Welcome to the Club

Fantasy it fills my mind
To leave this place before my time
Release myself from earthly care
My dream may be your nightmare

Take Me Away, Blue Oyster Cult

They were out the motel door within 15 minutes. Dean made his way to the passenger side of the Impala, and Sam took the hint to drive.

"So," Dean began after about an hour of driving in silence, "do you remember this Professor Marten?"

"It doesn't seem familiar," Sam told him. "Why, do you know him?"

"I'm not sure. If I met him, it was a long time ago," he said, yawning through the word 'ago'. He was starting to feel sleepy again and, as he tried to blink away the haze from his eyes, was glad Sam was driving. "I've been trying to put a face to the name but I can't."

Dean was usually quite adept at remembering both names and faces. The fact that the memory of Kole Marten was eluding him told Sam that it had probably been too many years between visits or even mentions of the name. Still, he began searching his earliest memories but was coming up blank.

He was about to speak again, but noticed with a quick glance that Dean had fallen asleep in his seat. While this was a usual habit with Sam, Dean almost never fell asleep in the car. And, never ever during the day.

When a couple of cruisers with sirens blaring passed them going the other direction and failed to get much of a response from his brother, Sam took the opportunity to turn on the radio and find a non-Dean station. After all, how many chances would he have to listen to his own style of music? He found a station and looked over at Dean. Still sound asleep. Sam relaxed and tried to concentrate on the road, the map, Professor Marten. Anything other than shooting his brother.

……….

It was dark and he was in pain. Dean felt as if he had just done battle with a bull and lost badly. He opened his eyes and didn't feel any better. Walking towards him was Sam with a satisfied smile and his gun still pointing at Dean's chest.

He had done it. Sam had actually shot him. Yes, it had only been with rock salt, but the fact that Sam was still able to shoot him made him hurt in a completely different way.

Sam was sneering at him and saying something, but Dean couldn't hear it. His head was pulsing with the overload of sorrow and soreness. All he could think to do was bluff his brother until he could find out what was going on. He had taken the bullets out of one of his own guns, but had hoped he wouldn't need the con. It was a last resort, but he could think of nothing else to do, as he lay there at his brother's feet, unable to move. Before he knew it, he had offered Sam the gun with 'real' bullets and told him to go ahead and end it. Shoot him and be done with it.

But Sam was too smart and saw through the ruse. He threw down his empty rifle and reached behind his back. He pulled out another gun, a gun Dean didn't realize he had. Panic had very little time to enter Dean's mind as Sam pointed it at Dean's chest and fired.

The pain spread like fire through his chest and into the rest of his body. For a moment, he thought he heard laughing and looked up to see someone standing in the shadows. It was the spirit of Dr. Ellicott with a proud look in his eyes and a cackle of a laugh coming from his lips. But, the mad doctor slowly vanished and Dean realized that the laugh was now Sam's.

He looked up again at his brother to find Sam aiming the gun once more at his chest. Though Dean was not dying, he felt his body being torn apart from the inside as Sam shot again and again. Dean's immobile body was being electrocuted with the shocks stemming from his middle.

He couldn't take it, but he couldn't stop it. And Sam, simply smiled at him and took aim between Dean's eyes. Dean didn't hear the gun over the sounds of waves crashing through his head, but he knew it had happened. He could taste the blood and ash in his mouth. He could smell the gunpowder in the room and the flesh, his flesh, being burned. But still, he would not die.

He opened his eyes once more and, in spite of everything, could see Sam clearly. He felt his lungs cave in and couldn't take a breath. But Sam kept shooting, a never-ending supply of bullets in his gun. Each new shot worse than the last…

"Dean! Dean!" Sam shouted at his brother, trying to wake him from a nightmare that was causing him to hyperventilate.

Dean's eyes opened wide to see his brother hovering over him. Still disorientated, he panicked and pulled away only to have his seatbelt tighten and send a whole new jolt of pain through his body. The tightness in his chest caused him to choke on his breath.

"Dean?" Sam said anxiously as he leaned over to unlock his brother's seatbelt to give him room to breath.

It took Dean a few moments to realize he was not lying on the cold, hard floor of the asylum. He was in his car; he was safe. But, he was still sweating and shivering at the same time.

"All right," Sam said as he pulled the Impala back onto the road from the shoulder where he had stopped. "I think we should stop to stretch and eat. There's a burger place just ahead." In fact, they could see it from where Sam had pulled over, but he hadn't wanted to take the extra minute or two to keep driving. "I think we could both use some fresh air."

By the time Sam pulled into a spot, Dean's breathing was back under control and he had stopped shaking, but he still looked quite pale. Sam turned off the engine, but neither of them moved or looked at each other.

"You OK?" Sam asked hesitantly, not really sure if we wanted to hear the answer.

Dean took one more long, calming breath before he spoke.

"Yeah," he said with a sideways Dean-like smile and then looked at Sam. "That damn haunted plane ride… I told you I wouldn't forget it any time soon." He opened his door and eased himself out, trying to look sleepy rather than sore. "I'll meet you at the table. I gotta hit the bathroom." He gave another crooked grin, closed the door, and slowly walked into the restaurant.

Sam took a deep breath of his own, visibly shaken by being the one on this side of the nightmare. He knew Dean was lying about the dream. He was sure he heard a few very mumbled but pleading "Sammy no"s and "please don't"s before he was able to wake his brother. But clearly Dean was not yet ready to talk about it.