Hi everyone! Thank you for reading :) Unfortunately, this is all I had pre-written, and I will have to put this story on hold for the month of November because I am trying to win my first year of NaNoWriMo. I will still be eager to read any kind of reviews, though! I will begin updating again as soon as I can. Bye only for a little while (I promise!) :)


"Have you noticed Sam's looking a little worse for wear today?" Kara asked me, twisting her inky black hair that was drying in pin-straight strands in her towel after our showers at the public pool.

"Yeah, I saw that. I'll ask." I sighed and scrubbed at my hair with a towel. "Thanks for keeping an eye out for 'im."

"Of course." Kara looked a little troubled. "Just…make sure he's not pushing himself too hard, all right? Something like that happened to me once when I was still learning."

"I will. Thanks, Kara."

Sam was mad at me, not like I didn't expect him to be. I just told him the actual numbers of what I'd done. Eight, Dean? Eight?! He'd accused. You've killed people and you never thought to tell me what the hell you were doing...yes, I'm fucking mad at you- just leave me alone!

Sam did look a little worse for wear: his expression was weary and his greenish eyes appeared a little glassy with swatches of purple underneath them. When we started to make our way to the camper we'd parked once again, he'd winced and pressed his palm to his lower back. It didn't go unnoticed.

"You all right?" I asked with a lifted brow.

"I'm fine," He mumbled very dismissively, dipping his head to avoid my eyes. I didn't push the subject, not now at least.

Sam was the last one back to the van, and I blocked the door with my shoulder and looked back at my brother, lifting an eyebrow. "C'mon, Sam. You're acting like I don't know you at all."

He crossed his arms and puffed a piece of hair out of his face. "I don't want to talk to you right now." He said grumpily.

I crossed my arms right back and leaned on the side of the door, still blocking him from going inside. "No, Sam, this is above our damn arguement. What's wrong?"

He rolled his eyes a little bit and pushed his fingers through his hair. "It's my...ugh, Dean, I can't believe you're making me say this but its my...soul, I guess." He coughed in embarrassment and covered his face with his palm, like he was thinking this is beyond awkward. "I didn't even want to talk to you, Dean, and you're making me explain-"

My eyes widened immediately and I gripped his shoulders, my eyes searching his weary face. He bit his lip and looked away. He hated telling me things when I didn't understand, but goddammit, shouldn't I have the right to know?

"I-I should probably just ask Kara about it. She knows the most out of all of us." He said quickly in embarrassment, trying to push past me and get into the camper.

"I'm your brother, goddammit, so what's wrong with it? You said like you felt you got wounded this morning, is it...y'know, painful, or I dunno, did you...tear it or something?" It was so frustrating that I couldn't always help me when it came to Projecting, but I really wanted to. All this worry and panic; damn, it sucked.

He shook his head, his hair flopping all over the place. "I can't tear it. It just kind of hurts, Dean, it's not a big deal. Really."

"But has this ever happened before?"

"Not to this degree, but...look, I'm fine. I'll just take it easy for a few days, okay?" Sam frowned. "I promise it's not too bad. I wouldn't lie to you."

"Okay." I let go and ran a hand through my damp hair. "Just let me know, alright? I'll make the phone call and set the appointment back a few more days."

He nodded and stuck his hands in his pockets, and the conversation was over. Sam made talking about complications in his projecting was just about as comfortable as discussing hemorrhoids with me.


"Yes, would you mind listing some of her symptoms for me? I need it to be accurate so I can alter the specifics in my incantation to make sure I get this demon out in its entirety. Yes. I see." I dug through our files and pulled certain ones out and set them aside, and scribbled a few other notes on a yellow lined pad of paper balanced on my knee.

We had a good amount of information by now, but that didn't mean we never ran into surprises still. It was best to try and get an idea about what we were dealing with. I usually was the one to make all the phone calls, just because if they actually had a religious question I could answer it.

"Thank you, sir. We'll be meeting with you in a about five or six days. Yes, we will give you an update. Thank you. God bless," That phrase still left a little bit of a sour taste in my mouth, and I was still working on saying it unironically. I hung up and tossed the phone haphazardly into the nestle of papers in the sink. "Alright, we got a case of paranoia, with the small possibility of schizophrenia up in Bismarck. I told them we'd be there in pretty soon."

"I thought we were supposed to head East," Kara asked, helping to try and organize the paper mess, shuffling a few loose papers into a stack. It was where we kept all the information we could; contraband documents, our own meticulous notes that we had accumulated over the past two years, clippings of newspaper articles, pretty much anything we thought might come in handy later.

"Well, we're going North, which should be safe enough." I replied, running my hand through my hair and letting out a small sigh. I still felt worn out from that awful nightmare last night of being eaten alive by a Laundromat-mouth. A Laundromouth (Ha!) I'd told Sam I didn't mind, I really didn't, but it had caused me to feel pretty exhausted.

"We'll start heading up that way, we'll stop for the night once the sun sets. We could all probably use some sleep." I placed the two folders I'd pulled aside and shoved the rest aside roughly. Goddammit, I was worrying again. If we ever were caught, I would probably be jailed for a few years, but the rest of the Projectors would be taken away, but I don't know where. No one does, and that uncertainty scares me like nothing else.

When the old camper van finally shuddered to a stop that night, I was beyond exhausted. After brushing my teeth and spitting into some bushes, I climbed up the ladder at a snail's pace and collapsed onto my bed, pushing myself beneath the mounds of blankets and cocooning up for the night.

Crickets trilled outside, and Sam's footsteps squeaked as he climbed up the ladder.

"Dean..." His voice was soft with embarrassment. "-Don't feel too good."

"What's wrong?" I mumbled, rubbing my face to try to wake myself up a little, but my eyes felt glued together already.

"I dunno." He replied. "You know what, it's probably nothing."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I just want to get some sleep." He crawled under his covers on his futon.

It probably is nothing, Dean. You worry too much as it is.

"Wake me up if you feel bad again, okay? I'll be right here." I replied.

"Mm," He replied and snuggled up under his covers. I had just began to slip into a cozy sleep when I heard a strangled yelp and a sickening gurgling sound. My eyes flicked open and I saw Sam sitting upright in the dark, both hands clasped firmly over his nose and mouth, some dark red oozing between his pale fingers.

I swore under my breath and scrambled out of bed, dropping to the lower part of the camper and grabbing a roll of paper towels.

When I came back up, Sam was motionless with his eyes squeezed shut and his hands firmly clamped over his nose. "Here," I said, and he took away his hands and I dabbed, scrubbing his mouth and under his nose to clean up the blood. He took in a wheezy breath; his eyes were still squeezed shut.

"Blow." I said softly, cupping the towel just underneath his nostrils. "But gently." He let out a blow with very little pressure, and I felt like he was a five-year-old with a cold again.

He finally ventured to open his eyes. I frowned and wiped his face again. "You sure the thing can't tear?" I prompted again.

He sunk back down into his bed almost as if in defeat and nodded, his hair making a faint scrubbing noise on the pillowcase. He looked very small now, even though he was taller than me.

"That man, Dean. He did something to me. I've never felt anything like what he did before. Like…like he was some kind of spring-loaded rat trap that just snapped on me. It was inhuman." He mumbled, shivering as he retold it. "That man…Dean, that man was…I don't think he was human."

I reached out and felt his forehead. He actually did feel a little feverish, and he shivered again. "So what do you think he was?" I asked in a tight voice. Sam wouldn't make something like that up to me. He was always so truthful when it came to reiterating what he'd experienced Projecting to me.

"I don't…Jesus, I have no idea. A demon, maybe some kind of…I don't know." Sam closed his eyes and pulled the blankets closer. "I have a bad, bad feeling about that man, Dean."

"He hurt you." I restated.

Sam nodded. "Somehow. I don't know how." He sighed. "I'm sorry I was mad at you. I just...it was hard to wrap my head around, y'know? I'm sorry."

"It's all right. And I don't think you should go working this next job." I said sternly, but was gentle as I pushed a clean paper towel into his hand. "Here. Just in case."

"Can we see how I feel in five days?" Sam spoke up meekly, dabbing the towel underneath his nose and looking up at me. He was such a stubborn kid. A lot like me, actually. He was a lot tougher than I usually gave him credit for.

"You're so damn stubborn." I snorted. "Maybe. You're only going back out there if you're feeling one-hundred percent, got it?"

"Mmhm." He hummed and shut his eyes again.

"You haven't had a nosebleed like that since we were little." I pointed out nervously.

"I'm okay now." He replied, speaking in hushed tones. "What he did…it doesn't hurt so much anymore."

"Just making sure. Get some rest, okay? We'll figure out this…weird guy later." I placed my palm just above his ear, giving his head a little rub. He seemed to relax a little at that, knowing I'd be there again if anything went wrong. "You fucking scared me."

"Sorry," He mumbled sadly, and then pulled his on covers and turned away from me with a rustle.

Cas, I let your sorry ass go. So you better not pull a fast one on us. I silently prayed before I tried to let myself be swallowed up with sleep.

…..

"Dean? Hey, can you hear me? Wake up!" I woke up to Kara violently shaking me. Her voice was tight and her chin quivered, her shiny brown eyes searching my face, flitting back and forth. I blinked back at her in surprise. I hadn't seen that expression on her for a long time.

"What? What is it?" I scrambled up and my heart began to race.

"It's Sam, he…" Kara stopped herself and pressed her lips together in a watery frown.

"Oh my God-" I pushed all of my blankets off of me roughly and we both dropped to the lower tier of the camper.

Levi had taken Sam's face in his hands and had slapped his cheeks a few times, and would shake his shoulders. Sam's head flopped back and forth listlessly like a doll's. He was propped up with his back to one of the couches. Levi must have been to one to carry him down here.

"He's not waking up." Levi's eyebrows drew together, his big hand resting on Sam's shoulder. Levi tried gently rubbing the hairs on the top of his head, like he's seen me do multiple times before. He was also mumbling into his ear, I could hear the low tones rolling in the air, but I couldn't decipher his words.

"Wake him up. I don't care what you have to do." I commanded him.

"We might have to take him to the hospital." Levi said, glancing for a second up and me and then flicked his eyes back down to Sam. "This looks bad. If we're there, at least we'll know the body won't die as quickly."

The body? Why in the world did he think it was okay to refer to my brother as 'the body'? "Just wait a minute, he can find his way back-" I insisted.

"Dean, you don't know what it's like!" Levi snapped at me. "Right now, this body is soulless! Something is happening to Sam so that he can't find his way back, and his functions are starting to fail, so unless we bring him to the hospital, this body will die!"

I didn't respond. I couldn't. His words felt like they'd slapped me across the face, and I sat there in stunned silence.

The van started up again, and Kara pulled out into the road again with a few pops of the gravel. Levi was still trying effortlessly to wake Sam up. For some reason, I was afraid to touch him. His pallor reminded me of a corpse, and for me to feel his lifeless skin would make this real. This whole thing felt rubbery, like it hadn't set in yet. I didn't want that sharpness of reality to set in. I was too scared, too cowardly.

"Dean, Levi, I have to pull over." Kara pleaded after about five minutes of driving, twisting partway backwards to talk to us. "We can't go too far away, or..." She trailed off, not wanting to say it.

"He'll get lost?" I demanded angrily. "Is that it?!" She swung the car off to the side of the road more roughly than she really should have, and scrambled into the backseat.

"Sam." I knelt down in front of Sam and gently pushed past Levi. He easily let me. I finally cupped the sides of his face, and immediately noticed how cold he'd gotten. The skin on his face felt like he'd just stepped in from a snowstorm.

"Hey, I don't know if you can hear me. We stopped the car, okay?" I smudged my thumb on his cheek, his skin felt like cold wax. Oh, my God. What if I really do lose him? What if his soul really can't find its way back?

"Sammy, please. Your body's dying."

What if I lost my only brother?

Please, God.

Sam stirred slightly before he breathed in a huge gasp of air, sounding like a drowning person's first breath. His chest heaved, his arms shot out and splayed to his sides, his hands gripped the blankets behind him in a vice grip. His eyes darted rapidly to the three of our faces, dark pupils tiny pinpricks in a sea of green.

"Oh, Christ... Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto..." I muttered under my breath in relief, covering my nose and mouth within the triangle of my palms, and my eyes forced themselves closed. Sam, goddammit, never scare me like that again.

"C-co-cold-" Sam sputtered, hugging his arms tightly to his chest and shivering violently.

"Here," Kara grabbed a blanket and spread it out for him, wrapping him up in the blanket and a hug simultaneously, pumping her hand up and down his shoulder.

"Get him another one." Kara told Levi, who nodded, stood up and started grabbing all the blankets and quilts off of his own bed. I sat there with my hands on my knees, not quite sure what to do. I just let myself be surrounded by relief for a moment, letting it wash away all that awful, acidic panic.

The two of them heaped a mountain of blankets onto Sam, who curled them around himself tightly until he was just a little face sticking out of a multicolored mound.

"You all right?" I asked as he seemed like his eyes were staring blankly right through me. He nodded slightly, his head just barely bobbing up and down. "Do you want some tea?" He did that tiny, minuscule bob again and I straightened up. If I could keep my hands busy, maybe I'd feel a little bit better about this whole situation.

"Why is he so cold?" I asked Levi and Kara, desperately searching for answers for a subject I knew barely anything about. "What's wrong with him?"

"Nothing," Kara reassured me. "Souls run hot, if you go without one for a while it's cold. Especially if there's a complication, his body didn't keep itself as warm as it usually does. When our warm soul leaves, our body compensates- it goes into a sympathetic state to keep us alive, it pumps our hearts faster, raises our core temperatures, makes our eyes go all…well, you know."

"So he…it just didn't do that this time." I tried to understand. She bit her lip and nodded. I filled the teapot and put it on the stove, looking at Kara as I waited for it to boil. "Listen, Kara.." I said under my breath, leaning on the counter with my back to Sam, trying to close him off. "I'm thinking about making him take a break. I mean, indefinitely."

"You know damn well he won't stand for that." Kara frowned, leaning closer to me. "-But I have to agree with you."

"He's only nineteen for God's sake." I whispered the age part, practically mouthed it. I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose, a habit I picked up from Dad. "He's just not skilled or old enough to keep up with you two." I whispered. "Especially you."

"Hey, I didn't ask to know my way around projecting, okay?" Kara pinched her lip between two fingers, her own nervous gesture, then crossed her arms over her chest. "So what do we do about it?"

"I dunno, Kara. Maybe you can talk to him about it. Use your mothering skills to get him to listen to some reason." I pushed my hand through the hair on the side of my skull and leaned onto my elbow, propped on a cabinet.

She rolled her laughing eyes. "Oh, please. I'm not any of you boys' damn mother, okay?"

"I know. You always say that." I mustered up a very tiny grin at her, but I could tell it was much too weary to be even remotely convincing. "Just try and talk to him? If he won't listen to me?"

"Okay, Dean." She searched my face with her shiny black eyes. "There's no guarantees I can convince him, though."

I nodded at her and she went outside to go be with Levi. My arms felt like they weren't mine as I went through the motions of taking off the boiling water kettle and pouring it into a cup. I tread very softly over to him and handed him the cup, he wordlessly curled his fingers around it and refused to look up at me, and I stared at his zig-zagged part.

I wet my lips with a sweep of my tongue. "Sam," I started, swallowing back a lump in my throat. My voice was a dry hush. "I gotta...I have to tell you something."

"Yeah," He replied, his head still bowed as if in shame.

"You have to…I need you to take it easy for a little while. Just until you're back on your feet." I tried to break it to him as gently as possible.

He was silent as he sat and shivered in his mound of blankets. He finally sucked in a small breath and spoke up. "…I'm f-"

"No, you're not fine." I interrupted him, my tone a lot stricter than I'd been intending.

"I want to help-!" He began wearily.

"No." I replied and bit down hard on my teeth so I wouldn't say what I had been thinking; he wasn't exactly the most valuable player anyway. "Until I say you can start again, you're benched, Samuel-"

"-You can't call me that and don't- just don't!" He snapped. "You're not Dad so stop acting like it!" He set down his tea and buried his face in his hands.

"I know I'm not Dad." I sat down next to him. "I know."

I came and sat down next to him, careful to not spill the little paper cup of tea. He had his fingers pushed up into his thick hair with his palms digging into his eyes, and his shoulders were still shaking. I locked my fingers together and stared at them. My knuckles were still healing, the skin was itchy and pinkish along the scabs that had peeled off a little while ago.

"I didn't ask for this either, okay?" I said quietly. He sighed and dragged his hands down to form a triangle over his mouth, where he finally let them fall from his face.

"I know." He said quietly. "I'm getting worse. It's like I'm backtracking instead of learning. Goddammit- we still taking that job in Bismarck?" Sam asked and held his forehead with one hand in frustration.

"We are. You aren't." I corrected him. "End of story."

"Damn," Sam scrubbed his face in his palms. "Not even-"

"Sam, I swear to God I'm not changing my mind." I handed him his tea again. "I'll put some whiskey in this if that'll help take the edge off."

"We haven't seen a drop since that ultra bonus and you know it," Sam shook his head. Boy, did I remember that day.

Yeah, that had been a good day, one of the best on the road. It had been the time we got such a large bonus from some rich man after we'd cured his suicidal daughter that we pretended to shower ourselves with bills of cash as the car sped down the highway, and I'd felt like some kind of bandit in the Old West who'd just successfully robbed a train. We went out and bought a big-ass bottle of expensive 80 proof vodka with our new money. We'd ran and stumbled around in a big field we'd found, and everyone kissed everyone else and laughed into each other's shoulders and spun around until we got so dizzy we had to lie down. We'd finished the entire bottle that night, just the four of us.

I remembered Levi stumbling through lush grass that came up to his knees, his inked arms spread out wide, tipping them from side to side like a little kid imitating an airplane. His hair had looked like it was on fire in the thinning orange dusk light. We'd fallen asleep under the sky that seemed a lot darker than usual- and had so many mosquito bites the next morning we could barely walk. I remembered laying down in that field; the world and the stars were spinning above me, damp blades of grass had been pressed to my back, and I'd been feeling my stomach turning over and over again from the alcohol but I didn't care about how ill I felt. I had just been listening to the irregular rhythm of different people breathing around me- and even though it was very, very dark I never felt fear that night, not even once.

Those were the good days, all right.

"Yeah. Levi still asks everyday if we have milk even though he knows the answer. Sometimes it makes it easier to pretend that things are different then they really are." I nudged his shoulder.

"Well, maybe we can just start making moonshine or something." Sam smirked wearily at me.

"Moonshi-? Do you even- you're nineteen, okay, shuddup." I motioned to his paper cup once again and couldn't manage to hide my smile. "Drink your damn tea, Sammy."