A/N: I don't usually update my multi-chapter fics on holiday week but I didn't want to leave you guy hanging for another week. Consider it my present to you ;)

Have a great holiday, everyone! And thanks, as always, for reading!

They slept late. Sarah peeked in around nine to find both Sam and Dean on the bed. Dean slept without moving, flat on his back with one arm above his head. He was still dressed in the jeans he'd arrived in two days ago, a wrinkled black t-shirt that was rucked up, exposing his stomach. Sarah hadn't planned on going inside the bedroom but she went anyway, grabbing a blanket for the closet and throwing it over her brother-in-law. Standing closer to him, she could see the remnants of various wounds decorating his torso. Sam had them too. Bullet wounds and stab wounds, puckered skin and numb scars where the nerves had never healed.

Sam rolled halfway over in his sleep, pressing his body back against Dean's. She put a hand on the foot nearest to her, the cool, smooth skin so familiar under her touch. When she looked back up at him, Sarah found her husband peering down at her, his eyelashes brushing against his cheekbones as they fluttered open and closed, trying to waken all the way.

"Sarah."
Sam's voice was gravel, his throat wrecked from hours of stomach acid coursing through it.

"Sarah, please."

He was still shaking, still sweating. Sam had always experienced worse withdrawals than anyone else, that's what the doctors said anyway. Sarah knew it had something to do with his past but neither he nor Dean had ever expressed a desire to tell her and she was okay with that. At least, she had been. Before.

She could hardly look at him, couldn't squeeze back when his damp fingers found her own. Ashamed of herself, she pulled out of his grip with ease. For once, she was stronger than him. Then again, maybe she always had been. It was odd how the tables were turned now, how Sam was the one in desperate need of help when all his life he had been the rescuer. The savior.

Not anymore. Now Sarah was the strong one. And she couldn't be sure but she thought the heated, curdled feeling deep in her belly might be resentment. Because Sam had left her alone. Sarah was completely alone now and she hated it.

"Dean," she said, voice just above a whisper. "Dean, wake up." All she had to do was lay a hand on the Hunter's calf and he started under the blanket, throwing the material off as he reached for his belt. "Just me," she said. "Sam's up."

She left the room before the resentment turned to guilt.

"Sam?" Dean said, running his tongue along his teeth to try and dispel the haziness of sleep from his voice. "You okay?"

Sam was awake but staring at the ceiling, legs curled up under him. Dean sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

"Sam, let's try to walk around a little," Dean said as he stood and stretched, cracking his back as he bent to the side. "Jesus, you guys need to get a new mattress. How do you sleep on this thing every night? I'm sleeping on the floor tonight. Sam?"

Sam was now curled up on his side, not staring at the ceiling but at the wall in front of him and suddenly there were tears when there hadn't been a minute ago. Dean crouched in front of him.

"Hey, what's up?" There were little choking noises coming from his throat and Dean noticed Sam's eyes looked so much brighter when he cried, the green flecks coming out from hiding. "Sam, you have to tell me what's wrong so I can fix it."

"Sarah," Sam gasped, trying to turn his head into his pillow but Dean wouldn't let him. He kept a hand under Sam's chin. Dean sighed and Sam's bangs quivered along with the rest of him.

"She'll come around," he said. He moved his hand from Sam's jaw to the back of his neck, cupping it protectively, leaning in so their foreheads were almost touching. "Sam, we gotta figure you out first, okay? Let's get this stuff out of your system and then worry about Sarah."

"She's going to leave me."

"No, she's not," Dean said although he had been wondering the same thing. Sarah hadn't taken kindly to the first time Sam had been on pills, back when Lucy was two. She'd almost kicked him out right then and there until he promised to clean up his act.

"Come on," Dean continued, putting an arm around Sam's shoulder and helping him sit up. "Let's go out to the living room."

"My legs hurt too much," Sam said, flopping against the pillows as Dean found him a clean pair of clothes. He watched as Sam threaded his arms through a sweatshirt and then a pair of matching sweatpants. Sam's legs were unsteady at first as he stood but then the ground stopped moving and he made his way to the bathroom.

"Door open," Dean reminded him.

"Are you kidding?" Sam complained, scowling. The tears had cleared up but the redness around his eyes stayed, contrasting with the paleness of his cheeks. Dean's brother didn't look so great.

"No," Dean said, pulling on his boots and running a hand through his hair, which only made it stick up even more.

"I'm going to take a piss, not start the apocalypse."

"Hilarious," Dean said dryly. "Don't make me take the door off the hinges."

Sam was too tired to argue back. He knew that Dean didn't trust him anymore, that he had lost the right to self-preservation last week when he decided to take the pills, but that didn't make the lack of privacy any easier. Sam was so used to being alone. Even in a house with a wife and child, Sam always sought out nooks and quiet places. He liked being by himself, liked the radio static of his brain. Maybe that's why he liked the drugs so much. They turned the volume of the static up. Way up.

"I know you took them all," he said as he washed his hands. "While I was at the hospital."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "But I bet you have a few new hiding spots, don't you, little brother?" Sam shrugged. "You'll spit it out eventually," Dean said. "Until then, no alone time."

"And no sharp knives?" Sam said, enough of a sarcastic bite to his words to make Dean pause.

"Do I need to worry about that, Sammy?" he asked. The doctor had warned Dean of this, had made Dean promise to take action if Sam mentioned suicide or self-harm. No one could be sure that Sam hadn't been trying to overdose in the basement; there were just too many damn pills to be sure.

"No," Sam said. "I was just messing around." Dean bit his lip, looking anywhere but at his brother.

"You'd tell me, right?"

"Tell you what?"

"You know…" He took his hand off the door to gesture. "About the knives…"

"Dean, I'm not going to commit suicide," Sam said. His hair was greasy between his fingers when he pushed it out of his face and behind his ears. He wondered if Dean would let him shower alone or if he would sit on the toilet waiting like he did when Sam was a child and needed supervision in the bath.

"You better not," Dean said, dropping the subject but not the crawling feeling that rode along his skin. Suicide wasn't an option for a Winchester. Dean had never considered it, not even after Sam died in Cold Oak. Not even during those nights when he had laid awake and wished to be dead so that he could join his brother had Dean never considered taking a blade or bullet to himself. The purest instinct in him – after protect Sam – was to live. That was the whole point of a Hunter: live long enough to kill as many monsters as you could. Being dead wasn't going to save anybody. Sam should know that.

Then again, Sam didn't do a lot of saving these days.

Sarah was in the kitchen, pulling a batch of muffins out of the oven. Dean had figured out shortly after Sam and Sarah were married that the woman loved to cook and bake. She was always sending him home with packages of food whenever he visited, almost commenting on how he must not eat enough because all bachelors were like that. Dean didn't mind a single bit. The woman would have sent him care packages if he'd had a permanent address to ship them to.

"Living room," Dean said, gripping Sam's arm when they went down the step that led into the family room. He settled Sam on the couch with a blanket and the remote.

"Morning," he said to Sarah when he walked back into the kitchen. She was arranging the muffins into a wicker basket.

"Morning," she said, holding out a muffin because she knew he would take it. He did.

"Apple cinnamon," she said as he took a bite. "It's a new recipe so let me know if you like it. I have to do snacks for Lucy's class next week and was thinking about doing muffins and juice boxes. What do you think? First graders are so picky sometimes."

She was rambling and Dean let her keep going as he leaned against the counter, reaching for another muffin before he had even finished the first. She watched Dean eat but wasn't really seeing him. He was just an object in the kitchen to her at his point. Sarah had barely slept last night, had gotten up in the middle of the night just to hear Sam retching in the bathroom, Dean's indistinct murmuring coming through the cracked door. She was glad Dean was there. Even if she wasn't always happy to see the man – he did something to Sam every time he came around – it was good to have another adult in the house. God knew they were the only two at the moment.

"They're excellent," Dean said, finishing his second muffin, mouth still full. "Really, really good."

"Good," she said. "Listen, I have to pick Lucy up in a bit. Think I can bring her back here?" Dean swallowed the rest of his breakfast and glanced out at the living room. It didn't sound like Sam had turned the TV on yet.

"Yeah," Dean said. "He'll be okay with her. It's going to get worse before it gets better but I don't think he's going to get dangerous."

"Dean, if there's any chance he could hurt her, you have to tell me. Don't try to protect him. Not about this." Sarah's eyes were dark and serious, the lines around her mouth grew deeper as she fought the anxiety of bringing her daughter home.

"He won't," Dean said. "I promise."

"You said the doctors said he was violent."

"Yeah but that's not really Sam," Dean protested. He remembered Sam throwing the nurse against the wall, the blood on his brother's hands. The wild look in Sam's eyes that told Dean just how deep they were into this. "He attacked one the nurses," he told Sarah. "But not on purpose!"

"What?" Sarah said, horrified. Her Sam had attacked someone? She had been so sure they had mislabeled him because the Sam she knew was so gentle, had always been so gentle with her and Lucy and with everyone. Even those who didn't deserve it.

"She snuck up behind him," Dean said. "It was just a reflex."

"A dangerous reflex," Sarah hissed. She dumped the dirty muffin tins in the sink, hating the clatter they made against the dishes already soaking.

"He's not going to hurt his daughter," Dean said. "Sam would never do that."

"Yeah, well, the list of things Sam would never do is growing shorter, isn't it?"

"Why don't you ask him?" Dean said after a minute. Sarah had started washing the dishes and was using great force to clean off last night's silverware. She paused.

"And say what?"

"Ask him if he thinks it's a good idea. You know he loves her and would never put her in harm's way. If he think he's dangerous, he'll tell the truth." Sarah seemed to consider it for a moment, even put down the fork she was working on, but then she shook her head.

"No," she said. "I don't want to ask him that."

"You're going to have to talk to him eventually," Dean said gently.

"Don't tell me what to do," Sarah said but it was with little bitterness and if she had been turned his way, Dean would have seen it because of the hot tears falling from her cheeks into the soapy water below.

xxx

Lucy came home in the afternoon, her Strawberry Shortcake backpack bouncing between her shoulder blades as she ran into the house.

"Where's Dad?" she asked her mother, throwing the backpack onto the ground. Sarah waved at the neighbor's car pulling out of their driveway. She had asked them to keep Lucy for a little longer after her discussion with Dean. She needed time to reconcile with the fact Sam had laid his hands on – and injured – an innocent person. It wasn't him, she kept reminding herself, though those words did little to soothe her nerves.

"He's in our room," Sarah said, picking up the backpack and taking out the clothes from the day before. She threw them down the basement steps to be washed. Lucy's nose wrinkled.

"Is he taking a nap?"

"Something like that," Sarah said. "Why don't you come have a snack?" Lucy followed her mother into the kitchen, still confused.

"Is Dad sick? Is that why he's in his room?"

"Yes," Sarah said. "He's very sick and needs to sleep so we have to be very quiet." She knew Sam wasn't sleeping, knew that he was probably in the bathroom throwing up the chicken broth Dean had forced into him.

"Okay," Lucy whispered, smiling. She liked games and she liked playing them with her mom. "Is Uncle Dean still here?"

"Yes," her mom said, cutting a muffin in half, warming it up in the microwave before spreading strawberry jelly on the two sides. She slid it across the table to her daughter with an extra napkin.

"Mommy, Uncle Dean is weird," Lucy said, licking the jelly off with her tongue. It was sweet and cold against the warmth of the muffin and made her lips sticky.

"No, he's not," Sarah said. "He's just a little different."

"No, he's weird," Lucy said. Sarah smiled. Dean Winchester was a little odd and she wasn't surprised her daughter had picked up on it. Just like she wasn't surprised that Lucy wasn't afraid to voice her opinions.

"How is he weird?" she asked, pouring two glasses of chocolate milk.

"Umm," Lucy said, licking a spot of jelly off her palm. "He walks funny. Like all stiff. Not like you or Daddy. And sometimes he looks mad even when he says he's not."

"Uncle Dean has had a hard life," Sarah said. "He didn't grow up in a nice house like you and didn't have a Mommy or Daddy like you do. That's why he's a little different. He's a good person, like the soldiers we saw last weekend. But you should never ever be scared of him, okay?" She waited until Lucy nodded and then gave her the glass of chocolate milk.

"Uncle Dean didn't have a Mommy or Daddy?" Lucy asked.

"He didn't have a Mommy," Sarah said. "But he had Daddy as a brother and he had his own dad. Kinda."

"What do you mean?" Sarah sighed.

"It's complicated."

"Com-pli-cated," Lucy said, sticking a finger out with each syllable. "That has three syllables."

"Yes, it does," Sarah said. "Is that what you learned today?"

Lucy nodded and continued to chatter about her day while working on her muffin and chocolate milk, the subject of Uncle Dean dropped for the moment. For that, Sarah was grateful.

xxx

Like Dean predicted, the withdrawal got worse. Sam spent most of the day like he spent the previous night – on the floor of the bathroom. Dean would have loved to get him outside, try to get his mind off the writhing pain but his brother was in no condition to leave the house, was barely in a condition to get out of bed.

"I think you're getting a fever," Dean said as he felt Sam's forehead. Sam swatted his hand away.

"Get off me."

"Be nice," Dean teased but frowned a moment later. "Let me see what I can give you."

"I don't have a fever," Sam said. "I'm fucking freezing."

"Yeah, okay," Dean said, not listening. "Come on, get up." Sam clambered to his feet, almost hitting his head on the back of the toilet as a wave of dizziness rolled through him. "Easy, champ."

"I swear to God if you don't get your fucking hands off of me," Sam threatened.

"You need to chill the fuck out," Dean threw back. "And watch your mouth." Sam scowled at his brother and seriously thought of throwing a punch but then decided he didn't have enough energy.

Dean refused to let him have an extra blanket even though he was shivering as if his bones were going to vibrate right out of his skin.

"You have a sweatshirt and a comforter," Dean pointed out. "If you have a fever, you can't have too many blankets."

"I don't have a fever," Sam muttered, but curled up on his side. He zoned out as Dean left the room, heard the door click open and shut. He must really be out of it if Dean was leaving him alone. To be honest though, the last thing Sam wanted right now were the pills. In fact, he wasn't ever going to take a pill again in his whole life. Nothing but vitamins for him from here on out.

The door squeaked as it opened again, Sarah had asked him to fix that ages ago.

"I'm not taking any more pills," Sam said, hiding his face under the blanket. A second later, he felt the mattress sink down. Dean was going to try and force feed him. Well, it wasn't going to work. "Dean, get off-."

"I'm not Uncle Dean, silly. I'm Lucy." Small hands pulled at the comforter until it slipped over Sam's face. He groaned and slapped a hand over his eyes.

"Lucy, I don't feel well."

"I know. Mommy said you were sick. Let me check." She laid a hand – sticky with something – against his forehead and Sam flinched away. He wasn't in the mood to be a toy for a child; he wanted Dean and only Dean.

"You feel hot," Lucy said. "You need some medicine." Sam, still covering his eyes against the light, pushed at her hand and was rewarded with cold liquid splashing over his face.

"What the fuck?" he said, scrambling upward, accidentally knocking into Lucy so that she fell backward onto Dean's side of the bed. Sam wiped hurriedly at his face and then noticed that Lucy was holding an empty glass. It was only water.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, sliding off the bed. "I just wanted to help you feel better!"

"Lucy?" Dean was back. "What are you doing in here?"

"Daddy's sick," she said, voice trembling and Dean heart sunk when she saw her eyes water. "And he yelled at me. He said a bad word."

"I'm sorry," Sam said, moving to get out of the bed. "I just really don't feel well."

"What's wrong?" Lucy said, taking a step toward her father. He held out a hand and she took it, noticing that it was cold and shaking.

"Just the flu," Sam said, trying to give her a smile. She smiled back and then hugged him around the middle. "Uncle Dean is taking good care of me, don't worry."

"How come Mommy isn't taking care of you like she takes care of me when I get sick?"

"Well, if she was busy then who would take care for you?" Lucy considered this then she leaned in and whispered,

"Mommy said Uncle Dean is nice but I think he's weird." Sam actually laughed, a sound Dean hadn't heard since he'd first seen him in the hospital. He wondered what the little girl had said to her father. Sam winked.

"You're right. But he's my third favorite person in the world."

"After me?"

"That's right. You and Mommy." Sam said. "What do you say you go play and let Dean take care of me?" Lucy frowned but nodded.

"Okay but can I come back later?"

"Sure. Just ask mom first," Sam said. She smiled again and then left, edging around Dean, who was still blocking the doorway. Sam slumped over as soon as she left.

"Need a minute?" Dean said but Sam shook his head.

"No. It's just…hard. Hey, Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really cold."

"Okay," Dean said, knowing this meant Sam didn't want to talk anymore. He tucked Sam back in, forced a couple Tylenol down his throat and then sat beside the bed and watched Sam fall into a restless sleep.

So far, so good. So to speak.

A/N: Okay, I think I'm pretty invested in this story now. I hope some of you are too. More angst and trouble coming up soon!