A/N: So, once again, I decided to stay up and post a short chapter. Next one will be longer, I promise, but I'm about to fall asleep on my keyboard. :)


Dean panted for air, wiping his sweaty brow with a dirty forearm. He was halfway through digging up Daniel Hauser's bones, and already exhausted. It was a painful reminder of how things had changed. Three months of medical research, hospital visits, and lousy part-time jobs had softened him. He'd lost weight, lost the motivation to train. He couldn't practice without a partner, and there was no one beside Sam that he would trust that much.

God, but he missed his brother. He hadn't known he could hurt so much while Sammy was still alive. This never-ending loop of empty days was like having Sam trapped behind a plexiglass wall, within sight but out of reach. Losing his brother like this had been agony enough – but he had gone from a life of momentum and purpose to a life of stagnation and isolation in an instant, and it was taking its toll on him. Dean Winchester was not built to stay still. Once, he had moved, all the time, one thing flowing into the next, always going forward. Now he was inert, and it tore at him with every breath.

If he couldn't fix this, if he couldn't make it right, he would be damned to live out this hell for the rest of his life. Because Dean could never leave. He could never say goodbye – every day that he wasn't there was a day Sam spent in fear and confusion. The cost of his freedom, even if he had wanted it, would have been an endless, repeating betrayal to his brother, the pain of it fresh with every day.

Bitterness surged upward through him in a wave. He began to dig again, determined to end this tonight. His shoulders ached as he tossed shovelful after shovelful out of the deepening grave, and just as he felt his strength start to fade, the shovel clunked off something solid.

Tossing the shovel out of the hole, he scooted back and brushed the remaining dirt from the coffin lid with his hands. Hooking his fingers under the rim, he tugged sharply upward and the lid groaned open. A puff of stale air hit him in the face and he grimaced. Hauser's bare skull grinned up at him from the coffin.

"Shithead," Dean muttered, staring into the empty sockets. Grimfaced, he hauled himself out of the open grave and stood. He had come prepared, and the bones were salted and doused in gasoline before he'd even caught his breath.

He paused for a moment, matches clutched in his trembling hand. Please, he begged silently, let this work…

He struck a match, then lit the whole book in a hiss of sulfur and smoke.

"See ya in hell, Daniel." He bit out, then tossed the burning matchbook into the coffin. The gas ignited in a whoosh, and Dean stepped back hastily, his face stinging a little. Apparently he'd been more… generous with the fuel than usual.

"Damn," he cursed, squinting at the blazing flames. Hauser's remains were charcoal briquettes – it was time for him to make a hasty escape before someone caught him. He'd head to the apartment, shower the smell of gas and smoke out of his hair, and go see Sam. Screw visiting hours – he needed to know if it had worked - now.


A shrill whine woke Sam from a muddled sleep, close to his aching head and annoyingly loud. His eyes opened reluctantly, and it took a moment to piece together what he was seeing.

He was in a hospital room, Dean sitting in a chair by his bed. His brother wore the most crestfallen look Sam thought he'd ever seen, and a sympathetic pang of grief bloomed in his chest.

"Dean?" he rasped, staring at the squealing EMF meter in his brother's hand. It took him a distressing length of time to remember what that meant, but when he did a sick panic replaced the sadness he'd felt a moment before.

He gasped and tried to sit up, his mind flailing out desperately for the memory of what the hell had happened to him. Pain raced from the back of his head to explode behind his eyes, and he whimpered pitifully. The whine cut off distantly and he felt agitated hands on his shoulders.

"Sammy? Come on, it's ok." Dean's voice sounded wounded and guilty, and Sam's terror notched up another level. None of it made sense. Dean wasn't supposed to sound like that, and he was setting off the EMF. He scanned his consciousness for another presence - there was nothing but his own fragmented thoughts, racing disjointedly.

"Sam!" Dean called, and the unguarded pain in his voice was enough to snap Sam from his slide into hysteria. He opened his eyes to see Dean's face, his eyes gleaming wetly in the dim light.

"I'm sorry, Sam," he said hoarsely, and Sam was alarmed to see tears spill down his brother's cheeks. "I'm so fucking sorry…"

Sam gaped at him for a moment, then raised a tentative hand and rested it lightly on the back of Dean's neck. At the touch, his brother seemed to deflate - his head bowing forward and sinking until his forehead came to rest on Sam's chest.

Sam felt him shudder, a silent sob gusting hotly through the thin fabric of the hospital gown. Alarmed, he slid his hand to Dean's shoulder, wrapping his arm around his hunched back in a weak embrace.

Dean's shoulders hitched with another soundless cry and his hand came up blindly to clench in the fabric of Sam's gown. His fingers shivered with the force of his grip, the fabric pulling against Sam's ribs.

"Dean?" he pleaded softly, but his brother just shook his head against Sam's sternum, refusing to make any sound.

His own panic and pain forgotten, Sam held on, echoing his brother's silence.


Dean had thought his heart would split open with the pain of his failure as the EMF shrilled to life. And then Sammy had woken up, had seen the EMF and put it together. He'd panicked, confused and frightened, and Dean had felt like the worst brother to have ever disgraced the role.

He'd managed a broken apology to Sam, unsure if he was apologizing for waking him, for failing him, or for losing his composure.

He'd beenmortified to feel tears forming, and despite his silent recriminations to get it together, Sam's hand on his neck had broken him. He'd lowered his head to Sam's chest without meaning to, grief seizing his throat, and sobbed. Still fighting against the terrifying loss of composure, he allowed no sound to escape as he felt his brother's arm slide around his shoulders. He grasped at the hospital gown under his cheek, Sam's ribs rising gently in chorus with the gentle thump, thump, thump of his heart.

Dean breathed in deeply, wishing he could breathe Sam in like air, carry him with him forever, safe inside his heart. Never alone.

But he had failed, and now his brother, his family, was lost forever.


A/N: Bwaa ha ha! Sorry for the metaphorical sucker punch, getting your hopes up and then bashing them over the head with angst… But don't worry, it's not over yet…