Disclaimer – Not my characters, I just use them improperly.

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Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, I'm glad you guys liked the beginning! Hopefully this lives up to everyone's expectations! I'm not sure exactly when I'll be able to update next, but it should be within the week :)

Chapter 1

"Well, we have a possible job in Ohio. Apparently there are reports of several murders, all in the same area. The bodies have all been found minus their skin."

Dean made a face at his dad's words, looking up in the middle of polishing his guns on the sagging motel bed. "Minus all their skin? Like something stripped it off?"

"Yep." John spread the newspaper flat on the table in front of him. "Fancy it?"

Dean twisted the rag in his hand around the barrel of a disassembled revolver. "I could do without having to see it, but a job's a job, right?" He flashed a cocky smile at his father, snapping the now-clean gun back together with a click. "When are we leaving?"

"Actually, we're not. There's also some strange disappearances around New Mexico I was gonna check out. You want to take one by yourself?"

Dean always felt a strange mixture of anxiety and pride when his father asked him to take a job by himself. It had been happening more and more over the last year, and while Dean felt stupidly happy that his dad thought he was good enough to take care of things by himself, sometimes it played on his mind. Maybe this would be the time, the hunt in which John would finally leave him.

"Sure." He said. Regardless of his feelings, he had a job to do. He straightened on the bed, looking John in the eye.

"Okay. If you take the New Mexico job, I'll drive up to Ohio."

Dean felt a little frustrated that his dad had given him the easier job, but he didn't complain. "Okay. I'll go check it out."

Dean was nearing Santa Fe when he got the call.

His cell buzzed in his jacket pocket, interrupting him mid-song. He swung over to the side of the road, dialling down Led Zeppelin and ignoring the loud horn of a grey pick-up truck complaining about his sudden swerve across the blacktop. Flicking open the cell phone, he pressed it to his ear with one hand, the other still making faint drumming motions against the steering wheel in time with the music.

"Hello?"

"Dean, son." His father's voice sounded cracked on the other end of the call.

Dean sat up straighter, turning the music off altogether. "Dad? What's up?" There was a long pause and Dean started to panic. He hasn't had time to get to Ohio yet. Has he? He tried to calculate how long it would take him to swing around and get there. "What's wrong?"

His father drew in a breath, sharp in Dean's ear. "Pastor Jim just called me. You…you need to get to California right away." Dean's heart stuttered once and then started pounding double-time, blood rushing loud in his head. The hand holding the cell shook violently, the plastic phone almost slipping out of his grip.

"Wh-what?"

"It's Sammy."

Dean arrived in Sacramento exactly two hours after hanging up on John Winchester, breaking every speed law and running every red light he came across. He spent the drive berating himself loudly and colourfully for ever letting his baby brother out of his sight. And when he ran out of suitably vicious insults, he drove in steely silence, both hands gripping the wheel tight enough to turn his knuckles white. He resolutely ignored the tears threatening to spill over his cheeks.

Pastor Jim had apparently been trying to reach them for weeks. John hadn't charged his cell, again.

Dean slowed for a passing ambulance, pulling over to the side of the road. A blonde woman in a red tank top walked by on the sidewalk, glancing at him casually and then looking again when she saw his flushed face. She flinched away from the car when Dean swore suddenly, hitting the wheel with one hand.

Sam had been alone for months. The demon had killed his girlfriend and his friends and he had been alone. Dean should have been there.

John had repeated some of the things Jim had passed on from local California newspapers. Hallucinations, disturbed fantasies, mental breakdowns. The papers had painted Sam as a crazy nut, dragging up the death of their mother and using it as sensationalist gossip. His brother's so-called friends had given interviews, terrified sob stories in which Sam was the villain of the piece and they the innocent victims being picked off one by one. Dean wanted to run them all down and pump them full of rock salt. Not to kill them, but to make them understand what it was like to suffer.

The Sacramento State Psychiatric Hospital was surprisingly well signposted, as if it got a lot of tourist business. He drove into the small visitors' parking lot and stopped the car with a jolt.

The facility was large and white, practically glowing with cleanliness in front of him. He sat in the car for a full minute. Now he'd reached his destination he had no idea how to proceed. Rushing in and demanding to see his brother like a bomb was about to go off would probably get him admitted alongside Sam.

Finally he stepped out of the car, straightening his clothes as if his beaten-up leather jacket and jeans with holes ripped in the knees could be transformed into something respectable with the effort. He sucked in a deep breath, held it in his chest, and began walking sedately toward the entrance door.

Sam Winchester hadn't moved or spoken since the day before, when he'd asked for Dean. A look in his file had instantly revealed who 'Dean' was. Doctor Yoshimura stood in Winchester's room, holding the file in one hand. He reread the notes taken at the initial assessment, the police statements and the claims of witnesses and friends, all combined into a clinical evaluation of Winchester's troubled state of mind.

Initially Winchester hadn't been a suspect for the fire. Emergency services on the scene had assessed the damage and ruled the cause as accidental. Winchester had been seemingly devastated by the death of his girlfriend, Jessica Moore, and struggled to come to terms with the terrible loss. His friends at Stanford had taken him in without a second thought.

Then there had been the second fire.

Sam Winchester had been staying with friends, Rebecca and Zachary Warren. One night, nearly a week after the first fire, the Warrens' house had burned down around the three of them. Winchester was the only one to make it out alive. When paramedics arrived he had been raving, mostly incomprehensibly, about a demon attacking him, a dark figure that stole peoples' bodies and started fires around him. He claimed to have 'seen' the fires and the demon in his dreams. After the paramedics checked him over and found no serious injuries, the police arrested him.

The evidence against the catatonic man was strong. Both fires had been started while he was in the house, and both times he'd escaped with minimal injuries. But before the case could come to trial, Winchester suffered what the file described as a complete mental breakdown. Apparently he had family, a father and an older brother, but they hadn't turned up, even after all the publicity surrounding the boy.

Dean Winchester, the AWOL older brother who hadn't been seen or heard of since before the first fire. The patient hadn't talked to him for years, if the accounts of his friends were anything to go by. So why was he the first person Winchester had asked for? The only person?

Yoshimura frowned a little. He kept a degree of distance between himself and the patient. It wasn't necessary to be physically close, he justified. He wanted to be able to survey the entire bed for any minute movement.

The bed sheets had been changed that morning, pulled taut and white over Winchester's legs and chest. His arms were free, lying limply on top of the sheets on either side of his body. Encircling his left wrist was a light blue hospital tag like those used on newborn babies to differentiate between each tiny bundle of pink wrapped in blanket. Winchester's name and room number were written on the tag in black ink. It stood out against the white of the room, the bed sheets, the patient's own pale skin. The California tan that had coloured Winchester's face and arms when he arrived had faded away, now faint and distant like his mind.

A nurse stepped into the room behind Yoshimura, drawing his attention away from the patient. He turned back quickly, like he would miss something if he wasn't watching. Like Winchester might sneak up on him while his back was turned. He almost snorted at the ridiculous thought.

"Doctor, there's someone at reception asking for you." The nurse left the room, and Doctor Yoshimura followed in a hurry. The relief he felt at being away from his patient was professionally ignored.

"Look, he's my brother, Samuel Winchester, can't you just let me see him?" Dean was ready to hit the pretty and vacuous blonde girl sitting behind the desk in the reception area. She smiled blandly.

"You'll have to wait a minute sir. The doctor is coming. Would you like to take a seat?"

Dean ran a hand through his hair, resisting the urge to slam it down on the desk. Getting thrown out of the place would help no one.

The open reception area around him was large and airy, glass panels showing flower beds in a small garden area outside. Cream sofas were arranged in a perfect square by the windows. In the centre of the arrangement was a glass table holding magazines and children's comics, as if it was a normal doctor's waiting room. It was a pleasant space, like a sweet air freshener that masked the smells of vomit underneath.

Dean perched tensely on the edge of one of those perfectly arranged sofas, his elbows resting on his knees. His fingers twitched restlessly.

Just as Dean was about to leap up and start another round of carefully phrased arguments with the receptionist, a man wearing a lab coat stepped into the room. He sprung up before the doctor could say anything, turning toward him in anticipation.

The doctor didn't look at Dean, walking to the desk to have a quiet conversation with the receptionist. Finally he turned to Dean.

"Mr Winchester? Mr Dean Winchester?" Dean took two huge steps forward.

"Yes. Can you take me to my brother?" The doctor looked taken-aback; actually took a step to one side at his eagerness.

"Uh, well, I'm Doctor Yoshimura, I'm in charge of your brother's care and treatment while he's staying here…first I'd like you to step into my office. I need to…explain Samuel's condition."

"Explain what? I just wanna talk to my brother." Dean didn't bother returning the introduction. He clenched his fists by his sides, trying not to look too intimidating.

"Uh, I'm afraid the newspapers didn't report the exact…extent of Samuel's breakdown."

"What? What do you mean? Where is he?"

"If you'll come with me, I'll take you to my office and explain." The doctor walked to the door he'd entered from, gesturing the way with one hand. Briefly Dean considered just punching the guy out and running to find Sam himself, but then he thought about the size of the place. Besides, this was a mental hospital. He'd never find his brother before security found him.

He sighed and followed the doctor meekly.

Dean sat in a padded chair facing the doctor's desk. The doctor sat in front of him in a large leather office chair, sifting through files and papers. Wasting time that Dean could be spending with Sam.

"Look, can we make this fast? I'd like to see my brother." Dean leaned forward, fastening a winning smile to his face. The doctor looked up, his mouth tightening. Apparently Dean's skill at charming people wasn't working so well today.

"Uh, Mr Winchester, I'd just like to ask some questions before we get started on the subject of your brother. Why have you waited so long to get in contact? We've had people trying to trace you and your father for months."

"My dad and I've been busy recently. We only found out today that Sam was even in here." Dean said brusquely. "Can we talk about my brother now? Please?"

Doctor Yoshimura coughed a little and shuffled the papers around on his desk again. "Yes, of course. Well, as I told you, the extent of Samuel's…condition hasn't been publicised."

"Extent? What extent?"

The doctor took a long breath, leaning forward in his chair and steepling his fingers beneath his chin, like he was trying to appear older than he was. Dean wasn't impressed, staring the smaller man down until he coughed again and began speaking.

"Your brother is a troubled man, Mr Winchester. He has displayed a number of the symptoms of psychosis, for example; hallucinations in which he seems to believe a figure is trying to kill him. He claims this 'demon', as he calls it, was the one who started both of the fires." Dean's fingers gripped the arms of the chair until the knuckles turned white. The doctor didn't seem to notice, continuing on with his explanation. "I've diagnosed him as an acute schizophrenic. We've been treating him intravenously with an anti-psychotic, but I'm afraid while that can help treat what we call the 'positive' symptoms of schizophrenia, Sam also displays a number of 'negative' symptoms."

Dean frowned, trying to process everything the doctor was saying, but his mind kept on coming back to the demon. It had been after Sam, that much was clear. But if it wanted him for some reason then why didn't it take him, while he was unprotected and vulnerable?

And then the rest of the doctor's words caught up with him. "Wait a minute; you've been pumping my brother full of drugs?" Dean stood suddenly, shoving his chair back. "That's it, I want to see Sam. I wanna see what you people have done to him."

"Mr Winchester, I really think that you should hear me out before you see your brother." Doctor Yoshimura stood to face Dean, picking up one of the brown files on the desk. "Samuel suffered a complete mental breakdown, which was the reason he was admitted here involuntarily."

"Yeah, I was told that." Dean spat the words out, turning to walk out the door on the assumption that if he left the room, the doctor would have no choice but to follow him.

"What you weren't told is that your brother has been in a catatonic state ever since he was admitted."

Dean stopped. He blinked at the closed door a few feet in front of him, frowning. I can't have heard that right.

"He's what?" He said, turning slowly to face the doctor. Doctor Yoshimura stood behind his desk, holding the file he'd picked up in both hands.

"He's catatonic. He hasn't responded to any outside influences, he won't talk, he won't eat, he won't even swallow by himself. He hasn't moved a muscle except to blink since he was brought here. We can't find any physical reasons that might cause this kind of breakdown, so we have to assume that Samuel's…problems…became too much for him to deal with, and so his mind essentially…switched itself off."

Dean felt blindly in front of himself with one hand, finding the chair he'd just vacated and dropping down onto it.

"Mr Winchester, there's something else I have to ask. Was yesterday a…special day in any way? Did it mean something to you, like a birthday or something?"

Dean looked up, his face twisted in confusion. He'd just been told his brother was catatonic, and this man wanted to know if it was his birthday? He kept his mouth shut, staring at the doctor until the man grew uncomfortable, shifting on his feet.

"Uh, the, uh, reason I ask is that, yesterday Samuel…woke up, for want of a better word, for the first and only time since arriving here. It was only momentarily, but he said your name before he…left us. It's very rare, but there are some studies to suggest patients can be able to unconsciously keep time whilst in their comatose states. And we've been told that you haven't seen Samuel for years, so I was wondering if maybe the date had some…special significance, that would explain why he would ask for you?"

Dean shook his head. Sam had asked for him? Sam had asked for him, no one else, and he hadn't been there. "Take me to my brother. Now."

Dean followed Doctor Yoshimura through the sterile halls numbly. They passed through a number of electronically locked doors in which the doctor pulled out a key card attached to his belt on a long chain. Despite Dean's shock at learning of Sam's condition, he still noted the security measures being used. He would need to learn them for when it came time to get Sam out.

And okay, finding out Sam was practising his play-dead routine made the job harder than Dean had originally counted on. But there was no way he was abandoning his brother to this place.

John hadn't told him to break Sam out. In fact, John's instructions had been to get to California, check up on Sam, and then wait. He was driving down from Ohio as fast as he could, but it would take a week or so for him to get clean across the country. Dean had agreed, promised to find a motel nearby and hole up until John got there. And then he waited for his dad to hang up before planning various ways to get in and out of mental institutions unnoticed.

The doctor led him through the hospital to a ward with a sign reading Intensive Treatment and Research Unit on the double doors. He paused to swipe the key card and then entered a four digit number in the keypad to one side of the doors. Dean filed the number away in his mind.

"Your brother is staying in a private room at the moment. If there is no improvement on his condition within the next few months, we'll be thinking about transferring him to a long-term care facility." Doctor Yoshimura said with a nervous glance back at Dean, as if he was afraid Dean would start protesting. Instead Dean nodded tersely. If everything went as Dean hoped, his brother wouldn't be here in a few months.

A nurse at the work station behind the doors smiled as they made their way past. Dean didn't bother returning it.

They walked past open doors and Dean glanced inside. Each held a single male patient in a bed. Some were strapped down, some were murmuring indistinctly to themselves, most were just laying with looks of blank indifference on their faces.

"We don't usually allow visitors in at this time. This facility is stricter than the other wards, mainly because the patients admitted here are resistant to treatment. Their…ah, mental disabilities mean that they can sometimes be violent." The doctor seemed to be speaking just to break the silence between them. "The visiting hours for this ward are on Tuesdays from two until four. We usually require some form of ID before letting people come in, and you'll have to sign your name on the register of authorised guests as you leave. But this facility is one of the best in the state, so you have no need to worry about the care we provide for your brother. If he comes out of his catatonic state, we'll provide therapy sessions, rehabilitation clinics, counselling. He really is in the best place for his needs at the moment."

Dean suppressed a snort. The best place for Sam would be with Dean.

"Uh, we also have several craft rooms where Samuel will be able to participate in various activities, such as cooking, drawing, exercising. Socializing with the other patients. I don't know if you noticed the courtyard on the way in? We allow the patients on each ward a few hours a day to spend in the courtyard, all supervised of course. After Samuel's assessment sessions, a day nurse usually takes him down to sit for a while."

Dean felt slightly sick imagining Sam trapped in this place. His brother, subjected to 'supervised sitting'? Christ.

"Ah, here we are." The doctor stopped short of a room. "This is your brother's room." Dean took a deep breath, stepping toward the door. The doctor followed and Dean turned.

"Can I have some time alone with him?"

"Uh, well we really don't allow it…" Dean clenched his jaw and glared at the man. He shrank back like a mouse, glancing around furtively to make sure nobody was around to see. "Well I suppose a few minutes…"

"Thanks." Dean didn't wait, spinning and striding into the room, the door swinging closed behind him.

He stopped short at the picture presented to him.

His brother lay in the bed, perfect white sheets covering his body. His arms looked chalky pale and the once-defined muscles were now replaced by slender outlines. Sam's face was smooth and unlined, his hair clean and brushed back from his face.

Dean always said he shouldn't have it hanging in his eyes. It was bad for his aim.

Sam didn't react to his presence at all. His eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling, green and wide. Beautiful in an abstract way, like an oil painting. Not the breathless beauty Dean had never been able to turn away from, the laughing, always-moving and too-big presence he hadn't quite learned how to live without in the four years they'd been apart. Dean took a tentative step closer, his throat feeling constricted, too small to breathe through. "Sammy?"

Dean reached out a hand that shook slightly in the disinfected air. He hesitated a moment before brushing it against Sam's wrist. His skin was dry and cool to the touch.

"Oh God. Sammy…can-can you hear me?" Dean whispered, his fingers tightening around Sam's hand. "I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry Sam." He leaned forward, the hand not holding Sam's coming up. Tentatively he waved it in front of his brother's face, watching the vacant expression, hoping for some change. Part of him hadn't wanted to believe the doctor, a small whisper telling him not Sammy, it's a trick, he's just pretending, waiting for me to come and get him.

The door opened and the irritating little doctor stepped in again. "Mr Winchester?" Dean didn't look up, refusing to acknowledge the man. "I know that it's a shock to see a loved one in this…condition, but please rest assured we're doing everything we can for him."

Dean wanted to hit him. Hit the stupid doctor in his stupid face because obviously they weren't doing everything they could for Sammy; his brother was in this ridiculous place, lying in this stupid bed, trapped in his own mind.