Well, thank you for the reviews. I'm just going to update with this kinda backstory thing I wrote today. Again, Noobieninja's 'Needed' is responsible for most of this angstfest, so look that up when you get the chance. Please forgive typos, I have no beta, and I just write as fast as I can, so... yeah.

Please review with your thoughts.

NINE YEARS AGO

Dean placed the gun on the table with a smirk. He may not have Sammy's speed, but damn, if his little brother didn't watch himself, Dean would beat him someday soon. Adam pouted as he slid the grip into place and checked the chamber.

He may have been eleven, but he was going to be a great hunter. Dean could see all the signs. He smiled proudly, but covered it with a smirk when his little brother looked up. He laughed at the narrowed eyes and childish grumpiness displayed on his youngest brother's face. At first it seemed like Adam was going to take offense, but he broke into a wide smile and laughed good naturedly alongside Dean.

It was a good day, a good night. They were a family and they might not have a perfect life, but Dean wouldn't want to be anywhere else. He shook his head and picked up his gun, looking to Sam's empty chair. When had he left the table?

Why had he taken—

The gunshot came mid-chuckle.

Dean sprang up, gun at the ready, shoving the clip into his handgun and looking towards the bathroom door where the noise had come from. John was faster, he was at the door in seconds.

"Sam!"

The door was locked. It rattled against the frame as John shook the doorknob. Why would Sam lock the door? "SAM!"

No answer. The door unhinged under their father's foot and he stepped into the bathroom, gun at the ready, scanning the room for whatever Sam had been shooting at—

White porcelain tub, white tiled floor, white, blank walls. White motel soap and white, clean towels hung on the rack.

Red. Sam.

Dean buckled first. His knees hit the ground solidly, but he didn't really feel it. Sam's head was turned to the side, blood trickling from his nose, and the corner of his mouth, his hair hanging over the right side of his face, his eyes half-closed.

"Sam?" That was Adam. He shouldn't see this. Dean needed to take him away, shield him like he had shielded Sam all those years ago from the flames and the terror, but he couldn't move.

"Sam!" Adam was screaming now, his mouth moving with one name repeated over and over again, and John was trying to move him, trying to get him out the door, but Dean couldn't budge. He was frozen, turned to stone, as fragile as ice.

"Samsamsamsamsamsamsam."

And John was gone, sweeping up Adam and dodging back through the door, closing it so his youngest wouldn't see. It was already too late for Dean. He crawled to Sam, his hands shook as he tried to slap some color into those pale cheeks, he had to avoid touching the blood, because… well because it was Sam, it was his precious baby brother. He couldn't be bleeding.

There was no pulse.

No heartbeat, no light push of air from Sam's lips.

There was blood sprayed against back wall, a red shadow.

Dean sat there for a long time, his thoughts frozen. His hands fluttered against Sam's white T-shirt, now soaked through with an arterial splatter. The sixteen-year olds chest was bony, pale, unmarked.

"Sam?" he whispered. Maybe if he was quiet enough, if he didn't try to break this moment, Sam would open his eyes, maybe wink at Dean, and this would be some elaborate trick, or prank, or some monster's effect. It could still be fixed, it could still be… changed.

"Sam?" he tried again, because Sam hadn't moved, past a sluggish trickle of blood from his lips sliding down his chin and hairline. "Sam, don't—"

Don't do this. Please don't be… don't. Please don't be dead. I can't. Don't.

John was back, at his side. "It's too late Dean, come on. We have to pack up the guns, we have to call the police. Dean, get up, Adam needs us."

"It's Sam. Dad, we have to…"

"There's nothing we can do, Dean. We have to take care of this."

Dean curled himself around Adam, who hadn't talked since the police had come and taken their statement, replaced them with condolences, and offered the services of a local grief counselor.

The remaining Winchester children didn't wait for John to come back from thanking the officers, but crawled into bed together. Dean held Adam, who cried fitfully, and lay rigidly, then cried again, in an endless cycle of misery.

John came back, packed everything, got his children into the Impala, and they drove aimlessly around the tiny town. Dean sat in the back seat, Adam's head on his lap, and nobody talked. The night was cold, and a light pattering of rain filled the car with a melancholy percussion.

Dean cried silently, the way he had taught himself.

The funeral was a dull affair, held back a few days by the police inquiry and a visit from the local social services. One look at the broken family told her Sam hadn't… done what he had done, because of his family.

Dean wasn't so sure, but who was he to argue with the stern looking woman.

They dug him up at midnight while the soil was still fresh, and they salted and burned his ashes in the middle of the woods, their grief protected from view.

And then they could finally leave this little godforsaken town.

"Why do you think he did it?" Adam asked a full year later.

Dean thought about feigning ignorance about what his little brother was asking about, but his throat had closed. He just shook his head.

Adam never asked again.

A year after that, they came back to the motel and John was waiting, drunk. Sam's duffel had been lying in the back of the Impala, untouched. They didn't have many possessions on the road, and not much room in the Impala for unneeded objects, but no one touched the faded black bag, and after a while Dean's eyes would just slip over the familiar lumpy shape.

So he was almost shocked by the appearance of it on the neatly made motel bedspread. It had been opened and objects spilled from it as if it had been disemboweled. Dean felt his throat close again. Those were Sam's clothes, his books, and the knife Dean had gotten him for that last Christmas.

Their father slumped on the floor, his back against the mattress. There was a piece of paper clutched in a shaking hand, and a bottle of expensive whiskey cradled against his stomach.

"Dad?" Dean asked cautiously.

John looked up, and the stoic, stone-faced man was crumpled in defeat and misery.

"What's wrong?" Adam whispered, looking towards the messy arrangement of Sam's clothes and treasures.

John just shook his head. "I'll sleep in the Impala tonight, boys. We're moving on tomorrow, so get your school things ready."

And then he was getting to his feet, and the sheet of paper was slipped onto the cabinet as he stumbled out into the parking lot.

Adam looked up at Dean, who shrugged helplessly. Why John would want to sleep in the Impala when they had paid the motel up for the next week was a mystery to them both.

Thinking that the letter could only mean bad news, Dean glanced at it and froze on the name.

Dear Sam,

I take great pleasure in offering you admission to Stanford University…

And there was a decal on the top of the letter, an impressive red seal. The realization hit Dean in the stomach. Sam. Sam had a future. Sam had wanted… had wanted to leave. Could have left.

"Dean?" Adam asked, he was pouring over the contents of Sam's life with a curiously blank expression, "What does it say?"

Dean cleared his throat, and shoved the paper into the pocket of his jacket. "Nothing," he told Adam, "It's just… You don't want to know."

Adam shrugged, and Dean began to worry. The youngest Winchester had lost his spark in the past few years, lost some of his caring nature.

"Do you remember Sam?" he asked.

An angry spark lit the youngster's face, "Yeah Dean. It's only been two years. You and Dad are the ones who won't talk about him. You're the ones who pretend he never existed."

"No," Dean swallowed uneasily, "I mean, can you remember if he was ever happy? With us?"

They both stared down at the faded jeans and windbreaker, Dean could almost smell the dusty peppermint that was all Sam and a little bit of the mother he could sometimes remember.

"I used to think so," Adam said quietly, "but now when I think of those times, I just… I have to wonder if he was just pretending."

"He loved you," Dean told him, feeling the letter burn in his pocket. Sam had wanted to leave. Sam had been desperate to leave, but Dean knew that Sam loved Adam.

"I know," Adam picked up a T-shirt and smoothed it out against his legs.

Adam turned sixteen with a subdued fanfare. He blew the candles out on the cake Dean had bought half-price from the grocery store a few blocks from the motel. Sam's age.

John smiled tightly when he handed his youngest son a new set of clothes, and a serviceable knife. "We'll have to teach you how to drive soon."

Nodding, Adam smiled up at Dean, a smile that was all Sammy and a little bit Mary. He was a cute kid.

Dean got drunk and spent the night huddled over a toilet. Adam brought him towels and spent most of the time in the corner of the bathroom asking anxiously if Dean was alright.

Adam's seventeenth birthday was even worse.

They left Sam behind. He faded a little into memory, but there was always that empty spot in the car where Dean would sometimes turn and remember the features on the edge of becoming handsome, the toothy smile and eager eyes, the caring soulful puppy-dog look. Every year on the same day, Dean would get drunk and try not to remember kneeling on the cold hard tiles, trying to bring his brother back.

Life carried on and they hunted, learned how to kill in ever more creative ways. Adam turned into an efficient hunter, and little family was making quite the legend in all the wrong kinds of circles. Dean slept with a lot of women, Adam tried a few relationships, and John just kept on hunting the yellow eyed demon.

Their father died in the hospital, saving Dean.

And then there were two.

They killed the yellow-eyed demon.

Adam died in his arms.

Stabbed in the back during a routine hunt, Adam crumpled to the ground and Dean howled. This was his fault. He had to have his brother's back. He couldn't outlive Sam and Adam, it just wasn't fair. He was just a kid, and Dean felt himself fall apart. He frayed on the edges and reality seemed to drop away from his feet. The world opened up and swallowed him whole.

He was alone. Completely without the one thing that made him somebody, the one defining object of his life. Dean for a brief moment that lasted an eternity was without family.

He sold his soul, and the next year he broke the first seal on the apocalypse.

Adam was strong when he came back from the forty years of hell. His little brother was hunting like a machine. (Castiel said it was because he was a chosen warrior, all the Winchesters were.)

The last seal broke with Adam killing Lilith, and then the revelation that Lucifer was wearing his second-best meat-suit to the prom if Adam said yes.

And then that day came around, the day Dean had eight times. Except this time, something attacked.

NOW

This wasn't Sam. This was a monster, a thing trying to trick him. A djinn maybe? Something had to be creating this world for him. The details were wrong, His father looked too young, and Sam looked too old. The blood wasn't right, and Sam was alive.

He was going to rip whatever had done this to shreds. He was going to wrench it apart with his bare hands and eat the remains. Blind anger took a hold of him, but he didn't know what to attack, what to trust.

Adam was crying, was reaching out to his dead brother with such hope. A growl started to grow deep in Dean's chest. "Adam," he warned, "Adam let go. It's not real. This is a trick."

"Is that so?" fake John asked, holding up his gun.

And there, under his raised arm, peered a young Dean, his gun holstered, but still wary.

In an instant Dean saw himself clearly, the innocence, the unbroken faith, the absolute trust. This Dean still had his family, had not seen all the horrors life had to offer. This Dean hadn't been flayed apart in hell, hadn't lost both brothers, or watched the world fall apart in a bloody, messy battle that revealed all the intricate tortures war had in store for him.

He swallowed, not quite able to breathe. It couldn't be real, could it?

"Dean," Adam said quietly, "We'll figure this out. Let's just… sit down. We've all proved we're human now. We can go sit down somewhere and figure this all out."

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