A/N: Sorry – couldn't access anything last night (my computer acting up, not this site) or I would have been prompt with more chapters. We're on the home stretch now. Hopefully I don't screw this up, as I'm in a bit of a headache haze right now... ;)

Weaver, chapter 12

The room didn't allow for much movement, but Dean managed to pace anyway. It seemed like he was forever pacing. It was all he could do, as if moving constantly would keep the bad things away. He'd known this was a terrible idea going in. Now he started to doubt it was even sane. Every time Sam went to sleep and dreamed, more and more strength was sapped out of him. So far Dean had managed to break his brother out of it immediately after he stopped breathing. Those were all small victories as far as he was concerned.

Sam was losing the war.

When awake, Sam had a pinched look around eyes that were dull and flat, and when asleep he looked lifeless even before he stopped breathing. Frankly, Dean didn't know how much more either of them could take. He suspected that for Sam, it was very little. He wasn't far behind.

"Dean," Sam said, sounding as wasted as he looked. Dean stopped pacing and glanced at his brother. "I don't think this is accomplishing anything."

Not for them, anyway, no. The dream succubus was making out like a bandit. Dean moved over and sat on the edge of the bed. He felt helpless, and he hated that he could only watch. He ran a hand through his hair, and then patted Sam on the knee. There wasn't much he could say. At this stage, words of encouragement would only be platitudes and they'd talked the subject to death anyway. Pun definitely not intended.

"It's keeping it interested in you," Dean said, pretending that was actually something to put on the positive side of the tally sheet that was otherwise very negative.

"Huh."

Sam gave a small laugh, not much more than a puff of air. Such a tiny noise, but it sounded loud. The toll on Sam wasn't purely physical. If it was just that, Dean thought he could handle it better, but Sam was also getting less lucid. As far as he could tell, Sam would say things that just didn't make sense, or laugh as if he found something that wasn't funny absolutely hysterical. He was kind of relieved he'd exercised brotherly discretion and had deemed all the small towns along the way inadequate, medically speaking, and pushed on to Salt Lake City. He tried not to think about it, but it was nice knowing backup was there if Sam needed it.

"I swear I already told you this, man, but I think it stays with someone until they die. No one else should be in danger while I'm still around for its amusement. Didn't I tell you that?" Sam said cheerfully. Case in point. Because it was really amusing to learn the only plausible way to get rid of a dream succubus was to let the dreamer die. Especially because the dreamer was Sam. "That's so funny."

"Yeah. I'm busting a gut." Dean shook Sam's knee. "I don't think that's the solution we're looking for in getting rid of this thing."

The bed jiggled as Sam leaned forward, pulling away from the headboard. He drew his knees up and swung his legs over the side until they were sitting shoulder to shoulder. Dean felt his brother quiver slightly, and knew the simple act of sitting up had required a lot more effort than it should have. God, he hated this. He avoided professional medical help wherever possible, but not for the first time, the temptation to drag his brother to a doctor cropped up.

"That isn't what I meant." Sam wasn't laughing anymore. "I don't want to die, Dean."

"Good to hear."

He was being sarcastic, but he was also genuinely relieved. Sometimes Sam could get a little reckless with his own life. Dean thought that had gotten better over the past few months. There would always be that underlying fear, because if there were one thing that linked their family besides blood, it would be their willingness to die, for either a cause or for other people. He thought knowing that trait about each other actually made them more diligent with each other's safety. At least that's what he told himself.

"It's too bad there's not a way for you to make your dreams more dreamlike, so you'd know," Dean said. He'd said that before. They both had. So far Sam hadn't been able to gain any control over his subconscious.

"Déjà vu." Sam bumped his leg against Dean's, then stood up and went to the coffeemaker. He poured himself a cup, but set it down again without taking a drink. "I knew this wasn't going to be easy, but I didn't know it was going to be this hard. I don't know…"

Dean felt like every nerve ending was frayed beyond repair, and he could only imagine what all this was doing to Sam. Beyond the obvious physical and psychological symptoms, so much more could be happening that he couldn't see. He knew forgetting that Sam was his brother would be the best thing to do, think of him as just a regular person who needed help. If he could do that, he might be able to reduce if not eliminate personal feelings. Their father could do it. Dean admired John Winchester as a hunter. Sometimes, though, he thought his father was a heartless bastard, and he couldn't let himself be that way. No. Sam was his brother, and that wasn't ever going to change.

"What can I do?" Dean said. "Tell me how to help you."

"You do it by waking me up, Dean. There's nothing more you can do." Sam sighed. "Want coffee?"

"Sure."

Sam brought him the cup he had poured for himself. Dean took a sip and looked over to the bedside clock. He couldn't remember if it was morning or night anymore. He'd mostly lost track of how long they'd been going on, keeping track only by the number of times Sam had fallen into a period of not breathing. Seven times. Didn't seem like a huge amount, but seven was so not a lucky number.

"Are you all right?" Sam said. "Because I have to say you stink and you look like crap."

"I'm tired, Sam, that's all. And you don't exactly smell good yourself."

Dean's head hurt from too much caffeine. He finished the coffee anyway, figuring at this point it might not help, but it couldn't hurt. He'd blown through the caffeine threshold a long time ago. Fear kept him awake now. Fear and thoughts he couldn't stop thinking. Nothing was going right. None of their father's friends had been able to provide a viable plan, though he knew none of them had stopped searching. Their father himself so far neglected to return the phone call Dean finally made to him.

"Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm not trying hard enough to control what I dream about."

Dean hadn't ever said that. He didn't correct Sam. The more he mentioned Sam's slips between what had really happened and what was apparently from a dream, the more it agitated his brother. Dean hoped that was the right thing to do. He could just be making it more difficult for Sam.

"I thought we established that it couldn't really be done," Dean said. Seven times over, they'd established that. "Not to shoot you down or anything. You can't just think about lollipops and candy canes and expect to see them in your dreams."

Sam looked at him funny, sinking back down on the bed.

"You're right. But what if I try to dream about something that used to fill my nightmares? That started out as something else. Something that really happened."

Dean didn't like the sound of that. He knew what Sam was talking about, and those months after Jess's death had left his brother looking almost as bad as he did at the moment. If it went wrong and Sam couldn't control more than the dream's subject material, thing could skip right from bad to dead.

"I…"

"Think about it, Dean. I'll know it's a dream because I've had it a million times."

"It's used Jess before. Can you really be so sure you'll know what's going on?"

"No. Of course not, but neither has just falling to sleep with no plan."

Fair point.

"So you need to get in a Jess frame of mind," Dean said. Just when he'd thought this couldn't get any worse.

"That is the only thing about this that won't be a problem," Sam said. Dean turned to give his brother whatever non-verbal support he could and caught the tail end of a telling facial tick. "I don't need any help with that."

Dean couldn't find a way to respond that would be helpful in any way. He stood up so Sam could get comfortable on the bed. He wasn't ready for this himself, hoped like hell Sam knew what he was doing, even a little bit. This had the potential to go very wrong, and with their luck it probably would. Not that he didn't have faith in Sam – the guy was one stubborn SOB. No, his concern came more from the fact that they still knew basically nothing about the succubus. It held all the cards in this game.

"You ready?" Dean walked over and put the coffee cup down by the sink. "It hasn't been very long since the last time we tried."

"Waiting won't help." Sam sounded like he thought nothing would, which was not a good thing. "No, I'm as ready as ever."

Except more exhausted, sore and weak, Dean thought. He clenched his jaw. He wasn't helping Sam or himself by being so fatalistic. It was hard to change that attitude, knowing he was about to watch Sam sleeping. Sure, that didn't sound like such a terrible thing, but with each successive sleep session it became more like watching Sam die. His job there might be simple, but it sure as hell wasn't easy. And he sincerely doubted Sam was ready at all, despite the assurance that he was. He had an urge to tell Sam he'd be right there, even though that was obvious and one of the dumbest things he could say. God, Sam and his chick-flick tendencies were rubbing off on him way too much.

"Okay," Dean said.

He leaned on the counter. Dean had discovered after the third attempt that standing kept him alert and allowed him to get to Sam quicker when things went south. He drummed his fingers on his thigh and became watcher. He knew the second Sam was asleep, the muscles of his body tensing in an equal, opposite reaction to Sam's slackening ones. It was scary to see his brother so pale and still – worse than anything else he'd ever seen in his life, or at least that he could think of at the moment. He pushed himself away from the counter and started pacing alongside the bed, filled with all kinds of nervous energy.

One minute turned to two, then three. Dean frowned, stopped pacing and leaned over Sam. It usually only took a few minutes for Sam to exhale and then just not inhale again. He eyed Sam's chest as it rose and fell steadily, if shallowly. He reached out a hand, tempted to wake Sam even though there wasn't reason to yet. He could always make up a new time limit rule if Sam protested. Four minutes. Five.

It was different this time; he knew it in his bones. Dean felt a chill run through him.

Sam suddenly surged, chest heaving, off the bed and then fell down again. Dean jerked back, taken off guard as Sam continued to heave and gasp and shudder. Shitohshit, was all that went through Dean's head. He grabbed for Sam's shoulders and dug his fingers into them with all his might. The pain that had to have cost garnered no reaction. Sam's movements were quickly weakening, though, becoming more erratic while his attempts to breathe lingered.

"Sam, snap out of it," Dean said, the same words he'd said so often lately. "Come on, Sammy, don't pull this shit again."

His brother always was contrary. Instead of following Dean's order, Sam stopped moving, went completely limp. Dean's skin prickled, the chill he'd felt before tripling. He shook Sam, which only made a lifeless hand thump hollowly against the cheap hotel mattress. Last time Sam's heart stopped, it had nearly taken Dean too long to bring him back. Dean hadn't realized he had a definite line in the sand, but Sam was crossing it. He let go of his brother and reached for the phone. He'd hit nine and one before he realized Sam was scarily immobile, but was actually breathing. He put the receiver back down on the cradle.

"Okay. That's more like it."

Dean thought about letting Sam alone to sleep or dream some more, and then reconsidered. He didn't need Sam crossing that line again, and it was better safe than sorry. He shook his brother's shoulder to rouse him, gently this time. Sam tended to be pretty out of it when pulled from sleep on a good day, and now was just plain freaky, saying all sorts of strange things and making pain-filled grunts. Knowing what, in theory, Sam was dreaming about really wouldn't help with that.

"Hey, you can wake up now," Dean said.

But Sam didn't move, didn't make any of those sounds Dean hated. The silence was far worse. After ten minutes of trying to prod Sam awake, Dean reached for the phone again.