Title: The Woods are Lovely, Dark and Deep

Author: Wysawyg

Summary: Sam Winchester was beginning to wonder whether the demon had forgotten his plans for him. Sam Winchester had forgotten that the demon played a long game. Dark!fic. Multi-chapter. Not WIP.

Disclaimer: Everything the light touches belongs to someone else. The darkside too. It's all Kripke and the guys and gals at the CW.

Warnings and notes: Multiple character death. Dark fic.

Rating: PG-13 to R

Pairing/Characters: Mostly gen, some very mild Dean/Jo in future chapters.

Timeline: Diverges AU from season 2. Approximately after Born under a Bad Sign but before Heart.

Beta: Beta'd by the wonderful TraSan who is a wonderful writer and beta but does torture flame-retardant ducks hence proving that no-one is perfect.

Feedback: Makes the hamsters in my head dance, especially concrit.

Chapter 7

Alcohol is great. Sam was surprised that he never noticed before. Sure, he drank during college despite what Dean goldyellowgreen thought but he never quite drank to the level he did now. Beer made things better, smoother. It took the sharp edges off the world and it let him forget. Redhazelbrown. Sometimes it let him forget. Sometimes it's not enough and more and more, it's never enough.

Ellen is great though, really great. Really, really great. She gives Sam lots of beer and whiskey and let him fall asleep and let him talk. She gets it too. She gets that Dean greenhazelgoldis gone and what it means. She gets that there's a hole and the hole won't be filled and that maybe it doesn't need to be filled, it can just go on being there, sucking Sam closer and closer until he disappears and then he won't have to dream anymore. Goldyellowgold.

Sam hates. Redblackgold. He hates the werewolf that killed his brother, the werewolf that was his brother that killed his brother. Sam killed the werewolf though, the werewolf that killed his brother. He tells Ellen that but he doesn't tell her the werewolf had been his brother, Dean greenhazelredwouldn't want people to know that.

The alcohol wasn't enough. More and more the dreams slip through the fuzzy cracks, tendrils which nest in his brain. Sibilant whispers, the words indistinct now but becoming clearer and clearer every day. Ellen wasn't enough. The caring warmth had become smothering. Sam never had a mother, not really. He didn't need a mother, he had a Dean. Dean trumps mother any day of the week. Sam didn't have a Dean anymore redblackbrown and he didn't want this mother, this demanding, annoying, insistent replica anymore.

Sam hates. He hates that the whispers are almost audible and that if he just strained a little, he could hear them. He hated the fact that he wanted to strain and listen despite the voice, sounding remarkably like Dean, telling him not to. He hated the fact that one night when the drink wasn't working and some idiot put Metallica on the jukebox despite the fact everyone knew not to and the purr of the cars outside sounded a little bit too much like the car he abandoned a hundred miles from where Dean died and two hundred others small things mean that he slipped and he listened.

He hates that the whispers promise him they can bring his brother back and he hates even more that he believes them.

Sam isn't stupid, anything but. He knows demons lie but he also knows that demons tell the truth when it will hurt the most and there is nothing Sam can think of that hurts more than the fact he could get his brother back and all he has to do is stop fighting what he's been fighting for two years, ever since he first dreamed of Jess pinned to the ceiling. Redblondebrown

Sam tried to shut out the voices again but the dam has burst now and trying to stick your finger back where the hole used to be is pointless. The voices are always there, a background hum to everything he does. Sometimes he thought he saw yellow eyes staring at him from the back of the road house but when it blinks, they are always back to normal once more. Sometimes during the day when he wanders the streets and searches for something he knows he'll not find, he sees familiar hazel-green eyes or a worn leather jacket or just a cocky grin on an otherwise unfamiliar face and it's like Dean greengreengreen has died all over again.

Sam tried to talk to Ellen about it, tried to get her opinion on how far was too far but she just shut down on him. She just told him that Dean was gone and that there's nothing he can do and that's not what Sam was trying to ask. He pressed the point and she just told him that there had to be limit but she never told him what the limit is. There was no limit when his father gave up his own soul for Dean. There was no limit when Dean gave up the normal life for Sam. How can there be a limit now?

The voices kept getting louder and louder and eventually Sam asked Ellen for a hunt, something to get the blood rushing and pounding in his ears and drowning out the noise. Something to remind him of why they fight what they fight. Ellen hesitated but finally acceded, partnering him with some long in the tooth hunter. Ellen stated it was for this Jake's benefit but Sam knew that Ellen didn't trust him. He hadn't earned the Winchester reputation like his family did.

The hunt was beyond easy, the kind of hunt Sam could've done when he was eleven or twelve but it still took him a while to fit into the rhythm of it again, half the instruments in the orchestra were missing and the fill-in was out of tune. Nonetheless they took care of the ghost with ease. That's when Sam heard about another hunt. He actually had to persuade Jake to take it. Jake wasn't a hunter, not truly, not like Sam's family were hunters. He moves mechanically, thinks things through, pausing when the thing they were chasing grabs a little girl. Sam didn't pause and yes, the bullet clipped the side of the girl's face and she'd have a scar but at least she'd be alive to scar.

Jake had looked at him like he's the monster rather than recognising himself as the coward he was so maybe Sam didn't fire instantly when the monster went after Jake, maybe he wanted Jake to realise the true fear of being held in a monster's grip and why a scar is a heck of a lot better than being dead. He'd held the gun steady on the monster, never letting things get out of hand but letting Jake get clawed up a little. He knew the monster from Dad's journal, claws weren't poisonous, bite wouldn't do anything odd, it's all perfectly safe 'cos Sam was in control.

When things looked to be heading too far, Sam took the headshot and the monster was dead just like that. He smirked down at Jake and offered a hand to help him up. The coward, yellow-bellied yellow-eyed, man scooted back from Sam like he's dangerous and pushed himself up to his feet. Sam offered to patch up the guy's injuries which were barely even bleeding, Sam got worse from a training scuffle with Dean, but the man shook his head and ran for his car, leaving Sam with the job of clearing up the monster's body.

Which was just fine, the idiot probably didn't even carry a lighter. Hell, he'd probably use pepper. Sam laughed until he realised he was still waiting for Dean's laughter to join his and then he fell silent once more. He torched the monster as a funeral pyre for his brother who didn't get one. He had left Dean in the forest where he fell, let Dean stay free. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if Dean was a ghost.

Sam returned the road house and he noticed Ellen and a few other hunters looking at him oddly. That idiot, Jake, had probably been telling tales, probably making up for his own cowardice by running down Sam. Well, that's just fine if people wanted to believe that, their opinions didn't matter to Sam anyway. Ellen assigned him solo hunts after that and Sam was proud of earning that. He hunted and let the blood drumming in his ears drown out the voices at least for a little while. The adrenalin high always faded though and after each hunt, Sam's mind plagued him with how the hunt should've gone, how Dean should've been by his side.

Sam stopped visiting the road house. He's sick of the stares and Ellen had just gotten worse and worse. She looked at him like he's some fragile thing that'd shatter if she said the wrong word. He just wanted her to treat him like she used to when he'd swagger in with Dean or rather Dean would swagger and Sam would try to pretend he wasn't with his brother. Sam knew he was half of a whole and he's half of nothing now but he wished it wasn't so clear to everyone else.

It'd been a month since Sam has been to the road house when the demon made an offer. Up to now, it had just been vague promises but this time the demon laid its cards on the line. Sam helped him out, just took down a few of the nasty things lurking out there which were interfering with the demon's plans and the demon would see what it could do about getting Dean back. It would take a lot of work, of course, but the demon didn't see why he couldn't get started now. It's so reasonable, such a small thing that Sam found himself saying yes before he even realised it was a question.

The job was so similar to what Sam was used to that part of him forgot he's doing it on behalf of the demon. There's a pack of werewolves hunting near Colorado, they are a bit too close to the university and the demon said it had a few assets there. It didn't tell more than that and Sam didn't ask, not yet, but he knew he would. He'd wait and bide his time and the demon would slip up and then Sam'd have him once and for all. He'd bring Dean back and the two of them together will end that fucker once and for all.

The pack showed the effect of harder times, lean and rangy. Sam took the first two out easily before the overgrown puppies even realised he was there. The last two were more difficult, they are older, wiser. Sam was patient though, he'd set the stage and now just had to wait for the players to tumble. The third was taken out with a bullet when it loped too far from safe ground. Sam got up close and personal with the last, wanting the visceral danger. He's not stupid enough to let it get in range to bite, just danced out of range and sliced away until the thing lay bleeding on the ground. He left it there, it won't bleed to death until it morphs back to a human in the morning and that's just desserts for what its kind did to Sam's brother.

The demon congratulated Sam when he reported back and Sam had snapped at it; he didn't do this for the demon, he did it for himself. The demon just happened to be the one with the information. The demon agreed, of course, and happened to mention a witch not far from where Sam was which was causing some problems. If Sam could just take care of them then the demon thought he could work even faster to bring Dean back. Sam agreed, after all, evil things needed killing. He's not doing anything that he wouldn't do anyway.

The first time the demon asked Sam to protect something instead of killing, he balked. No, he didn't just balk, he puts his foot right down. No way in hell, not ever, no. Fine, the demon said, but this thing happens to be spiritually powerful, could get your brother back quicker. Sam still said no, no way in hell. You wouldn't have to kill anything, the demon reassured, just get it away from the hunters. If he timed it right, he wouldn't even have to see the hunters.

The demon was right, Sam didn't see hide or hair of a hunter and he got the spirit form safely out of the house, bound it to a new object and delivered it up to the demon. The demon wasn't stupid enough to thank him for that, just gave him a new thing to kill and that's how the balance went. The demon asked him to protect, the demon asked him to kill and always he was that bit closer to getting Dean back. Just a few more jobs, that's all it will take, just a little further.

It all went to shit in Houston and if Sam hadn't been screaming, he would have laughed. Houston, we have a serious fucking problem. Sam had gotten another protection job, some incubus this time. Sam hated those slimy creeps. Succubi were one thing, men should be able to resist them but Incubi tended to prey on vulnerable women and that was just horrible.

He was supposed to meet it outside some housing estate for little old ladies except when Sam turned up, it wasn't there. Sam felt relief at first, maybe the hunters had got there before he did, nothing Sam could do about that, the demon would understand. Sam's eyes just had to spot the tracks though and he knew there was nothing he could do but follow. When Sam got there, four hunters were pinning the incubus from all angles and the damn thing was smiling, knowing Sam was on his way.

Sam recognised the hunter closest as one that'd hunted with his father and Dean before. The idiot greeted him like he was some kind of hero, come to help out, save the day, greeted him with a familiarity that he hadn't earned. Sam didn't know this guy from any other Joe. Sam swung the shotgun in his direction, warning him to stay back.

Sam didn't like the guy on sight. Called him 'Winchester' like somehow his surname made him public property, that all the tales told about his family gave them a right to ownership on him. The guy accused him of jumpy reflexes and that was the last straw, insulting Sam's skills on top of talking to him like an old friend. Sam told them to go, he warned them but the idiots didn't leave.

Sam even told them what he was doing there, wanted them to get a clue and just leave them alone. He didn't have time for this, his patience was wearing thin, any longer and he'd turn and plug the stupid incubus himself and then his chance to get Dean back would be lost and that's just not an option.

Sam tried to be reasonable, gave them a chance to leave but then the idiot tried to grab Sam's gun. You don't take a hunter's gun from him; any fool knows that so any fool deserves what he gets when Sam pulled the trigger. He's not a monster, he made it a clean shot. Sam had an escape route then and he took it, keeping the gun trained on the hunters in case they decided to be idiots like their former compatriot. Fortunately they don't and Sam gets away clean.

The demon apologised for Sam having to kill someone, that wasn't in his plan but he's proud of Sam for making that decision. He allowed Sam a glimpse of his brother, a shadowy nebulous figure. It doesn't resonate of Dean to Sam and Sam wondered whether killing someone meant he'd lost that connection to his brother and he wondered what he had to do to get it back but then, maybe it's worth losing the connection as long as it meant that Dean was alive.

By the time the demon asked Sam to kill for him, Sam was ready.

The first thought that crossed Dean's mind when he woke up was 'Bright'. This thought barely had time to surface before Dean lapsed back into unconsciousness. It obviously registered on some part of him because when Dean woke for the second time, his first thought was 'Still bright.' Of course, then he needed to try and work out when it was bright the first time and by the time he'd finished asking himself the question, he's too unconscious to answer it.

When Dean woke for the third time and thought 'Definitely still bright' he gave up on wondering when the first time had been and wondered instead whether he's in heaven. He dismissed this for two very good reasons: The first was that he's fairly sure you shouldn't fall in and out of consciousness when in heaven. Once you get up there, that's pretty much it. The second and, perhaps more important reason, is that he didn't believe heaven existed which kind of dismissed the possibility of ending up there. He didn't have time to consider where he might be before he's unconscious again.

The fourth time Dean woke up, he's getting more than a little sick of being unconscious. Sure, it seemed like a good idea in the past. After the monster of the week has slammed you into a wall a few times and you've kicked its ass and got Sammy out of danger and back to the motel, then it's a perfectly good time to fall unconscious, preferably making it to the bed first but there's a reason motel rooms have carpets. He would just like to have some moments of being conscious in between though.

The fifth time Dean woke up, he decided consciousness was definitely over-rated. This was mainly because the numbness was starting to wear off and other sensations were creeping in. The chief among these was Dean's old friend, Pain. He and Pain usually have a good agreement. Dean acknowledges that Pain exists and Pain promises not to be too much of a bother until Dean was in the aforementioned nose-dive worthy motel room. Pain has apparently decided the deal includes wherever the hell it is Dean is. From the uncomfortable sensation in his throat and other parts of his anatomy, he had to guess hospital.

When Dean woke up again and there's a scent in the air like perfume and a soft voice humming a tune which Dean was on the verge of recognising. There's someone female close and by the way her voice resonates, she's probably leaning right over him. Dean cursed his uncooperative eyes that won't open. He tried to open his mouth to make some compliment but the damn tube was still in the way and this time, it's annoying. The weight of it hit the gag reflex at the back of his throat and he felt his throat clench and suddenly it seemed like he couldn't breathe and he's trying so hard to but the tube is in the way.

There's a cool hand on his forehead and a voice telling him to calm down and that it's alright which is fine for her to say, she's not the one choking on a tube stuffed down her throat. Another voice joined in, male this time, the deep rumble of a voice that echoed out of his belly rather than his vocal cords. There's a hand on his cheek, calloused thick fingers and then the stinging of tape being pulled away. "Breathe out," The voice instructed which'd be just fine if Dean actually had any oxygen left in his body to exhale. He went through the motions and the tube was pulled out so he used the opportunity to pull deep gulps of air into his lungs.

Spots danced on the surface of his closed eyelids and he can feel himself sinking back towards sleep. "Welcome back to the world of the living," The light feminine voice said and he's not sure if he believes her.

Memory returned slowly, in dribs and drabs that left Dean more confused than before. Dean remembered the hunt they were on, werewolves in Saragon, Colorado. He remembered sneaking through the woods on the trail of the three victims turned wolf. He remembered reaching the clearing and trying to figure out what Sam was saying about eyes 'cos as far as Dean could tell, the guy had garden-variety brown eyes. Then there's a whole expanse of nothing, like someone flipped a switch and shut his brain down. Dean's not worried about that. He can feel the tickling sensation at the back of his mind that says his memory is trying to get back through and he just has to give it time and it'd be back.

The memory wasn't what he was missing most. The problem was that when the doctor peels that goddamn tape from Dean's eyes and his eyelids finally cooperate enough to crank open and reveal the half-lit hospital room, his brother was nowhere to be seen. He'd been suspicious from the absence of his brother's voice but had held onto hope that maybe Sam was just slumped in a chair asleep, looking like some over-stretched rag doll that the nurses didn't want to wake but the chair by his bed is empty.

He tried asking one of the nurses but apparently his mouth was being uncooperative even without the tube as the only noises he could make were long drawn out vowel sounds despite his increasing efforts. Finally humiliated he settled back on the bed and didn't attempt to speak for another week.

When it became clear to the doctors that their patient was apparently attached to awake for the time-being, they sent in a kind-faced white-haired doctor to explain his condition to him. Dean listened carefully, trying to match what the doctor said to what he remembered and to what he knew about first aid. Gun-shot wound which just missed the heart. Complications of some sort of venom resulting in a Stroke. The doctors were sure the only reason he survived the Stroke was because the snake venom acted as an anti-coagulant. The irony of the venom being the cure of its own effects wasn't lost on Dean. Coma for two months.

The last at least explained why Dean's heavy limbs were refusing to cooperate with his efforts to move them. They hadn't dared to move his limbs with the usual exercises they would for coma patients in case it exacerbated the unknown venom circulating. It was only after the first month when tests showed the last traces of venom were gone that they started and by then, Dean had lost a lot of muscle definition, not to mention a lot of weight.

The doctors told him he should be dead. Dean knew that already and knew it wasn't for the first time. They'd told him about the fact he'd been found by some guy walking his dog in some local woods, close to death, that they'd lost him about four or five times on the operating table and twice more in recovery. They'd told him no-one had truly expected him to wake up until he did.

Extensive physical therapy apparently meant his prognosis was good. Dean didn't want to know if that meant 'might be able to walk' good or 'would be back to kick-ass demon hunter' good. The nerve damage from the venom wasn't too extensive and might just lead to lessened sensation on certain patches of his body and lowered pain response. Dean could get down with that!

Eventually the various medical terms stopped being words and began to blend together in a long stream that Dean floated in, waiting for anything important. He heard the words 'insurance' and kept his expression deliberately unaware. He could find out whether his wallet was there and what insurance card he'd had on him at the time later. They didn't bother asking his name, Dean's mouth still refused to cooperate with his brain and he was fairly sure that he didn't want to be known as 'Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuur-nuff' for the foreseeable future.

When Dean met his new physical therapist, it was love at first sight. She was perky, blonde and had curves in all the right places. This was rather unfortunate seeing as by the end of the first session, Dean was fairly sure she was a demon sent from hell just to torture him. Dean hated being helpless but he had to accept the fact that his limbs weren't responding to him at the moment, the muscles too weak.

His speech therapist must have made a deal with the Crossroads demon for patience. She was tall, dark haired and rather plain but she had the patience of a saint as she sat there, going over the various sounds that Dean's mouth just wouldn't make. When Dean's mouth refused to acknowledge the existence of the letter T for the thirty third time in a row and Dean tried to mash his fist into the bed and only succeeded in jerking it a millimetre, she just smiled at him, crooked teeth showing, and asked him for the thirty fourth.

Fortunately Dean improved fast, driving himself even harder than his therapists could. There was only so fast that muscle function could return but Dean felt his strength building every day as he progressed onto the walking bars, supported either side by a couple of aides who were even taller than Sam. Speech being easier and easier until Dean could form sentences without too much effort though he'd still slur if he didn't focus and an annoying stutter liked to creep in when he tried to go faster than his brain could deal with yet. The therapist assured him that would go away in time.

Both therapists kept telling Dean that it helped to have something to focus on. Dean figured that 'Where the hell has my brother got to?' was something fairly good to focus on. He'd managed to express himself clearly to one of the Doctors using a complicated game of charades mixed with a few verbalisations. The Doctor said the woods had been searched and the police would want to talk to him about four bodies discovered there once he was recovered but none of them fit Sam's description.

When the police came to talk, Dean just played the innocent victim, aided by his multiple injuries. Last he heard, he was reported as the one survivor of a vicious serial killer. That left him no closer to discovering his brother's whereabouts so Dean just focused on recovering as fast as possible so he could get out there and smack his brother for the disappearing act.

In fact, everything was looking pretty great until the first seizure hit. The doctors told him afterwards that it could be a complication with strokes, that it affected about ten percent. Dean thought 'that's just fucking marvellous for you but couldn't you have given me some warning that I was about to lose all control of my limbs'. The next day anti-seizure medication was added to the drugs already coursing through Dean.

Dean endured four months of hospitalisation before he finally had enough, decided he was as well as he was going to get and signed himself out AMA. Dean knew some god must have been smiling on him because the card in his wallet had been the one with the good insurance on though he was fairly sure it was maxed out by now. The excess he paid on one of his credit cards and promptly ditched both credit card and insurance card in the hospital bin as he left.

Dean checked himself into a motel room close to the hospital, wanting to stay close in case of a relapse which the nurses and doctors had spoken to him about when he told them he was leaving. He kept up the exercises on his own, glad that he only had a limp in his right leg and some stiffness on his right arm to show for the months of inactivity and the stroke. He hadn't had any seizures since the first but he kept an eagle eye on his medication, making sure he never got close to empty.

The day before he left the town, he raided a local pharmacy, taking just enough to keep him supplied for a year or so. He then caught the next bus heading to where he wanted to be. His memory still remained piece-meal, just flashes of images peppered with the sound of a gunshot and the lingering feeling that whatever he'd forgotten was because he didn't want to remember.

The bus dropped him off in the centre of town and he got a taxi to the yard, already feeling over-strained by the long journey. The dogs recognised him right off the bat and scampered up, twisting and butting with familiarity against his legs which sent him careering unsteadily to his knees. They backed off, perplexed canine eyes regarding him as he pushed himself back up onto his feet. They circled more cautiously around him as he reached the door, sagging against the frame as he tiredly knocked on the door.

He was greeted by a tightly held shotgun and a familiar face whose eyes widened in shock as they caught sight of him and for a moment, he saw a finger tighten on the trigger. Dean wondered whether he was glad or upset when the finger loosened. Dean pushed himself off the frame, trying to stand up mostly straight. "Hey B-Bobby," He forced out and then consciousness fled once again and he tumbled forwards into familiar arms.

A/N: come on, you didn't really think I would've killed off Dean this early, did you? I'd have to hand in my DeanGirl badge.