Author Note: My muse and brain were giving me crap, so the Promptmaster gave me a prompt, and then halped me get this posted when issues arose. Thanks, dork face.

Takes place near the beginning of 10.09 "The Things We Left Behind," between Dean waking up from his nightmare and Sam bringing him a sandwich.

EDITED 5/23/16: The muse and muse's assistant are at it again, and while this was going to be a one shot, and then a two-parter, it's now looking to be a four part story weaving in missing scenes for the entire episode, and a tag. So stay tuned. There will be more coming soon.

Showtime

Part I

The blood is everywhere.

Hanging in the air; a thick, familiar tang that coats the back of his throat as he pulls in ragged, noisy breaths.

In his hair and dripping from his face and coating his hands.

Definitely on his hands. Hands that are trembling, his right still gripping a similarly blood-caked knife where he kneels in the center of the room.

In the center of the carnage. There are nameless bodies strewn around him, cut and slashed to match the cast-off painting the walls and hardwood beneath his knees. They'd been butchered, clearly by his hand.

There's no context to be found, no before. No reason given for what he's done.

He feels…frightened, at first. Shocked. Sorry.

But those are fleeting emotions because, more than anything, he feels good.

Dean jackknifes like he's coming up for his first breath in five minutes, sucks in a desperate pull of oxygen that has his head swimming and his limbs tingling. Except the spot where the Mark of Cain is as good as scalding against the tender skin of his right forearm, pulsing painfully to match his racing heart.

He moves immediately to rub at the spot, to acknowledge the burn, but it doesn't make the feeling abate. He looks around with a wide-eyed glance, expecting to find blood on the walls and bodies on the floor, but he's in his room, in the bunker. Alone.

Jesus. Dean releases his arm and scrubs a hand down his face, works to catch his breath. There's a tickle in his hair, but when he drags his panicked fingers up over his head his palm comes away slicked with cool sweat, not warm, tacky blood.

He's had his fair share of nightmares over the years, but this one felt different.

It feels different.

On his arm, the Mark is burning still. It's taking control. Showing him something, telling him what it wants. Making demands he won't be able to avoid giving into forever.

He'd told Sammy he felt like himself, killing those vamps, doing the job the way it needed to be done. Said it was the first time he hadn't felt like the damn thing was pushing him into violence.

He'd told Sammy bullshit. Fed his little brother a story to keep him from worrying, because Dean's already given the kid enough to worry about for a damn lifetime.

The Mark is always pushing him. Always burning hot, even when he sleeps.

The fire is spreading, the burn growing in his chest and his gut, and suddenly Dean is rolling off of the bed as though John Winchester himself is shouting from the doorway for his boy to get his lazy ass moving, makes it to the sink in time to heave a sparse mess that's a little bloody but mostly just last night's whiskey.

He moves quickly to run the tap, cups his hands beneath the cold water and sucks in a mouthful. Rinses and spits, then tosses another handful over his face. He leaves the faucet running, braces his palms on either side of the shallow basin and stares into the bottom, waits for the last beads of water to drip from his chin before finally raising his gaze to take stock of his reflection.

He looks like hell. Like the ass-end of two-day-old roadkill, and there's no way he can face Sammy this way. Not with these red eyes ringed with dark circles in a pasty white face. Not with liquor and vomit on his breath.

Not when he's been telling his brother that he's gotten back to feeling like himself.

Dean shuts off of the water and glances down at his watch, is both appalled and impressed by the hour. It's pretty early, even for Sam, and he should be able to navigate the bunker's corridors with minimal chance of bumping into the little insomniac. And coffee, if he can manage to keep it down, is sure to do a world of good in the way of making himself presentable.

He hadn't even made it out of his jeans before falling into bed, so he's halfway dressed already, and doesn't look to do more than grab up the first button-down he lays eyes on. He's dragging a probably-clean blue shirt over his sweat-chilled tee when a shooting pain in his right arm doubles him over and tears a strangled yelp from his lips.

Once the pain fades to a more bearable twinge, Dean straightens and goes about rolling the cuffs of his sleeves, fingertips lingering over the raised, hot-to-the-touch mark below his elbow before he shakes it off as well as he can, and makes his way out into the still, silent hallway.

Of all the antiquated items they've had to update since moving their shit into the bunker, Dean doesn't know how they haven't yet gotten around to dealing with the damn coffeemaker.

It's loud, and it takes too long to brew, and he's not even sure he wants the coffee anymore. He can't seem to forget the images, the feelings from his nightmare, and when coupled with the persistent ache in his arm it's making him nauseous, and he doesn't really need a cup of hot liquid to add to the molten heat already spreading throughout his body.

Dean rolls his neck and leans against the counter, focuses his weight down through his arms and stares at his hands where they're flattened atop the stainless steel. His right hand jumps and he quickly makes a fist, presses his knuckles against the countertop and closes his eyes against the fiery lance shooting up and down his arm. When he opens them again, the coffee is ready, and he scratches his chin before moving to drag a plain white mug upright from the drying mat.

The mugs in the bunker's store are pitifully small, but that's okay, because Dean's drinking less and less coffee these days. Has other thirsts now, and more often than not he's just going through the motions when he pours a cup, or accepts one from Sam.

He's contemplating altogether giving up on the coffee, with trading it for something that will do better to calm him, when he notices the tremor in his right hand. About the same time that he realizes there's blood welling in his mouth from how hard he's got his bottom lip caught between his teeth. He winces an acknowledgement of the steadily growing pain in his arm and then tries to relax the muscles in the traitorous limb, drawing slow breaths in and out.

To no avail, as the tremor becomes a full-blown shake and the pain continues to grow still, rooted in the Mark but no longer confined to his forearm. It branches up to wrap around Dean's shoulder joint and bleeds into his chest, snakes like thorny tendrils through his veins to his circle his wrist and wriggle down into each finger where they're keeping a tentative, white-knuckled grip on the porcelain mug.

He tries to still the shake in his hand, to compartmentalize the pain in his…everything else, but it's become too deeply embedded in his very core, and in a sudden, searing flare that steals his vision and leaves him gasping, Dean loses his hold on any semblance of control over his own body, and of the mug. It slips from his fingers and drops to the tile, explodes onto the kitchen floor in tiny, jagged shards.

The crash sends Dean staggering back into the edge of the counter, and when he looks down he doesn't see pieces of a busted mug in the mess at his feet; he sees remnants of his nightmare. Splatters of dark blood spilled across the tiled floor, evidence of death wrought by his hands.

The pain recedes just as quickly as it had reared, not gone but not unmanageable, and Dean finds himself rubbing at the spot where the Mark is concealed by his shirtsleeve.

They're not other people, and the crash of the shattering mug has surely been enough to wake his brother all the way in his room. Enough to bring Sam running in at any moment, with questions Dean can't, or won't, answer.

And it does. He's barely gotten the mess cleaned and settled himself at the table before Sam appears in the doorway. Must've fallen asleep much the same way Dean had, in the way of fully clothed, though likely due more to late-night research than anything like of the half-shot bottle of Beam nestled next to his own bed.

Dean feigns a yawn and does his best to act enthralled by something on the screen of his cell phone before raising his eyebrows in acknowledgment of his brother. "Bad dream?" he asks, a bit taken aback by the hoarseness of his own voice. He clears his throat, rubs at his eyes. "Need me to check your closet for monsters?"

"Shut up. I thought I heard…" Sam braces a hand on the doorframe and glances around the room, eyes narrowing. "Guess it was nothing." He taps his fingers on the frame before stepping fully into the kitchen. "You make any coffee yet?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah." Dean throws a hand in the direction of the percolator. There's no denying the lingering shake there, and he folds a fist against the tabletop, moves quickly to throw a distraction at his brother. "Diggin' the bedhead, Sammy."

Sam rolls his eyes and runs his fingers through his tousled hair as he moves to the counter. He stops and shoots Dean a quizzical look. "Pot's still full."

"Yeah," he answers quickly. "That's the second one."

Sam raises his eyebrows, nods as he turns to grab up a mug. "So then you're gonna be fun today, huh?"

"I'm always fun."

"Right." Sammy was raised in a black coffee kinda household, but it's not his preference, and his eyes roam the kitchen for sugar or milk, whichever is closer. "You eat anything?"

Dean's stomach roils, and whatever might be left over from earlier makes a run at exiting his mouth. He squashes the urge and swallows. "Nope," he answers tightly, pushing up from the table.

Sam sips his coffee and watches him make his way out. "Want me to make something?"

Sam and kitchens don't tend to make the sort of dynamic duo Dean likes to tangle with, but he waves vaguely with his left hand as he brushes past his brother, keeping his right curled into a tight fist at his side. "Yeah, sure. Knock yourself out."

He knows he has appearances to keep up and can't go as far as retreating back to his room, sinks into a chair at one of the long tables in the bunker's main chamber. Spots his laptop lying on the polished surface and drags it close, searching desperately for a distraction, for anything to take the Mark and its demands off his mind. Figures an old Stooges episode is good enough, and Dean goes to work practicing the smile Frank Devereux had once warned him was one of the most vital parts of living this life, and even throws a few laughs in for good measure.

After a few minutes, he no longer notices the tremble in his right hand, and after a few more, Dean might even forget that he's pretending.

"What are you laughing at?"

Until Sam enters the room, anyway. Dean's eyes dart over at his brother's approach. It ain't exactly breakfast on the plate, but Sammy knows his strengths, and even an idiot would have a hard time mucking up a grilled cheese sandwich. He swallows, forces the grin to stretch wider across his face.

Showtime.

To be continued...