A/N: Apologies for this chapter being obscenely long, unless you like that sort of thing. As always, thank you for all the lovely reviews, they never fail to bring a smile to my face and I look forward to hearing what you guys think of this chapter.

Chapter eighteen

Dean awoke slowly to the sensation of cold masonry under his cheek. He then discerned that the air was a similar temperature to the stone floor he was laying on and couldn't help but shiver a little as he sat up. The flagstones underneath him had been precisely cut but had a softness around the edges that came from being well-worn.

Dean looked around as he progressed from sitting to standing and came to the conclusion that he was in probably the oddest library in existence... Although given Dean's knowledge of libraries that assessment could be wildly inaccurate for all he knew.

Every surface bar the books - which were bound in leather of muted hues - was made of stone. The one other exception to this being a singular ladder mounted on rails to give access to shelves that were cut into the walls reaching up to four stories high. The room was spacious but contained no furniture other than a central stone lectern.

There were doorways dotted about the room that, despite the size of the walls, seemed to be of a more regular height. Dean crept up to the doorway ahead of him, and inspected the room beyond.

Instead of being carved neatly from stone, this room was mostly wood and it was a lot smaller, only one story in height and about half as large in floor space. There were modest embellishments carved into the wood between the shelves and the only stone in the room was the column of the chimney, which surrounded a fireplace where a merrily crackling fire gave off a cosy light and warmed the room.

A plush, emerald green rug covered most of the floor and upon that stood a polished leather armchair facing towards the fire. Next to the armchair stood a side table, again there were some small decorations adorning it - nothing that could remotely be called opulent - and atop that stood a brass reading lamp with a stained glass lampshade mushrooming out of the top of it. Even the books - leather bound like in the first room - were more vivdly coloured and the gold lettering along the spines seemed brighter.

Clearly one room was designed for comfort and to be pleasing to the eye, while the other had been designed for stark efficiency. It slowly dawned on Dean as he caught sight of the title of one of the books - Brady's birthday party - that he wasn't actually in a specific memory of Sam's, but instead was surrounded by them.

He turned back into the large, joyless room and saw a few more doorways across the room from him and walked closer to inspect. There was a doorway to a room that was stiflingly hot, and the ceiling was too low for Dean to stand up in. The strangest thing about the room though, was that it was made entirely out of mirrors. Confused, Dean looked at one of the books nearest to him, the title was printed in shiny gold lettering and read: trying to talk to Nadine Marshall.

Embarrassment. That's what this room must represent, Dean decided.

The next room Dean peered in was also uncomfortably hot; huge, flaming torches were bracketed around the walls and there was a central firepit where large flames roared towards the ceiling. The floor surrounding the firepit was sand, constantly shifting from the tremors that shook the room. There was another room that was completely flooded, presumably from the rain that kept pouring inside of it at a steady rate; and another tiny room that was decorated all in bright, bold colours, with scattered beanbags in place of chairs and balloons crowding the ceiling.

Then he found another room even smaller than the last, but even with it's lack of size, it was too big to house the memories allocated to it and over half the shelves were bare. It was carpeted luxuriously and plump cushions of all shapes and sizes littered the floor. This room was lit by an army of softly glowing candles, standing in small groups arranged so as to keep the shadows from each corner of the room, and roses in ornate cut glass vases scented the air. Between the shelves hung rich velvet curtains coloured ruby red.

Dean backed away from the room, more afraid of the contents of those books than any others he'd seen. He cast about the central room again, wondering where Sam would keep his worst memories.

Then Dean saw a doorway that couldn't possibly lead to anything other than horror. He approached the door cautiously and peered through the arched entrance. This was the coldest room yet and also the darkest, the stone was replaced by crudely wrought iron, giving the impression of a cage rather than a room, suspended by chains over an unfathomable abyss. The shelves themselves occupied the centre of the room in rows of roughly hewn plates of metal suspended with even more chains rattling in the inexplicable wind. Yet the gail wasn't enough to blow away the the smell of mould and rotten flesh, and barbed wire covered every surface like some kind of prolific ivy.

Dean was starting to regret his act of heroism already but perceiving no way to back out now, he stepped into the cage which swung a little under his weight. When he reached out and grabbed a chain to steady himself he found it was slimy to the touch and Dean realised why the smell of mould was so prevalent. Although Dean felt the barbed wire prick against his skin, when he looked there was no blood, only a coating of slime.

He quickly wiped his hand on his jacket and drew it closer around him to fend off the cold. A drip found its way down the collar of his jacket and snaked down his back, which had Dean squirming even more.

He looked between the shelves but couldn't see Sam, but then again, Pamela had said he would be inside his memories, not surrounded by them.

"Well, here goes," Dean muttered to himself as he reached for a book at random. As his finger touched the oozing leather, he was sucked into the memory.

Dean looked around the suddenly materialised warehouse. There was a battle raging before him, eight... Monsters, he assumed, were fighting three other people who were each armed with machetes. The monsters looked mostly human but with superstrength - which they were demonstrating in abundance, throwing things no normal human had any right to throw so far with relative ease - and once Dean had gotten a closer look, long, pointy teeth.

Amongst the monsters' adversaries, Dean recognised a Sam who looked to be in his early teens, his mom and another woman he didn't recognise; they were fighting fiercely but all showed signs of fatigue. There were bodies on the floor already, three were completely without their heads and there were more who were mostly intact but for huge bite marks on their throats; one however, barely had the structural integrity left to be called a body and could probably be more appropriately categorised as a collection of parts.

None of the beings acknowledged him, even as he called out Sam's name and took a few halting steps in his direction. A moment later another one of the vampires - again, Dean was assuming - was beheaded by his mom. Dean approached the fight a little further and watched as the vampires were steadily dispatched; until one of the vampires caught Sam with a lucky shot that sent him sailing across the room and with that distraction, the unfamiliar woman was wrestled to the ground by two of the vampires.

Dean couldn't really get a clear view of what was happening until Mary chopped off another two vampire heads in a flow that Dean would have thought was totally badass if it didn't feel so strange to witness. Mary was quickly set upon by another vampire and there were more sounds of fighting from where Sam had landed.

Once the last of the vampires had been decapitated, Dean saw Sam running over to his fallen friend.

"Amanda!" He cried as he skidded to his knees beside her, "Are you ok?"

"Sam," she croaked, "The bastards got me."

Sam gripped her hand tightly as she convulsed in pain. He looked up at Mary - who by now was standing over his shoulder - with utter desperation written all over his face.

"They turned her! We need to hurry! We need to get the cure-" Sam's cries were cut off as the woman beneath him lunged for his neck with superhuman speed and sank her teeth into his flesh.

Sam wrenched his neck out of her jaws and Mary was quick to swing and sever the head from the body in one smooth motion.

Dean watched as Sam's eyes began filing with tears, yet Mary remained impassive as she stood over them. She allowed Sam only a few moments before ordering him to help her like the corpses so they could burn them. Dean turned away and spied an exit. Deciding he didn't really need to see the rest of the scenario play out, he decided to take it.

He hurried through the door and found himself in a dark forest watching a slightly older Sam fighting a humongous, savage wolf. Both Sam and the creature were bleeding from several places and, after taking a moment to get over the disorientation, Dean almost tripped over his mom's unconscious body as he tried unsuccessfully to catch Sam's attention. When the attempt proved futile, he hurried away through the forest towards a pair of trees twisted into an unlikely arch shape and ran through it.

He ran straight into a dirty alleyway. Sam, looking about sixteen this time, was crouched infront of another figure huddled in the corner. The figure was trembling and had his face buried in his hands as Sam kept up a hurried but gentle stream of coaxing which was quickly turning into pleading.

"Look, I've tried to talk to my mom but she just won't listen. I know you didn't want to kill those people - it was an accident - but you need help. I know someone who can help you, even if you can't control your powers he will be able to help you stop hurting people with them." Sam was murmuring.

"Stop! Just go away or I'll hurt you too!" Was the fervent reply as the figure flinched away from Sam.

The sound of footsteps and his mom's voice made Dean whirled to face a dispassionate Mary pointing a gun at the two huddled teens. "Sam, move."

Mary stood in the mouth of the alley under the cold street lights, feet splayed, gun steadily trained on the kid and callous determination in her eyes. Dean had never pictured his mother like this, even on his angriest, most unforgiving days, he had never imagined her so imposing, so deadly...

Sam moved, but only to stand more protectively infront of the other boy whose terror had intensified by several increments in the presence of Mary. "Goddammit Sam!" She cursed, "He electrocutes people with one touch! He's killed four people so far, who knows how many more he'll kill if we don't put him down now?"

"It's not his fault! They were accidents!" Sam argued, tearful and desperate. "He didn't ask for a demon to give him his powers, he's just like me!"

"He's a killer," Mary asserted in a dangerous voice tightening her grip on her gun. "He's just another demonic freak. He can't be trusted to live."

The boy let out a sob at this and began muttering incoherently to himself. His fingers began sparking, just tiny little flickers of power at first but quickly growing into bolts of electricity that hummed between his fingers as he started to rock back and forth. Sam backed away a little as the jagged strands of power grew in both size and number and began moving more erratically over the boy's body.

Sam tried to tell the boy to calm down while keeping a safe distance but the boy was too busy electrocuting himself. It reminded Dean of that scene from The Green Mile but - unfortunately for his stomach - with much more realistic effects.

He stumbled out of the alley and slid down the wall. He took a few moments to regain control of his rebellious stomach - if the sight alone hadn't been enough to turn him green around the gills, then surely it was the stench that pushed him over the edge - and as his stomach calmed down he got his breathing back to normal, eventually sliding a hand down his face and pushing himself upright.

He still couldn't believe how cruel Mary had been, how unfeeling and determined she had been to kill just a kid...

He wandered through the next door he saw, into a graveyard in which a much younger Sam was digging up a grave, sweating and panting heavily, while Mary leant casually against the headstone, sipping from a hipflask and with a shotgun at her hip. But his sudden appearance did nothing to take the bored look off Mary's face or halt the progress of Sam's digging. Dean really needed to find the real Sam, so he turned and looked for the next portal he could see and marched towards it.

Instead of finding himself on the inside of the mausoleum, he found himself in the room he had been held captive in the previous day. Chills ran over his entire body as he saw himself strapped to a chair between his dad and Jess and from his new angle he could see the malevolent smugness on the demon's face as he stared Sam down - and then Azazel was snapping his fingers and then she was dead. The lights burst like fireworks just like he remembered but now he could see the look of surprise on Azazel's face as he observed the phenomenon and the way his eyes then zeroed in on Sam like a predator eyeing up a piece of prime steak. Then Azazel began stalking towards his prey.

He didn't know why it was such a shock to him, seeing this memory. Of course it would be in here.

He backed away, slowly at first as came out of his stupor and forced his legs to move, until he stumbled backwards through the door and into a bedroom.

He picked himself up and turned around to see Sam, about eleven this time, sat on a thin mattress in the corner, homework forgotten as he gaped at Dean.

Dean almost did a double take at the scene, it was so tame after the violence of all the others he had seen. However as Dean quickly observed the room and noted revoltingly coloured paint peeling off the cracked walls, the tiny window that didn't quite close properly and the general scarcity of anything besides the mattress and the pair of frayed bags dumped in the corner, that would mark the room as belonging to someone, he felt his surprise turn into sadness.

His eyes travelled back to Sam - and holy crap, Bobby was right. The kid was a runt.

For a second neither of them moved, but then the shock seemed to wear off and Sam jumped off his bed and assumed a defensive stance.

"Who are you?" Sam demanded.

Dean held up his hands in what he hoped was a pacifying manner, in the back of his mind he realised that this was the first of any characters in Sam's mind to react to his presence. "My name's Dean, I'm not gonna hurt you."

"Christo," muttered Sam as he looked Dean up and down doubtfully.

"What?" Dean asked, feeling that the conversation had been derailed pretty quickly.

Sam relaxed his defensive stance minutely, "what do you want?" He asked, his voice still filled with suspicion.

"I wanna help you." Dean answered.

Sam frowned, "why would you wanna help me?"

Dean cautiously knelt down, bringing himself just with arms reach of Sam. "Because... You won't know this yet, but you're my little brother, and when we get out of here, I've got a lotta questions that only you can answer."

Sam looked even more confused now, and slightly afraid. "I don't have a brother," he protested, inching backwards into the wall and eyeing Dean doubtfully.

"Sam you have to listen to me," Dean said holding up his arms again, "this isn't real. You're trapped in your own worst memories, I've come to get you out of here."

Sam's suspicions only seemed to grow and he pressed himself a little further into the wall at his back. Dean sighed as he saw a whole range of emotions dance across Sam's face before mistrust regained the upper hand.

"You have to trust me Sam, I know it sounds more than a little far-fetched, but it's true. I promise."

The sound of a door slamming broke the moment and Dean heard sounds of banging and the heavy tread of angry marching growing steadily closer.

Mary appeared in the doorway with eyes that were ablaze with fury. "Sam!" She barked, "You attention seeking little shit! Get packed - we're leaving in five minutes!"

Sam's eyes darted between Dean and their mom a few times before he turned to Mary and replied, "yes mom."

"Shut up! Anything not in the car in five minutes gets left behind!"

"Hey!" Dean shouted as he stood up to confront Mary but he went unacknowledged as she turned and went to pack her own things up.

Sam hurried to comply, he hastily organised the schoolwork on his bed and stuffed it into one of his bags, having to rearrange what was already inside the bag so it would all fit.

"You don't have to do this Sam," Dean said as he watched the kid struggle to fit all his homework into the bag.

"You heard what my mom said," replied Sam distractedly, "anything not packed in five minutes gets left behind."

Once Sam had closed the zip he turned and began gathering his clothes, he swiftly folded them into his other bag but as he reached under his mattress Mary appeared in the door. Dean was certain it hadn't been a full five minutes. Sam flinched and a guilty look crossed his face as he slowly pulled his arm to his chest, clutching what looked to Dean like an old photo.

"What the hell have you got there?" Demanded Mary as she snatched the treasure and shoved Sam with a roughness that landed him on the floor.

She stole a glance at the photo and, with renewed rage, stepped over Sam and fisted a hand in the threadbare rag that they dared to call a t-shirt and practically spat in his face as she snarled, "Listen up you lazy, ungrateful brat. You do not steal from me. You are going to forget about that photo and you are never going to ask about your father again. If you even say one word about him I will make sure you regret it for a long time to come. He is a good man and he does not deserve to have you show up and ruin his life."

"Yes, mom." Sam said quietly.

Dean tried to remove Mary's arms and diffuse the situation, but Mary was as immovable as stone - even when Dean pulled with every ounce of strength he could muster. Mary didn't even acknowledge his presence once. Although Sam was watching with increasing alarm.

Mary let go of Sam and straightened up, pulling out a lighter. When she held the photo up in front of Sam, Dean could see that it was an old picture of her and dad from when they were really young, they looked even younger that they did in the wedding photo that dad kept on his bedside table. But Mary soon set it aflame, holding it until most of the picture was ash and the fire threatened to burn her fingers.

As the ruins of the photo floated in lazy, swirling patterns down to the crunchy green carpet, observed with devastated eyes by both brothers, Mary turned and disappeared from the room, but only for the heavy tread of her boots to announce her return momentarily. Sam scrambled to his feet as Mary tossed a bag at him which clunked loudly as it was caught.

"Get that in the car," she hissed, "and don't think I'm done with you yet."

Sam hefted the bag onto one shoulder while he gathered the two other bags which seemed to comprise the sum total of Sam's worldly belongings - hissing at Dean to go away when he once again tried to tell Sam that he was trapped in a memory - and carried them out to the car where Mary was putting her own bags into the trunk. He didn't even stop to put on his shoes, he just swept them up and carried them as if he was really afraid Mary would make him leave everything behind if he took too long. Sam settled his own burdens next to hers but when he went to get into the backseat Mary snapped at him to get in the front.

"If I have to stay up all night, then so do you." She muttered as they both got into the car.

Dean quickly installed himself in the back as Mary started up the engine and silently they pulled out into the night.

The silence weighed heavily on the car and after another attempt to make Sam listen to him was met with another hissed dismissal, Dean too became quiet and started to rack his brain for a way to convince Sam that he was in a memory.

When they were out of the town and a few miles down the highway Mary decided to let rip. "I cannot believe you Sam! You know how important it is to fly under the radar and now I have your teachers on my ass just because you couldn't hide some stupid freaking bruises! What the hell were you doing showing them off anyway?"

"I wasn't -" Sam tried to interject before he was cut off by Mary.

"Save it! I don't want to hear any of your excuses. What do you think is gonna happen if CPS takes you away? You think you're gonna get to go to a nice home with a loving family? As if a family would even foster you." Mary sneered, "What happens when they find out what you are? Huh? What happens the demons catch up to you? Do you really think you'll stand a chance against them? And even if you could protect your new family, why would they wanna keep you around after that? You've become so selfish and arrogant Sam. Well I'm not gonna let you endanger the lives of innocent people, you're my burden to bear - my problem - and I can't trust you out there on your own. When we find a place to settle for a while I'm upping your training. Forget grades, Sam, I'm drilling you to within an inch of your life. You're going to eat, sleep and drink hunting until I feel like I can trust you again."

Dean sat in stunned silence upon hearing the vitriol that had spewed from Mary while Sam stared out the window with watery eyes and hunched shoulders.

"Sam?" Dean ventured. But Sam only hunched in on himself further instead of any other acknowledgement that Dean had spoken. He sat back for a few moments before trying again, but Sam just continued to ignore him.

Dean sighed, this was gonna be tougher than he expected. He looked around at the monstrosity he was seated in, some crappy, generic car from the nineties that smelled slightly musty and sounded like it was way overdue for an oil change and a tune up.

"Dude, this car sucks." Dean blurted out.

Sam looked curiously over his shoulder. "What are you doing?" He asked under his breath.

Dean shrugged, internally rejoicing over the fact that Sam was actually engaging with him, and replied, "I'm calling it as I see it. This car is a piece of crap, it doesn't even deserve to be called the same species as my baby."

With a cautious glance towards Mary - who still seemed oblivious to Dean's presence, and the conversation he was having with Sam - Sam turned a little more in his seat and lifted an eyebrow. "Your baby?" He whispered derisively.

"C'mon Sam, don't you remember? Sixty-seven Impala? Beautiful, glossy black paintwork, clean leather seats and her roar... She's one sexy beast. Even someone like you who is completely clueless about cars can see that."

The timbre of Sam's frown began to change, the cynical confusion began to ebb and the light of recollection sparked faintly behind his eyes. He turned around as much as he could and leaned his arms on the top of the seat, giving Dean his full attention.

"She's got a proper tape deck too, none of that douchey CD crap in my car - and never, under any circumstances, never any Taylor Swift."

The corner of Sam's lips quirked up as a smirk flickered across his face.

"There's no feeling like cruising down the highway in my Impala, AC/DC blasting out the speakers, the growl of the engine... She's a proper lady. You treat her right, and she'll treat you right."

Sam snorted, "You're talking about your car like it's your girlfriend..." Sam cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes at Dean. "You do that a lot, don't you?"

Before Dean could even answer, the car and everything else around them, including Mary, flickered like it was some crappy TV channel. Sam had lifted his hands and leaned away from the back of the seat like he had been scalded as soon as its solidity had revealed itself to be questionable. He raised his eyebrows and looked at Dean, who had also been caught unawares by the malleability of this reality and was looking back at Sam with equal surprise.

But Dean was the first to recover and as he did, he smirked at Sam and said, "I told you this wasn't real."

The environment flickered again, more fiercely this time and Dean saw Sam visibly aging until he was back to his true age and the matter surrounding them darkened and morphed into the library in the cage.

Sam blinked owlishly at the sudden change in location as he landed on his knees. Both of them had sunk through the car as it had started to dematerialise and Dean was sprawled out on his back thinking to himself how weird it was that he was actually glad to see the weird library from hell again. Sam got to his feet before reaching down and pulling Dean up to meet him.

"Do you remember me now?" Dean asked cautiously.

"Yeah..." Sam replied, taking another glance around the cage, "Although I'm not entirely sure where we are or what just happened."

"We're in your freaky assed head, and this is apparently the cosy little corner you keep your worst memories."

Sam wrapped his arms around himself and shifted on his feet as he processed. "So if we're in my head," he theorised, "how are you here? Are you real or just a figment of my imagination?"

"Oh trust me, I'm real." Dean deadpanned, "There was this psychic chic, Pamela, who came and cast some weird spell so I could come in and bust you out of here."

"Ok." Said Sam as he hunched his shoulders a little more, "So how are we going to do that? I'm not exactly seeing an exit here."

Dean looked around too and realised Sam was right, the cage no longer had an exit. He started towards the edge of the cage, striding along the rows of books until he hit the iron bars, he turned and strode past the rows, completing a circuit of the cage with Sam following behind him like a lost puppy. But still there wasn't an exit.

"What the hell?" He vented, turning to see Sam stood shivering behind him. Although they had been scaled up to match Sam's growth, Sam was still wearing only the same threadbare t-shirt and jeans he had been wearing in the memory. His bare toes curled over each other in their search for warmth.

Sam frowned, "What exactly did Pamela say to you about getting out of here?"

"Dude do you want my jacket?" Dean asked as he shrugged the garment off, unable to resist the pitiful sight that Sam made.

Sam smiled gratefully as he took Dean's and slipped it on and pulled it tightly around him.

"She wasn't very specific," Dean explained, "all she really said was that the exit would be obvious to me but not you - like there would be something stopping you from seeing it or wanting to see it."

Sam grimaced, "Yeah, that's not very helpful is it?"

"No." Dean agreed.

Without anything more helpful to say and with Sam sinking into deep thought, Dean began inspecting the books on the shelf closest to him. He wondered if he should say something about the memories he'd seen, but Dean had had more than his fair share of chick flick moments recently and he decided to stay quiet. The books were larger and darker than in the other rooms in Sam's psyche and the neat lettering was printed in vermilion instead of gold.

He read some of the titles: Werewolf hunt in Nebraska, The ghost of Terrence O'Donnell, My first vision... And then Dean spotted one that said: My twelfth birthday.

Without thinking and acting purely out of surprised curiosity, he reached out for the tome. How the hell could Sam's birthday end up as one of his worst memories?

As his fingers touched the leather he was drawn into the memory as he had before.

Dean looked around as a typical school hallway materialised around him. He was buffeted by students like a leaf on the wind, but with some effort and determined manoeuvring, he managed to stay relatively stationary in order to observe Sam as he stood next to an open locker, talking to a very pretty girl. She possessed all the stereotypical tropes of popularity except the fact that she was talking to a runt that was looking particularly unfortunate in clothes that had never once approached being cool since the day they were sewn and had clearly suffered several demoting factors since then.

Dean cringed at the obvious set up as the girl gave Sam her address. As the girl walked away, another scrawny kid of the geek variety approached Sam and voiced the same concerns Dean had just been having.

Sam rolled his eyes, "I know," he whined, "she just needs some help with her homework. It's not like anything's gonna happen."

The other kid sighed and waited as Sam finished exchanging his books. They were both slammed into the wall of lockers as a group of self-proclaimed athletes marched past. Dean heard sniggers coming from the group as they walked off.

As the bell rang, sending the students to their classrooms, Dean noticed the Sam of the present standing next to him looking thoroughly irritated.

"What the hell are you doing, Dean? We're supposed to be trying to find a way out of here."

"The book said My twelfth birthday on it, I got curious." Dean defended.

"You're unbelievable."

"So, um... What did happen?" Dean asked after a brief pause.

"What?" Sam asked incredulously.

"I'm still curious. What happened to get your birthday on your list of worst memories? Did that girl get compromising pictures of you?" Dean wiggled his eyebrows as he speculated.

After a prolonged pause Sam opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it; just as Dean was beginning to give up hope of getting an answer, Sam sighed and looked mournfully at Dean, "Why are you even here Dean? Why would come in here after me?"

Dean sighed, "Because apparently I was the best candidate for the job, according to that Pamela chick. She said a lotta crap about trust and blood and it just so happened that I was most qualified to come in here after you."

Sam shifted uncomfortably and tensed, "No, I mean why even try to wake me up? Azazel told you how I killed mom! You saw how Jess was killed because of me, why would you wanna wake me up after that?"

Dean bit his lip, "Dude, I got the feeling that if I hadn't come in after you then Bobby would." Dean said, hoping that would be the end of it, but Sam's expression, heavy with scepticism, demanded further explanation. "Jess' death wasn't on you Sam, and Bobby told us the rest of what happened with mom. Right now I'm not entirely sure what to think, but Bobby was definitely right about one thing - that the only way I would get answers about mom would be through you - and I can't really see you a a cold blooded killer."

"Dean, whether I pull the trigger or not, people just seem to die around me. You wanna know what happened on my twelfth birthday? My only friend at this school committed suicide. This school had the worst bullying problem I've ever seen, I had to patch up nearly all my stuff on a regular basis because of those jerks. It was unrelenting. I guess Toby had just... had enough. I was walking home late because someone had hidden my clothes after gym class, and I found him hanging from the goalpost. The teachers made me stay so I could give a statement to the cops, but mom was furious and we moved that night. We had a fight when we got home - it was pretty similar to the on you just saw actually - and then she made me recite how to recognise and kill every monster we knew of all night in the car."

Dean immediately regretted prying into Sam's memories, "Sam..." He began, but quickly remembered that he had no expressive talents when the rest of his sentence got lost in the ether.

"Let's just focus on finding a way out of here," Sam dismissed, looking around and then walking through the nearest door.

Dean followed Sam and he was no longer surprised to find the scene on the other side of the door wasn't a classroom. Instead there was a cave lit by flaming torches and filled with robed, chanting figures standing shoulder to shoulder, surrounding something Dean couldn't see, like some cliche from an old horror movie.

Sam stopped dead and Dean nearly ran into him. However before he could recover, Sam was ushering him away from the scene and towards a small opening in to side of them. As Dean was nearing the door he heard someone begin to scream, horrible, piercing screams of agony. He tried to look back at the sinister circle, but Sam shoved him through the gap.

"What the hell was that?" Dean exclaimed as he stumbled into the new environment.

"You don't wanna know," Sam said darkly.

"No Sam. I really think I do wanna know." Dean demanded.

"It doesn't matter, it was a long time ago."

"Did they... Y'know... Did they..." Dean squirmed around the question.

Sam looked at Dean in confusion, but as he discerned Dean's meaning, dawning realisation quickly turned to disgust. "No!" he declared emphatically and marched off to look for another exit.

They both ignored the scene beside them where a sweating, trembling Sam struggled to do pressups while Mary barked at him like a drill sergeant.

The next door brought them to a forest, it was night again but it was pouring with rain and they were on a steep incline which Sam was marching up with determination at a speed which became a problem for Dean too quickly for his liking.

"Ok, so what was all that screaming about then?" He panted.

"Why do you want to know so badly?" Sam complained.

"Because, despite the fact that you're a massive nerd, and that you can't appreciate a stunning example of mechanical perfection when you see it, or that before four days ago you were probably still a virgin-"

"I was not," Sam interrupted with a roll of his eyes and a withering look.

"Anyway, you're not all that bad. And you're my brother. Family hasn't meant much before now but I figured maybe it could? I always wanted a brother growing up and now I've found that I had one all along... And you've been dealing with this sort of crap all your life. Don't you wanna talk about it? Isn't that supposed to make you feel better or something?"

"Dean, I don't need a therapist." Sam insisted with a note of finality in his voice that Dean was all too happy to ignore.

"Maybe you don't. From what I've seen you're astoundingly well adjusted. But are you seriously gonna stand there and tell me you're ok with whatever just happened back there?"

"It doesn't matter, it was a long time ago. Talking about it won't make any difference."

"Dude, to me it was five seconds ago. I told you I'm giving the whole family thing an honest try here, I'll get it out of you eventually, I annoyed an entire gang into hating me and I wasn't even trying, imagine how annoying I can be when I put my mind to it."

Sam turned and started climbing again, "It was a ritual to purify me. Mom tried a few different ones when I was younger trying to get rid of the demon blood, but none of them worked. There, you happy now?" He divulged reluctantly.

"Holy crap that's messed up."

Sam chuckled ruefully but didn't turn back to Dean as he strode ahead with his long legs. It wasn't long before they could hear shouting in the distance. Sam slowed his pace and as Dean caught up he could make out a demonic voice shouting, "I'm the king of hell, Sammy! I fell with Lucifer!"

Dean glanced at Sam as the giant slowed to a halt and saw the colour had drained completely from his face. "Sam?" He asked, a spark of trepidation beginning to grow. "Sam?" He asked again.

By now Dean had overtaken Sam, and he could hear someone crashing through the woods towards them. He stepped into Sam's line of sight, "What is it? What's going to happen?"

Sam took a few deep, shuddering breaths. "I'm going to kill mom," he whispered.

The admission settled on Dean's shoulders with the speed and devastation of a careening truck hitting a brick wall. Once Dean had regained his senses, he turned and hurried towards the sounds of a commotion, to see Sam stumble out of a tent that was so brightly coloured it was practically glowing. He carried an old gun which he pointed at Mary.

"Maybe the knife won't work on you, but this gun can kill almost anything. Get out of my mom." Sam threatened.

Even if Dean could've made an impact on the unfolding events, he was frozen in place as witness. His mom smirked a terrible smirk topped with inhuman yellow eyes and lunged for Sam. There could be no misreading of the fatal intent behind the move, which was cut short as Sam flinched and fired the gun.

The demon corkscrewed away into the air as Mary fell, and Dean saw Sam's harrowed expression as the kid's knees buckled. The young Sam knelt in a devastated stupor, tears streaming down his face as continued to stare at Mary.

Eventually Sam crawled over to their mother, past the weirdly coloured tent, and cradled her body in his arms. Dean turned back to the Sam of the present and saw that he wasn't in much better shape than the younger version of himself. He had found a log to sink down onto, and had propped his elbows on his knees and burried his face in his hands, he looked up with watery eyes that peered out of a red, puffy face as Dean approached.

Dean was pretty sure he looked to be in a similar state, although he knew what was gonna happen, there were some things no one could be ready to witness.

Dean looked again at the memory version of his brother, still weeping over the corpse of their mother and decided that sitting down was probably a good idea. He could still just about see the clearing through the trees, saw the red of the tent shining through the leaves. He stared absently as he tried to think of something to say.

Pretty soon the brightness of the tent began to annoy him, it seemed unnatural how it kept commanding his attention. Suspicions began to take root in the back of his mind, prompting him to stand up and take a closer look.

"Hey, Sam? Can you come here for a sec?" He called over his shoulder.

"Dean, I really don't want to see all that again." Sam protested.

"I think I found the exit."

"Where?" was Sam's monotone reply.

"I think it's in the tent."

"Why would it be in the tent? That makes no sense."

"Sam, nothing in here makes sense." Dean said turning round to face Sam again, "I saw a room in your head where it was raining inside, I'm telling you the exit is in the tent."

Sam chewed a thumbnail and made no move to get up or acknowledge what Dean had said.

"Sam, we need to go through that tent door. It's the only way to get out of here. Remember what Pamela said? That the exit would make you not wanna go through it somehow."

"My mom is lying dead, yards away because I shot her; and you want me to just casually waltz past and climb into that tent? I burned it when I got to Bobby's, it was the last place I slept before..."

"It's only a memory Sam."

The look Sam shot Dean disagreed vehemently.

Dean took a deep breath and steeled himself internally - re-stating the obvious was only going get him so far, and in for a penny, in for a pound he supposed...

"Can I tell you something?" He asked, taking a seat beside Sam again.

Surprised and a little reluctant, Sam nodded.

"I never really had anyone to look up to when I was growing up. Dad got drunk a lot of the time, and our neighbour Missouri... Well, she looked out for me a lot and took me in when I really needed it. She even taught me how to cook, she said if I liked pies so much I had better learn how to make them." Dean looked at his fingers as they kept entwining themselves with eachother, "But the closest thing I had to a proper role model was John McClane."

"Who?"

Dean looked at Sam like he had just grown two heads. "John McClane? Bruce Willis' character from Die Hard? " When Sam still looked mystified Dean shook his head and announced, "Dude when we get out of here I'm totally making you watch all the Die Hard movies. They're like... essential viewing."

Sam smirked, "Sure," he agreed, seemingly grateful for Dean lightening the mood.

Dean cleared his throat, he still had a mission to accomplish. "My point is, I've never met anyone in real life I could really look up to-"

"So your point is people suck?" Sam cut Dean off drily.

"No. I mean yeah, but that's not my point." Dean took a steadying breath before he continued, "Sam, the main reason I came in here was to find out about my mom. Well, what I found out about her turned out to be not so great."

"You've only seen my worst memories. Everyone has bad memories of their parents, doesn't mean they were all bad." Sam disagreed with a shake of his head.

"I've seen enough." Dean protested, "And... I saw you, Sam. And I gotta say, I wish I had half your strength growing up."

"What are you talking about? I'm not strong, I'm a screw up! I'm evil and I get the people closest to me killed!"

"Ok Sam, you better be listening because I only want to say this once: you are not evil." Dean asserted, "You've been hunting down monsters and saving people practically your whole life and all with the king of hell on your tail. It takes a lot of strength to be able to do all that and still get into a good college, let alone land a scholarship to Stanford."

"I never even wanted to hunt. Mom just never really gave me a choice - and I ran off to college as soon as I got the first opportunity."

"Dude, I just saw a sixteen year old version of you refuse to let your mom kill another kid - you stepped infront of a loaded gun for this kid. I think if you had really dug your heels in you would have found a way not to hunt. Besides, it's not selfish to want a life for yourself... Most parents would be proud when their kid got into a college like Stanford. You can't tell me Bobby was disappointed when you told him?"

Sam shook his head biting his lip.

"I hate to break it to you Sam, but you're pretty badass for a geeky college boy. Now it takes a lot of badassery to face down the worst moment of your life, but if anyone can do it you can."

Sam just studied his thumbs silently.

Dean waited while Sam continued to avoid his gaze. "C'mon man," he said, "I just poured my heart out to you, the least you could do is say something back. Plus, if you make me say any more of this pansy crap I'm going to have to start braiding your hair."

Sam gave a half-hearted chuckle, "you are usually a lot more macho," he conceeded.

"See? The sacrifices I make for you."

"Thanks Dean. It can't have been easy coming in here after me."

"Never gave it a second thought... Although getting out of here is starting to look pretty good right about now. Only problem is that this would be a pretty awful rescue if I don't bring you back with me."

Sam nodded thoughtfully, "Well... We can't have you looking bad now, can we?" He said standing up. Dean thought he still looked pretty terrified but he could see the same underlying determination that he saw when he watched a little boy stand up to his deadly mother.

Sam started marching determinedly towards the clearing and Dean wasted no time in joining him. Dean wasn't totally worried that Sam would bottle it, but the thought did take up residence in the back of his mind.

However Sam simply locked his eyes on the tent and gradually sped up until he was charging like a bull towards the tent and practically dove through the door.