He was freaked out. A panic attack gripped him, had him running the cold water in the bar's bathroom sink over his face. He'd come to this bar after Sam had fallen asleep in the passenger seat beside him. Even now, on the run from their father, they were miles from finding another motel.

He was freaked out and desperate. Because that was someone else in Sam's body, with no demon to control him. The Spirit said that Sam was human, but was he? Did it lie? Why would it lie? What was it? How did it take Sam over?

Dean didn't know. Not knowing gripped his stomach. He vomitted in the sink and washed it away in the cold water.

You have to pull yourself together.

His own mind lectured him thus. Hypocrite! How his thoughts chided him to pull it together, while tearing him apart, molecule by molecule.

I would die for him in a second.

If that's what the thing meant.

But was dying going to be enough?

Was love enough to save Sam?

Dean wasn't thinking. He went out behind the bar to where the couples made out and the puffers rolled smoke. Money exchanged hands, and cards exchanged sleeves. He went out there into the rabble of the world, the blast of the air hitting the cold water on his face. It streamed from his haunted eyes. He felt the teeth of his thoughts sink around his throat. He felt his mind evaporate, and float above his skull.

He wandered down an alley and sat on a fire escape.

That's when his phone rang. Without thinking, he answered it. He was hoping for Sam. Sam's real voice, the only thing that could bring him down from this laughing gas, this floating drugged out feeling of a man losing his mind.

He got his father instead.

"You've got some nerve, you know that? You are the last person on earth that I want to talk to!" Dean felt his stomach move from its place. It was like a part of a spaceship breaking off into space, leaving a gaping, cutting hole of oblivion in his stomach.

"Dean...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I wish it didn't have to be like this..."John began. The placating, sugar-coated appeal to give himself up.

"Save it...I know what you're calling about. Don't call again."

"Dean, please don't hang up. Not yet. I want you to believe that I didn't want this."

Dean laughed. A hard, shaking laugh.

"Sam is your son..." Dean's voice was older than the earth. It shocked him how old and gravelly he sounded as he spoke, as he pleaded with this reckless man to leave him alone.

"Sam was my son...He was. And I loved him. I don't want you to think that I didn't love him."

Dean shook his head.

"Loved him?! Did you even know him?" Dean heard a metallic growl in those words, it twisted and bent like the crowbar beating inside his head, trying to let his fury out.

"You disowned him when he wanted to go to school, for God's sakes! School! That's the world's lamest rebellious streak that there ever was."

There was a pause, a moment of breath.

"I knew what was best for him...He fought me every step of the way. Everything I did I was doing for him. For you..."

"I didn't ask you for any favors. As for Sam, you think maybe he fought you because you were fighting him? You think maybe for all the dark you saw in him, that there was also a little bit of light? Can't you take a little bit of credit for what you think he is now? How long can you push someone away from the table before they get up and leave? You disowned Sam years before you denounced him as being even human." Dean bit back a sharp breath remembering those wild eyes that were woken up by the head wound.

"Where is he?" John's voice shook.

"Like Hell am I telling you..."

"Dean, I can put him out of his misery before he hurts someone..." John was crying, but Dean didn't care.

"You are the reason he's in misery anyway. He's not evil; he's still human. Wrap your head around it, will ya?" Dean scrubbed his forehead, exasperated.

"Look, I can trace this call." John started with that threatening tone he got whenever Dean screwed up with him.

"You do that. It's a burner. I will dump it where it is and get a new one." Dean's voice was biting, cursing his own life for being born.

John was desperate now.

"Dean, there are people looking for your brother that want to do worse than kill him. They want...they want to weaponize him. Like that Gordon...I-I cut him loose. He had sick plans..."John's voice caught.

Dean nodded. Another one of Dad's team ups that went decidedly wrong.

"Did you honestly think it would end well, teaming up with a stranger to find and kill your younger son? Did you honestly think that the type of dude who would agree to help a parent ventilate their own kid would be on the up and up? What the HELL happened to you?! I used to look up to you...I used to worship the ground you walked on..."Dean shook his head.

"That's your problem, isn't it? You were always too emotional. Getting too attached. You're too attached to Sam and you can't let go and do right by him because of that. Grow up, dammit, Dean! Sack up and do what you need to do here!" John's tone was biting.

Dean laughed.

"Too attached?...Too attached to the baby that I pulled from a fire? Too attached to the kid I raised when I was a child myself?! Too ATTACHED to my little brother, the only person on this god-forsaken earth that has ever loved my worthless ass back?!" Dean was shouting now. John had shut up. Dean could feel the blood freeze.

"You would frick off to God knows where doing God knows what. You left me to die with that kid more times than I can count. One year in school, he and I had to halve our school lunches for two meals and take turns every other day eating to keep from dying because you didn't leave us with enough cash to make it before you came back from chasing the thing that killed Mom. The thing that killed Mom shows, and you make it your life's mission to kill my brother instead of finding out what it wants and putting it down..."Dean felt his nose bleeding. Thank God there was no one else in this alley to hear him.

"You are saying that I am too emotional and too attached to my only friend, my only family, the one person I know that I would die for on the spot without even blinking...You think that I'm too attached to him?! Well, you can go to Hell! I mean, go all the way to Hell and when you get there save a spot because I am marching in there myself to deal with you. I would rather you rip the skin off my body than let you come at the kid_monster or no monster. And if that's me being too emotional, sue me! As for "growing up" how the Hell was I supposed to ever grow up when I never was a kid?" Dean felt his hands shaking.

"Dean..."John drew a heavy breath.

"You want him? How about you SACK UP and come and take him then? I'm waiting! Let's see which one of us is man enough to win." Dean crunched the phone into oblivion and threw its broken pieces against a nearby wall.

Sam had woken up to find Dean gone and wandered after him to the alley. By the time he neared it, he had heard him shouting and ran within a few yards of the fire escape. He stood there in the dark, slack jawed, having heard everything Dean had said about him.

"Dee?" He called into the night, having to speak to keep from crying.

Dean flinched at the sound of his voice and stood up.

"How you feelin', buddy? Hit your head pretty good earlier. Shouldn'ta probably let you go to sleep..."Dean stood up, stepping into the light as he walked to Sam, smiling to keep from screaming. Sam still heard what Dean had said echoing in his ears. Dean would never open up to him like that. He only spoke from his heart under the pressure of rage, and Dean was rarely ever enraged with Sam. Sam had to break him down like he did when he took off to leave him forever and go to school before that happened, and when it did it was a terror to behold. Sam swore in his heart not to hurt him that badly ever again after what he'd just heard him say.

"That was Dad, wasn't it?" Sam frowned.

Dean nodded.

"No worries. Pretty sure the phone's trashed. He can't track us..."Dean shrugged.

Sam pulled his phone out of his pocket and tossed it against the wall.

"If he got your number, he's probably got mine." Sam smiled. Dean nodded, then absently reached and felt the wound on the back of Sam's head. He sucked his teeth at how bad it must have hurt.

"Come on, man, let's get some food. I am starving..."Dean was shaking. Sam discreetly wrapped his arm around him to keep him from falling down.

It was in that moment that Sam realized what the Spirit version of him had meant. Sam had to save more than just Dean's life. He had to save his soul from all of this.