouldering the sting of grief like all the others. He didn't - couldn't - allow them to consume him. And usually Sam was right there with him. Remembering the good, trying to get over the bad. Moving past it to carry on.

But this time, Sam was struggling. And he couldn't see a way out of it this time. Not right now, and he was plagued by the pessimistic thought that he'd maybe never see it.

But he was hiding it. And he was doing okay.

They'd gotten in the car, driven hours. Stopped off at some generically-named motel and crashed till the dawn before getting back in the car. This became routine again, each day following the one before in one long trail of cases and bourbon and crappy diner food. They didn't stop to do any in-depth conversation. They didn't sit and cry about it or allow the grief into the room with them. Because if they did that every time they would always be grieving.

But Sam was struggling. And he was starting to feel like this time he might never feel himself again. This time the grief might be for good.

And that thought was even more frightening, because he'd put more friends in the ground than he'd care to count and he had always coped, somehow. Because they had to, because there were people out there needing saved. Because there were always more monsters.

But he was hiding it well until they were in the car and Dean flicked on the radio to fill the pre-dawn air after another case.

Despite it being a simple Rugaroo problem they were both drained and road-weary, debating heading back to visit Bobby for a while if only for a decent bed and something that didn't come from a vending machine or a deep-fryer. Dean's request was the former and Sam's own the latter. And more to the point they needed Bobby, not that either would admit it. But Sam needed to feel family right then. He needed someone to lean on who wasn't Dean, someone who wouldn't guess the realest reasons why he was upset or ask too much about it past the initial concern.

Bobby always knew when to ask and when to allow him to deflect.

The fading chords of something old was filtering into the air of the car and Sam closed his eyes, hoping the radio would work its magic and help him grasp the edge of sleep. The window glass was cool and soothing on his forehead and his cheek. Dean was tired too but refused to give up the wheel with arguments that he was better rested than his little brother. And it wasn't as if he wasn't right.

The last note hung in the familiar safety of the Impala before the voice came on to introduce the next song, the sound quiet and lazy even if Sam wasn't listening to the words.

"Nice." Dean murmured as the announcer finished and the buzz of a new track clicked.

When the first chords rang out Sam shot upright in the same instant a roll of nausea made itself known in his gut.

"Pull over." he barked over Dean's exclamation, as the Impala swerved from his jerk, a punch of adrenaline only making it worse, "Pull over!"

I never meant to be so bad to you.

Dean did so instantly, whether surprised by Sam's tone or from the shock of Sam sitting up, from the screech of tires as he'd spun the wheel. Sam threw the door open before the car had even fully stopped, stumbling blindly around the back towards the grassy edge.

One thing I said that I would never do.

He didn't make it that far, emptying his stomach contents by the trunk, heaving for several long moments after, bile burning his throat and his muscles screamingly weakly. Somewhere far away he could hear his brother's voice, hear the door slam as Dean reached over to drag it closed before someone drove past them and took it off.

And all the while those words, that guitar thrumming out those chords that haunted Sam in nightmares and dreams alike. That fucking song.

A look from you and I would fall from grace.

His eyes were stinging, every breath raw and ragged and laced with the complaining roll of his gut, the acrid taste.

He could see the motel room, feel the startling, jarring hurtle into consciousness to find himself there again, gasping and staring at that fucking radio. Dean brushing his teeth.

Sam retched again, trying not to let the wet splatter make him cringe because if he did he'd never stop. His skin was burning like his throat, clammy and sticky, sweat rolling down his arms in beads. His face felt tight and hot, salt slicked.

And that would wipe the smile right from my face.

That smile. The infuriating, irritating, downright obnoxious little twisting of lips, so expressive, so subtle. The way it widened to one side and quirked into warmer territory when Sam said something, did something, to earn approval.

How long ago had he begun to be like this?

How long ago had it begun to root itself deep inside what felt like his very soul?

Do you remember when we used to dance?

How long ago had he fallen so low?

Was it that very first dance of glances and smiles and false stories? The caretaker-turned-trickster?

It couldn't have been while he was killing Sam's brother over and over. It couldn't have been. Why would he, when it was his brother being taken from him again and again and again? How was it possible that he'd gotten here then?

And incidence arose from circumstance?

How had it? How had this begun to happen to him without him seeing it, without getting a chance to fight against the fact that it was true?

Truly, how had incidence arisen?

How had he gotten here, puking his guts up at the side of the road in an area he didn't remember the name of, leaving in their wake a case he didn't even remember any details from, couldn't remember what they'd even hunted? He'd been moving through the motions, and the question wasn't how he had been doing that, but why he was.

One thing lead to another, we were young.

The early days, before they knew. Sam remembered the connection he had forged so simply with the caretaker, with that quirky little man with his flashing eyes and devilish chuckle. He remembered the feeling; fleeting and unknown at the time, disappearing before he could consciously register it. Something he had only ever connected with his brother. The way he knew, somehow, that he could zig and the other would zag.

Before it all began to feel real; the Apocalypse and Lucifer, before he'd had to make that call. When Angels were still a vast new concept and they were all dicks but Castiel.

A dark, creeping sorrow was sweeping across Sam's chest, darkening his blood.

And we would scream together songs unsung?

"Put it off." he cried weakly, a sob.

He was pressing his hands against his ears as though taking away the sound could help it end in his head. Could take those chords, those notes, that sound away. He didn't want to feel it, didn't want the sharp wet sting in his eyes or the pit growing in his stomach, ready to engulf him. His knees hit the asphalt hard. His elbow knocked the trunk of the car.

For so long the song had haunted him because he'd lost his brother so many fucking times it made his heart cry.

When had it begun to symbolise anything else? When had he begun to think of it as-

No, he couldn't. He couldn't go there. To go there was to admit to himself that it was real and if he did that it'd break him. He knew that, as surely as he knew proven fact. He knew it on a cell-deep level.

Why had it had to go down the way it had?

It was the heat of the moment.

And Sam was lost.