When he woke the next morning, Dean felt better rested and more himself than he had since this whole crazy ride had started. Last night had been cathartic, not in the way being driven to tears or outbursts was. That, while cleansing, had a way of leaving a person feeling used up, crumpled. This, by contrast, had been more quiet, gentler. He'd been left focused enough to actually get some productive work done instead of driven to a useless exhaustion.

It was nice to rise feeling ready to face the day and to have an actual direction to go in. He'd formulated a few theories.

Possibility one: He was still in Hell. Not a lot he could do about that one, except not let the bastards break him.

Possibilty two: He was crazy. Again, not much he could do except wait until the white coats decided to up his meds.

Possibility three: He was dreaming. That one he could do something about, but he wanted to keep "commit suicide and hope for the best" low on the list of options.

That left him with possibility four: There were any number of supernatural creatures that could mess with human perceptions. Reapers and Djinn had been the first to leap to mind.

Following that line of thinking he'd listed all he could think of, cringeing a bit when he'd added tricksters to the list, and set about recording all the information he could recall about each one.

His messed up memory perception had come in pretty handy for that process. His memories, unfaded by the passage of time had made for an extensive resource to draw from. By the time he had called it a night he'd managed to emasse a pretty comprehensive body of data and had even managed to eliminate a few possibilities in the process. It was a good start. All he had to do now was keep plugging at it until he narrowed the field to the most promising leads.

He was in the shower when he'd discovered the gash on his arm. It wasn't deep, just above the bend of his left elbow. He examined it curiously, wondering how the hell it had happened. Things had been a non-stop parade of crazy, and it was conceivable that he could have injured himself in any number of ways without noticing while his mind was out to lunch, but this looked fresh, not older than a day.

He reviewed the events of yesterday while he toweled off and dressed.

He'd reached Bobby's that morning, and of course, the paranoid old bastard hadn't believed he was him. He'd come at him with a silver knife, and Dean had been forced to stumble back, babbling Bobby's backstory in an effort to convince him. He'd eventually had to resort to cutting himself to prove he wasn't a shifter or a revenant.

OK, he thought as he laced up his boots, that explained it. In fact, he wasn't quite sure now why he had even been confused about it.

He turned to the right and glared at the spot where the god damned refrigerator should have been holding the god damned beer, that he could sure god damned well use right now.

He froze. Wait...a...minute...

"Answer me, you god damned demonic sons of bitches!"

In less than a minute he was out the door. In five, he was tearing out of Sioux Falls heading towards Bobby's. Evidence, he had evidence. His arm was cut. He had cut it at Bobby's with Bobby's own knife. It had happened because he had the wound to prove it. He pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

XXXXX

Finding the field that should have been Singer Salvage as empty as it had been yesterday had almost been enough to drive him into another emotional implosion, but the thought that something was doing this to him, probably for its own twisted amusement, made him determined to keep himself contained. Damned if he was going to give the sadistic son of a bitch, whatever it was, the satisfaction.

He checked the area on foot again and even resorted to calling Bobby's name a few times before giving up and returning to the car. He tried not to think of how he could practically feel Bobby's arms around him, almost hear the gruff voice saying, "It's good to see you boy."

The memory felt so real, but then, the memory of wandering in confusion in the empty space and raging at the sky felt equally real. The cut on his arm was definitely real, but so was the fact that, clearly, there was nothing here now. Maybe he should have gotten a head scan before leaving the hospital, if he had ever been in the hospital to begin with.

With a resigned sigh he pulled out the journal and recorded the details of both his yesterdays, glancing up every now and again, on the off chance that the salvage yard had decided to rematerialize at some point.

That task finished, he started the car and headed back to town. Whatever else was going on, he still had to eat, so he'd get some breakfast. Then he'd hit an electronics store. He wanted to go back out to Bobby's...not Bobby's with an EMF. Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to check if Sioux Falls could boast a psychic that seemed legit. He tried to remember if Bobby had ever mentioned one.

He'd try to give Missouri a call, but that honestly would probably be as useful as his calls to Sam and Bobby had been. That's OK though because he was Dean Winchester, hunter, and he would figure this out, or know the reason why.