By the time Sam had showered, shaved, and dressed, he actually felt pretty good. The headache was just a fraction of what it had been. The effect of Dean's voice seemed to be all packed in the first few seconds – after that it was just aftershocks. He stepped out of the bathroom, and glanced over to see Dean half on and half off his bed.

He walked over, still running a towel through his hair, and tossed it back towards the bathroom door as he reached the bed. It looked like Dean fell asleep sitting up and had just toppled over sideways. His feet were still on the floor. At least that hadn't changed. Mattresses had always had a magnetic attraction on his brother. Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed.

Since Dean had come back, Dean fell asleep like someone turned out a light. He would lie down, fully clothed, and bang, dead, no, not dead to the world, but asleep. And Sam hadn't been kidding about the mariachi band. These days, Dean slept so soundly that Sam'd been able to stroll out of the hotel room, even driven Dean's car away from the hotel that first night, without waking him. And Dean barely moved anymore while he slept, other than twitching and jerking during nightmares. He stayed huddled up, like he'd been beaten to sleep.

If Castiel hadn't woken him that one time, Dean still might not know about Ruby and Sam's forays. Sam was trying once again to convince himself that his brother knowing and him stopping the exorcisms was a good thing as he bent and lifted Dean's legs onto the bed. Dean didn't wake, just curled up in a tighter ball. Sam tugged Dean's boots off and threw a blanket over him, before sitting heavily on his bed to stare resignedly at his brother. He wanted Dean to sleep like before, like he'd been dropped on the bed, hands and legs in all directions, sometimes hanging off the bed, sometimes touching the floor.

He wanted Dean to be like before. He wasn't sure if Dean even put the knife under his pillow anymore. Sam scrubbed his face and watched this still, quiet version of Dean he'd gotten back from Hell. What did they do to you for four months? He sat for a few more minutes, brooding, until he realized with sudden clarity, that the real question should be, What DIDN'T they do to you in the pit?

A few hours later, Dean's nightmares were playing in Technicolor. Sam almost ran to the bed.

"Dean. Wake up. You're having a nightmare."

Dean jerked awake, blinking, his limbs moving spasmodically for a few seconds. Sam held a hand over Dean's mouth until his brother's eyes were on him and aware.

"You awake, Dean? Remember not to talk."

Dean nodded and swatted at Sam's arm. While Dean was sitting up, Sam retrieved the first aid kit, and came back to sit next to him on the bed.

"Let me check your head."

Dean kept still while Sam checked his scalp, and pulled his chin up to check his pupils. Dean raised his eyebrows, and looked a question.

"Doesn't look like a concussion. You have a cut that I'll check after you take a shower. Take these." He held out two pills.

Dean dutifully swallowed the pills and walked to his duffel for a change of clothes. As he walked toward the door, Sam called out,

"No singing in the shower, either."

That got him a one fingered salute.

With a grin, Sam went back to his laptop. He hadn't started seriously researching Bobby's hunt yet, instead looking for clues on the little guy, and doing some research for Dean. He opened a couple of search engines and started some cross referencing while Dean was in the shower. Sam was a little anxious by the time Dean wandered back in the room and sat on his bed to pull on his boots. Sam cleared his throat.

"I made something for you. I read about it in a book and just thought …" Dean circled his hand, and nodded, which Sam recognized as the silent version of Dean's 'keep going, college boy.' Sam sniffed. "I know you aren't really mute, but I thought these might help, makes things easier maybe, just until we can fix this." He presented Dean with a handful of stiff cardboard squares, about two inches a side. One said "Please", another "Thank You", one "Repeat"; he even gave Dean one with just a question mark. "Just keep those in your pocket."

Dean shrugged and stuffed the cards into his back pocket, before catching Sam's eye. He pointed at himself, held up the car keys, then pointed toward the door, finally flashing the fingers on both hands five or six times.

Sam said, "See you in an hour," and looked back at the screen. It was only after he heard the Impala start and drive out of the parking lot that he realized that Dean had communicated everything he needed to say in a few gestures. Sam scratched his head. So maybe Dean didn't need the cards. He returned about an hour later, with a few packages, and lunch.

While they ate, Sam reviewed what he had researched. "I've got a firm lead on the fugly." He looked up at Dean. "Did you recognize his accent?" Dean frowned for a few seconds, then grabbed Sam's legal pad, and wrote, 'Mad Max'. Sam nodded. "That's what I thought, too. The guy sounds Australian, and given his size, from the aboriginal people." He opened another website. "Based on his behavior, language, and well, uh, a few other things," Sam looked down, then back up at Dean, "I'm betting he's a Trickster. An Aboriginal Trickster named Bamapana."

Dean looked a question at him. When Sam didn't reply, he dragged the cards out of his pocket and held up the question mark.

"What? Why Bamapana?"

Dean shook his head and wrote, 'What other things?'

"His language. Bamapana is known for obscenities. The aboriginal culture frowns on swearing. Bamapana is the embodiment of many of their societal taboos."

Dean underlined 'What other things?'

Sam pretended to stare at the laptop. "Nothing important. Finding him and getting this curse off is the important piece."

Dean rubbed his hand through is hair and moved back to the bed to collect his packages. Sam watched as he detached a small plastic box from a cardboard backer and set it on the table. Intrigued, Sam picked up the box while his brother upended another bag. He inspected the box, then put his thumb on the center piece of metal and pushed. He was rewarded with a loud clicking noise that startled him so much he almost dropped the box. Dean snatched it from Sam's hand and shoved it into a front pocket of his jeans.

"What the hell is that thing, Dean?" Dean handed him the cardboard. Sam looked at the pictures of cartoon dogs in disbelief. "You bought a dog training clicker?"

Dean grinned, dug the cards out of his pocket, and dropped them on the table. He pawed through the squares and held up the Yes card. He clicked the clicker one time from within his pocket. He picked up the No card and clicked twice.

"You're kidding me, right? One for yes, two for no? You're going to fucking click at me?" Dean reached forward and patted Sam's head. Sam swatted his arm away. "What about the cards?"

Dean walked to the far side of the room and held up a card.

Sam crossed his arms, exasperated. "It says Yes."

Dean walked out of the room, leaving the door open, and out into the parking lot to stand by the Impala. He held up another card.

Sam glared and called out, "OK, I can't read that from here."

Dean held up the clicker and thumbed it twice.

"I got it. No. All you had to do was shake your head."

Dean made a show of shuffling the cards, and stepped to one side. This time, all Sam could see was Dean's hand waving a square of white.

"All right! I get it, OK, I get it."

As Dean started to walk back, Sam grabbed the other bag but it was already empty. He waited for Dean to reach the table before he said, "So what else did you get and how much will it annoy me?"

Before Dean could reply, Sam saw it on a cord around Dean's neck. "A whistle?" He reached forward and snagged the whistle and snapped it, because all he wanted to do was crush it into unrecognizable slag. But the band didn't break. He yanked again, harder, and Dean hissed and held his neck.

Sam said, slightly contrite, "What is that cord made of?"

Dean pulled the cord away from his neck, and without letting go, let Sam examine it.

"It's gimp." He felt a smile tugging at his mouth. "Remember that after school program you parked me in when I was in the fifth grade?" Dean held up four fingers. "OK, fourth grade. I braided that stuff into a key ring for Dad." He shook his head, grinning. "That doesn't mean that I'm not going to burn it when you aren't looking. I'm not going to have you blowing a coach whistle at me every five seconds."

Dean took Sam's pen and wrote across the top of Sam's notes, 'I. C. E.'

Sam nodded grudgingly. "You'd better be serious about 'In Case of Emergency', man. Don't be blowing that if we run out of beer."

Dean found another blank spot on the notes and wrote, 'Experiment'. He held up his cell and pointed toward the lot.

"You'll call from the lot. Just one word, OK?"

Dean nodded, and pointed at the chair until Sam sat down. Dean headed out the door, and it seemed like hours before the phone rang. Sam grit his teeth and answered the phone. He was glad he was sitting, since it hurt like hell, but he didn't fall to the floor when his vision whited out for a second. Dean bounced back in and held up the question mark card.

Sam sighed out, "Didn't help."

Dean frowned and looked down.

"Do you want to do another test? Maybe more distance?"

Dean shook his head and clicked twice. Sam had to admit, it was a relief.

"It was worth it to know for sure. At least you can write and click – it's just your voice, not all and any attempts to communicate." Dean just stared at him. "I'm just saying it could be worse."

Dean grabbed Sam's marker, wrote on the back of one of the cards, and held it up. 'WTF?'

Sam was puzzled. "There's worse, you could be …" He almost bit his tongue.

Dean wrote, 'Deaf?' on the pad. Sam watched him rub his forehead.

Sam swallowed. "Yeah, guess that wasn't a good thing to bring up." He appraised Dean. "You look like crap, man, don't you want to try to get some more sleep? I'm fine." He waved his hands at Dean's scowl. "I'll be fine in a few minutes. I've got aspirin and I've got plenty to research. But you've only got a few hours sleep."

Dean nodded before looking toward the bedside table and angled for the nightstand to pick up his bottle of scotch. Sam took a breath to say something but Dean only took one swallow before putting the bottle down. As Dean sat down on the bed, Sam remembered something he'd meant to ask him. He pulled his red and black shirt from his duffle and tossed it in Dean's lap.

"Why did I find this in the trash in the bathroom? It's one of my favorite shirts. The least you can do is tell me …" He ran out of words as Dean went absolutely still. "Dean, what? The blood's not bad, we've gotten out worse."

Dean didn't look at Sam, just grabbed the scotch and took a long swallow.

He bent over to look into his brother's face. It was bloodless, Dean's eyes shuttered and blank. He reached over and picked the shirt up. "It's no big deal, man; I'll take care of it." When he started to draw his arm back, Dean shook his head, and looked at Sam with an expression he couldn't begin to decipher. "I'll wash it."

Dean shook his head again, and jerked the shirt out of Sam's hands. Before Sam could judge what he was about to do, Dean had a knife in the fabric, almost stabbing it, slicing the shirt down the back from collar to hem. Dean's breathing was ragged as he slashed the fabric again and again, removing the sleeves in pieces, and shredding the front. He dropped what was left of the shirt on the floor and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his left hand.

Sam sat down heavily on the side of his bed and watched Dean carefully put the knife down on the nightstand and lean over to untie his boots. He lay down on his back and stared at the ceiling.

"So, no washing the shirt."

Dean didn't look at him, just clicked the clicker in his pocket once.

"You'll get me a new one."

Another click.

"Should I ask why?"

That made Dean turn to look at him, but all he got was two clicks.

He woke with a jerk and pulled himself upright. He rubbed his face, and reached for the whiskey, trying to shake the remnants of his last nightmare.

"Dean, come on, man, I hate to say something, but enough is enough."

Dean turned the reach for the bottle into a stretch to raise his cuff and checked his watch. Just three hours of sleep, when he felt like he needed forty-eight. Man, he wanted a drink. He bit his cheek and counted to ten. It was that or kill his little brother, and however tempting that currently was, counting was no where near as messy. He sat for a minute and silently cursed Australian Tricksters. When he warmed up, he found that moving his lips and gesturing was very satisfying, so much so that he moved on to curse all of Australia, then threw in a few foul words about New Zealand.

He glanced over and caught Sam smiling. Their eyes met and Sam burst out laughing. Dean flipped him the bird, but couldn't help but smile in return before he aimed some choice curses at his school marm of a brother. God, he really needed a drink. With a last look at the bottle, he stood, scrubbed his hands through his hair and walked over to the table. He sat down heavily and stared at Sam.

"Feel better?"

Dean huffed out a breath, and then held the next one until he was sure Sam had no reaction. He took another of Sam's little cards, probably with something girly like 'Extra Tofu', reversed it, wrote for a second, and then turned it to Sam. 'SUCKS'.

"You're telling me. I need some help with something when you're awake.."

Dean smiled and straightened up. He rolled his hand.

"Before he drove off with Marian … ah, Mehitabel – with the bartender, Bampana gave me a number." Sam flipped his notebook open. "22 62 72 62. It must mean something. You're the math person."

He could tell when little brother was holding out. He skimmed the question mark card at him.

Sam picked it up off the keyboard. "It's a clue, that's all. Just see if you can find something, alright?"

Dean tore a sheet from Sam's legal pad, snagged Sam's favorite pen, and leaned back, using the motel's information notebook to prop the paper up against one leg.

The next few hours crawled by, Sam typing, occasionally directing a comment to him; Dean covering both sides of the page and several others with figures and equations. He'd gone outside finally, walking the block a few times since sitting in an eerily quiet room was not helping him think. He should be out interviewing people at the bar and having a few drinks, or calling contacts – and here his brain filled in the 'while drinking', or watching Thunderdome with a six pack. He was sitting on the Impala's trunk drinking from his spare bottle of whiskey, and just beginning to wonder if Sam was right about the booze, when an idea about the number came to him and he walked back into the room to write it down.

Half an hour later, he was staring at his idea, a partial series, waiting for inspiration, and using the clicker to play a third rendition of 'Stairway to Heaven'. He thought he was getting pretty good at creating tonal variations by putting his hands in different positions.

Sam suddenly stood, yelled, grabbed the clicker, ran to the door, stepped into the parking lot, wound up, and threw. Dean reached the door just in time to see the clicker disappear in some scrub brush and trees beyond the parking lot fence. He nodded, impressed. With those long arms, the boy could really throw.

Sam must not have agreed with his skill level. He grinned and turned back inside.

Sam followed him in, closed the door and walked back to the laptop. "I couldn't take it anymore, Dean. I just couldn't."

Dean smiled, nodded, pulled out his second clicker, and began a soulful, if almost tuneless, rendition of 'In-A-Gada-Da-Vida'. Sam made an odd keening noise in the back of his throat, but he didn't make a grab for the new clicker.

Finally, even Dean grew tired of the noise, and tossed down his notes before tucking the clicker back into his pocket. He reached forward to write on the legal pad. Sam pulled it back and flipped the page and put it down with a clean sheet for Dean to write on. He raised one eyebrow.

Sam stuttered, "You have more room to write."

Dean smiled and shook his head. Sam and his neatness kink. He wrote up the side of the page, just to make him squirm. "Anything?"'

Sam shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Nothing. Unless we stepped on his tiny feet when he was invisible, there's no reason, no lore, nothing that says why he targeted you."

Dean pointed at Sam.

"I'm pretty sure I was an afterthought. He said that this was about you out in the parking log. Do you have any idea why he would want you to be mute?"

Dean felt his jaw drop. He pointed at himself and shook his head no.

"You sure? Because if we can figure that out, maybe we can find out how to reverse this."

Dean clicked twice, emphatically.

Sam sighed. "Did you find out anything about the number?"

Dean made a show of throwing his number covered pages in the trash can. He held up one finger, and pointed at the cell phone. He wrote 'Number spells B A M A PA N A."

Sam made a weird expression. He took a breath. "I told you, right, that he was a Trickster."

Dean pawed through the cards and held up 'Yes'.

Sam looked at his notes and read aloud, "'Bamapana is a Trickster of discord, profanity, adultery, and incest. He delights in vulgar language, lustful behavior, and laughter.'"

Dean twirled his hand impatiently.

"When we were in the parking lot, Bamapana told me that I should call him when, well, call him, and he gave me that number."

Dean glared at him and wrote, 'definite lack of intel'. He picked up his cell and dialed 22 62 72 62 and put the call on speaker.

"Dean, wait, there's something I haven't …"

But just then they both heard the phone ring and a voice he had grown to hate answered.

"It's not even twenty-four hours and you two fuck muppets are calling? I'm on my way." The line disconnected, and they both started when they heard a knock on the door a second later.

"Open the door, fairy boys." Another knock. "Everyone I talked to says Dean's the girl in this relationship, but I think he'd be the one on top. Let's find out who's right."

Dean felt his ears starting to burn. He looked at Sam, who was turning a bright red. Dean held up the 'WTF' card and slammed it on the table, as the door rattled and shook in its frame.

"I'm not dancing for fucking joy being out here, you pestilent maggots. Open the door!"

A/N: Funny thing. I wrote this long before I saw even a clip of Dean in After School Special. I thought he would love a coach's whistle, and having seen the episode, turns out I was right. And it suits him.