Supernatural and Dean and Sam are not mine. Alas!

Big thanks to bally2cute, carocali, Carikuba, L'insomnie des etoiles, Kalee, Surplus Imagination and Faye Dartmouth for being so kind and leaving such lovely reviews. Hope this chapter continues to entertain!

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Tired and Emotional 3

Jesus. It's here.

Dean felt a sensation in the pit of his stomach like he was falling, fast and from a great height, the ground racing to meet him and the wind roaring in his ears.

In reality, of course, he was only a few inches off the ground, hanging with his back pressed against the wall of a godforsaken motel room in a town that was so not where he wanted to be, and he wasn't going anywhere.

The demon had its back to him, was concentrating on Sam, who was in a similar position on the other side of the room. Dean didn't waste time trying to work out what was going on: whatever it was, it wasn't good, and it needed to stop. Hoping the demon's attention was sufficiently elsewhere, he tried to move his hand.

The demon was facing him in an instant, the harsh motel room lights glinting off the surface of its eyes. It smiled in a way that made Dean want to crawl out of his skin. OK, so you got its attention. That's great. Maybe you can keep it away from Sam long enough... Long enough for what? It didn't matter. All that mattered now was buying time.

"What do you want," he forced out, though his throat felt swollen and constricted.

The demon laughed, and Dean thought if he hadn't been in quite the position he was, he would have thrown up. "What I've always wanted," it said, and its voice, the voice of the man whose body it had stolen, was deep and rich and almost avuncular. "The only difference is, this time I'm going to get it."

Dean swallowed. He didn't need to ask what it meant. "You'll have to go through me to get to him," he said, and that was freakin ridiculous of course because what the hell was he doing, pinned against a wall with no weapons and no chances, threatening a demon?

The demon snickered again and leaned in, very close. Its breath smelled of whisky and cheap tobacco, with the barest hint of sulphur. "So predictable, you Winchester boys," it breathed, and Dean tried to avoid looking right into those reflective orange eyes. "So very noble. It's pathetic. I could kill you with a thought."

But it didn't kill him, not then anyway. It seemed to have something else in mind.

"Aren't you tired of being pushed around, Dean?" it asked, still too close, its hot breath rasping across Dean's cheeks. Dean's view of the world was blocked by this looming face, which looked like it was probably kindly when it was not being worn by a creature from Hell. "First dear old Dad, now Sammy too," the demon continued, sounding thoughtful. "I thought you were supposed to be the one in charge, be the big brother. Seems like as soon as he gets a taste of power, he doesn't give a shit what you think any more. Daddy would be so proud to see what a good job you're doing of looking after your brother."

"Shut up," Dean growled, flicking his eyes this way and that, trying to find a way to avoid the terrible face and praying that somehow this stalling was going to help Sam.

The demon sucked its breath through its teeth in disapproval. "Now, now, Dean," it said, stepping back again. "You might hurt my feelings. And then I might hurt you."

It eyed him for a moment, and although it was further away from him now, which was a blessed relief, it was still blocking his view of Sam, and Dean was trying to move his head to see his brother when the creature smiled its horrible smile and said, "Yes. I think I will hurt you," and raised its hand, and then Dean heard Sam yell out his name and felt something hit him with the force of a thousand nuclear bombs, and then he was falling again, actually falling this time, and when he hit the floor he just kept on falling, down, down into darkness.

----

Dean awoke to the feeling of motion and the whine of a mosquito flying past his ear and landing on his face. He slapped instinctively, and regretted it immediately afterwards when the movement drew his attention to the worst freakin headache in the history of ever. It felt like a hundred tiny miners had set up shop in his brain and were prospecting with rusty pick-axes. Give it up guys, you're not going to find anything worth having in there.

"Dean."

Sam. Sam's voice. What did that mean? Was Sam OK? He cracked an eyelid open experimentally, and, encouraged to discover that the headache didn't get much worse, let the other one drift open too. He was in the Impala, in the passenger seat, speeding along an empty road. It was night. They were going too fast.

He flicked his eyes over to the driver's seat, careful not to let his head move. Sam glanced at him. "How do you feel?"

Dean swallowed, or tried to, but his mouth was too dry and his tongue felt thick. Sam seemed to realise, and said, "It's OK. You're OK."

Dean wanted to ask about the demon, wanted to ask about the trails of dried blood that tracked down Sam's skin from his nose and ears, but he couldn't. The headache was getting worse, throbbing so loud that he was amazed Sam couldn't hear it, and blackness was reaching up to claim him once more. He fought it, he really tried, but it was a losing battle, and somewhere far above him he heard Sam's voice say It's OK, Dean. Go to sleep and then he sank gratefully into the waiting arms of the dark.

----

The second time Dean woke up was when Sam cried out and the car lurched under him. This time there was no time for prospectors and slow beginnings: Sam was moaning in the driver's seat, head down and hands over his face, and no-one was holding the wheel, and the windscreen was rapidly filling up with tree.

Dean didn't bother to think, he just reacted. He grabbed the wheel and pulled as hard as he could, and there was a screech of tires as the Impala swung back out into the road, into the wrong lane, and Dean cursed and readjusted the wheel and felt control flowing back to him, and gradually the situation righted itself and the adrenaline began to drain away, and they were parked at the side of the road.

Dean closed his eyes, scrubbing his face with his hands and feeling the headache make its appearance, though less painful this time. Jesus Christ.

"Sorry," said Sam next to him, his face still hidden.

Dean didn't voice any of the many replies that came to mind. "What's wrong?"

"I just uh..." Sam grunted, removing his hands from his face, his eyes screwed tight shut. "I guess the sun came up and uh... I don't know. The light was so bright."

Dean looked up at the horizon. The sun was only half up, glowing golden through a light haze.

"Sam." He reached for his brother's face, but Sam pushed his hand away. "Sam, look at me." He took Sam's chin firmly in his hand and turned his brother's head towards his own. "Open your eyes," he said.

Sam grimaced, opened one eye and then screwed it shut again immediately, his hands flying back to cover his face. "Jesus, God, Dean, it hurts." Next to the car, a whole swath of grass was flattened suddenly as if a huge weight had fallen on it.

Dean felt his headache crank up a notch. He should have seen this coming. Nothing ever came without a price. Sam had been given telekinesis in exchange for the possibility of killing himself or others in his sleep; he had been given other gifts too, and now it was time to pay up.

"Fuck, Dean," said Sam quietly, his voice muffled by his hands. "What's wrong with my eyes?"

----

They stopped at the next town they came to, Sam huddled under a blanket in the back seat while Dean bought the biggest, darkest pair of sunglasses he could find. It was almost laughable, really: only a couple of weeks ago, Dean had been refusing to buy just such an item, refusing it because it meant acceptance, adjusting, permanent damage, and Sam hadn't needed them then anyway, they would have been for other people, to protect others from having to see the darkness that could claim any of them. Then, Sam's eyes hadn't worked at all, and Dean had felt like he would give anything for his brother to see again.

He had got his wish. And that was always it, wasn't it? Be careful what you wish for.

The sunglasses seemed to help, and Dean suggested they lie low at a motel for the day, wait until dark. But Sam shook his head vehemently.

"It's coming for us. For me. We have to keep moving."

And now that the immediate crisis was over or at least stalled, Dean had time to notice the dried blood again. It seemed that Sam had made an effort at some point to scrub it off his skin, but red-brown particles still clung to the folds of his ears and the edges of his nostrils. And Dean asked the question that he would have asked long before, if his attention hadn't been claimed by other matters.

"What happened?"

Sam's shoulders tensed, his expression unreadable with those damn glasses on. Dean had never realised how much he could work out from his brother's eyes. "I don't know," Sam said quietly.

"You were there. How did we escape?"

"I, uh. I think I attacked it. It ran away."

Dean stared over at his brother in astonishment. "You're kidding me. It ran away?"

"Well, uh, it went away, anyway," Sam said.

Dean was quiet for a minute, thinking this over. "Jesus, Sam, what did you hit it with?"

Sam shook his head slowly. "I don't know. I just... I heard it say it was going to hurt you, and then it... and then I just pushed, as hard as I could, you know? I think... maybe I blacked out or something, I don't know, but it was gone and you were... I'm sorry, man, I think I must have hit you too."

Dean snorted, rubbing at his aching temple. So this little sucker's your doing, is it? Shoulda guessed.

"And then I just got you in the car and floored it. I didn't know how soon it would be back."

"How do you know it's coming back at all?" Dean asked. "Maybe you scared it off for good. Maybe you killed it." Even as he said it, he knew it wasn't true.

Sam shook his head again. "No. It's coming. I can feel it."

Great. Dean slapped another mosquito away. Damn bugs. He thought about asking about the people in Fredericksville that they were supposed to save, and that reminded him of Sam's face as he had manipulated the steering wheel with his mind. That was a conversation for another time.

They stopped at a gas station, and Dean called Missouri. Her voice was strained as she answered the phone.

"Dean, honey, are you checking behind you?"

Dean looked around the forecourt. There was nothing there. "What do you mean?"

"Your brother's broadcasting for miles. I can feel him from here. There's more than one type of thing can't resist an invitation like that."

"Broadcasting what?" Dean asked, feeling confused.

"Power." Missouri's voice was flat, and Dean felt some unidentifiable emotion in his spine. "Most everything wants what he's got, and you need to see that they don't bleed him dry. Watch out for yourself, too, honey. I know you're not going to leave his side, but that's a dangerous place to be."

"Missouri," Dean started, tired of this enigmatic conversation and wanting to say what he had phoned to say in the first place.

"You can't bring him here, Dean. It's not safe." There was a click on the line, and Missouri was gone.

Dean stared at his phone. Not safe. Seemed like nowhere was safe these days. He walked back to the car, slapping at another mosquito, and then paused, turning over his hand to look at what he had killed. It lay there, dead and flat on his palm, oddly-shaped, slightly iridescent in the sunlight. Not a mosquito.

Dean swallowed.

Sam was still in the car, his head tipped back against the seat. He looked tired, and Dean saw several tiny shapes hovering around him.

"Sam," he said sharply, flailing his hands, trying to get them away.

"What is it?" Sam pulled his head up, sounding confused.

"These little bastards," Dean said, and slapped one that had landed on Sam's cheek.

"Ow, jeez! You're pretty free with your fists these days."

"Save it," said Dean, and rolled up the window quickly, hoping he had got all the bugs or whatever they were. "OK," he said, feeling a little more calm. "We got another problem."

When he had finished explaining, Sam started to laugh and didn't stop

"Oh, Jesus," he spluttered, as Dean grew more and more frustrated. "Megalomaniacal bugs! That's a new one."

"This is serious," said Dean, wishing he could join in on his brother's laughter, but feeling about as funny as a comedian in a morgue. "One of those little freaks might not be a big deal, but..."

"It's OK, Dean," Sam said, gasping for breath, tears streaming from under his sunglasses. "I won't let them eat you. I think we've got some Raid in the back."

"Need some freakin mutant Raid," Dean muttered. A whine blew past his ear, and he breathed in sharply. "Sam..."

"It's OK, really." Sam was still chuckling. "I got it."

And just as Dean had caught sight of the tiny creature and was moving to strike it, it started to move backwards. Dean watched in astonishment as it moved in the opposite direction it had been travelling in, until it flattened itself against the car window. "What did you do?"

Sam shrugged. "I made them go away. You know, the power-hungry greenfly." And he started laughing again.

"Dude," Dean muttered, starting the engine. "You have a really weird sense of humour."

----

Sam kept laughing for over an hour, and the sound grated on Dean's nerves. He drove south, because he didn't know what else to do. After thirty miles, he put the stereo on loud, despite the headache that still hadn't faded, but he could still feel the vibrations as his brother's shoulders shook. He tuned it out, focussing on the white lines of the road, on the thrum of the bass. Usually the driving was one of the things he enjoyed best. But usually, they were hunting, not hunted.

He didn't know how long it was before he glanced at his brother to see Sam staring forward, no longer laughing, trickles of blood oozing from his nose. Dean's stomach lurched, and he shut off the stereo.

"Sam, what happened?"

"A vision," Sam said stonily.

Dean bit the inside of his lip and remembered Fredericksville again. "We can't stop. You know that, right?"

"I know," said Sam, his features motionless.

Dean turned back to the road, feeling that he should say something, but not sure what. "People die every day. We can't save all of them."

Sam didn't say anything for a long moment, and then he turned his face away. "You don't have to watch it happen."

----

The hours turned into days, and Dean lost track of time. It felt like they'd always been running, following an unpredictable path, desperately trying to stay one step ahead. During the day, Dean drove, and sometimes Sam dozed fitfully under his blanket but mostly he just stared. At night, Dean would try to sleep in the passenger seat or stretched out in the back, while Sam moved the car through the darkness as if it was broad daylight.

They needed a plan, Dean knew that. They couldn't run forever, and he couldn't let Sam be stuck in this state, reduced to hiding from the light of day, with visions, coming more and more often, doing God knew what to his brain. But the demon was strong, and it knew what Sam had now. It was prepared, and it was coming.

It wasn't the only thing that was coming, either. At some point, Dean became aware of a haze in the rear-view mirror that seemed to follow them wherever they went. As time went on, the haze grew darker, always staying the same distance behind them. After watching and wondering had gone on long enough, Dean stopped the car and stepped out, walking along the highway for maybe fifty feet before he found himself face to face with a shifting, seething cloud of iridescence that emitted a whining sound on the edge of hearing that Dean never wanted to hear again. He watched, horribly fascinated despite himself, and saw that there was a line that the bugs never crossed, like a curved ceiling or the edge of a bubble.

When he got back to the car, Sam said, "I told you I would take care of it."

And Dean glanced back at the haze in the mirror. "Yeah," he muttered. "Great."

----

It might have been the third day, or the fourth, when Sam had a vision that lasted longer than usual and when it was over he fell forward, clutching at his head.

"Turn it off turn it off," he yelled, gasping and choking, and Dean stared, because surely he couldn't mean the stereo, it was playing so softly that Dean could hardly hear it, but it was the only thing he could think off so he snapped it off in a panic and Sam laid his head back on the seat and breathed heavily.

"Loud," he whispered.

"Sam," Dean said, and Sam winced, and outside the window there was an muffled pop and a shower of unripe sweetcorn kernels rained onto the hood. Dean stared out of the window in consternation, but the field of corn that bordered the road just stood there, innocent and ordinary.

"Sam," he tried again, trying to pitch his voice lower, and there was another pop and more flying kernels.

"Loud," choked Sam again.

Dean drew a breath and spoke, barely letting his vocal cords vibrate. "Sam, are you blowing up corn?"

Sam gave a soundless laugh. "Yeah, guess so," he whispered. "Better than the tires, right?"

"Dude, corn."

There was another pop.

Well, if this isn't the most ridiculous situation ever.

----

They avoided towns after that, the sound of traffic and people making Sam's face twist into expressions that Dean never wanted to see again. They followed back roads, leaving a trail of exploded corn and the occasional collapsed outbuilding or shattered tree where a truck or semi-trailer had passed them by. Dean learned how to talk without making a sound, and he learned how to listen to Sam, how to hear his whispers above the sound of the engine. He worried about that, but Sam seemed to be able to handle the low vibration of the Impala, provided he could continue making popcorn. Out loud, Dean regretted the loss of his stereo, but inside he felt the familiar feeling of losing something far more precious.

Sam's moods became more and more erratic. He tried to stay calm, and when he didn't manage it he did at least retain enough control to turn the destructive force of his brain against things that no-one really needed. Sometimes he would laugh at nothing, laugh soundlessly for hours on end, his head tipped back, his throat moving. After one such bout, he turned to Dean and whispered I think I might be going crazy.

And Dean whispered back, right there with you, little buddy.

They never stopped in one place for long, but since the latest developments in Sam's hearing, Dean had taken to parking the car at some distance from gas stations along the way and walking over to them with a can, collecting food and gas while Sam huddled in the passenger seat. On the way back to the car, he would try not to look at the angry, gleaming cloud that hung behind it, and wonder how the hell they had got into this situation. The gas station trips were required, needed to keep them alive and moving, but they were dangerous, Dean knew. It wasn't much, but it might be enough.

And one night, it was. One night, Dean felt a sharp blow to his head as he exited the glass door of the latest gas station somewhere in Alabama. And when he woke up, he knew that he had made the mistake that would cost him everything, and he closed his eyes, not wanting to believe it could be true, but unable to escape the image of flat orange eyes and a terrible, triumphant smile.