So, I know I am way behind in updating everything and I am truly sorry for the delays, but at moment I have to put my family first. thanks for reading and for the awesome reviews. Not sure why the first paragraph is stuck in italics, but i couldn't fix it...ugh...Bambers;)

Chapter Eleven

At the sound of someone clearing their throat, Dean's eyelids fluttered open. The room shifted in and out of focus as he struggled to keep his sights trained on the man who sat directly across from him. He tried to push himself out of his chair, but the restraints around his wrists and ankles held him firmly in place. His arms and legs trembled uncontrollably as he continued to squirm in his seat. Sweat glistening on his forehead from exertion, and drained of what little strength he had left, Dean stilled and glared at the balding man.

"Are you just about finished with your little tirade?" the dark-eyed man asked, and then motioned to a IV stand beside Dean, and for the first time he noticed the plastic tubing running from the IV bag to his arm. "Don't fight it, Dean. It'll help you let go of all the pain."

Clear liquid dripped from the bag, coursed through the tubing, and rushed through Dean's veins. Terrified, Dean redoubled his efforts to escape, writhing against the restraints until the skin burned beneath the metal bands and tore open. Droplets of blood splattered on the white tiled floor as the drug continued to pour through his veins.

"My name's Doctor Ellicott," the balding man went onto say as if he didn't realize Dean was being held there against his will. "And it's my job to make you well again so you can resume a normal life."

"S-Sanford Ellicott?" Dean slurred, confusion racking his brain. "You sonuvabitch – " His words abruptly died on his lips as a volt of electricity surged through his body. Fingers curling inward of their own accord, his body shot forward in the chair. Teeth tightly clenched, his face contorted in pain. After a few moments the shock eased away, but it took several minutes for the tingling sensation to leave Dean's body entirely.

"James. Sanford was my father." Ellicott clarified as he opened Dean's file and flipped through it. "You're file was flagged and you were brought here because Doctor Warner believed you would benefit from my rage management program," he went on to say without glancing up at Dean.

"What the – " the word hell nearly slipped out of his mouth, but he quickly caught himself, not about to give them reason to shock him again. He needed to reserve his strength to escape, and if that meant playing along with the no swearing rule for now, it was a small concession he was willing to make. "What are you talking about?"

"I've spent years refining the work my father started at the Roosevelt Asylum, and eventually I was contacted by this institution to put my work into practice here in their facility."

"You're father was a nut job," Dean uttered, brow furrowing in disgust when he noticed the slight twitch in the corner of Doctor Ellicott's right eye. "I read what he was doing to his patients, an' here's a news flash for ya, he was out of his mind an' needed to be locked up worse than anyone there."

"We're not here to discuss my father." Setting aside the file, Jame's smiled as he leaned forward in his seat and rested his elbows against his thighs. "We're here to focus on you. This rage you have inside of you is a monster that needs to be quieted." He gestured toward the glass partition, pointing at sandy-haired man across the corridor. "Unfortunately, sometimes the demons inside win as in the case of patient 421-786, but there is only a small percentile who don't respond well to treatment."

Dean shifted his gaze to the man he had seen walking in circles around his room earlier and noticed that he was now sitting cross-legged on his bed, ripping and pulling out chunks of his own hair. Dark circles rimmed the man's haunted eyes as he stared unseeingly at Dean, and the younger man didn't even seem to notice or flinch as wisps of hair floated down to cover his mattress.

"What'd you do to him?" Dean asked incredulously, horrified to think that anyone would willingly acknowledge that what had been done to the man was an acceptable loss.

"We're here to discuss you, Dean." Doctor Ellicott's tone turned placating as he regarded the man behind the glass for a moment longer before focusing all his attention on Dean.

"Screw you, I'm not some damn guinea pig who's mind you can fu – mess with." Dean braced himself, awaiting another shock for saying the word damn, but either Ellicott hadn't heard him say it or had chosen to let it slide for the moment. But his relief was short lived as he realized he was just another lab rat in this sewer they called an institution. Already they were changing him, molding him into what they wanted. His freedom of speech had been forcefully taken from him with each delivered shock he received, and he wondered how long it would be until his will was bent to their commands.

"I see you as a volcano, Dean." James' clasped his hands together and laid them on his knees. He remained quiet for a moment to allow Dean time to process what he had stated, and then continued onward. "Some people are like ticking time bomb. They hold everything in, and it builds and build until they explode. A ticking time bomb," he reiterated as if Dean hadn't understood him the first time. "Now, a volcano, much like a time bomb, is slow going at first, but as pressure builds and smolders without some sort of release for all its rage, it goes off and the destruction it leaves in its path is pure devastation."

"I'm a volcano." Dean rolled his eyes at the absurdity of Ellicott's assessment of him. "So what's the guy across the hall? An amusement park?"

"No," Jame's gave a curt shake of his head, a deadly serious expression now taking control of his features. "He was a volcano just like you. The thing with your type personality is that you are so hellbent on controlling things . . . holding in all your emotions, taking care of everything and everyone around you, your mind eventually snaps and you end up turning that rage on everyone. You're the type of man who will buy a gun, go into a crowded mall and start blowing everyone away. It's my job to see that that never happens."

Even if Ellicott was way off the mark on some things, a few of his comments struck too close to accuracy for Dean's liking. He did control things. He had to. His father had left Sam in his care more times than not, and had made it abundantly clear that he was to keep his little brother safe at all costs. A part of doing that meant he had to bury his own hurt and pain and accept the responsibility he had been given.

"So, what you're saying is that I should never get a job delivering mail." Dean tried to laugh off the doctor's observation, but it was met with stern disapproval. "There's nothing wrong with me," he quickly changed tactics, wanting to be far away from the institution before he actually started buying into the doctor's psycho bullshit. "I haven't done anything wrong, so you can't keep me here against my will."

"You struck a nurse and attacked several orderlies," Ellicott countered smoothly. "A court order says you belong here until such a time as you are no longer a threat to the public." He reached into Dean's file and yanked out an official looking piece of paper, and as he held it up for Dean to see a smile slid across his features. "So, yes, I can keep you here against your will."

Dean's eyelids suddenly grew heavy as whatever drug they pumped into his system stole away his desire to fight against whatever they planned to do to him. Ellicott's words all started to blend together, and sounded as if he was speaking in some demonic dialect that Dean had never heard before.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed movement coming from the cell across the hall, and tilted his head to the side to stare at the younger man who was now standing as close to the electrified glass as he possibly could without getting electrocuted. Through rapidly blurring vision, he could have almost sworn he saw the crazed man say something to him. The sandy-haired man backed away from the glass wall, smirked at Ellicott and then rushed headlong into the glass, only to be thrown backward to the floor. Clearly shaken but not detoured, he pushed himself to his feet and slammed into the glass partition again. White-hot sparks lit up the room as he flew to the ground.

"Stabilize patient 421-786," Ellicott abruptly called out as he shot to his feet and hurried toward the glass, partially blocking Dean's view of the man who was dragging himself up off the ground yet again.

Backing away, the madman charged at the glass once more, only to be flung to the floor, but this time he laid there twitching and jerking as white mist filtered into the room. Several men in military uniforms strode down the corridor to the man's cell, and entered his room as the glass partition slid open. As Dean lost the fight to remain conscious, they hauled the man to his feet and drag him away.

XxXxXxXxXxX

By the time Dean awoke again, the young man across the hall was back in his room and Ellicott was gone. The moment Dean pushed himself up in his bed, the man leapt from his own bed and rushed to the glass wall. Fighting back a wave of nausea, Dean made his way to his feet and trudged to the glass. His fellow captive pushed back his sleeves and turned his arms over, revealing swollen veins and track marks from whatever drugs they had given him. Then he repeatedly jabbed his index finger into his temple, and mouthed the words, "They take your mind. They take it an' don't give it back."

"Who are you?" Dean shouted, hoping that somehow he would hear him through the thick layers of glass that separated them. "How'd you get in here?"

Scratching his head as if in confusion, he held up a finger and scurried to the intercom beneath the camera. Dean watched as he pulled off the front panel and reworked the wiring until Dean could hear his voice coming through on his own intercom.

"I'm Keith . . . Keith Drakeson." He pointed to himself, and then gestured for Dean to go to his intercom. "They . . . they can't see you there." He pointed to the spot beneath Dean's camera. "Blind spot."

For a moment Dean stood stock still, wondering if he could trust the crazed man, but realized he had no choice in the matter. If he wanted to escape, he needed to know the layout of the institution, and Keith obviously had been there a while. He followed Keith's lead, and within a few minutes he had removed the intercom panel and played with the wires until he saw Keith nod that he could hear him.

He jabbed the button, and said, "How the hell do I get out of here?"

"No. No. No. No." He shook his head emphatically. "You can't go . . . can't go. They find you. They always find you." He pointed to the collar around his neck. "They wanna take the monsters away . . . can't come out an' play anymore. But they're the monsters. They hunt us . . .we hunt them . . . an' they win."

Dean quirked a brow in confusion. If he didn't know any better, he could've sworn Keith was talking about demons and other creatures instead of the kind of monsters Ellicott believed resided in their minds. "What are you talking about?"

"Hunters . . . you're a hunter, I'm a hunter," he splayed out his arms gesturing to all the cells, "everyone here's a hunter . . . they want us to forget. Call us crazy. But I know. I didn't forget." Again, Keith jabbed his finger into his temple. "I know. They can't take my mind. Black-eyed sonuvbitches try, but I won't let them."

"You're a hunter?" Dean fought back the sick feeling rising from the pit of his stomach. If what Keith said was true then not only was Dean in danger, but Sam, Bobby and every other hunter out there. "You can't be a hunter."

"Been to the Roosevelt Asylum lately?" Keith responded knowingly, and smirked when Dean nodded. "Lil' Molly is there . . . bitch gets in your head an' roots out your secrets . . . that's how they find you."

"Sammy," Dean breathed, his knees buckling, and had it not been for the wall holding him up he would have collapsed. "I gotta get out of here, my brother's in danger. Tell me how to get out of here."

"They don't let ya go until they've erased everything you know an' everything you are."

"That'll never happen," Dean vowed, touching the leather collar around his neck as he tried to figure out a plan to get out of there without getting himself killed in the process.

"Then you'll be like me, slowly going out of your mind, an' eventually you'll die here."