AN: Wave your hand if you ordered schmoop. Okay, schmoop for the table. Just holler when you need some more. The sides of mild h/c and introspection are on the house.

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Sam laid flat on his back trying to recover his equilibrium. He ached all over and his very soul felt bruised, if such a thing were possible. Oh, he was still damn grateful to have his soul, but he knew that there would be a lot of nightmares from what he'd seen tonight. And by the feeling of his screaming head, he'd bet good money he'd had another seizure at some point during the torture. Not that he had any intention of sharing that little tidbit with his brother.

What. The. Hell. Anyway.

Sam felt more than a little betrayed by the Ibejis, who he'd honestly liked. He'd believed them when they'd claimed to want the best for the brothers. He was sure there was a lot more to the events of the night than they realized. But he simply didn't have the energy to figure it out. In fact, it was possible he'd never move again.

Except. He needed to see Dean again, now that his eyes were adjusting to the meager starlight.

Sam picked up his head and suddenly another need screamed for attention. Sam scrambled to his stomach and crawled frantically toward the trees, moving faster than he'd thought he was capable of. The need was so urgent he felt lucky he didn't pee his pants.

Unaccoutably... er...relieved, Sam made his way back toward Dean much more slowly than he'd left. He stumbled twice just on the short walk and hoped Dean hadn't regained his night vision just yet.

"Holy crap," said Dean as he and Sam sort of staggered toward each other. "I have never needed a piss more in my life. I was like Austin Powers or something, you know?"

"Yeah, actually." Normally, Sam might've rolled his eyes and refused to discuss bathroom issues, but it was just one more weird puzzle piece in an incredibly weird night. Besides, his head was hurting enough to make everything else seem unimportant.

Sam squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn't realize he was swaying until a hand gripped his elbow. Even without opening his eyes, he could feel Dean's regard sharpen. Sam set his feet wider. Dean hadn't looked any steadier than Sam felt. If he fell, he'd likely take them both down.

"You sure you're okay, Sam?"

Sam forced his eyes open. "Yeah. Though I could sleep for a week. After drinking a couple gallons of water."

"Me too," Dean mumbled. "And maybe eat half a dozen cheeseburgers." His stomach gurgled on cue, and Sam's answered.

"Too bad we have to get to the car first," Sam sighed. Yes, he felt thirsty and hungry, but those were well below his tiredness and how much his head hurt in order of importance right now.

"Think you can make it?" Dean was still studying him critically, and Sam returned the favor. Dean looked exhausted and had the pinched look that spoke of dehydration.

"I'm fine. You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. Tired. Thirsty. Hungry. Pissed off." Sore and achy, Sam silently added to Dean's list. "What -- what the shit was all that, Sam? Were they just messing with us? Was that the test? Did we pass?" Dean's face showed all of the frustrated confusion Sam felt too.

"I don't know, to any of it. I think -- " Sam winced as the pain in his head spiked. Dean, predictably, took his elbow again.

"Car, food, drink, sleep, then we'll talk about this," Dean decided.

Sam opened his mouth to agree when a buzzing sound made them both startle badly, then Dean fumbled for his phone with far less than his characteristic grace.

"Bobby?" Dean had barely gotten the word out when the older hunter began to rant at him.

Sam gave his brother a wry smile, thankful he was the one weathering that particular storm. He idly wondered what they'd done to piss off their surrogate father this time and began to gather their things with all the speed of an arthritic turtle. He wasn't really listening to Dean sputtering until he suddenly yelled, "Days? What do you mean days?!"

With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Sam pushed the button on his watch to light it up. 1:22. It was a little more than an hour and a half since they'd walked into the clearing...plus two days.

Sam grabbed Dean's phone, ignoring his protests, and started talking right over Bobby, ignoring him, too. "Bobby, the Ibeji test took a few days, but it didn't feel like that to us. They're gone now, but we don't know if it worked. Can you find out? We got a couple hours at least to hike out of here." Sam absently ran a hand over the stubble on his chin. More lost time. Awesome.

"Shit, boy. Yeah, I'll find out. Woulda been nice if they'd told ya at least." Sam had to smile at that. Bobby wasn't wrong. "You boys really okay? They hurt you at all?" The blatant concern and guilt eased something in Sam he hadn't realized was tight and he swallowed hard before answering. "And don't even think about lyin' to me, Sam Winchester!"

"We're fine, Bobby." There was a snort he ignored as easily as he was ignoring Dean waving his hand for the phone back. "Really, we are. We didn't eat, drink, or sleep the whole time, so we need to fuel up and rest, but we're good.'

A pause. "Glad to hear it. You want me to come out?"

Oh, that concern. That regard, freely offering to drive nearly 24 hours if they needed him. No wonder Heaven itself considered Bobby like his father. "Nah. We'll hike out, get some electrolyte drinks and food and sleep a while and be fine."

"You git to the car and call me, you understand? I'll find out what's happenin' in Montana. Then get your asses here for a little down time."

"We will. Thanks, Bobby." Sam could feel the offer was genuine this time, hear from the older man's voice that he was no longer thinking of Sam as anything but one of "his boys" and it was a gift he hadn't expected. "Um, Bobby?"

"Can it and give the phone back to your idiot brother. I can hear him whining from here!"

Sam swallowed his thanks and did both.

Soon the brothers Winchester were trudging back toward the Impala, supporting each other like a couple of blitzed frat boys. Sam was so tired that he zoned out a few times, though he mostly kept his feet moving. Dean didn't let him fall.

There were a few times Sam knew Dean wasn't all there, either, so Sam simply returned the favor. Even in his exhaustion, Sam recognized that it was easier to manhandle his brother than it had been in the past. Yeah, he'd noticed how he'd bulked up during his...absence from his body, but it was more than a little disconcerting every time he found physical reminders of his missing time.

"Don' brood," commanded Dean, and it would have been a little more compelling if he hadn't sounded more than half asleep. "Thinkin' 'bout that shit's just gonna scratch at the wall."

Sam smiled wearily, or thought he did. Of course Dean was worried about him and knew he was "brooding." Dean would probably worry about Sam if he were dead. The thought reminded Sam of all those flash dramas they'd been forced to watch and all the times...and there he went, thinking about exactly what Dean said not to. A sharp shudder went through him and Dean immediately tightened his hold. "Sammy?"

"Yeah, I know. But I was just thinking about coffee. And steak. And a bed." Sam lied, knowing they both needed the distraction.

Dean groaned. "Don't tease me. We have to be close to the car now, don't we?"

Sam said, "yeah," even though they both knew they had at least an hour to go at their current glacial pace.

It wasn't a nice hike this time. They went down completely four or five times. But they weren't Winchesters for nothing. Every time, someone managed to climb back to his feet and get the other up. Sometimes it took encouragement, sometimes threats, sometimes physical assistance, but they always got up again.

Then, had anything ever looked better than the Impala gleaming in the moonlight? "Oh, Baby, I am so glad to see you," Dean all but moaned, confirming he felt the same way. He slid behind the wheel as Sam curled into the passenger seat with a deep, deep sigh.

Neither was especially fit to drive, but there wasn't exactly much choice. And anyway, they'd driven in worse shape. "Stay awake and call Bobby," directed Dean unnecessarily.

Sam's phone was already in his hand, though it took two tries to hit the right buttons. He smiled when Bobby answered on the first ring despite the late hour. "We're good, Bobby. We're at the car. Just gonna grab some provisions and get some sleep."

He pretended to grumble at the admonishment to call again when they got to their room and yet again when they woke up. It felt so damn good to have Bobby worrying instead of avoiding him that Sam would have agreed to pretty much anything at that moment. He hung up to the realization that he needed to pay more attention. He smacked Dean's chest.

"Keep it between the lines, idiot! You falling asleep?"

Somehow they made it to town and discovered to their relief that the Walgreen's was open 24/7. The middle aged clerk's eyes flicked over them, but she didn't say a word about having two dirty, scruffy strangers who were swaying on their feet in her store at 5am.

It was only two blocks to the motel, but each brother had finished a bottle of Gatorade and was eating whatever he could find by the time they got there. Sam drank another bottle as he checked the salt lines, and Dean was crunching on something or other while checking the rest of the protections.

Sam only stopped eating and drinking to use the bathroom. He ate as he pulled off everything except his boxers, called Bobby once more, and put his phone on silent and plugged it in. He couldn't have told you what he ate or drank or where any wrappers ended up. When his stomach finally didn't feel like it was going to eat through his backbone, Sam climbed into bed, ignoring his dirty teeth, sticky fingers, and the rest of the world. He muttered something to Dean, immediately forgot his own words, and was asleep before he got a reply.

WINCHESTER * WINCHESTER

Sam and Dean slept on and off all day, sucking down snacks and Gatorade any time they woke up. Finally, around 8, Dean showered and shaved and announced that he was finding pizza.

Sam used the time he was gone to shave and shower himself, and to pick up the trashed room. He put on sweats, figuring they'd stay in and go back to bed soon enough. He also took some Tylenol for his pounding head while Dean wasn't there to fuss about it. Despite the pain, he was starting to feel downright human again.

Sam called Bobby for a quick check in and was still talking to him when Dean came back with three boxes that smelled amazing. "I gotta go before Dean eats all the pizza. Man, I'm not sure I've ever been so hungry."

"Really? I remember your daddy complainin' he was going to go broke tryin' to keep you in feed the summer after you turned 16."

Sam chuckled at the memory. That summer, he'd grown two inches in three months and had been hungry all the time, even sometimes waking up in the middle of the night because of hunger. "Yeah, feels just like that. Thanks, Bobby. See you in a couple days."

Sam hardly heard the goodbye because he really was that hungry. The first two boxes were nearly empty before Sam finally gave Dean his report. "Bobby says not only is everything back to normal in Montana, authorities think some nasty chemical this factory's been dumping into the drinking water caused the, uh, temporary insanity." Sam appreciated that detail, because it meant Eshu's victims that were still living at least should avoid prosecution for their crimes done under his influence. Of course, they'd still have to live with the irreversible consequences of what they'd done. It wasn't perfect but...

"Good." Dean's eyes were fierce and Sam got it. What they'd been through was bad, but at least it had accomplished something.

When the pizzas and something wonderful called a chocolate volcano were gone, Dean made some noises about going out for a beer and a game of pool, but didn't seem to have much ambition or desire to have Sam out if his sight.

Sam got that too. They wouldn't talk about the horrors they'd experienced in that innocent-looking clearing or souls or connections or any of it, but any fears Sam had had that he'd irrevocably broken something between them were gone now. The amount of evidence to that which had been shoved into his face over and over was impressive and he was nothing if not logical.

Sam supposed he should be grateful to the Ibeji for that. He remembered the sight of Dean with half his head blown off and couldn't find the gratitude.

"You now know that this -- brotherness or whatever the hell it is -- is still here, right?" asked Dean, waving a hand between them and showing off his impressive mind reading skills. Huh. Guess they were going to talk about it after all.

The sentiment behind the question made Sam feel gooier than the chocolate volcano. But he knew his brother didn't want any mawkishness. So all Sam said was, "Whatever. Are you gonna sit on my bed for the whole movie, jerk?"

"Yes I am. You have a better view from here, so suck it up, bitch."

They were both asleep before the movie was over, and despite everything they'd just been through, it was the best night's sleep Sam had gotten since he'd started sleeping again.

* * *

AN: I know you probably want more of an explanation for exactly what happened and to see Eshu get his, and you will, I promise.

When Dean talks about Austin Powers, he's referring to the title character in a comedic film series. Austin was cryogenically frozen, and after they woke him, he peed for like 5 minutes straight.

In case you think that Sam couldn't have grown 2 inches in 3 months, my sons who are almost exactly 2 years apart in age grew a combined 11 1/2 inches over the course of one year. During that year, they each ate more than their older sister and I did combined.

BruisedBloodyBroken: Aw, I'm glad you like my stories! Thank you! BTW, my phone tries to "correct" your screen name to BruisedBloodBroke, which I admit makes me giggle a little. Thanks for nothing, autocorrect.

Timelady66: I know, such awful torture! At least I tempered it with gratuitous nakedness, right? Right?! lol

printandpolish: Thanks! I hope this schmoop made it worthwhile!