What has happened so far:

With only a couple of months to spare until Dean's deal with the crossroad's demon comes due, Sam and Dean travel to Nevada, towards the outskirts of the Mojave Desert. Dean goes in search of a fun hunt, a Chupacabra, of all things. Sam's motives run deeper.

Somewhere in the area, lives an Indian Chief of the Cahuilla tribe, renown for their knowledge in deals with supernatural beings and deities.

Separated from each other by a sand storm, Dean finds himself attacked by a creature that seems, at first, too cruel and vicious to be anything but a nightmare.

Driven to drunkenness after a second and just as brutal attack that proves to him that the creature is very much real, Dean demands that they change motels.

The following morning, Dean finds new bruising on his wrists and plans on fighting the monster that keeps on attacking him. After some research, Dean dismisses the fact that it might be a Succubus because of the bat-like aspect of the monster. Instead, as he adds night terrors to his search, Dean figures he's facing a Hag, a form of Goblin that attacks people in their sleep by sitting in their chests.

When Sam leaves to meet with Ahtuapu, the Indian Chief, Dean starts turning the room into a trap for Goblins.

In the Cahuillas' camp, Sam stumbles across a mourning group and the Chief confesses that he's known Sam was a hunter all along His tribe needs one, and if Sam manages to figure out what is making the young men of his tribe commit suicide, Ahtuapu will help him with Dean's deal.

Ahtuapu tells Sam about the attacks, how no one ever hears anything, how the victims refuse to tell what has happened to them until the day they kill themselves. Researching older cases, Sam finds out that this isn't the first time it has happen, discovering clusters of young men suicides since 1997 in California.

Dean visits the coroner that did the autopsy on the latest man who killed himself and is told that all victims had the same hormone in their blood work. He also sees the odd growth of cells that the doctor has pulled out of the latest body.

The nature of the attacks the victim had suffered and the similarity between his bruises and Dean's makes him think that the same thing that attacked him, attack the Native American boys at the camp.

Dean finally figures out what the monster is: a mutate Djinn, bent on sodomizing young men until they tell everyone what has been done to them. The African tribe that had first encountered such a thing had called it a Popobawa.

At the camp, Dean acts as bait to kill the Popobawa and lets Sam believe that they are hunting a Succubus.

The monster, stronger than him, breaks Dean's right wrist and is about to attack him once again when Sam, who had been sent on a wild goose chase by his brother, finds the two and distracts the Popobawa long enough for Dean to kill it.

Chief Ahtuapu thanks the Winchesters for their help and gives Sam, as he had promised, the means necessary to break Dean's deal. A powerful spell that will protect Dean from any kind of action that would cause him harm. After it is done, no man, beast or supernatural being can ever break Dean's skin.

Sam drives Dean to a clinic and forces him to have his wrist checked. While waiting on Dean, Sam remembers Dean's previous comments about an evil 'bat-man' when he was drunk and realizes that the monster that they'd just killed couldn't possibly be a succubus as Dean let him believe. Instead of holy-water and a exorcism, Dean had killed the monster with just a knife.

Sam figures that Dean knows more than he's letting on and that the only way for him to have that extra knowledge is if Dean himself had been a victim of thing that had been attacking young men at the Indian camp.

On their way to Bobby's, Sam confronts Dean about his doubts and sends Dean into a brutal flashback that almost kills Dean.

After making sure that Sam will not divulge his secret to Bobby, Dean escapes to sleep while Sam and Bobby plot to put the spell into action and prevent Dean from being taken by the crossroad's demon.

Spooked by a nightmare and with the knowledge of what had been found inside the other men attacked by the Popobawa, Dean seeks help in a clinic outside of Bobby's area.

The doctor who sees him discovers that he has in fact a mass growing near his stomach and strongly advises him to surgery.

Dean agrees and sets the date for two days from there... exactly at the same time that Bobby and Sam plan to drug him and mark his body so that no external source can ever harm Dean. Including well meant doctors trying to cure him.

Dean tries to spend the last day before the surgery with Bobby and Sam, but both of them are too busy to spare him the time. Dean ends up drinking alone by the lake.

By the time he returns home, everything is already set to start the ritual. Sam hands Dean a beer laced with sleeping pills and, once Dean falls asleep, he and Bobby take Dean to the basement.

The ritual goes as planned and Sam and Bobby are certain it will work.

Dean wakes up in his bed the following day, but freaks out when he realizes that his cloths have been moved during his sleep.

He runs away from Bobby's place and ends up crashing the Impala. Luckily for him, he is taken to the same hospital where he was supposed to meet doctor later that day. Dean does suffer a scratch.

The doctor promises an almost unconscious Dean that she will do anything in her power to get Dean okay, to take out of his stomach what doesn't belong there.

She doesn't get a chance of doing anything for Dean, as an electrical charge causes an accident at the OR and both she and the anesthesiologist are killed.

When Dean wakes up and learns of what has happened, he believes that the Popobawa is the one responsible for what happened and escapes the hospital before anyone gets hurt.

Meanwhile, Bobby forces Sam to tell him the truth once he figures out the name of the thing that attacked Dean. They are both desperately looking for a missing Dean when Bobby gets a call from the hospital about his 'nephew'.

This is what happens next...


THE DARKEST SIDE OF BLACK

CHAPTER /(O|O)\\TEN

Sam and Bobby stormed through the sliding doors at the County Hospital and froze. There was a sense of barely organized chaos, moving and swirling all around them like a stormy sea; it was disorienting.

Maintenance people were running around, scattered through the corridor and waiting rooms, followed close behind by cleaning crew. Some carried ladders, others clutched spools of wires and cables. One of them had what looked like a Geiger counter in his hands. Most of them looked as if they had absolutely no idea what they were supposed to be doing.

Sam cast a brief questioning look at Bobby but neither said a word. Along with their concern for Dean, the frenetic mood within the hospital sent a dark shiver of foreboding through them both. They felt it. Shared it.

Moving through the confusion, Sam barely missed colliding with a group of guys in suits. The men walked by slowly, looking around carefully like they were cataloging the cracks on the walls and trying to find the answer to all the mysteries of the universe in the patterns they formed.

At the end of the corridor that led away from the reception area, both hunters caught a glimpse of blue uniforms; at least three policemen stood, talking quietly to another guy in a suit. There were two women with them, one of them a nurse. She was crying.

Sam pushed all of these details to the back of his mind. He was there for Dean only.

The possibilities as to why Dean was at the hospital had been eating at him ever since Bobby had hung up the phone and they'd gotten into the older man's car. The Impala, Sam had noticed, was no where in sight either at Bobby's place or the parking lot outside the hospital, which only added to the puzzle. Had Dean walked to get there?

"I got a call about my nephew," Bobby announced as soon as he reached the reception island, where a young man in red glasses sat. "Dan Singer," he supplied before the question could be asked.

The polite smile didn't waver from the man's face as he asked them to wait a moment. Sam took another look around, keeping the sound of fingers hitting the keyboard in the background. Scanning the room, he found himself hoping that his eyes would stumble across Dean, coming out from any of the numerous rooms that surrounded them, a smile in his face as he berate them for taking too long to come and get him.

Dean, however, was no where in sight.

"Ah, yes... Mr. Dan Singer was admitted two hours ago to the psychiatric yard," the young man –'Stevens', according to his name plaque, in letters just as red as his glasses- told them. "Humm... apparently he was transferred out from Surgery... lucky guy..."

Stunned to silence, Sam turned to look at Bobby; the older man's face was a perfect mirror of his own confusion and doubt. Surgery? Lucky? And had the guy actually said that Dean had been committed to the loony house?

"What the hell happened to him?" Sam couldn't help but ask, his voice probably higher than what he'd planned for.

The smile slipped from Stevens' face as he looked at Sam, his eyes already accessing how big of a nuisance Sam was about to become. "Are you related to the patient?"

Before Sam could remember if Dan Singer was listed as having siblings or not, the receptionist had already turned his attention back to Bobby. "You'll need to go to the third floor, sir. They'll provide you with all the details there. Elevators' that way." Stevens turned one side look at Sam once more, before adding a pointed "family members only".

Bobby grabbed Sam's wrist before he could physically react to the indirect prohibition of going any further. Looking angrily at the older man, Sam stood down. The message was clear and it was one Sam knew even before looking into Bobby's eyes: they were working with bare minimum information and false health insurance IDs on top of that; they could not afford to start a scene and call attention to either themselves or to 'Dan Singer'.

With a slight but frustrated nod, Sam took a deep breath, trying to quiet down his urge to just scream and not break 'Stevens' red glasses.

One Winchester in the psych yard was more than enough, and right now they needed more to find out what had happened to Dean than Sam needed to defend his position as Dean's family.

"I'll let you know something as soon as I can," Bobby offered him, making his way to the silver elevator in a quick stride.

Sam sagged against the weight of uncertainty that he could feel pressing his shoulders down. The lobby was teeming with people but Sam was alone in his misery.

Wondering aimlessly through the reception area, ignoring the veiled stinky-eye look that the guy behind the desk kept throwing him, Sam eventually found himself in front of the coffee machine.

He bought a coffee just to have something to do and not go out of his mind.

"... an't keep talking like that," the muffled male voice reached Sam over the clatter of the machine.

"But I know what I saw in there!" a woman's voice replied, the tone slightly pitched and angry. "That shit doesn't happen outside of science fiction, Rob! And you can't just scrub something like that under the carpet and pretend it never happened. Two people died!"

"Alice..."

"Don't Alice me! I was there; I'm the one who will never be able to forget it!"

Sam bent down to pick up his coffee, keeping his face hidden as the clipped sounds of a pair of heeled shoes walked past him and the woman disappeared through a side door that led outside. The door closed so softly behind her that it robbed most of the flare of her angry exit.

Taking a sip of his coffee, Sam made a quick decision. Years of hunting had left him with an acute sense to weird things, and the conversation that he'd partially heard had definitely been weird.

The fact that, apparently, two people had died under suspicious circumstances, at the hospital where Dean had been admitted under even more suspicious circumstances, was more than enough to spike Sam's curiosity.

He found the woman outside, pulling a smoke from the cigarette between her fingers like it was oxygen on a stick. Sam realized that it was the same nurse he'd seen crying when he and Bobby had arrived at the hospital.

"I think I left mine in the car," Sam said, making a show of patting his pockets and looking at the cigarette between the woman's lips. "Would you mind to..."

The nurse blinked tear filled eyes and looked at him, clueless about what he was talking about for half a second before pulling her pack from a pocket and shaking one out.

"Thanks," Sam offered, putting the cigarette in his mouth and fishing for the lighter in his pocket. He really hoped that he wouldn't ruin everything by starting to cough like a high school kid smoking for the first time. Truth was, Sam couldn't remember the last time he'd used the same ruse to start up a conversation with someone. Probably high school.

Sam pulled a careful breath in, resisting the tickle of tobacco as it slid down his throat. "Tough day, hum?" he asked, trying to sound casual and, at the same time, like he already knew all that there was to know.

The woman blinked, again needing to remind herself that she wasn't alone. "Yeah, that's one way to put it," she confessed, her tone dry.

"And the police... do they suspect sabotage?" Sam ventured, guessing that the reason why all those maintenance guys were about was because of something important having malfunctioned. It needed to be something concerning the whole hospital, something high up to justify the use of ladders. "In the electric system?"

To Sam's relief, the woman nodded, finally looking up to meet him in the eye. "That's what they say."

Sam took another drag out of the cigarette, trapping the smoke in his mouth and quickly letting it out. "But you don't..."

Her eyes shifted back to the ground, white shoes scuffing against the rubble and slowly turning red with dust.

"I wasn't there," Sam pushed, trying to look as shifty and uncomfortable as her, "but from what I heard, it just sounds like they're trying to cover up something else," he said, hoping that he was using what little he had heard of her discussion in the right context.

"Who are you again?" she finally asked, suspicion in her voice.

"Vincent, from the cleaning crew," Sam supplied without even blinking. "I started just this week," he added with a roll of his eyes.

"Yeah, not the best week to do that," she agreed, rubbing her left arm. "I was there, you know?" she voiced, pulling at her sleeve so it would completely cover her bandaged arm. "When it happened."

"It wasn't an electrical accident, was it?" Sam nudge her, his mind already going through every supernatural thing that could be explained as an electrical malfunction when civilian minds were too thick to see anything else. "Did you see anything weird?"

She bit her lip, hard enough that Sam was expecting blood when her teeth pulled away. He was betting on it being a poltergeist, or even a ghost. Deep down, Sam just wanted it to be their kind of thing, something that would justify Dean's presence at the hospital in the first place.

"It was that guy they had on the table," she whispered, red, bloated eyes meeting Sam's face steady even as tears started to fall again. "I had a bad feeling about that intervention... we'd broken five needles just trying to get an IV on him... it was going so bad that the patient was holding my hand by the time I finally managed to get a line in," the nurse went on, the raise of her eyebrows telling Sam just how out of the ordinary that was. "And then when Dr. Tyler picked up the electrical scalpel to start the incision, the patient's skin..."

Sam looked at her, seeing the blush creeping up her neck. He waited for her to get passed her embarrassment, his eyes conveying all the understanding that he could manage, silently urging her to go on.

"... his skin started to glow just before the scalpel went crazy and... and killed her," she finished with a sob. "It killed all that were standing to close to him, tried its best to kill all of us."

Sam's breath itched inside his chest, his eyes going back to the bandage on the woman's arm. "Do you... was the patient okay? Do you remember is name?"

The nurse hiccuped into her paper tissue, dabbing at her nose. "He was fine," she said quickly. "I mean, we were afraid at first, because he was really close to the scalpel and there was so much blood... but he didn't had a scratch on him."

Sam resisted the urge to shake her shoulders and get her to spit out the name of the patient. When her mouth finally formed the words, "Dan Singer" Sam felt the world disappear from under his feet.

/(O|O)\\

Bobby wasn't sure what he would find at the end of the corridor. The nurse at the station had called the doctor on duty and they had explained to the concerned 'uncle' why his 'nephew' was currently tied to a bed.

None of it had made a lick of sense to the older man. For one, it was hard to take seriously anything the psychiatrist said because the man looked like the giant yellow bird on Sesame Street. Maybe it was the too yellow hair, or the glasses framing his eyes that made them look too big, maybe it was the shape of the man's nose... Maybe Bobby had been spending too much time near the Winchesters and their craziness was catchy.

Looking around, Bobby was starting to have his doubts.

Big Bird had gone on about psychotic breaks and how Dean was still within age for schizophrenia and was Bobby aware of any history of psychiatric illnesses in his family, talking non stop as they walked down the long corridor that accounted for most of the psych yard. Bobby grunted and nodded his ignorance of all relevant facts just to keep the man walking.

When the psychiatrist stopped in front of a room ominously labeled 'Isolation', Bobby realized that they'd reached their destination. The man in the white coat made no move to open the door and Bobby took a peek through the door's barred window into the room.

The room was mostly dark, but he could still see the long body laying in the bed on the left. The wide strap, fastened around Dean's chest and securing him to the trashed bed, was the source of two others, immobilizing his wrists. Dean's legs were trapped in an identical contraption. Bobby shuddered at the level of immobility being forced on the kid. He knew how Dean 'enjoyed' being helpless like that. "What exactly happened to him?" Bobby asked, working words through the bile in his mouth.

"Well, sir, we know that he underwent a full anesthesia earlier this afternoon but the operation was canceled due to... some unforeseen events in the OR, and that, soon after waking up, Dan tried to escape the hospital's premises—"

"Anesthesia? What sort of events?" Bobby cut in.

"I'm not sure... some technical malfunction, I heard," the psychiatrist provided. "Your nephew was okay, of course, but two hospital employees were killed in the accident."

"Obviously not okay," Bobby said acerbically, looking at his surroundings. His eyes wondered towards the half-closed door next to Dean's. The sounds of a woman screaming were easy to hear outside and inside, through the small slit he could see, Bobby could swear that they were filming The Exorcist all over again.

Bobby had noticed the way the man had stressed out the word 'accident'. He wasn't sure if that was because 'the accident' had been something that they couldn't quite explain, or because he was fearful that 'Dan Singer's family might decide to sue the hospital for putting him at risk. "I want to know exactly what happened to my nephew," Bobby demanded, his tone of voice promising all the consequences that the hospital was probably hoping to avoid over this whole matter.

The other man cleared his throat, pushed the glasses up his pointy nose. For a second there, Bobby thought that he'd be thick enough to start spouting legal-ease about patient confidentiality and how he couldn't divulge details from the patient's file.

He must've read in Bobby's face just how serious he was, because the next words out of his mouth didn't start with an excuse. "Your nephew had a surgical intervention scheduled for earlier today. He arrived at the hospital through the ER, having been involved in a car crash of some sorts—"

"What?" Bobby asked, looking at Dean's figure again, this time looking for any signs that he might've been injured. As far as he could see, Dean hadn't any new scratch on him. "What kind of crash? Was he hurt?"

The psychiatrist gave him a weak smile. "Your nephew was okay, despite the condition of his car," the man pointed out. "He was brought here only as a precaution."

Bobby didn't know if he should be relieved or scared shitless with that fact. On one hand, it meant that the spell had worked; on the other hand... "You said he had a surgery scheduled?" Bobby asked. "Arranged by whom? To do what?"

Big Bird gave him a look, as if he expected Bobby to know that already. "From what I read in his file, to investigate and determine the viability of removing a tumoral mass lodged in his abdo—"

The change of color in Bobby's face was so sudden and drastic that even the talking man, looking at Dean's file as he was, noticed it. "Sir... are you okay?"

Bobby managed to nod, finally swallowing the knot that had formed in his throat, big enough that it threatened to stop his heart. There were only two reasonable explanations for what that doctor had just said; either Bobby was starting to hear things or... "You got the wrong file, pal. My nephew doesn't have anything of the sorts," Bobby let out, daring the other man to tell him otherwise.

"You weren't aware of your nephew's condition?" the psychiatrist backed away, actually looking surprised. He flipped through another page. "You are listed as his next of kin, so we assumed that you were aware of why Dan was here in the first place..."

Bobby needed to sit down, sooner rather than later, or he feared he might fall down. The doctor's words were jumbling up and making little sense inside his head. All that Bobby could register was that Dean had a very serious condition and that his and Sam's actions had made it impossible for any doctor to help him.

He and Sam might as well have killed Dean.

"I would like to see my nephew now, please," Bobby asked, knowing that his voice was shaking as much as his whole body.

"Before you see him, I would like to stress the fact that we do not believe the events at the OR and the psychotic break are related in any form or context," the man said, sounding slightly defensive. "Your nephew had obvious signs of recent physical abuse and that trauma, more than like, is what set off the psychotic break that lead to his attempted escape from the hospital and the attack on the security guards. And from what few coherent words we could understand, your nephew suffers from hallucinations of quite acute and severe onset, and has shown a detachment from reality that has me very concerned."

"What do you mean?" Bobby found himself asking. Anything to cover the noise that the reverberating words of 'physical trauma' were making inside his head. It sounded like such a clean and antiseptic way to label what Dean had been through.

"Well," the psychiatrist flipped a page on the file that he'd been carrying, "he made some references to demons and giant, bat beasts that he seemed to believe were after him. Also, something he called... hum... hellhounds? Which he seemed convinced that the two security guards were."

Bobby shuddered as he imagined the scene. Dean, wearing nothing but those ridiculously thin hospital gowns, feeling lost and confused, surrounded by all the monsters that were eating up at his soul, beating the crap out of two overweight security guards that probably had little to no training to be guarding anything in the first place.

One thing the psychiatrist had gotten right, though. After the events of the past several days, learning of what had happened in the OR had probably freaked the boy out. Hell! The whole thing was enough to freak Bobby out and he wasn't the one having to deal with being ra- attacked during a hunt, or being stuck in a place with Big Bird over there and the lady from The Exorcist next door. And a tumor, Bobby reminded himself... how could Dean have hidden something like that from them?

The sound of the door being opened pulled Bobby out of his frantic thoughts. Absentmindedly, the hunter noted that there was no key-code pad or imposing lock keeping that door closed. It was simply a one-way lock, that allowed for anyone to open it from outside, but not from within.

The lights flipped on and the grimness of the room was lit in its full glory. The lack of windows to the outside gave the place more of a prison cell look rather than a hospital room. Even the grey of the walls screamed prison cell.

There were two cots inside, frames bolted to the floor; one of them was empty, loose restraints hanging from its metal frame like broken spaghetti. The other bed, where Dean lay, sat pressed against the far left wall.

Bobby had been prepared for the sore sight of restraints; it had been the first thing that the doctor had warned him about, the first thing he'd seen through the door window. But the sight of Dean conked out on meds, literally drooling over the side of cot where he'd been strapped without so much as a sheet to cover him... that made Bobby see red.

"Isn't this a little overkill?" he asked venomously, not waiting for Big Bird to let him inside and pushing his way past the man.

"I'm sorry, we can't allow visitors too close to the patients in this room... he's still too—" the tall man tried, one hand reaching out for Bobby's arm.

The look that the hunter threw him was enough for the psychiatrist to reconsider.

"As far as I can tell, my nephew was fine the last time I saw him. And now you tell me that your lousy hospital has managed to endanger his life due to poor maintenance of something as important as an OR and that he's had a nervous break down as a consequence of the incompetent work around here. So, tell me again, my nephew's too what exactly?" Bobby said without pause, his voice rising in volume as he took his role of about-to-sue-the-crap-out-of-the-hospital, angry family member as far as he could. Anything that would get him close to Dean right that instant and, even more important, that would get the poor kid out of that place.

The hand on Bobby's arm dropped and the other man backed away, probably now sure that crazy ran in the family. "He broke the jaw of one of our guards and sent the other down a flight of stairs. The man has a concussion as a result. Under the circumstances, the hospital decided to press no charges, but our primary concern here is for your safety, Mr. Singer, and the safety of our patient," the psychiatrist said, sounding almost honest about the crap that was pouring out of his mouth. "I realize that this is a lot to take in and that the whole situation might seem odd and suspicious right now, but I assure you that the hos—"

But Bobby had stopped listening to him as the previously unmoving figure on the bed whimpered faintly.

Dean was covered in sweat, wild eyes looking everywhere but clearly seeing nothing of his surroundings. He looked scared.

Whatever they had given him was good enough to keep him subdued, but not even remotely at rest. The white, restraining band across Dean's chest had made his gown ride up during his struggles, and the vivid bruising that Bobby had seen for the first time the night before, stood in harsh contrast with the rest of Dean's skin.

Trapped in a bed, with that weight pressing down on his chest, Bobby had a pretty good idea what Dean's current nightmares were about. Those damn idiots!

"Dean... it's Bobby," Bobby whispered low enough to make sure that Big Bird wouldn't hear him, trying to call Dean away from the images inside his head.

Two blown up pupils, surrounded by a thin ring of green and a sea of busted blood vessels, looked in the general direction of Bobby's voice. "'oooobeeeee!" Dean called out happily.

The honest joy that shone in the boy's eyes at seeing a familiar face was almost enough for Bobby to embarrass himself into crying like a little girl. Last thing Dean needed was an old man blubbering snot and tears over his drugged-out-off his gorge form. "Hey De- Dan... how're you doing son?"

Dean looked deep in thought, as if evaluating item by item his present condition. He tried raising his hands, probably to count those item, looking surprised when the restrains wouldn't allow him more than a couple of inches above the mattress. "'obee... there'sss somethin' wrong wee t'air here," Dean confided, big eyes looking around for the culprits for such an odd behavior on the atmosphere's part. "Iss too heavee!"

Bobby placed a restraining hand over Dean's struggling arms. There was no point in adding more bruises to the ones already there. "Don't worry... we'll get these off and the air will start behaving just fine again. And then we can get home."

"We cannot remove the restraints until we are sure the patient is no longer a threat to himself or others," the doctor said in a flat tone. Bobby had all but forgotten that the psychiatrist was right there, listening and cataloging each of the words exchanged between the two of them. "It will do him no good to be hearing promises you will not be able to keep."

The look that Bobby shot him, had the world been a fair place, would've liquefied the other man where he stood. But, of course it wouldn't be that simple; of course Bobby would have to either get violent or get coy to have Dean off those horrible chains.

If Dean heard any of the doctor's harsh words, he didn't look like any of them had registered beyond the sound they made. He smiled sweetly, eyes crossing over the bridge of his nose as he tried to focus harder on Bobby's face. As fast and complete as the smile had been, Dean's face turned sad and on the verge of tears in the next second.

"'ant go hom', 'obee," Dean slurred, turning his face away from the older man.

Bobby found himself pushing Dean's soaked hair back from his forehead before he realized what he was doing. "Why's that, boy?" Bobby knew that probing Dean's logic when his brain was so turned into mush from the drugs wasn't fair, but the utter sadness in the young man's face made it impossible to ignore.

Dean shook his head, tears falling free from his lashes were they'd been stubbornly clinging. "I kkkeee... I k'ant, 'obee. Because ifai go there," Dean said, tone proper for a conspiracy to overthrow the throne, "evereeone dies... 'cause of me, 'obee!"

The tears that Bobby had managed to keep at bay before, refused to be denied then.

"It's okay, son... no one's dying on my watch," Bobby said, meaning every word of it.

Dean kept shaking his head, hardly convinced by Bobby's reassurances. "No, no, no... you'll die too, 'obeee... t'fucking batssgonna kill you all!"

Bobby had to limit his reply to a sharp intake of air because Big Bird chose that moment to remind them again that he was still there, that he was still in charge. That he was still hearing. "As you see, the delusions are still active, even in this sedate state. I can't allow his release until we are sure that he is properly diagnosed and responding to treatment. So soon after his initial psychotic break is difficult to venture a gues—"

Bobby wasn't listening to a word the man was saying. He knew what was wrong with Dean's head and there was nothing a doctor - who had none of the facts and wouldn't even believe them if they were told to him - could do for Dean there. Instead, Bobby was trying to process Dean's words.

Sam had told him that they had killed the Popobawa; that Dean had managed to kill it, despite everything. The thing was gone. So why was Dean still fearful for their safety?

The only thing that Bobby could think of were the deaths at the OR. Dean was a smart guy, he would've connected the dots and figured that something like that happening in the same room where he was, would most likely than not, be related to him. They had all stopped believing in coincidences a long time ago.

Dean was blaming the monster for what had happened while he was in the OR; he was blaming himself for the lives that had been lost there. Dean was taking on the guilt that, by all means, belonged to Bobby and Sam. No one else.

"...unless, of course, you wish to transfer him to another psychiatric unit," the psychiatrist went on, his look of disapproval at seeing the older so close to Dean and actually touching him getting on Bobby's nerves, "in which case, I would like to write a letter to my colleague, so that he knows what he'd be dealing with and that proper measures are taken."

Bobby, who had been trying to get Dean to focus on his face, didn't miss the tone in the man's voice. He knew exactly what the 'nice' doctor wanted to tell his colleague. A letter full of how violent Dean was, how deranged his mind was and how they needed to keep him extremely droopy for their own safety.

"How soon until we can do that?" Bobby simply asked. He had no intention of leaving Dean to spend the night there. While the psychiatrist went on venturing a guess on how soon Dean would be safe to move, Bobby was already seeing possible exit points and counting security measures. As far as he could see, security was laughable in that place, the people who worked there obviously counting on the patients being too drugged and trapped in their beds to escape. It wasn't a prison; people wouldn't expect one of the patients to actually have help in breaking out.

The older hunter's eyes went back to the man on the bed. The kid, really. The ancient man without wrinkles. Dean had always been such a contradiction of age, older than he would ever be on the inside, younger than what he actually was on the outside.

Right now, he looked as young as Bobby had ever seen him.

Not even when John had showed up at his doorstep with a toddler and a somber young kid by his hand, had Dean looked so open and vulnerable.

Dean had learned to hide his weakness and frailties from a very young age, some times so effectively that he managed to fool himself along with everybody else.

Not this time, though. Bobby could see the insecurity in Dean's eyes, could see the fear each time he tried to move only to discover all over again that he couldn't.

"I gotta go, kid," Bobby forced himself to say, his throat nearly closing up at the words. It was the last thing he wanted, leaving Dean alone in that place, but he needed to play his part if this thing was going to work at all.

Dean's unfocused eyes looked in his general direction, a loopy smile in his lips. "'kay 'obee... can I go too?"

Bobby gulped. The kid's brain was all messed up, something that Bobby hoped was only due to the drugs and not some side effect of that other reason why Dean had been at the hospital. One minute he wanted to protect them by staying away, the next he wanted the safety and proximity of family. Bobby couldn't really blame him.

"Not right now, kid, but I'm coming back for you soon, okay?" the older man said, his eyes stinging. He grabbed Dean's left hand, the one closest to him, and squeezed it tight.

Dean wasn't much for personal contact, Bobby knew that. Hell! Bobby was as allergic to it as the boy himself. But right then, he needed it; they both needed it.

Dean had to remember at least that Bobby would not leave him there to be preyed upon by the monsters in his memories; and Bobby wanted to reassure himself that the man he saw as a son wouldn't vanish into non-existence, sucked in by all the crap that was surrounding him at this point.

Bobby caught Dean's eyes as he tried to trace a line of recognition from the hand squeezing his and to Bobby's face. "'obee? 's that you?" Dean asked, the same surprise and contentment as if he was seeing him for the very first time. "Getmme out of here, will ya 'obee?"

The older hunter felt like hitting something. Possibly himself.

It was, quite possibly, the hardest thing he'd done in a long time, but Bobby stopped himself from answering Dean's plea as he rose and followed the psychiatrist out of the room. The flicker of the lights, plunging the whole room into darkness, made him feel like he'd lost Dean already.

Even after the doctor closed the door, Bobby could hear Dean screaming out his name, begging to be set free. The only thing keeping Bobby from running back inside that room was the pain in his clenched fists, nails digging half moons into his palms, reminding him to stay focused.

"I'll come by later; arrange for the transference in the mean time," Bobby's gruff voice ordered, not looking Big Bird in the eyes. Bobby didn't want a stranger witnessing how broken he was at leaving Dean like that. "I would appreciated if you had Dean's file and that letter ready when I come back," he said, forcing himself to be polite.

Once the elevator doors closed, hiding from view the psychiatric floor and the remnants of Dean's suffering, Bobby sagged against the wall. Good lord! The hits just kept on coming...

Of course, explaining to Sam why he had left behind a traumatized, drugged out of his gills, Dean would be a second dose of hell. Convincing the young hunter that rushing through that yard and taking Dean by force, while satisfying, was the wrong course of action was going to be an Herculean task. To say the least.

By the time the elevator happily chimed, announcing that he'd reached his destination, Bobby was nowhere near ready to face Sam.

/(O|O)\\

Getting Dean out, as it happened, was surprisingly easy.

Going from the staff schedule that was posted in the nurses' station, Bobby knew that in just two hours there would be a shift change. Lots of people going out, lots of people coming in.

It was the perfect time for him and Sam to slide into one of the laundry rooms, grab themselves a pair of uniforms, and make their way to the psych yard, armed with a wheelchair and all of their resolution to get Dean out.

The one thing that could put a dent in their plan was Dean himself. If he was aware enough to recognize them, his brain addled as it was, Dean would in all likelihood give them away.

Bobby had a gag in his pocket. He wasn't a praying kind of man, but he prayed that he didn't had to use that.

Someone must've been hearing his pleas, because by the time Bobby opened the door to the isolation room, Dean was out like a light, snoring softly. Whatever drugs they had given him finally pulling the kid under.

Bobby looked at Sam; the younger Winchester was biting his lip, looking at the sight of his drugged brother, strapped to the hospital bed. Bobby hadn't mentioned the real reason why Dean had been at the hospital, still hoping that the doctor had somehow gotten it wrong. Still, Sam was having a hard time dealing with what was happening, dealing with the fact that Dean had been put in danger under his watch one more time.

Making short work of the locks on Dean's restraints, Sam took care of sitting Dean on the wheelchair, taking one of the bed sheets to wrap around Dean's upper body and the back of the chair, to make sure that he wouldn't slip off of it. Knowing that Sam would take care of Dean and escape to the car waiting for them in the parking lot, Bobby made his way to the nurses' station.

He'd seen the stack of patient files that was kept there; they needed Dean's file. For one, Bobby wanted to know exactly what was going on with that boy; and they needed to know what sort of drugs they'd pumped him full of.

The nurses where all huddled in a group, exchanging patient information in between those going and those arriving. In the middle of the group, he could see a couple of aids' uniforms as well; Big Bird, fortunately, was nowhere to be seen.

Looking down at his own uniform, reminding himself of which was he, Bobby made his way to one of the nurses. "Excuse me," he said politely, flashing his most honest smile at the young woman. "One of the relatives of the guy in the isolation room claims he's the man's family doctor and he wanted to have a look at the patient file."

Bobby realized that he and Sam would have no problem getting out of there or taking Dean's file with them. When the woman looked up to meet his eyes, all that Bobby saw was a grieving woman, with swollen eyes that did little to hide the fact that the news of what had happened earlier at the OR had hit every one at the hospital hard.

Bobby wasn't even going to dwell on the fact that what had happened, those two deaths, were more than likely his responsibility. He had seen in Sam's face that he was thinking it too.

All they could focus on was getting Dean home.

/(O|O)\\

Sam forced himself to stay in the room with Dean when they got him to Bobby's. Figured it was his penitence for having put his brother at risk again.

Dean and heavy drugs had never been the best of companions, Sam knew that. His brother got loopy on Vicodin, goofy on morphine and he downright hallucinated when coming off anesthetics. It was just the way Dean was rigged.

Psychotropic drugs were a whole new low on how dramatically not-well Dean dealt with drugs. He was sweaty, he was agitated, he was mumbling and screaming for every demon inside his head to leave him alone. By the time Sam and Bobby had him settled in bed, the soft snores had been replaced by agitation. Dean had no idea where he was or who they were.

When Dean's vivid nightmares turned to the events of the past days, Sam felt like bolting from the room. In his rambling mumbles, Dean shared insights about what had happened to him, things that Sam was sure his brother would have never mentioned had he been in full possession of his faculties. Details that Sam thought he wanted to know but, now that he was being given the full graphic descriptions... he had no idea how Dean had survived it all.

At the break of dawn, Dean had finally settled down into a more restful sleep and Sam had allowed himself to leave for a few minutes.

Frustrated and not just a little angry at the world, he headed for the kitchen to find Bobby sitting at the table.

Dean's file, the one they had managed to sneak out of the hospital, was opened in front of him. A bottle of scotch, already half empty, was standing guard over it.

"What the hell did they give him?" Sam asked as soon as he sat down in front of the older man. Before Bobby could answer him, Sam poured himself a hefty dose of alcohol and gulped it down all in one go.

Breakfast of champions, his father would say.

Bobby emptied his glass before he answered. He looked older than his years, haggard and worn. Bobby's face alone scared the hell out of Sam. "Sam, we need to talk."

Sam rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. He was too tired for the load of trouble he could hear in Bobby's voice. He fixed his attention on the older man anyway.

"I've been reading through all the stuff that they had on Dean at that hospital," Bobby started. He wasn't going to beat this one around the bush. "Doc that died at the hospital had found a mass in Dean's abdomen... big one, from what they say. She was trying to get it out—"

"—but the ritual we performed made it impossible for them to do anything," Sam finished, his face, devoid of all color as he heard Bobby's words and reached his own conclusions. "Do they even know if it's benign or can-" he whispered, unable to finish the sentence.

"My guess would be neither... I think this is related with what happened to him," Bobby offered, knowing that having more facts would help Sam deal with this. "I've been doing some digging around, and it turns out that these 'masses' were found in a number of Popobawa's victims. Almost all the guys that it attacked."

Sam blinked red eyes in the direction of the other man, his brow furrowed in confusion. "They weren't found in any of the victims at the Cahuillas' camp," Sam pointed out.

"You sure about that?" Bobby insisted, pulling out a stack of papers from inside one of his books. "I had a friend of mine send me all the autopsy reports he could get his hands on in that area... Sam, there were at least three other guys with the same thing."

Sam was about to deny it, to tell Bobby that he had his data wrong, when he remembered that Dean had been the one going to the coroner's office; he had been the one getting those reports and knowing what had been found in the bodies of those poor kids. "He lied to me," Sam concluded.

"Yeah, I figured he did," Bobby agreed. "The reports are very clear about the location of the masses –same exact place as Dean's- but they were never quite capable of knowing what it was exactly or what had caused them. Of course, by then those men were already dead and there was no way to see its evolution."

"What else do those reports say?" Sam asked, picking up the files and skimming through them. All of those men, they had taken their own life. Every one of them attacked by the same thing that had assaulted Dean. "Bobby... what if he... do you think Dean would...?"

Sam couldn't force himself to actually say the words. He knew his brother, knew how Dean valued life, even if he tended to risk his too often. All those other men, Sam wanted to believe that they were all weak, weak enough to see suicide as a way out; Sam wanted to say that Dean would never do something like that, but he knew he was fooling himself on both accounts.

"So what are you saying?" Sam asked after skimming over a couple of reports that ended all up saying the same thing. "That this thing leaves a part of itself behind when it attacks someone?"

Bobby scratched his beard, looking lost at words. "I think it's trying to breed."

Nausea churned in Sam's gut. Soon, the scotch that he'd just downed was burning a trail back toward his mouth. Slapping a hand over his lips, Sam stumbled to the kitchen sink and vomited.

When his stomach finally stopped rebelling, he turned slowly on rubbery legs and stared at the older hunter. Bobby hadn't moved. Hadn't said a thing. Just let Sam get it out of his system. Had probably already done the same himself earlier. Now, the old hunter just sat there, staring at his empty glass. Not making eye contact with him.

When Sam could no longer take the silence, he exploded. "WHAT THE FUCK!"

Bobby rubbed his eyes, apparently not wanting to believe his own words. But the facts were right in front of him and he couldn't not see them for what they were. "We don't know much about these things, but we know they don't kill their victims—"

"No, it just breaks them so deeply that they take their own lives," Sam couldn't help adding.

"I don't it's so cut and dry like that either," Bobby pointed out, pulling another report. "See this big word here?" he said, pointing to a particular word in the medical report that had been underlined several times. "They call it a hormone, but none of the reports seem to know where it came from and why its there... only that it messes with people's brains. Makes them depressed."

Sam wanted to bang his head against the wall until this whole thing made sense to him. All that he could process at the moment was that his brother was fucking pregnant with a monster's baby and that they had made sure that no one could get inside Dean to take it out. "What are you saying, exactly? What does that thing achieve by planting its... eggs inside someone, only to have them kill themselves?" Sam actually gagged saying those words.

"I think it's a natural selection mechanism," Bobby let out, testing the words in his mouth. "We only have reports on those who killed themselves, Sam. Who knows how many others are out there who survived?"

"Those who are compatible with the thing get to be daddies—" Sam said, catching on what Bobby was saying.

"—those who aren't, develop this hormone and end themselves."

"Fucking hell, Bobby!" Sam let out, his fingers threading through his messy hair. He wanted to pull chunks of it out. "What about Dean?"

Bobby sighed. There was no 'better' answer to that question. Dean was screwed either way. "Dean doesn't have the hormone."

"Shit!," Sam yelled out. "Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!"

"Yeah... something like that," Bobby said. He grabbed the nearly empty bottle and refilled his glass and Sam's. "Congrats... you're gonna be an uncle," he said grimly, raising his glass in a dark and sour salute.

Sam felt like puking all over again.


Big thank you to Jackfan 2 for her marvelous beta work. All remaining mistakes are mine.