AN: On a comment on a different story, sfaulkenberry said "I'd love to read a fic from you about the boys' thoughts during that estrangement" meaning the separation after Sam kicks out Gadreel. So, this is my attempt to do that. There will be two chapters, one for Dean and one for Sam. They are in very different styles, representing the different ways their minds work. I have no idea if it will make sense to anyone else, but this is my attempt to do what was asked.

The lyrics are an English translation of Nella Fantasia taken from .

I do not own any of the Supernatural characters. Sadly.

In my fantasy I see a fair world,

Where everybody lives in peace and honesty,

I dream of souls that are always free,

Like the clouds that fly

Samuel William Winchester was three days old before his big brother ever saw his eyes open. Dean had obediently sat to allow the blanket-wrapped bundle to be placed in his arms a few times already, but each time, the baby had been sleeping. To be honest, Dean was uninterested by the whole process. Mommy was tired and Daddy was distracted and the baby was boring.

But this day, things were different. Mommy finally came home from the hospital, and she was sleeping. Daddy walked into the living room where Dean was driving his cars, and the baby wasn't so wrapped up. He was wiggling his arms and legs and it sort of belatedly occurred to Dean that this was a living person. A silly, tiny person, but a person. "Dean-o, wanna hold Baby Sam?"

He was curious now, so Dean hopped into Daddy's chair and rested his elbow against one of the chair's big, soft arms and Daddy grinned. He laid the wiggly, pajama-clad baby in Dean's arms. The baby turned dark blue eyes up and stilled as his gaze met Dean's. Dean froze. Oh. Oh.

Everything changed.

Dean became a big brother. And the baby became Sammy.

Dean looked out for Sammy, and Sammy gave Dean his firsts. His first smile was at Dean. His first laugh was for Dean.

Everything changed again the night the old life burned. Sammy's eyes began to change too, and it was years before Dean understood that almost all baby's eyes change between six months and a year. He thought the fire had changed those eyes into a color he didn't have a name for with a sunburst of golden brown in the center like they were always and forever reflecting the fire that had stolen his mother.

But Dean still looked out for Sammy and Sammy still gave his firsts to Dean. His first word was "De" and he took his first step toward Dean. His bright eyes got brighter when he saw Dean, and he reached for Dean and he wanted to be held by Dean and fed by Dean and read to by Dean. He wanted to sit on Dean's lap and go with him to school and he tried to walk and talk and do everything just like Dean. And when Dean smiled him, Sammy's eyes burned, but it was a good burn, a burn that healed.

When Sammy was four, he tried to pet a grumpy bulldog, which chomped his arm in exchange for the affection. Those eyes filled with tears that Dean knew with big brother intuition were as much from the betrayal of the "nice puppy" as from the pain. But Dean put on a bandaid and told him the dog only bit him because it thought he was a milkbone, and Sammy laughed before he stopped crying and said, "you ficked it, Dean!" And Sammy was young enough to believe Dean could "fick" everything for him forever. But at eight, Dean already knew better.

It was many years later, in another crappy motel room in a string of crappy motel rooms when Sam (sometimes Sam now, though he would always be Sammy to Dean) asked, "Are monsters real?" His eyes burned a different way, begging for the truth. And when he learned that Dean had lied to him for years, he didn't let Dean have his tears. He didn't let Dean soothe the fear. He took a piece of himself away. And it burned.

When Sammy broke his arm trying to fly, it was the first time Dean saw the sunbursts in his eyes go dull from pain. He wanted it to be the last, but it wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't even close.

In a nothing town in Indiana or Iowa or Illinois, Sammy's voice cried for Dean from behind the trailer they were crashing in. Dean didn't hurry to go see because it wasn't a scared or hurt Sammy voice, just an excited one. "Look, Dean, look!" he called, eyes so bright with curiosity and wonder, his hands cupped, and Dean was prepared to look at yet another toad. But it was a butterfly with eyes all over its wings, eyes of all different colors and shades and Dean thought it was a little like Sammy with eyes that could be so different minute from minute. Sammy, whose eyes lit up like a sunrise when he let it go and watched it fly away.

Sammy got so big, but Dean forgot to notice. Then Sammy left. And Dean realized he'd been leaving for years. He'd been tugging his dreams and his fears and his hopes inside himself and Dean hadn't noticed. Or if he had, he'd consoled himself that Sammy would come back around. He didn't know what had scorched him worse: the leaving, or the fact that he hadn't known it was coming.

When Dean woke up in Ford City, Nebraska hospital feeling like his entire body had been rung out like a dish cloth, the first thing he saw was blazing sunbursts, and he relaxed even before he consciously registered what it meant. Sammy was here, and those ridiculous, expressive eyes were brimming with a fierce love and terror and were full of all the faith that he'd had when he jumped off the couch into Dean's waiting arms over and over and over with absolute trust that "De" would catch him.

"You're not going to let me die in peace, are you?"

"I'm not going to let you die at all." And the golden brown grew until it almost incinerated him. If anyone else's eyes looked like that, Dean Winchester, who was not afraid of much, would have been afraid.

Dean saw the life go out of Sam's eyes. That burned so cold he thought he'd never be warm again.

Somehow, someway, his deal worked and Sammy was back, and Dean couldn't care about anything else.

And Sammy's eyes scorched him with that frightening intensity again when he said, "you can't leave me now, man. We were just starting to be brothers again" and "I'm not letting you go to Hell!" and as Bobby held him back because he couldn't believe Dean was really back. They blazed after the mystery spot. They burned hotter than Hell had burned Dean and oddly he didn't regret Hell at all, not even the taint it left on his soul.

And then Sammy's eyes turned black.

And Dean was terrified that Sammy would share no more firsts or smiles or laughs or lasts.

And when Lucifer wore him, Sammy's eyes didn't burn at all. They were flatter than dead. They were frozen, inhuman, dark and cold and evil and gleeful, with no sunbursts at all. Then Sam said, "it's okay. I got him." And. He. Jumped. Dean knew at that moment that the sunbursts were back, that Sam's eyes were back, but he couldn't see straight. And sometimes on the best nights, he would dream that he'd had one last look at Sammy's eyes. Sammy's real eyes.

He pretended that the Sammy that came back to him had the right eyes, that they were only flat because of the pain of Hell. Until he couldn't pretend any more and he had to put his brother back together again. Because he'd rather have no Sam than almost Sam.

After Purgatory, Sammy's eyes did not burn. They were shadowed with guilt, and Dean was angrily pleased about that. But he didn't want them that way forever. He didn't. And some day he would have the strength to tell Sam that.

The guilt didn't leave Sam's eyes until it was eclipsed by pain and exhaustion and the damn Trials. Then his eyes welcomed the pain, drank it like absolution, and burned with the knowledge that he was doing something good. They seared Dean with their conviction. And Dean didn't know how to help.

But when Sam's life hung from the narrowest thread of spider silk, Dean's words spilled out, the words he normally kept trapped inside because when they fell out, they tore and ripped made him bleed. But Sam could have his words and his blood if only he would stay. In that church, the words worked and Sam's eyes lit up past the pain and the guilt and regret and there was only trust. And as Sammy ached with the need to go with Death, he gathered Dean's words like treasures and chose his brother. And this time the trust hurt so much.

The angel who was supposed to be Dean's ally made that trust a mockery, a joke, and Kevin burned.

Cas healed those horrific wounds in Sam's head and stepped away. He'd already spoken about Dean's actions. "You were stupid for the right reasons." But it didn't matter, not when Dean looked in Sam's eyes. There was physical pain there, and sadness, but it wasn't anger that burned the brightest. It was betrayal. It was a look that never, ever should be directed at Dean, but Dean deserved it.

So he ran. He could not poison Sam any more. He would go and do what he did best – kill. And it was good to be with Crowley, because Crowley cultivated hatred and anger, which burned so much sweeter than the self-loathing Dean felt. He could not see that betrayal again. He wouldn't.

He didn't deserve any more of Sam's moments. He didn't deserve trust or love or forgiveness. He had to stay away, just in case, somehow, the big-hearted idiot offered it. Just in case he offered a scalding, healing look that Dean should never receive.

Dean stood at Baby's hood, arm burning from the Mark and wondering what he'd done. But his mind wasn't on the pain, on Cain, on the carnage, or on Crowley and the blade. It wasn't on Abaddon or demon wars or Gadreel. It was on the grill of the Impala, where there was a mangled butterfly, eyed wings fluttering in the wind in a mockery of life. He tried to tug it free, irrationally believing it might still be alive and able to fly if he could just get it loose. Instead, the delicate wings tore. He was still staring at the pieces in his hand when Crowley returned.