A/N: May be some triggering material in this chapter. Probably darker than the last two, I dunno I can't tell anymore :/


Sam's imposing body seemed to fill the entirety of the ER as he shouted for someone to tell him what was going on.

"Sir you need to calm down," a kind faced young nurse said, her hands help up in a stop position, "Please just let the doctors stabilise him and then you will be allowed in… until then why don't you just have a seat"

Sam nodded but continued his levying pacing and teeth grinding.

"Sir, really, I think you should sit," the nurse said placing one hand on Sam's back and the other outstretched, gesturing to a row of empty plastic seats against the wall. Sam followed her movement and took the seat. But he couldn't stop moving positions where he sat, he was with his head against his hands and his elbows on his knees, then back with his hands in his hair then forwards again, then in the middle biting his nails. He strained to hear or see what was happening but it was impossible. Instead he took in the sounds of every other person in the hospital around him, as though they were all Dean. The horrific screeching of a heart monitor, the crying, the shouting and shuffling, the calming down by nurses, the clattering of metallic equipment. It was a battlefield of sensory assaults that Sam subconsciously was linking to Dean's current state, as though it was Dean's heart monitor screeching, Dean crying and shouting, Dean dying.

"Please be ok, please be ok, please be ok," he muttered to himself. Sam sat in those stupid plastic seats for far too long. He had rubbed his hands down his face, pinched the bridge of his nose and pressed his brows far too many times for one night. When a doctor finally approached Sam jumped from the seat to greet him.

"Hi, you must be Dean's brother? I'm doctor Epst…"

"Is he ok?" Sam cut him off.

"Uh well yes, we will just give him some medication, hang a banana bag and monitor him through the rest of it - he's probably through the worst of it already," he reassured him.

"Worst of what?" Sam snapped.

The doctor paused mid inhalation of breath, "uh? Are you not aware that your brother was under going alcohol withdrawal?"

Sam jut his head forward with a slight squint, "What? … no, no I wasn't… Like I told you when I brought him in, I found him on he floor seizing up, with an empty bottle of Jack near him… I thought he'd OD'ed or something…" his voiced sounded airy and unusually quiet.

"No actually I think that empty bottle may have been the problem…" the doctor registered Sam's confusion, "See, alcohol detox is actually the most dangerous withdrawal… under no circumstances would we recommend it to be undertaken alone or without medical supervision, but when your brother came in the night before last he was adamant about doing it himself, there was nothing I could do"

Sam let out a bitter, sad laugh; "he came in the night before last did he?" he nodded as if to say yeah that'd be right.

"Yes, he had alcohol poisoning so we pumped his stomach and ran some tests… we found that he has alcoholic liver disease which is why I told him he had to quit drinking," the doctor said, he was careful to be gentle with his tone and simple with his words as Sam looked like he was about to cry.

"He will need to stay here for the next couple of days at least as we now need to monitor him for DT's and cardiovascular distress, the detox process can drag on quite dangerously I'm afraid" the doctor said, "I'll come talk to you both about longer-term treatment options once he is feeling better." Sam nodded and let the doctor leave. He didn't want to hear more anyway.

Dean was lying asleep in the hospital bed, a deflated flesh balloon in hospital pyjamas. Sam shuffled to the seat beside the bed and watched his brother breathing, sleeping.

"I'm sorry," he said again.

All hospitals do is highlight mortality. What if he had died? Sam had always thought that whenever one of them died there would be some big dramatic build up and it would be predictable, easier to accept, but this had reminded him that they weren't superheroes; they were real people who could die at any minute. He thought of everything he had said to Dean, how much he chastised him for doing whatever it took to bring him back. He knew he couldn't keep pretending that he wouldn't do they same for Dean.

"S'mmy?" Dean grumbled,

"Shh shh, just relax man, you're in hospital" Sam whispered

"whus 'appened?"

"You were delirious and having seizures"

"Mmm," Dean was groggy and distracted by his still shaking hands and legs, the immense pain in his head and stomach that was simmering beneath the drugs and the remaining shimmer of sweat.

Sam nodded his head down at the sight of Dean's uncontrollable hands and said, "Why didn't you tell me you're sick?" As soon as he asked he already knew the answer.

"Doesn't matter anyway does it?" Dean attempted one of his devil-may-care smiles but it fell flat. Sam stared at him, Dean looked defeated, "Can't stave off the booze monster… how the hell can I expect to fight the pull of that blade either? It's a hundred times worse," he slurred, "so it's not gonna matter soon"

Sam didn't know what to say.

Dean fell back into another groggy bought of sleep for a few hours, Sam stayed up watching Dean's fitful sleeping until finally he too succumbed.

Dean felt wrong. He wasn't even entirely sure where he was. He was asleep surely but it felt weird, wrong. The drugs didn't stop the nightmares they just made the sleep deeper, which only made it worse. Instead of having to come up through a few shallow meters of dream, he was now catapulted into the ocean depths where the crushing opposing pressure made resurfacing harder. When waking up is hard it makes the nightmares feel more real... Searing, red hot pain hit him in the stomach, he looked up to see Alistair standing over him with a fist full of Dean's internal organs. Dean was lying prostrate on Alistair's rack with his arms and legs pinned, he screamed for Sam. He can't hear you Dean, Alistair taunted.

Sam was woken by a jolt and a grumbling shout. Dean was covered in sweat and writhing, the sheets were tangled and stuck to him as he moved. The sight was not an unusual one for Sam, since Dean had returned from Hell he suffered with PTSD nightmares and Sam had come to know what to do. So he did now what he always did, he reached out his hand and touched Dean's arm, calling his name repeatedly and still allowing Dean to maintain some remnants of dignity when he finally awoke. But when Dean didn't respond, Sam's face darkened.

"Dean? Dean wake up you're just having a nightmare… You are in the hospital in Lebanon, Kansas remember? You're here" Sam tried to think of anything that would anchor Dean in the real world.

"Dean?" he shouted but to no response, "NURSE!"

Dean was sure that Sam could hear him; he had years of practice with these dreams to know that they weren't real, that all he had to do was wake up. This isn't a dream Dean, Alistair whispered into his ear, his breath was hot against his skin and he could almost feel the prickle of his stubble making him sick with memories of humiliating, dehumanising penetration. Does it feel like a dream Dean? Hmm? Whether or not it is happening right now doesn't matter, the fact is it DID happen, and that makes it as real as anything else. Dean wasn't in control of his dream-self; it was as though he was trapped inside his own body watching himself, like a live action replay of a memory. He remembered this day. He had stopped crying a long time ago, he had gone cold faced and blank, a deep emptiness filled him. Everyday Alistair made him the same offer to take him off the rack in exchange for his services as a torturer, but this was the day that Dean finally agreed. Yes, his voice was low and broken. Alistair held out a knife, Dean closed his eyes and held it... but it didn't feel like the knife he was used to in this memory? Nevertheless he started hacking into a woman, her howling cries curling through the suffocating humidity of the room. He felt good. He felt vindicated. He slashed into her flesh with unbridled ferocity as he too screamed and grunted in time to his swings, placing the pain on someone else, dishing out what he had so long endured.

"Dean!" the sound of Sam's voice stopped him cold.

"Sam?" he whispered to no one. Screams were echoing through him as he looked down at the knife still in his hand, covered with blood. His breath hitched when he saw it. It wasn't the ordinary razor that he had come to know so well in hell, it was ragged and brown, made from a jaw bone... it was the blade and it was dripping with blood.

I've got to wake up.

Dean did wake up from the nightmare but he did not wake into lucidity.

"Dean? You're ok," a nurse cooed. For a moment he seemed fine, but as the seconds ticked by everyone else in the room came to realise that although he was awake he was not entirely there. He looked wrong; his eyes were vacant, empty and fearful like a caged animal.

Then the other shoe dropped.

He wasn't in Hell anymore, but he still felt like that same Dean that was hacking into the screaming woman only moments earlier. He looked down at his arm, the pulsing red scar that marked his impending evil, and then looked down at the blade, which was gripped in his hand. Faces appeared before him, people he didn't know, they were crying just for looking at him. Then he saw Sam, he was leaning towards him with his hands in a position of surrender. Sam was afraid.

"Get away from me!" Dean shouted. He was now standing on the bed with the IV pole in his hand while a team of nurses, doctors and orderlies looked up at him terrified.

"I'll kill you all" he shouted more as a warning than a threat, "GET AWAY FROM ME!"

"Dean! Please stop!" Sam shouted.

"Dean! Please stop!" he heard Sam shout. He thought of Sam telling him to drop the blade last time and cringed at the familiar desperation in Sam's voice.

Alistair's sticky voice licked his ears, "What did you expect Dean?" he gestured to the blade, "You were weak before."

Dean swung around away from the on looking crowd and slashed the IV pole at an invisible perpetrator.

"You don't want this fight, not now," he growled at the invisible person.

"Dean! Who are you talking to? There's no one there," Sam shouted. The doctors, who had previously been concerned about the safety of dragging Dean from his standing position on top of the bed, were now conferring about just yanking him down regardless. Dean swung the IV pole again, growling profanities and swearing that he wasn't weak and that he wasn't evil, screaming at Sam to back off with eyes that spoke of an immense fear about his ability to control his actions, fear about hurting Sam. Just like I always do, Dean thought.

Hands were grasping at him, pulling him down. Someone was pulling the blade straight out of his hand. Sammy. He was looking up at him with his desperate eyes, gently prying the blade from his closed fist, It's okay Dean, it's okay, I'm here, I'm gonna help you, Sam was saying.

Everything stopped.

Dean let out a weary laugh of realisation and relief, "I know you will Sammy."

Prick to the thigh, blackness.


A/N: Woo Dean is having some serious alckie hallucinations man ;)

TBC - maybe we need some comfort after all this hurt? What do you think?

Thanks for the reviews btw they make me grin like a loony :)