Sam kept the car keys and was surprised to get so little resistance from Dean. Dean took shotgun, and waited as Sam he slid behind the wheel and started the Impala. Dean leaned out a hand to touch the dashboard, and then turned his head toward the window. Sam turned on the radio, automatically spinning the dial until he heard something familiar. He glanced over and realized Dean was watching him.

Dean rumbled, "At least I can't hear your emo crap."

Sam shook his head. Once they were at a light, Sam picked up his pad and wrote one word.

KINKS

Dean nodded, "That's the kind of music my baby likes", before turning back to the window. He rubbed his forehead, and reached in his pocket for more Tylenol. He was unusually quiet during the ride, holding his head, or looking out the window. They reached the specialists' office fifteen minutes early and Sam turned in their completed paperwork just at 9 o'clock.

For the next hour, Sam tried his best to pretend he wasn't related to the mad man sitting next to him. Dean found all the energy he hadn't used in the car pacing, fidgeting, and complaining about the wait. Sam had finally exiled him to the Impala, keeping a wary eye on the car through the office window. When Dean's name was finally called, Sam ran outside, and then almost halfway down the block to catch and then herd his brother back to the office, and into an examination room.

A half hour later, he was sitting in a chair placed in front of the examination room door, arms crossed over his chest, and glowering. Dean finally stopped trying to leave. He shredded a few pamphlets – 'Hearing Loss: What You Can Do' being the first target, next the flyers on local sign language classes. When he started rifling through all the drawers and cabinets, Sam finally pointed Dean at the examination bed and glared until Dean sat.

HOLD STILL

"OK, Samantha." Dean smiled and began swinging his legs, hitting the drawers under the mattress rhythmically with his heels.

WHT R U – 5?

"Why are we even here? You know that this isn't anything with my ears, right? Something about that wind last night."

SUCK IT UP

"OK, Florence."

A doctor came in, reading through Dean's chart, looked directly at Dean. and said brightly, "I'm Dr. Tanner. So, trouble with your hearing? How bad is it?"

Sam said, "My brother …"

Dr. Tanner looked at Sam, then back at Dean. "It's statistically very unlikely for your brother to have gone totally deaf instantaneously. Everyone has some hearing left", he turned toward Dean, "right, Mr. Ford?"

Dean was looking between the two, brows pulled down in a frown of concentration. "Dude, I see your mouth moving but if you want to talk to me, write it down." The doctor shrugged and pulled out a pad of paper.

How much can you hear?

"I can hear one thing just fine, it's everything else that's the problem." The doctor made continue noises with his hands as he moved around the room, collecting instruments. "All I can hear is the noise of wind in my ears, really loud wind."

After the initial examination, Dean had confirmed for the doctor that his ears didn't hurt, hadn't discharged any liquid, and that he was oblivious to the tuning fork held behind each ear in turn.

The doctor left momentarily, and then returned to collect Dean after a few minutes. Talking to Sam, he listed some of the tests they were going to perform – an MRI, electronystagmography, tympanography, ABR, Stenger, X-rays, and blood tests.

Sam was a little stunned. "When will we be able to schedule those?"

The doctor looked him and smiled. "Right now. If this really is a sudden complete hearing loss, it could be symptomatic of a life threatening emergency. It may be nothing serious – tinnitus for example, but it could also be a brain tumor. I've got an opening on the MRI in", he checked his watch, "ten minutes, so we have to hustle him in there. All the other tests will be conducted here, today. It's going to take most of the day. You may want to come back to pick him about 4 PM."

Dean interrupted. "What the hell are you two talking about?"

The doctor smiled, and wrote Dean a note.

"You'll be testing me all day? Super." He looked at Sam. "Go. You could try the library here?" Sam nodded then held up his cell phone. Dean rolled his eyes. "I'll be fine."

When Sam returned that afternoon, he was called back into the doctor's office, and greeted by the doctor.

"I'm glad you came back early. Your brother is almost done. The nurse will bring him here when he's dressed."

"He had to undress?"

"Between the MRI and the CAT scan, we had to make sure he didn't have any metal on him. Your brother apparently had a lot of metal on him." He glanced at some notes. "We were going to let him keep his pants on until we started the test and encountered some problems. Did you know he keeps paperclips in the hems of his jeans?" He looked up at Sam. "Is that normal for him?"

Sam nodded and said "Yeah", but couldn't think of a thing to say that would explain it. "Did you find anything?"

"The good news is that we could not find a physical or neurological cause for his deafness. We found no evidence of acoustic or other brain tumors. Unfortunately, we've concluded that he's not exaggerating. The hearing loss is complete in both ears. The Stenger test was conclusive."

Sam frowned. "What about the noise he's described – do you know what's causing that? I mean, he's hearing that, isn't he?"

"I can't see how. The loss is complete in both the middle and inner ears. He shouldn't be able to hear anything at all, and the tests we've done today prove that. The noise he says he is hearing is not blocking out other noises. His brain is not reacting to any kind of actual noise at all. To the best of our knowledge, the noise of the wind he reports is imaginary. In fact, the conclusion we are being forced to draw is that the hearing loss itself is a psychosomatic or psychophysiologic disorder brought on by stress."

"Which means what exactly? Are you saying he's making himself deaf?"

"No, not exactly, although we believe this is stress-related, rather than physiological." He consulted his charts. "Dean is running a low grade fever, has intense and debilitating headaches, is short tempered, anxious, impatient … the overwhelming evidence in cases like Dean's, with no physical cause of hearing loss, is that deafness is a response to strain or stress which he's decided, consciously or unconsciously, is intolerable. Current research suggests that the most likely triggers are feeling a high sense of responsibility in caring for someone else, or suppressed feelings of guilt. Would you say this is possible in your brother?"

Sam felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. He nodded and said, "Yes." He took a breath and chewed his lip. "What would you suggest we do next?"

"The rest of today? Get him home and into bed. We're giving him an injection for the headache that will probably put him to sleep for a couple of hours. Hearing loss of this nature, even if it is psychosomatic, can lead to severe depression. Depression can lead to loss of sleep, suppression of the immune system … I'll give him a prescription for the headaches, but you have to make sure he gets plenty of rest. All the research suggests, and I strongly recommend, professional psychotherapy for your brother."

The nurse gave Dean a shot before they let him leave. When he asked what it was for, she pointed at his head. "And that would mean…" She smiled and signed quickly at him. He rolled his eyes. "Only been deaf for a day." Her eyes widened and she quickly scribbled down headache for him.

He was fuming as they left the office and walked across the lot to the car. A day of incomprehensible strangers poking at him was bad enough, but the noise constantly in his ears had him on edge all day, "You would not believe what they did to me, Sam. You couldn't believe it." He saw Sam rock a little with laughter. "Dude, I am in serious. Did you talk to the doctor? Did he tell you that they did a spinal tap?"

That got Sam's eyes on him. He shook his head.

"When I wasn't strapped down and stuck in tiny slots in big fucking machines, they were looking in places that had nothing to do with my ears. And they wouldn't tell me what any of it was for. And that noise is as loud as ever." He suddenly stumbled, Sam's arm shooting out to catch him. "Whoa. What the hell…" His legs started to feel weird, in fact he was feeling weird. He lifted his head and watched rainbows prism in the reflections from the Impala's wax job. He reached a hand out, but the car was suddenly either too close or too far away. "I don't know what they gave me, but man, you should see the light show."

Time seemed to go away for a while. He didn't remember getting in the car, but he knew he must have since he could he feel the vibration of the engine. He looked up to see the road in front of him, the white lines no longer straight but weaving and angling off in every direction. He turned his head to try to read a billboard but the words blurred and smeared before he could make out all the letters.

"We should get a hammock while we're here, Sam." He rolled his head away from the window toward Sam. "Get a hammock, 'K?" Sam smiled and nodded. Dean closed his eyes and listened to the roar in his head. When he came back to himself next his eyes were open and he was watching the light reflect off his ring. If he moved it back and forth … his left cheek was pressed up against something hard. He leaned his head back and almost cried when he realized he was humming along with the wind as it shifted, and wailed, and moaned through his head.

Sam really hoped Dean would forget about hammocks. And Dean would probably want to forget he'd spent an hour sleeping on his brother's shoulder. Sam had to brace his brother a couple of times to keep him from tipping face first into the dash when he stopped the car for a light. Dean came partly awake, and seemed cheerful, when Sam woke him at the motel, and he allowed Sam to coax him out of the car and into their room. He even tried to help Sam untie his boots, but once Sam gave him a push, he lay down and watched vaguely as Sam moved around the room.

Sam felt Dean's forehead and checked his eyes. The fever wasn't too bad, but Dean's eyes were eerie looking, glassy and unfocused, the pupils just pinpoints even in the dim room. Sam wrote a note, and thinking of Dean's pupils, wrote it in big block letters, RIGHT BACK, and left it and Dean's cell phone on the table by the bed. Sam had the prescriptions filled at a grocery store, and stocked up on some essentials while he was waiting. When he got back to the room, Dean was sitting up, eyes fixed on a poorly executed seascape hanging over Sam's bed. Sam sat down in front of him, knee to knee, and waved to get his attention.

Dean slowly focused on him, looked in his hand, and then held out Sam's note. Sam took it solemnly and nodded. He picked up his pad, and wrote, showing the result to Dean:

HOW R U FEELING?

He could almost see Dean processing the words. Dean leaned forward, catching himself with a hand on Sam's knee and touched the pad. Sam realized his mistake, and holding Dean's wrist, stood up and sat next to him. He put Dean's hand back on the pad and drew in another question mark.

"Wanna hammock, Sam." He waved his arm and almost clipped Sam's ear. "Hammock on the beach right there." He was speaking erractically, changing volume with almost every word. He smiled, and turned his head to look in Sam's direction. "Let's go to Mexico."

He smiled and wrote LATER and then pointed back to his original question.

"Weird as shit. Can't see too good. Wind's loud again." He tried to turn his head toward the window and Sam thought he might be looking for the storm. If there really was a storm in his ears. And man, did that just hurt to think about.

Dean straightened suddenly and said, loudly, "Damn it, I want to hear myself talk." He turned his head to look into Sam's face. "Wanna hear you, hear Dad. All I have is this bitch in my head."

Sam's heart lurched as he heard the desolation in his brother's voice. He wrote,

I WANT 2 TALK 2 U 2

Dean stared at that for a while, mouthing the words and numbers and nodded before closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. "Ah man. This just sucks."

Sam wrote, HEADACHE? and nudged Dean until he opened his eyes.

"Not as bad."

HUNGRY?

Sam had the chance to eat lunch but Dean probably hadn't eaten since breakfast. He waited while Dean seemed to ponder the question. Sam nudged him again.

"Not sure."

Sam stood up, pushing down on Dean's shoulder when he tried to stand up with him. Sam went to the kitchen, and brought back some chicken noodle soup, saltines, and a coke. He sat next to his brother and carefully put the soup in Dean's hands, holding it until he was sure it was secure. Dean drank most of the soup and ate all of the saltines before he started to list a little.

Sam probably could have stripped him bare and painted polka dots on him, but satisfied himself with leaving him in his boxers and a tee shirt before rolling him under the covers.

Sam should have been researching the storms – the Greenville library had given him a promising lead on a Cherokee demigod that called storms and hurricanes. He should be researching tricksters. Instead he found himself more and more engrossed in research on hearing loss and depression. He realized with a start that it was almost eleven, and shook Dean awake long enough to give him antacids, a prescription pill, and the Tylenol the doctor recommended for his fever. Once Dean rolled back onto his stomach, Sam dropped down in front of the laptop and put his head in his hands. He was starting to feel sick to his stomach.

Undue stress – well doctor, he's has been under a tiny bit of strain this year since he has a gigantic clock counting down the months, weeks, days and seconds left before he goes to Hell. Why yes, some anxiety would be natural since he's been terrified for almost a year. Shit, the doctor might as well have opened up Dean's owner's manual. 'A high sense of responsibility in caring for someone else'? That was an almost comically mild description of Dean's almost pathological need to protect him.

He rubbed his eyes and groaned. Damn his father for helping Dean see his whole life measured by his ability to protect his family. Like a sheepdog with only two lambs, cutting left, cutting right, throwing himself between his family and danger every time his father whistled him up.

And even dead, his Dad was still there, whistling up Dean to the crossroads by self sacrificing example. Sam had to admit that he sometimes dreamed of having just one more knock down. drag out fight with John Winchester.

And "suppressed feelings of guilt'? Dean already blamed himself for Dad's death, he knew Dean blamed himself for Sam's death, and being the overachiever he usually was in family matters, Dean probably managed to feel guilty for Mom's and Jessica's deaths just as much as Sam ever did.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to will away a headache. Maybe he should punch himself while he was at it. He'd managed to blame Dean for the pain he himself was going to feel when Dean died, and Dean, who already knew what it felt like to watch his brother die, felt guilty for that too. God, he'd made Dean feel guilty for saving his life by sacrificing his own. What a great way to spend what could be their last year together.

The more he read, the more he brooded, and the more inexorably he was drawn to a conclusion he despised. If he couldn't find something on that freak wind, he was going to have to admit that Dean's deafness was psychosomatic.

Tomorrow he'd research the lead on the trickster and hope to hell he found something. Because if he didn't, he knew what he had to do next, and he'd rather take on a wendigo with a spoonful of fruit salad. He was going to have to put the hunt on hold and find help for his brother. And then convince Dean to accept it. Now, he had a headache.

He powered down the laptop and yawned. He'd call the psychiatrist the doctor recommended tomorrow. He checked Dean before going to bed and was relieved to see he was still out like a light. He didn't even stir when Sam checked his temperature.