Supernatural and its characters are not mine. Many thanks to Evergreene, Sandy Murray, laughandlove, Carikube, bally2cute. pmsdevil01, charmed1of2
and Thru Terry's Eyes for their kind reviews.

Carikube: thanks for the welcome! I feel very at home already, though there seem to be a lot of really good writers in this fandom so I'm a bit apprehensive of the high standards ;).

Thru Terry's Eyes: I'll watch out for the plot, but I haven't been in the fandom long so I'm not sure what counts as trite. I hope I do OK.

----

Sensory Deprivation 2

Dean got quickly to his feet when the doctor came out into the hallway. He had only been sitting down for a few moments, sunk in thought. Before that, he had been pacing.

Later he wouldn't remember much between finding Sam on the ground and arriving at the hospital. Wouldn't remember how he had managed to get his brother that mile that seemed like a hundred, through the trees and the tangled undergrowth that he didn't remember being a problem on the way out, when he had been unburdened, when Sammy had been able to see. Wouldn't remember whether they talked as he barrelled along the pitted dirt tracks towards the edge of the forest, wouldn't remember barrelling either, though he knew he must have done, because there was no way he would have driven as slowly as those dirt roads required.

They probably hadn't talked.

And then he had been in the hospital, and someone had tried to put Sam in a wheelchair but he had insisted that he was fine, that he could walk. And they had taken him away, through one of the featureless doors in the wall of the long, echoing corridor, leaving Dean to sit. And to pace.

"Mr. Granville?" the doctor asked, looking at his chart.

Dean nodded sharply. "My brother OK?"

"Well..." The pause stretched out for more time than Dean had known existed. "Physically, he's in great shape. No damage at all that we can find."

"What?" Dean's voice was low, and the edge in it made the doctor look up, surprised. "But he can't see!"

The doctor looked slightly discomfited. "There's no physical explanation for your brother's problem, Mr. Granville. I have to ask, has anything like this happened before?"

"What do you mean?" Dean saw a brief image, a memory of the megawatt smile he had been using in this very hospital the previous day. No smile now. This doctor was not an ally.

"Well... Does your brother have any history of..." the doctor leaned forward slightly, as if he was about to say something obscene, "mental illness?"

Dean stared at the doctor, then laughed. "No way. You're serious? Sam? Sure, the dude's crazy, but he's not, y'know," he crossed his eyes and made circles with his finger by his temple, "nuts."

The doctor looked offended, and Dean felt a twinge of satisfaction. Not an ally.

"Mr. Granville, mental illness is a very serious issue. I think-"

"Sure, whatever, man," Dean said, affecting nonchalance, but really itching beneath his skin. This conversation had gone on too long, it was time to shut it down. "So can I see him, or what?" And without waiting for an answer, he pushed past the doctor towards the open door.

----

The room was small and quiet, and Dean slipped inside silently, wanting to take stock. Sam was sitting on the bed, shoulders hunched, tense, and he stared right through Dean as he passed, and somehow that freaked Dean out as much as all the nightmare scenarios he'd been imagining in the waiting room. He knew he should announce his presence, but somehow he just couldn't bear to, and so he found himself studying his little brother, feeling oddly voyeuristic, until his foot hit the bedframe with a too-loud clatter. Sam jumped, and was instantly on his feet, turning his head from side to side, hands raised in front of him. "Who's there?" he said.

Dean reacted instinctively, reaching for him, wanting to reassure him, but the touch of his hand on Sam's wrist only made the younger man jump backwards like he had been burned, and Dean realised what he should have realised a fraction of a second before and said, "It's OK, Sam, it's me."

Sam's shoulders relaxed, and he turned in the direction of Dean's voice, his eyes open very wide, looking like he was straining to see.

"Anything coming back?" Dean asked, and Sam put out his arms, fumbling in the direction of the bed. Dean darted quickly forward, trying to help him, but Sam shrugged off the touch and, somehow, managed by himself.

"No," he sighed. "No outlines, no light and shadow, nothing." He looked down at his feet, or at least, he directed his eyes that way. "It's just... dark. Like someone turned out the lights."

Dean sat down next to him. Like flipping a switch. "What'd the doctor say?"

"That he didn't know what was wrong with me. That he wanted to keep me overnight for observation."

"Huh," Dean said, knowing Sam would catch on to the slight surprise in his tone. He wasn't disappointed – his brother raised his head and turned his face towards Dean. "What?"

"Nothing," Dean said, knowing what reaction that would get, too.

Sam frowned. "Seriously, Dean. What?"

Dean raised his eyebrows slightly and shifted as if he was uncomfortable, then wondered why he was going through this physical theatre when Sam couldn't possibly appreciate it. "Just... doctor told me you were a couple pancakes short of a stack."

He grinned at the sudden look of annoyance on his brother's face. Every time. "Course, I didn't tell him you're just naturally a fruit loop. Thought that would be kinda indiscreet." He dodged out of the way of the flailing blow Sam threw at him, and was both glad he did and oddly ashamed: glad because Sam had swiped harder than he probably thought he had, and ashamed because it wasn't fair, taking advantage of his disability. Sam rolled his eyes and lay down on his back on the bed. Dean settled into a chair and put his feet up on the table.

"So you wanna go back to the motel?" he asked.

"I don't know," Sam said, eyes open and staring up at the ceiling. "Maybe I should stay in for observation."

Dean snorted. "Damn doctors don't know what they're talking about."

"Maybe," said Sam slowly, and there was that tone in his voice, the one that Dean hated because he could never figure out what it meant in time to stop Sam hurting, could never make it go away. "Did the doctor really think I was just making it up?"

"What'd I just say?" Dean scoffed. "You'd think six years in school'd teach em something, but they ain't got half a brain between em. Mind you," he continued, "not like all that time in school did much good for your common sense either."

Sam ignored this. There was a long silence, during which Dean began to wonder if there was anything good on the TV perched in the corner of the room, and then Sam said, "Dean. What did it look like?"

"Huh?" Dean asked, though he knew what Sam meant. He just wasn't sure he wanted to reply.

"The creature. Was it a spirit?"

Dean watched him for a moment, then looked away. "I didn't see it."

"But you shot it."

Dean shook his head. "No. It must have been gone when I got there."

Sam shook his head, too, mimicking the gesture that he couldn't have seen. "No," he said firmly. "I saw you. You were the last thing... while it still had its hands on me."

"Oh." Dean had been worried that might be it. "Well, then it's invisible."

Sam sighed. "Great. That's all we need."

----

In the end, they did stay overnight, because Sam fell asleep on top of the covers and Dean thought one characterless room was as good as any other, since Mr. Granville surely had enough credit to pay for an overnight hospital stay. He didn't like to wake Sam up when he was sleeping these days. Wasn't like he did a lot of it.

Of course, the hospital chairs were not the most comfortable places to sleep, but Dean didn't intend to sleep anyway. Sam was in here for observation: he intended to observe.

Whatever it was that had attacked Sam had been invisible. That meant identifying it was going to be a tough job, not to mention tracking it down. On the other hand, not too many things that went bump in the night were into attacking while invisible, so that would narrow the field down a little. The whole brain thing was weird too – usually, if something was interested in your brain, it was because it wanted to eat it or wear it or whatever, not turn it off. An image suddenly flashed into Dean's brain of an invisible science student, complete with thick glasses and pocket protector, reaching for some biological switch and saying, 'I wonder what'll happen if I do this.'

But the image didn't make him smile, because the thing, whatever it was, knew what would happen, had done it many times before and presumably witnessed the results. And because it had tried to do it to Sammy.

He leafed through his father's journal in the small hours, glancing every now and then at Sam's sleeping form, scrutinising each page for clues as if he hadn't read them all a hundred times before. And when the drizzly night became a drizzly, grey morning, he was no closer to the answers than he had been hours before.

Sam turned over, muttered something, and opened his eyes. Dean watched him closely.

"Dean? You awake?" Fair question. The morning light falling through the small window was not exactly bright sunshine, and Dean was in the shadows on the other side of the bed.

"Yeah."

"Timesit?" Sam asked sleepily.

Dean consulted his watch. "Seven forty-eight."

Sam blinked, then sat up sharply. He held his hand in front of his eyes, waved it a couple of times, then covered his face with it.

Dean let his shoulders slump slightly. After all, there was no-one to see. "No change?"

Sam shook his head.

They were both silent for a moment, and then Dean sighed, shrugged, and stood up. "Come on, dude," he said, laying a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Let's blow this popsicle stand."

----

They didn't bother going to find the doctors – it wasn't like Dean had seen them doing any observing anyway – and Sam walked down the corridor trailing one hand along the wall. Dean tried to support him on the other side, but Sam pushed him away and so he had to be content with warning his brother about obstacles and, when he could, moving them out of the way.

They were almost to the elevator when a woman came suddenly out of a doorway and Dean walked straight into her. Great. The blind leading the blind. He considered making the joke out loud, wondered if Sam would find it funny, if it'd piss him off, or if it'd just make him turn inwards. And realised that Sam had stopped, standing looking worried, had heard the collision but didn't know what had happened. Was stretching out an arm into the thin air of the corridor, trying to find Dean.

"Sorry, ma'am," Dean said loudly, stepping quickly over and touching the back of his brother's hand and thinking he was going to have to get better at this, at anticipating how Sam would react. "Wasn't looking where I was going." Looking where he was going.

"That's no problem, honey," the woman said, and then looked him in the face. "Say, ain't you that guy from the other day? The one who was askin bout young Tommy Gardner?"

It was the same nurse, the one who was such a useful source on their previous trip. Dean flashed her a smile. "Why yes ma'am I am. How is young Tommy?"

"Oh, it's a dreadful thing," the nurse said, and Dean had to fight not to roll his eyes. Yeah, yeah. Horrible. Awful. I get it. Behind her head, Sam was looking intently at Dean. Looked like he was looking intently.

"No change then?" Dean asked, preparing to cut this conversation off too, wanting to get his brother out of that damn hospital with its lurking smell of disease that actually reminded him of the rotten smell of the forest.

"Oh, didn't you hear, child? They put that boy on a ventilator last night. He just done stopped breathing."

Dean blinked once, and looked at Sam. Yup. Definitely time to get out of the hospital.

----

Luckily the Impala was parked near the main doors, and there were no dangerous roads to cross, no playing chicken with cars trying to find a parking spot. Dean could tell that Sam was thinking, and that was a dangerous thing, because he suspected that Sam was thinking about the same thing that Dean was trying very hard not to think about. And he knew that eventually, Sam would want to talk about it.

Eventually turned out to be as Dean was trying to negotiate the car out of the lot. Not the best of times, but then Sam wasn't exactly gifted when it came to picking his moments.

"Dean-"

"Not now, Sammy."

"God, why do you do that?"

Dean raised an eyebrow, glanced over to see Sam slumped sulkily in the passenger seat, staring sightlessly out through the windshield. "Do what?"

"Cut me off. You don't even know what I was going to say."

"Yeah I do." Dean concentrated on manoeuvring round a particularly badly-parked SUV. "You're not exactly Captain Unpredictable."

Sam didn't say anything for a moment, but Dean could feel him glowering even without looking. See, Sammy? You don't need eyes. Just as long as no-one ever does anything unpredictable near you again.

Ten minutes later, Sam tried again. "Tommy-"

"Tommy probably had a real stroke this time," Dean said, sounding more confident than he felt. "Weak Scandinavian brain and all that jazz."

"What if he didn't?"

"He did," Dean said, and leaned forward to turn up the music.

----

By the time they arrived back in the motel room, Dean was sure he was not cut out for this. The nearest parking was across the street, a quiet, small-town street, and yet Sam had stumbled on the kerb and at the doorsill because Dean hadn't told him they were there, hadn't even noticed them, his subconscious processing them without bothering to let the rest of his brain in on it. He guided his brother to an armchair and sighed with relief once he was safe inside its embrace. The relief didn't last long, however.

"Dean, listen, you've really got to face up to this, man."

Dean, who had been fixing Sam a drink, like he used to back in the old days, didn't turn round. "Yeah, I know," he said. "I've been trying to deny it, but it's true. My brother really is the biggest dork on the planet."

He heard Sam's breath explode in exasperation. "I'm serious. If Tommy stopped breathing because of being attacked, that could be a really important piece of evidence. It could help us work out what it is, how to kill it."

Dean shook his head. "It doesn't make any sense. Every other time the thing's just killed and been done. Tommy survives and then – what? It breaks into the hospital to finish the job? Only it doesn't quite manage it this time either?"

Sam shook his head slowly, accepting the glass that Dean put into his hand without acknowledgement, just like he used to. "No – it stays in the woods, that's pretty certain. But maybe whatever it did could trigger some kind of, I don't know, deterioration."

"Yeah, like I told you, weak Scandinavian brains."

And that was all he would say on the subject.

----

For the first day, Sam just sat in the chair. Dean did as much research as he could without leaving the room, though it made his head buzz and his eyes feel like they were full of fine sand. Sometimes he asked for Sam's advice on how to perform internet searches he was perfectly capable of doing himself. Sometimes Sam surprised him, came up with a new idea, a new place to look. But mostly he was no particular use, though the moment that thought popped into Dean's head he squashed it down with a flash of guilt, because he knew, could tell from Sam's expression as he sat, unfocussed eyes staring at nothing, long-fingered hands fidgeting on his lap, that that was what he was telling himself. No use. Useless.

What Dean really wanted to do was go out there, into the woods, and hunt the bastard down. He'd almost done it once or twice, too, got up and headed for the door, but Sam's head had turned at the sound and he'd remembered that there was no way he could leave Sammy, not like this. And he couldn't take him with him. Didn't even dare take him outside, where there were kerbstones and door sills.

So for the first day, Sam just sat in the chair.

On the second day, Dean awoke, his head resting on the desk beside the laptop, whose screensaver glowed softly in the dim room, and hoped that maybe today, Sam would wake up and be able to see. Except Sam wasn't in the bed, he was still sitting in the chair, curled up with his eyes closed, and Dean cursed himself for falling asleep without helping his brother first. But when Sam woke up at the slight sound of Dean pushing back his chair from the table and looked at Dean and Dean knew without asking that he couldn't see him and started to apologise, Sam frowned and told him in that prissy, offended tome of his that he was quite capable of getting to bed himself, thank you, he had just fallen asleep in the chair unexpectedly. And Dean almost – almost – believed him.

There was no more research he could do here. And he was left with a problem – he couldn't leave Sam, but he couldn't fix Sam without leaving.

But in the end, Sam solved the problem himself.

----

Dean turned off the water and got out of the shower, wrapping a towel round his waist and trying to think of some lame joke he could tell Sam that would make him smile. He had just about come up with a pun involving a psychic chicken when he opened the bathroom door and stopped, all thoughts of humour dropping straight out of his mind.

Sam was gone.

"Sam?" Dean stepped fully into the room, wheeling round, checking he wasn't there. Then he grabbed the nearest gun and marched straight for the door, his jaw set.

He found Sam outside, a short way from the room, sitting on a bench in the wan sunlight that had broken through the seemingly eternal drizzle the afternoon before. He stared at him furiously.

"Jesus Christ, Sam, what the hell dyou think you're doing?"

Sam looked around at the sound. "Sunbathing," he said, infuriatingly calm.

"You could have been killed!" Dean yelled, not caring about a passerby who stared nervously at the guy standing on a motel forecourt wearing nothing but a towel, waving a shotgun and haranguing an innocent-looking kid on a bench.

Sam sighed. "I'm not totally helpless, you know," he said, and something in his tone made Dean lower his arms. "I just wanted to get out of that damn chair. Outside."

Dean could understand that. Sam, who didn't really like TV and didn't care about music, had had to sit and listen to Dean read, and be reminded that he could not. "You could have asked," he said, sitting down next to his brother on the bench. "You should have asked."

"I knew you'd say no," Sam said simply. Then he grinned. "Besides, the most likely thing to kill me so far has been that shotgun going off in my face."

Dean looked at the shotgun, then at Sam's unseeing eyes. "How did you-"

"Hey," Sam's grin broadened, "you're not exactly Captain Unpredictable yourself."

"Shut up," said Dean.

"Dude, are you wearing a towel?"

"I said shut up, dickweed."

----

Dean took Sam to the library with him, because Sam asked him to. He didn't understand why Sam would want to sit in a room full of books that he couldn't read rather than sit in the sunshine, but he was happy because it meant he didn't have to leave him alone. After a few hours of research that turned up nothing they didn't already know and left him feeling frustrated and angry, he crossed over to Sam's table to find him running his fingers over the pages of a book with no words in it.

"What're you doing?" he asked, genuinely perplexed.

"Trying to learn Braille."

Dean stared. "Why?"

Sam sighed. "We've got to adjust, Dean. What if this is-- what if we can't get it back?"

Dean reached over and closed the book. "We're going to get it back."

----

Over the course of that day and the next, Dean got better at guiding his brother. He was surprised at how quickly it became second nature – step, Sammy, road, Sammy, here we are, Sammy. After the first fifty times, Sam gave up complaining about the nickname. Sometimes Dean would reach out and gently readjust his trajectory, and Sam's jaw would tighten, but he wouldn't complain.

Sam wondered out loud if he should get a cane, and maybe some shades. Make it easier for people to see he was coming, get out of the way. Make it easier for him to probe his surroundings.

Dean refused to countenance the idea. That would be adjusting.

Everything was very slow. Dean felt his legs itching to stride (through the woods, with a shotgun), but he had to walk slowly to keep up with Sam's shuffling steps. He could only imagine what it must be like for him, with his longer legs. Dean, after all, got to stretch his legs a little pacing the motel room, and running to the convenience store for food, which he had agreed to do after protestations from Sam that really he could handle being on his own for ten minutes. He did actually run, though, both to stretch his legs and to get back quicker.

And the major problem still hadn't been solved: how was he going to fix this? Convenience store runs were one thing, but there was no way he was abandoning Sam to go running off round the woods. Especially not given he still didn't know how to kill the creature in question. Especially not given that if he got hurt, if he didn't come back, Sam would be helpless.

I'm not totally helpless.

No. Not totally.

----

"Can't you, like, use the force to see or something?" Dean said on the evening of the third day, flicking through the channels on the battered old TV.

"I probably could, if I lived a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," Sam said pointedly, sipping his coffee.

"I'm serious." Dean looked round at his brother, raising his eyebrows. He hadn't thought of it before, had been hoping, assuming Sam's sight would come back on its own or they would work out how to make the creature give it back. "I mean, you see things, right?"

Sam looked tired. "Yeah, sometimes. But not things right here and now. That's why they call it Second Sight."

Dean turned back to the TV. "Have you even tried?" he asked, trying not to sound pissed. Do you even care at all, Sam? Do you want to be like this forever or something?

There was a long, pained silence from behind him, and then Sam said softly, "Yes."

The local news came on then, and drained Dean's brain of any comebacks.

Tommy Gardner was dead.

----

Dean didn't sleep that night. He didn't know if Sam did or not – sure, the kid closed his eyes and lay on his bed, but who knew if he was really sleeping? At 5 a.m., he went to get them breakfast.

Sam was in the chair when Dean came back and handed him his food. It turned out he was perfectly capable of moving around the room by himself, after all.

"Jeez, Sam, you look like crap," Dean breezed, too cheerful, sounding false even to himself.

"Thanks, dude," Sam said. "I'm sure you look like Brad Pitt."

"Hey, Brad's got nothing on me," Dean said, and was rewarded with a smile and an eye-roll as Sam sipped his drink and then made a face.

"Didn't you get me coffee?" he asked, looking confused.

"Sure did, sunshine," Dean said, not really paying attention.

"Then why--" Sam stopped suddenly. Dean looked up.

"What?"

"Nothing," Sam said, setting his cup carefully on the table. He took a bite of his sandwich, and Dean felt alarm rise in his belly as Sam almost choked on it.

"Sam? What's wrong?"

Sam managed to swallow the mouthful of sandwich, though the face he made as it went down spoke volumes. "Nothing, really, it's fine."

Dean shook his head. "Oh no, college boy, you're not getting away with it that easy."

Sam swallowed again, just saliva this time. He was quiet for a long time, long enough for Dean's heartbeat to start sounding like the loudest damn thing he'd ever heard. Then he said, "It doesn't taste of anything."

Dean reached over and grabbed the coffee, sniffed it, tasted it, his heart still thumping. It was perfectly ordinary coffee. A little strong, even.

"You're sure," he said. A statement, not a question, but Sam nodded anyway.

----

An hour later, outside the door of their room, Dean pressed the speed-dial on his phone and waited for the inevitable voice-mail message to end.

"Dad," he said, "We're in Fremont, Minnesota, and Sammy's in trouble. He got attacked by – something, and we can't find out what it is. It's getting worse, dad. I thought I'd better call you, before..." He didn't finish the sentence, but snapped the phone closed.

It started to drizzle again.