LAZARUS RISING

The cliffside is an expanse of emerald green, each blade of grass shimmering and perfectly trimmed to a uniform height. Dean does not want to walk toward the edge at first, but then it dawns on him that Sammy is there. He wasn't there a moment ago, but he has been there the whole time. He is perched on the edge like an enormous bird, arms (wings?) outstretched, head bent forward into the empty space.

Dean wonders who cut the grass, but as soon as his mind approaches the question, it swings a corner. Sammy will surely fall. Dean wonders how they got here, but before he can even finish wondering, the question is gone, like an errant mosquito grabbed in the air, but that vanishes like magic from an opened hand. Sammy is going to fall and die.

He tries to run, but when his foot falls onto the grass, the earth gives beneath him like a leaky waterbed, pitching his balance as the dew sticks to the hair on his toes and wets the cuff of his jeans. The shockwave ripple spreads out through the ground from where he stepped until it reaches Sammy. The ripple moves beneath Sam and jostles him from his position - Sam has no time to step back, to get his bearings.

He has only enough time to turn his head and, as he slips and falls, to fix Dean with an expression of unadulterated betrayal. What have you done? His face seems to say. I was fine before you came along and ruined everything.

Dean is standing at the edge of the cliff. Sam is broken and bloodied on the rocks below, the surf teasing at the edges of his hair.

Dean tries to step back, he doesn't remember getting here, but he is still on the edge. No matter how many steps he takes backwards, the cliff-edge follows him relentlessly until he cannot outrun it and he, himself is falling. Slowly. Slowly the pebbles slip from beneath the balls of his feet, slowly he drops through the air, slowly and inexorably he approaches his ruined brother. The one he ruined. He smells surf.

Not surf, but sulfur. The smell of sulfur fills Dean's sinuses - it is on him, in him, part of him. Sammy is strapped somehow to the rocks, no, not the rocks, the rack. Dean has broken those bones, Dean has spilled that blood. In the shine of his knife, he sees the reflection of his eyes, as black as if someone had filled his head with coal.

"Dean." The voice is low, like someone dragged it over broken glass. No one is there.

Dean is beneath a clear blue sky. There is a chesterfield sofa in the center of the rolling plain, surrounded by wildflowers, and this makes perfect sense. Sam is beside him on the plaid upholstery, smiling, holding out a beer. Butterflies land on the sofa, and go on their way. Dean takes the beer and sits. Led Zeppelin is playing, and it doesn't especially matter where it is coming from.

He can make out someone standing in the distance - a man, by the looks of it, with dark hair and a tan coat.

"Cheers." Dean shouts, unafraid. He takes a long swig of his beer.

The motel welcomes him back with the smell of smoke on his pillow and the sound of static on the television. He flips the book out of his lap as the pitch rises higher and higher.